INHS purchases Auble’s Mobile Home Park

Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services, which has grown into a regional affordable housing organization, moved into a new area of business in August.

INHS purchased the 138-pad manufactured housing community formerly known as Auble’s Mobile Home Park, located in the village of Trumansburg and the town of Covert, which is in Seneca County. Acquiring the community, now named Compass, marks the first time the nonprofit has owned manufactured housing.

Joe Bowes, INHS director of real estate development, said the acquisition makes sense because the organization is “dedicated to expanding housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income residents.”

“We know manufactured housing communities are a place that typically we consider naturally occurring affordable housing, which means people with low and moderate incomes can find affordable housing in manufactured housing communities,” he said. “They can own a home less expensively, and this was an opportunity for us to serve the people our organization exists to serve. Our main goal in purchasing the park is to improve it by improving the roads, the water and sewer systems there. We’re going to upgrade the lighting, improve the landscaping and ideally make the community a nicer place to live.”

Currently, there are 86 lots rented to homeowners, 31 vacant lots that Bowes said INHS is still determining how they will be put back into use and 21 lots owned and rented by the previous owner of the park that the nonprofit inherited.

“Of those 21, we will be replacing eight with new energy-efficient manufactured homes for rent, and making improvements to the remaining 13,” he said. “There are no vacancies in those 13 at the moment.”

The estimated cost of planned improvements is $3 million, Bowes said, which includes the cost of demolishing the eight homes and building energy-efficient ones. He said all the rents are staying the same.

One community meeting has taken place since INHS took over, Bowes said, and they have gotten a lot of positive feedback from residents.

“I think they were ready for a change in ownership,” Bowes said. “We have gotten a lot of calls from existing residents, but also from people who heard we purchased the site and are now interested in living there because they know it is owned by a community-based nonprofit organization.”

Trumansburg Mayor Rordan Hart said in a prepared statement that the new ownership is a positive change for people who live at the mobile home park.

“It is also an amazing opportunity for the village to partner with the Park’s new owners on infrastructure in that area,” Hart said in the statement. “I look forward to working with INHS on making dramatic improvements to the entire northwest corner of the Village.”

In addition to infrastructure improvements, Bowes believes INHS ownership will lead to better management. He said the nonprofit has hired Rochester-based Keynote Realty Inc. to manage the property, which “has a lot of experience managing manufactured housing communities.”

“We hope people have a better, higher quality experience [with] who they’re working with on the management side in terms of taking care of the community,” Bowes said. “Our goal is to provide a higher level of service to the people who are living there.”

If this experience goes well, he said INHS could pursue other similar opportunities.

“Manufactured housing communities are a way organizations like ours are expanding their footprints,” Bowes said. “We know there are market-rate companies and real estate companies that are looking for manufactured housing communities and have a pretty poor record of how they manage them and how they treat people living there.”

He noted that New York state is encouraging community-based affordable housing nonprofits to consider adding manufactured home parks to their real estate portfolios.

“We are hoping to access the funding the state is offering to improve the park,” Bowes said.

The purchase also includes more than 100 acres of additional land that could be redeveloped for future rental housing.

In addition to Tompkins County, INHS serves the counties of Cayuga, Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Cortland and Tioga. For more information about the organization and its newest acquisition, visit ithacanhs.org/compass-mhc.

Have Trumansburg-area news? Contact Rob Montana at rob.j.montana@gmail.com.

IN BRIEF:

Put on your dancing shoes

The Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts 2021-2022 dance classes are available for registration and begin Sept. 18. The season runs through June 5, 2022. Space is limited.

There is a range of classes being offered, by age and skill, and take place Monday through Thursday and Saturday. For more information or to register, visit tburgconservatory.org/dance.