A HISTORY OF DEEDED RV LOTS

From Magazines
In 1980, the March issue of Trailer Life Magazine, featured an article proposing RVs as an affordable housing alternative.  In the article Freemor Homes was mentioned as starting a pilot project in Slippery Rock, PA, featuring a subdivision for “trailer houses”.  After attracting much attention, this article was followed by a Feb 81 article announcing a similar 70 lot subdivision opening in Mesa, Arizona. This article made reference to additional subdivisions planned for Florida, California and North Carolina. A 1981 advertisement by Freemor attracted 8000 replies!

A Trailer Life ad for Freemor which ran in 1983 listed subdivided parks in Arizona, Florida, Texas, Oregon, California, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

In a 1984 Trailer Life article by Dix Brow, he describes a visit to Sunny Lane Estates in Arizona where the developer, Butch Smyers, explained that although the project had been announced more than two years earlier, he had just gotten the last of his permits! Such permits have proven difficult to get. In Smyers case the project was finally permitted as a PUD, planned unit development, since there was no applicable zoning code on the books.

Don Write in his Alternative Housing article in June of 1983 makes reference to “sun belt rents” increasing more and more; prohibitive in some cases, he says. He notes that condo conversion of campgrounds has started and that he believes that will lead to more and more park models, diminishing the number of available rental sites. The high cost of development and lack of water and sewer facilities are blamed for the shortage of new park construction.

In the same article a couple is mentioned that Don Write interviewed several years before, 1980 or 1981, that live on their own RV lot at South Padre Island. That was undoubtedly, at the Outdoor Resorts park located there that was one of the first subdivided RV resorts from the late seventies. That developer set the standard in those days for beautiful, well designed RV parks, where you could own your own lot.


Government
Local government has played a major roll in shaping individual private ownership of RV parks. In more rural areas rental parks were converted (went condo) with a minimum of documentation, questionable surveys and little to no oversight. Many of these parks had low quality water / sewer / electric services long before conversion and new owners were left with major problems to resolve. Some governments worried that park models on subdivided lots would create bargain basement housing, placing lots of kids in schools without paying taxes and getting far away from intended recreation use. Always concerned about taxes, many such counties, working closely with housing developers banned all such development and removed applicable zoning codes. The results of these early actions can easily be seen in popular destination counties with no privately owned RV lots or properties of any kind.

Counties that enjoyed success with rental RV parks were less aggressively controlled by developers, and had a more relaxed attitude toward local taxation, tended to accept subdivision of RV parks and individual ownership with less difficulty. In some locations where mobile homes were mixed in old trailer parks (WWII vintage) and allowed to deteriorate, the whole “trailer mobile home thing” was seen as a drain on public resources, undesirable and discouraged in every way.  It has always been simple to control and tax a permanent structure. Older zoning code only considered permanent structures. Important too in many of these decisions was the fact that RVs and the RV park developers had no seat at the government table. Attitudes were not helped by the poor quality of early mobile home construction. The thinking of many was to simply lump all forms of moveable housing into an undesirable category and discourage it all.


Fifth Wheel
At about this same period, later seventies early eighties, the fifth wheel RV became established as the towable of choice where more space and luxury were desired together with good towing characteristics. The early  Kountry Air units turned heads at RV shows and the trucks that could pull such a larger rig were finally available from Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge.  (More capable diesels were a few years away) This fueled the notion of seasonal or full time use, adding to the demand for private ownership of an RV property, especially in the sun belt. Luxury motor homes were still in the future at this time. Conventional "travel trailers" of such size never became popular, probably because of poor towing characteristics and available vehicles to tow them. 


Convergence
The convergence of a number of factors established the beginning of private ownership of RV property. RVs were moving from being just a small recreational trailer to a larger, better quality, and more complete housing unit that you might enjoy seasonally. Pickup trucks with increased towing capability were offered to the public. As America prospered in the late seventies, more and more people could consider “second” homes and the tax code encouraged such purchases. Outdoor Resorts led the way in demonstrating that a nicely landscaped, paved and well thought out RV park could be very attractive and demand a premium price. They really changed the way many people viewed such developments. Others copied Outdoor Resorts and were quick to cater to this new market in an attempt to profit. The “park model” opened markets to those who wanted nothing to do with “pickups” and RV travel, but did appreciate owning an inexpensive “little home”. Of course, in time the more luxurious motorhome broadened the appeal even more moving completely away from the “truck”, and toward luxury and convenience that rivaled the home. Always a nation that values home ownership, the purchase of property for recreation was a logical extension. The wealthy had always done it, historically speaking. The RV lot provided the opportunity to end the rent payments and have equity. In the South that was exploding with growth, this was an opportunity to secure your place in the sun belt that would not be lost when a housing builder bought out the park you always visited. This trend extended to boat marinas and apartments too. Individual ownership was on the rise.


Do You have Some History to Share ??
We encourage you to share your history with early RV parks in which you owned.  Of particular interest interest would be the first Outdoor Resorts park, early parks located out of the sun belt, a park model invasion, and any unusual developments for RVs. We will gladly add pages as necessary to provide a more complete history. Issues of Trailer Life Magazine from the sixties and seventies are a good source of developer advertising and sheds light on the activities of that time, if you have collected those and don't mind sharing. Let us hear from you on this subject. Research is difficult since building and developing an RV park is a very local thing and may not have generated much publicity.


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rv living on wood wheels !



camping at the edge of the field



let's get supplies 1962