Carlton Mobile Home Park owner accepts Habitat counter-offer day after Council agrees to contribute $8.7M 

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville and the Piedmont Housing Alliance will begin planning to redevelop the 6.46 acre Carlton Mobile Home Park now that the current owners have agreed to accept a counter-offer authorized by state law. 

On May 21, 2024, William H. Bolton wrote to the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development to fulfill a public notice requirement that a third party had made an offer to purchase the park for $7 million. The property is assessed at $2,526,300 and is zoned Residential Mixed Use 3 under the new Development Code. 

The letter to the DHCD is required by Virginia’s Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act which states “the park owner shall consider additional offers to purchase the park made by an entity that provides documentation that it represents at least 25 percent of the tenants with a valid lease.”

The Legal Aid Justice Center and the Charlottesville chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America got to work organizing the tenants to get them to sign a petition to back a counter-offer from Habitat. Over forty percent did so. 

Nothing in the state law compelled the Bolton family to accept the offer or identify who made the original and they had until August 6 to respond. 

To prepare for the possibility of taking on ownership of a third mobile home park, Habitat and the Piedmont Housing Alliance approached the city with a request to financially support their efforts to manage the park. Their ask was $8.7 million over five years. 

Representatives of both the Legal Aid Justice Center and the Democratic Socialists of America addressed the City Council on August 5 before the elected officials took up Habitat’s request. 

“The mobile home park is one of a few places in Charlottesville that offers deeply affordable housing,” said a member from the Democratic Socialists of America who gave the first name Josie but offered no last name. “The potential sale of the park in combination with the rezoning of that area suggests that the change in ownership would eliminate the affordable housing that exists on that land.” 

Emily Dreyfus, an employee of the Legal Aid Justice Center, thanked the City Council for being willing to financially support the project. 

“A lot of communities wouldn’t have made this happen,” Dreyfus said. “Our Habitat and DSA, who have put a lot of muscle and sweat into doing the outreach with me and with other folks, I’m really really happy that we have come this far this quickly.”

Neither individual mentioned that under the new zoning, ten percent of units must be designated as affordable, but both would likely say that’s not enough.

Dreyfus is listed as a contributing author in an April 2021 report from the loosely-based organization Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition called “Why Building More Market-Rate Housing Will Not Solve Charlottesville’s Housing Crisis.”  

A partnership with the city

Eden Ratliff, Charlottesville’s deputy city manager, said staff understood Council’s desire to preserve and maintain affordable housing.    

“There is a partnership opportunity between the City of Charlottesville, [Piedmont Housing A lliance], and Habitat for that property to be purchased and redeveloped into affordable housing, something that we know PHA and Habitat are dedicated to as the City Council,” Ratliff said.    

The chief executives of both Habitat and the Piedmont Housing Alliance serve on the Housing Advisory Committee, a group that has recently been discussing a potential land bank that would make decisions on city investments. Those recommendations have been delayed due to various disagreements among HAC members. The HAC does not make recommendations on what projects get funded through the city’s affordable housing fund. That’s a separate committee. Council always has the final say.

Meanwhile, Ratliff said the opportunity to partner with the two affordable housing nonprofits came about and the city has been involved in putting together the counter offer. 

“We understand that the current offer on the property is about $7 million so we are proposing about $7.25 million to be redeveloped,” Ratliff said. 

Habitat and PHA would pay for the purchase upfront and the city would contribute through the support agreement. 

“Importantly, the current residents at the property can stay on the current site for three years and will also have an opportunity to enter into affordable housing after its been redeveloped if they so choose,” Ratliff said.  

Ratliff said preliminary plans are to develop around 180 units but an exact figure would be developed over time.

Krisy Hammill, the city’s budget director, said the payment will be paid in cash and not through bond proceeds because the city will not own the property and neither will the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority. 

The first payment of about $700,000 to the purchasing coalition will be made this fiscal year and will increase each year up to $3 million. Future payments would be subject to future Councils, but this one will have to amend the current budget.

“The recommendation is that we would look to the funds that were previously budgeted for the land bank,” Hammill said. ”That’s $500,000 and then we would get the additional $200,000 from the [Capital Improvement Plan] contingency.” 

