Officials seek to have mobile homes considered affordable housing

Feb 11, 2015

Town officials will be taking another shot at getting mobile homes counted as affordable housing in Wareham.

Selectmen voted to place a number of items on the agenda for the April 27 Town Meeting on Tuesday night.

One of the items, which is still a work in progress, will ask the state Legislature to categorize manufactured homes in Wareham as “affordable housing” for Chapter 40B purposes, according to Selectman Alan Slavin.

State law Chapter 40B, designed to encourage the development of housing affordable to low and moderate-income people, penalizes communities in which less than 10 percent of the housing stock is considered affordable -- by allowing developers to avoid local regulations if constructing affordable housing.

Because of Chapter 40B’s definition of affordable housing, Wareham has never met the 10 percent threshold. If the roughly 1,100 units in the town’s mobile home parks were to be considered affordable housing, the town would easily meet the 10 percent requirement.