City councilors in Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada are encouraging the creation of manufactured housing communities and have set up a study to identify properties that might be developed as a viable and affordable housing option. Prompted by petitioners who are being forced out of communities where owners are seeking to redevelop the land, the city’s Official Community Plan (OCP) wants to keep the communities in the city where seniors and young people can take advantage of lower cost housing, and out of rural areas. Councilor Andy Adams says, “We certainly recognize that there is a very valuable and important need of manufactured home facilities in our community, and also recognizing the number that are being displaced, particularly over the last couple of years, and more pending.” As courierislander tells MHProNews, planning services manager Paul Stanton, noting the ill will associated with the poor quality factory-built homes of the 1950′ and 1960s, says, “Campbell River still has a few of those homes in existence that no doubt have outlived their usefulness. (But) the standards have changed dramatically. They don’t carry the same stigma they used to carry 30 and 40 years ago.”

(Photo credit: castanet–Sunrise Village MHC, British Columbia, Canada)