Vermont Business Magazine The Cooperative Development Institute (CDI), a nonprofit from Northampton, MA, using cooperative models to solve problems in New England communities, has received $50,000 in seed money to identify a site to build a new manufactured home park in Vermont. This development project has the potential to bring a swath of affordable housing to a state that is currently going through one of the nation’s worst housing shortages.
The ideal property would be near or connected to municipal water and sewer systems, be located in an area where there is support for development of new housing, and be large enough to make the cost of development feasible. Properties near employers with workforce needs may be beneficial as creating new housing will enable more workers to move to the state.
Manufactured homes are one of the most affordable and well-established housing construction methods available. According to the Urban Institute, the average cost of building and installing a single manufactured home, excluding land, is about $108,000, which is 30% of the average cost of building a new site-built home, excluding land.
New England’s housing affordability crisis has worsened since the pandemic. In the region, home values have gone up by 33-57% since 2019, and the median priced home is no longer affordable to the median income household. As a result, households that are no longer able to afford to buy homes have remained in the rental market, increasing the demand for rental housing, and causing rents to rise.
In Vermont, CDI has direct experience helping resident-owned manufactured housing communities (MHCs) install and sell manufactured homes on empty lots. CDI has also helped resident-owned MHCs create new lots on undeveloped land.
In the last 14 years, CDI has helped residents of 61 manufactured home parks raise more than $300 million in capital to purchase their communities and preserved more than 6,100 units of affordable housing.
Cooperative Development Institute, Northampton, MA
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