Residents at Raleigh’s Homestead Village Mobile Home Park are ecstatic over news that WJ Properties is dropping its request for a rezoning of the park’s 38 acres.

Cary Joshi of WJ Properties told IndyWeek that the firm would instead look elsewhere. The zoning request, to be heard Tuesday, remains active in a formal sense.

Claudia Shows, a resident at Homestead Village for more than 30 years, rejoiced.

“As long as it is still a mobile home park,” she said, “we don’t care. We have still got to be cautious, I suppose. But, I am so excited, I just want to burst! This is the best news.”

The park’s owners still want to sell. This news, though, means that they will not be selling to WJ. WJ had sought a rezoning to build a shopping center, several housing developments, and some open land on the tract. It would have introduced many new homes to the area. Estimates by The City of Raleigh predicted that more than 500 children would be assigned to the area’s elementary schools as a result.

Shows organized some of the residents. She was able to generate support from her college classmates, as well as to generate some good media. That said, the rezoning decision may be a product of larger forces in the financial markets. Joshi tells Bob Geary that the decision to drop reflects a lack of available financing for shopping center developments.

H1700, the bill that provides a tax deduction (of 5 percent of sales price) to park owners that sell to non-profits, passed in the budget bill before the end of the short session in the 2008 NCGA.

Accolades follow when developers build the right way. Yesterday’s entry spoke to this in general, but today there is news that affirms it.

That is why it makes sense that Parrish Manor, a 280-home community in Garner, North Carolina, won the 2008 Manufactured Housing Institute Land-Lease Community of the Year Award.

Parrish Manor has been the subject of praise on this site in the past. CRA-NC featured it in my book, too. It is a wonderful example of how manufactured housing can be utilized in a development paradigm that accords with the ideals of the best intentions for affordable housing.

The site plan and landscaping, for example, feature all the things associated with new single family site built housing developments: valley curbs, sewers, paved asphalt roads, secure mail boxes, sodium vapor lights, and concrete sidewalks. The homes are new, with sloping shingle roofs, well-kept skirting, and treated wood porches.

The Parrish family also runs a non-profit, the Nessie Foundation, to provide membership for the park’s children to the Boys and Girls Clubs. Nessie purchased a large white school bus that transports those children regularly.

Charlie Parrish, who owns the park along with his son, Chris, hosted a small celebration outside of the community’s rental office on Wednesday morning. The audience included Raleigh City Councilman James West and Rep. Linda Coleman (D-Raleigh).

Coleman was very impressed, remarking that her visit changed her mind about what manufactured housing means. West, who Charles Parrish called a long-term supporter and advocate of the community since its initial contact with Raleigh’s planning and inspection departments, said that Parrish Manor works because it shows people how they can help themselves.

Charles Parrish mentioned that in years past, communities in Florida have generally won the award. Parrish Manor, unlike those parks, is not a gated community owned by a REIT with a large retiree population and high housing prices. Doublewides in Parrish Manor begin near $800 and some singlewides can be rented (including the lot) for about $650.

While those Florida parks represent a kind of success that comes with excellent buildings and manicured landscapes, Parrish Manor shows that quality can still come in a community that caters to the workforce. Not only are rents low, but the Parrish Manor staff has actively reached out to Hispanic residents. They have several staff members who speak Spanish.

“It is a ninety percent minority community,” said Parrish.

The success is evidenced by the demand for homes. Currently, there is a waiting list to get into Parrish Manor.

One of the things that cannot be said enough about the process of bringing reform to the manufactured housing industry is that it takes the willingness to have imagination. People can get locked into seeing the empirical evidence that dots the landscape — think run down parks, broken promises, and the like — and decide that manufactured housing has fundamental constraints.

That is an easy conclusion. A lot of the folklore of the South, from a Drive-By Truckers lyric to a Rick Bragg memoir, relies on the mobile home park as an important reference point. Sometimes its a reference for fallen dreams, but not always.

Bragg, for one, has some most ennobling words to say about life in a “trailer park.”

