It’s been 65 years since the last “mobile home park” has been built in San Joaquin County.

Supervisor Tom Patti and his board colleagues want to change that.

It is why the county is adopting zoning to encourage their development as well as identify appropriate areas to establish them.

Patti — who represents Lathrop, Manteca north of Yosemite Avenue, the Delta region, and parts of northwest Stockon — believes it could be a game changer.

It could mean affordable housing for working families that don’t have household incomes in six figures who are being priced out of new housing within San Joaquin County.

New homes sold in Manteca on average cost more than $700,000

In places such as River Islands and Mountain House — the latter that was envisioned in 2003 when it broke ground as an affordable housing community — the average new home is pushing $900,000.

And while they are still known in planning vernacular as “mobile home parks”,  what supervisors are paving the way for are in reality manufactured housing parks.

 The homes aren’t your great grandfather’s single or double wide trailers.

Nor are they your grandfather’s basic “box” modular homes built in sections in a factory.

Modern manufactured homes that are stick-built in factories today are often designed with modern architectural nuances that resemble those built on lots.

Comparison data places the actual cost savings per housing structure at between 10 and 20 percent less for manufactured as opposed to traditional stick-built homes on sites.

They manufactured homes average from 1,200 to 1,400 square feet.

The parks they are located in have a much higher density than standard neighborhoods.

As such, between two to three times the housing units can be placed on an acre.

That in turn reduces the infrastructure and land costs.

Such mobile home parks that are basically manufactured homes have been effective in making a dent in Southern California at-market housing making them within the financial reach of more people.

The negative connotation that mobile homes have that are based on older examples is often a high hurdle to clear.

Patti noted county planning staff initially resisted the idea.

Such was the case in Manteca when local developers made the case during early vetting of the general plan update to include possible zoning for a manufactured home park in the path of growth northeast of Manteca but had the idea batted down by staff opposition.

The late Antone Raymus — who developed the El Rancho Mobile Home Park at East Yosemite Avenue and Highway 99 that is the largest concentration of affordable at-market housing  in Manteca — in the early 2000s tried to pursue a modern version with manufactured stick-built homes.

It was dubbed Shadowbrook.

It was envisioned as an age-restricted community for those 50 and older.

It didn’t get built as Raymus passed away after the city gave the project its initial approvals.

It was since reconstituted as The Collective that has traditional housing in a gated-community of age-restricted housing north of Louise Avenue nestled on the east side of Highway 99.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabuleltin.com