At least 26 San Antonians are poised to become landowners this month, pending the final signatures for a unique, $6 million cooperative ownership and renovation deal at a trailer park that was facilitated by the city’s housing bond.
“It would give everybody at the trailer park a sense of pride for their land,” Valerie A. Valenzuela, who has lived at Riverside Terrace Manufactured Home Community for about two years, told the San Antonio Report earlier this week. “We’re not just tenants.”
It’s the first time the city has directly invested in a project where residents have shared ownership of the land under the homes they own through a limited equity co-op.
Instead of owning both the home and the property it is built on, co-op members would own the property collectively, while individuals own only their home. The structure is similar to that of a community land trust, ensuring decisions about the property are made by the residents and providing long-term affordability through income restrictions.
On Thursday, City Council approved the final piece of funding that will allow the newly-formed Mission Trails Community Association board — named as an homage to the infamously displaced community that was later replaced with “luxury” apartments in the South Side — to purchase and improve Riverside Terrace.
The $750,000 forgivable loan approved Thursday from the Inner City Incentive Fund will be combined with matching funding from the San Antonio Housing Trust for necessary infrastructure projects to support the trailer park, including the repair or replacement of water and sewer lines, paving streets and demolition of a dilapidated storage building.
The entire project is slated for completion in 2024.
The loan will be forgiven in 40 years as long as the co-op retains residents who earned 80% or less than the area median income (AMI), that’s about $49,000 for an individual. If the co-op sells the land, the city would re-coup that loan, said Veronica Garcia, director of the city’s housing department.
Currently, most households in Riverside Terrace earn about 30-40% AMI, less than $30,000 for an individual. Households that may in the future earn 80% AMI or more will not be forced to leave, Garcia said.
“It’s an initial income verification,” she said. “When you [already] live there, there’s nothing that prevents you from increasing your income.”
Resident Owned Communities (ROC) USA, a New Hampshire-based organization, received $3.1 million from San Antonio’s $150 million housing bond, which included $250,000 in SAWS impact and city fee waivers, earlier this year to help establish the co-op entity, Mission Trails, which will own the land and provide residents with ongoing technical assistance and maintenance.
ROC will also loan the co-op up to $1.5 million for other neighborhood improvements, Garcia said.
The co-op’s purchase of the land from T. Evan Enterprises LLC is slated to take place on or before Nov. 13, according to a city spokesperson.
Of the 46 occupied homes, 26 have agreed to be members of the co-op and others may join later. The co-op board will vote on who can move in to the remaining eight empty lots.
The average rent is currently $475 and that monthly payment will increase to $525 for co-op members, as approved by the co-op board. That money will go toward property taxes, management, a reserve fund and administration and repayment of ROC’s loan.
The cost increase, Valenzuela said, “is to be expected, because we’re getting loans … so that we can build our neighborhood and make it a very nice community. I think it’s going to be really cost-effective. And I think it’s going to be pretty stable.”
Non-members will not be force to leave Riverside Terrace, but their rent will be higher than what members pay, Garcia said.
There has been some initial skepticism among residents about joining, said Valenzuela, who serves on the Mission Trail board and works evening shifts at a Home Depot. “There is always going to be some hesitation because it’s a big change. It’s a big leap. But as soon as everybody started seeing the positive parts and started understanding what actually is going on, everybody pretty much jumped up and was like: OK, let’s do it.”
It’s a steep learning curve for most people to understand how a limited equity co-op works, she added, but ROC USA staff “did a very good job in helping us to understand everything.”
ROC USA has established more than 300 similar mobile home communities throughout the country, according to its website.
And the community has grounds to be suspicious of big changes.
Despite protests and pleas from activists and residents in 2014, City Council approved a zoning change that allowed a developer to remove the Mission Trails Mobile Home Park, home to more than 300 people, to make way for MELA Apartments.
That led to the formation of two different task forces and initiatives to preserve, protect and produce affordable housing, manifesting in 2021 with the approval of the 10-year, Strategic Housing Implementation Plan and in the 2022 municipal bond, which was the first in San Antonio to directly fund housing construction.
“As a result of that [Mission Trails] event, we looked hard at housing,” Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran (D3), whose district includes much of the South Side, told the San Antonio Report after Thursday’s vote.
Some residents of Mission Trails relocated to Riverside Terrace, just over a half-mile south of the now-sprawling apartment complex, according to a city spokesperson.
The policies and investment surrounding affordable housing in 2014 “was nothing like we have now,” Viagran said. And the city still has $14 million of the housing bond left to fund “creative” affordable housing projects or pilot programs that differ from traditional proposals or policies.
“We have come a very long way, which I’m very excited about,” she said.
