Trailer park’s future uncertain
Vernon Van Wie, 90, stands outside the mobile home where he has lived for the last 17 years in Village Trailer Park in Santa Monica. The property owner wants to redevelop the nearly 4-acre site with residential units, offices and shops. But tenants have urged the city to consider buying the property, valued at as much as $30 million.
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The owner wants to redevelop the property, but tenants hope Santa Monica can buy it.
Joe and Doralisa Viesca spend time in their yard next to the mobile home where they have lived since 1991. Built in the mid-20th century as a camp for vacationers and weekend beach visitors, the 109-space trailer park just might give way in the name of progress. And that has longtime residents and other community activists pleading with the city to deflect developers and preserve the quiet outpost off Colorado Avenue.
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David Latham, 66, walks past a mailbox in the shape of a trailer home. In 2007, tenants received a reprieve from imminent eviction when the City Council voted to pursue a development agreement with the owner. As part of that deal, the developer agreed to halt evictions and negotiate with the city.
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A sign in the front office states that Village Trailer Park is scheduled to close. For several years, the park has declined to accept new tenants, and, as residents have left or died, the owner has demolished trailers, leaving many vacant concrete pads. Fifty or so residents remain.
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Robert Jacobs leaves his mobile home at Village Trailer Park, where he has lived since 1992. Silver Streak, Streamline and Seaview trailers -- some tacky, some spiffy -- feature Christmas tinsel and “Occupy” signs. A plywood door in front of one trailer is adorned with a wind chime made of shells and comments such as “Surf’s Up” and “Dolphins are awesome.”
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Maria Viesca, 81, has been living at the Village Trailer Park for the past 23 years in Santa Monica on December 22, 2011. The owner of the property proposes to put up a large mixed-use development at the site, but the dozens of remaining tenants want the park to remain a low-income haven.
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Mary Herring, 78, a retired nurses aid, stands in the kitchen of her 1953 mobile home, where she has lived since 1992. “Well, I don’t like it,” she says of the possibility of having to leave. The trailer park’s owner plans to offer tenants about $20,000 in relocation fees, and is working to help find Section 8 housing for them or spots in the nearby city-owned Mountain View Mobile Home Park.
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Gayle Cooper, 66, walks past a trailer in the park, where she has been living since 1994. David Latham, 66, left, has been a resident since 1990. The property owner wants to close the park and build a nearly 400,000-square-foot, mixed-use project with 393 residential units, 105,334 square feet of “creative” office space and 11,710 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail businesses.
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