Hammill said there are a variety of funding sources in future years but the support agreement would mean it would be recommended each year. 

Ratliff said the support agreement did not rule out Habitat and the Piedmont Housing Alliance returning to ask for additional funds in the future.  He said more planning work will be done through September to add more details to the support agreement. 

“This is all moving so rapidly and in a process where we don’t have the full build-out already planned so we don’t 100 percent know what it’s going to look like yet,” said Sunshine Mathon, the executive director of the Piedmont Housing Alliance. “In the ideal circumstances we would have had the time to go through that process and to be able to be more exacting in the response.”  

In the current fiscal year, Charlottesville’s Capital Improvement Program lists $8.9 million in affordable housing projects. Here are some of them:

• Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority will receive $3 million for public housing redevelopment
• The Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund will get $1.5 million with uses to be determined by the CAHF committee
• The Piedmont Housing Alliance will receive $500,000 for the second phase of Kindlewood
• The Piedmont Housing Alliance will receive $1.885 million for the redevelopment of the MACAA property on Park Street
• The Piedmont Housing Alliance will receive $1.125 million for the development of units at Park Street Christian Church

In recent years, the city has amassed additional resources through ongoing assessment increases and tax rate increases. The city’s 2019 Land Book listed 15,071 taxable properties that brought in $72,657,974 in real property tax revenues The Land Book for 2024, dated April 1, lists 15,114 parcels bringing in $104,649,940. 

That number went up two weeks later when Council increased the real estate tax rate from $0.96 per $100 of assessed value to $0.98 per $100. That brought in an additional $2,187,207.80.

Council support

Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston said he supported the $8.7 million but wanted to know where other Councilors were in terms of how this additional project would fit in the city’s moral commitment to spend $10 million a year on affordable housing projects.

“Where I’m sitting right now, if I’m being honest, I see this as off-setting potentially some other investment,” Pinkston said. 

Councilor Michael Payne said the city has to be in a position to respond to opportunities when they come.  

“And to me, that $10 million a year commitment, this is basically for the next several years earmarking part of that $10 million a year is for this project and that’s the way I look at it,” Payne said.  

Habitat for Humanity won accolades for their redevelopment of the nearby Sunrise Trailer Park in the 2010’s and are currently overseeing the mixed income redevelopment of the Southwood Mobile Home Park in Albemarle. CEO Dan Rosensweig said residents wanted some assurances during a four hour meeting before the petition was signed. 

“Ultimately the residents asked us if we could pledge to keep it as a mobile home park for at least three years and not raise rents, so that they could get to know us a little bit, view Southwood and Sunrise and sort of see what’s possible, what they might be paying afterwards, and give everyone a little breathing space and we agreed to that,” Rosensweig said.

Mayor Juandiego Wade said Charlottesville’s real estate market is moving quickly. He credited Habitat and Piedmont for coming together to prepare the plan.  

“I’m glad that because we are so well-managed that we can adjust like this but I know the runway is getting shorter with 0 High Street, Dogwood Housing, the Levy site,” Wade said. 

Some more details on those three projects in previous stories:

• Council agrees to $5 million in funds to CRHA to purchase 74 units across Charlottesville, April 19, 2023
• Charlottesville’s $5.9M purchase of floodplain land complete, December 8, 2023
• Council approves Charlottesville’s purchase of CRHA property on Avon Street, February 11, 2024

“We’re able to do this, but I think Brian mentioned, at some point we are going to be able to say that because one of the reasons we can do this is because our credit rating is good, our bond rating is good, and we’re able to borrow money at a very low rate to do these projects,” Wade said. 

To be clear, the city will use cash to pay for the support agreement because they will not own the land. The $4 million purchase of CRHA’s property was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act. The city has an ownership share in the Dogwood properties and owns additional parkland at 0 East High Street.

On Monday, Council voted unanimously to approve the support agreement  and the ordinance approving financial assistance. They also voted to suspend their second reading allowing the counter offer to be made on August 6. 

Habitat sent out a press release Tuesday afternoon announcing the Bolton family had accepted the offer.

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