Meeting approves $200,000 to extend housing rehab loans to manufactured and mobile homes

At a meeting called to order at about 6:40 p.m., members voted unanimously to allocate $200,000 from the town's Affordable Housing Trust Fund to extend the existing housing rehabilitation loan program to manufactured and mobile homes.

John Reiner, Director of Planning, Development, and Public Works, said the Affordable Housing Trust Fund "is a dedicated fund to support affordable housing activities" and that the council had recommended "approving $200,000 to put into the housing rehab program specifically for mobile and manufactured homes." He described the program as a zero-interest loan program providing financial assistance up to $15,000 per unit for eligible health-and-safety repairs.

Reiner said the program will use the municipality's existing application and oversight processes, with the community development office and building officials administering the program and contractors performing the work. "We bid out all the work competitively, and then we oversee that project," he said. He added that the town has had difficulty hiring a third‑party consultant to oversee projects and that building inspectors have been helping with assessments.

Council members asked whether the town would work through banks or the state; Reiner replied that "this is town money" in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, noting the fund balance and that the council authorized $200,000 of that amount. When asked where the funds came from, Reiner said, "the funds for this actually came from the sales of some of our excess property so far," and confirmed the allocation is not from general tax revenue.

The presentation addressed eligibility and program limits: for manufactured and mobile homes the program will be limited to a maximum of $15,000 per unit; standard loan‑to‑value requirements used for site‑built housing may be waived for manufactured homes in some cases, but staff will avoid investing in units that appear beyond useful life. Reiner said applicants must be the legal owner and primary resident of the unit and that funds are intended for health-and-safety repairs (examples cited included new roofs and heating systems).

A motion to accept the Housing Rehabilitation Program Expansion Resolution was moved and seconded and the measure "passed" on a unanimous voice vote recorded in the transcript. The transcript records unanimous passage but does not list individual votes. The town plans to roll out a slightly modified application form and implement the program with existing staff in the community development and building offices.

Next steps: staff will create the revised application and begin program roll‑out; further administrative details will be determined by the community development office.