“Before the water went bad, most people in the trailer park never thought of their aluminum-skinned houses as a mobile home, only home. Hard against the rows of sugar cane, not far from the big chemical plants that light up the evening sky, the trailers in the Myrtle Grove park were dented but decent..In the late afternoon, the smell of real food –- smothered steak and stewed turkey necks –- drifts across the community of about 50 homes…Everyone seems to drift outside as the afternoon cools, as the wind blows in off the cane fields. Grandmothers tend small children, and about 3 p.m. a big yellow bus sends a throng of them running for the trailers that are pocked and warped but, here and there, freshly painted. Porches have been built on some.

That story portrays how mobile homes are first and foremost “homes” and places that deserve concern.

The point of this entry is that people get frustrated with what they see in the present, and decide that the sector is the cause of a problem.

That is the wrong conclusion. The fact remains that unless our society becomes willing to dramatically increase its commitment to housing, there will be a shortage for many. Manufacutred housing is popular, if only because people are deciding that it is the best choice that they can find.

Moreover, we know that better housing can come from within manufactured housing.

The innovations in New Hampshire are one example. There, low and moderate income people are using the manufactured home as part of a reorganization of the system of ownership. The result is a more stable and secure form of housing.

Then there are things like the new gated mobile home communities that are popping up in sunny climates, often meant to appeal to well-heeled retires. Here is a story about several in Texas, where amenities like a clubhouse, pool, a jacuzzi, and a basketball court. Residents still lease their lots.

The point is that message matters. And this is not an unimportant detail. No one really speaks for the entirety of the industry. There are trade groups, but each is often likely to side with one of the sub-groups within the industry — be it the manufacturers, the dealers, or the residents themselves. Sometimes people get together for a message, as in to use the words “mobile home,” instead of trailer, but is there evidence of systemic leadership in a broader sense?

Even HUD, challenged to regulate the industry, seems to step away from leading on mobile homes. How did FEMA manage to become the agency most people associate with mobile homes? (think of one word — Katrina)

Last week, MHR reviewed the performance at Palm Harbor (PHHM), where management is charting a safe course by focusing on its core higher margin operations (manufacturing and retailing), as well as paying off debt.

This week, Cavalier Homes (CAV)  issued a positive report for the second quarter and for the last twelve months.  Interestingly, though, Cavalier has found a slightly different way to accomplish the tough task of making money in this environment.

Cavalier, unlike Palm Harbor, relies upon independent dealers for its sales.

Cavalier’s shipments continue to fall off, as is the case for producers throughout the industry.  One bright spot was shipments of singlewides.  It is interesting that the often-pilloried singlewide is showing signs of life, not just here about also at other makers.  At Cavalier, singlewide shipments are up 49.9 percent for the last six months and 28.3 percent for the last quarter.  That is contrast to multi-sections, where sales have fallend 23 percent and 35.4 percent, respectively, in the same periods.

What Cavalier has done is go into a bit of a holding mode.

First, they are hoarding cash.  Whereas they had about 6.8 million in cash at the end of June 2007 (about 7.5 percent of assets), now they have more than 20 million in cash.  That is almost 23 percent of assets.

Second, they are not reinvesting in their plant.  Capital reinvestments are just a sixth of their level from a year ago.  Not putting money into their business was probably the key difference in seeing a profit.

Last, they are thinning their inventories.  That is hard.  Right now, everyone is seeing homes build up.

Of the the three, only the last seems like a genuinely positive situation.  Having cash is fine, but in an era of inflation I don’t know if it will attract investors.

What does the presence of manufactured housing tell us about America? What does it show us about a shelter? What makes an ideal home? How do those questions and their answers change over time?

These are some of the things that the curators of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) have attempted to ask in their latest exhibition. It is an exploration in to pre-fabricated houses.

“Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling” shows about 80 different homes or models of homes.

A set of pictures in the New York Times shows off a few of them. One home is made of cellophane with some girders and basic frames. The idea is to allow surroundings to change the home over time. The show also includes the System3 design, as well as microcompact homes, and a section on recovery work in New Orleans.

The show runs from July 20th to October 20th.