With AG's help, home park residents rally against new landlord's "substantial" changes

NORTHFIELD, Minn. -- They may be known colloquially as mobile home parks, but most residents have zero intentions of uprooting their families. 

It also costs up to $20,000 to actually move one.

"People have really made this place home and made their properties their own," George Zuccolotto, a resident of Viking Terrace in Northfield, told WCCO. "It's working class, but it's also hardworking people who save hard and love life. It's not the city and it's not the country. It's our own thing."

As a manufactured home park, each home might be the property of a family but the physical land is not, and the roughly 150 lots in Viking Terrace were purchased earlier this year by Lakeshore Management. According to residents, Lakeshore quickly sent them an updated 40 page lease agreement, which includes a 20% rake hike and myriad new restrictions.

"It's coming in, setting down the rules, taking pictures, circling everything, and letting us know who's in charge," Zuccolotto said. "It felt very intrusive and scary for people, because they were also asking for documentation, and there are immigrants here."

Northfield itself is a diverse community that's home to two private universities - Carleton and St. Olaf - two key factors in driving the median home price to roughly $400,000. Viking Terrace, then, is what Zuccolotto considers the creative and realistic answer to affordable housing.

"You don't get that in Northfield, especially as suburbanization goes in. To have this is really special," he said. 

To protect themselves - and their special status - Zuccolotto, who happens to be a member of the Northfield City Council, helped organize a neighborhood association and then called Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. 

The attorney general's Special Outreach and Protection Unit then took up the case and intervened, as Minnesota law mandates that new rules for manufactured-home parks must be "reasonable" and may not be "substantial modifications" of existing rules.

"What we're trying to do is signal to landlords that you've got to treat these tenants with respect," Ellison told WCCO. "You've got to treat a residence of manufactured housing with true dignity and respect."

According to Ellison, the rules imposed by Lakeshore were "draconian," prohibiting vegetable gardens without Lakeshore's permission, forbidding outdoor laundry lines, and banning fenced-in-yards for pets.  

Ellison on Friday planned to visit Viking Terrace to update residents on his office's communications with Lakeshore, which he said is "doing the right thing" by renegotiating the lease agreement. Lakeshore did not respond to WCCO's request for comment or an interview.

Zuccolotto said the process, while frustrating, is also a relief, because it shows the good in how a neighborhood can come together and set an example for others.

"There's creativity that can be done in this," he said.