TMHA is Going Local
I know what you are probably thinking. “Oh no, our executive director is about to push on us a story about the benefits of hemp-made sandals and not showering. Austin has infected him.” Not exactly. “Keep Austin Weird,” only resonates so far with me, and I still very much see the virtues in a society that believes in the use of deodorant.
No what I mean by “going local” is that for the past several months we have been working on a couple of projects we are excited to bring to the membership. We think these endeavors will add both tremendous value, but also increased protection.
For years we have struggled when it came to local city ordinances and actions adversely impacting manufactured housing or manufactured housing communities. This past summer we had an all too familiar incident with the City of Huntsville when the local politicians where on the verge of prohibiting MH in the city. Fortunately, and luckily, we caught wind of the planned action and local TMHA members and residents mobilized to intercede before it was too late. But as we all know, Huntsville is not an isolated incident. In fact, it served as the catalyst for the association leadership to set staff to task on trying to figure out the best way we could make a bigger impact at the local level.
In tackling this challenge we broke down the goals into two categories. First, we need to know the lay of the land. We need to find out what ordinances are already on the books in Texas cities. We need to know what cities allow MH, which ones prohibit MH, and which ones are somewhere in between with unique conditions for MH. Without a centralized database or source we determined that one would have to be created from scratch. No small undertaking when there are over 3,000 cities, towns, small towns, and even those very small - where if you blink while driving you missed it - towns.
We reached out to private companies and academics to help us with this challenge. And following the approval of the TMHA board of directors at last week’s board meeting, we are thrilled to announce our coming partnership with Texas State University to help take on this challenge.
Over the next 18 months we will work together to find, catalog and create a database of approximately 300 cities. We are starting with the highest population, but plan to work down the list which covers many smaller (less than 5,000 in population) rural cities as well. This will provide us a baseline of data that we can overlay with other data on demographics, population, affordable housing demands, MH presence, MH sales activity, and much more. It will also provide members an easy to find resource to access the local laws for cities in which you do business or are considering doing business.
The second challenge we face is that assuming our city ordinance collection efforts are successful they will be a static snapshot in time. Meaning in the future the ordinances can and will change. Thus, our second goal was to develop a way to monitor and alert members when local jurisdictions have MH related ordinances or proposals on the agendas to come before the local politicians. With advance notice we can mobilize and become engaged at those local levels to both advance our industry and stave off senseless prohibition and other ill-conceived or motivated disasters for our industry.
The trouble here is, again, there is no centralized database or filing of local city agendas to access. The only requirement for posting notice is in the local “newspaper of record,” which typically is in or near the classified sections. Great gig for local newspaper revenue, but pretty lacking by way of notice and transparency of local government action in the 21st century.
However, we have found a company who specializes in local government tracking and alerts. In what can only be described as an exceptionally labor intensive effort of scouring city websites every week, week after week, this company looks for keywords that TMHA provides and then relays alerts when MH impacted local legislation is up on an agenda.
We are excited that this two-pronged approach will provide us the necessary baseline of local laws and then the dynamic capability to monitor and participate in any future changes.
The third and most critical piece of this new “go local” focus and strategy is simple – you. You our TMHA members.
We hope to soon provide the tools, the alerts, and the data driven arguments and other defenses to you, but when it comes to local issues experience has clearly shown that to get favorable results you have to have locals leading the charge. I have been run out of countless city council meetings because they saw the Austin based lawyer (and even more insidious in their eyes – lobbyists) come into their town and have the audacity to try and tell them how they need to run things. It simply doesn’t work.
What does work is when the people in our industry in those towns show up and talk about their lives, their jobs, the jobs they provide locally to others, their contribution to the local economy, and bring it to the attention of the local politicians they can vote for or against. It also never hurts when you know and see your local politicians at church, little league, high school football games, or in your grocery store. Those connections are necessary to strike the chords that will resonate locally.
Throughout this year you will hear more and more from TMHA as we build our database and provide alerts. We are excited as a staff that the board has provided us this direction and initiative. We believe this will add to the evolution of our great association and provide even more for our members.
So this year we are “going local.” Though I will say for everyone joining with us in this endeavor, a small bit of advice from the lawyer-lobbyist in Austin, if you go to talk to your local city council or testify at a meeting it’s always a good idea to remember to wear deodorant.