An End to Their Seaside Life : Trailer Park Moved Near Rifle Range, Heliport

The pounding of the surf on the Huntington Beach shore has been a sound that Helen Smith has enjoyed since moving into her mobile home on Pacific Coast Highway 25 years ago.

“Sometimes the ocean would wake me up at 4 or 5 in the morning. I would lie awake and listen to it,” she recalled as she sat in an easy chair at the Huntington Shores Mobile Home Park.

But when asked about the site to which she is being relocated, Smith shook her head and said: “I try to block what that place will be like out of my mind.”

The widow, 77, is among 44 residents of the mobile home park who were mailed eviction notices in October, 1981, by the Huntington Beach Co., which wants to convert the site to more profitable use. Most tenants have already moved out, but about 18 remain at the park.

The property’s zoning status allows the company to build a hotel or restaurant on the site, said Robert Byrne, vice president for the company’s legal division.

Property Near Fertilizer Plant

After several years of negotiations between city officials and the developer, today marks the deadline for tenants to say whether they plan to be relocated to a new site or sell their homes to the company. April 1 is the deadline for them to leave the property.

The relocation site, a former mushroom farm about three miles inland at Ellis Avenue and Golden West Street, is surrounded by commercial and industrial development. The property is near a fertilizer manufacturer and horse stables. The park’s neighbors are a truck repair garage, a heliport, a rifle range and piles of compost from the mushroom farm.

As required by a city ordinance, the development company is offering residents two options: It will purchase their homes at the price they paid for them--less depreciation figured at 4.7% per year--or it will pay their full moving expenses to the relocation site or another mobile home park within a 300-mile radius.

The ordinance requiring developers to provide a relocation plan to mobile home park tenants during conversions was passed by the City Council at the urging of Huntington Shores tenants.

Signed Document Under Protest

But Smith is not satisfied with the choices. She signed the document under protest, she said, because the developer is only paying to move one-half of her home, since she has an enclosed porch built on a foundation. And, she said, the relocation site is not comparable to the present property.

Company officials said they have already committed $1 million to relocation efforts.

“We are following the law, which requires us to relocate only readily movable additions,” Byrne said. “If there are inequities in the law, it is the city’s fault. They passed it.”

Some newer tenants sold their coaches at close to their original price. But Smith, who lives on her Social Security funds, was offered $4,500 for her three-bedroom trailer, which she bought in 1965 for $9,000. Smith estimated the fair market value of the coach at about $28,000.

Smith also said she was notified by her insurance company that her mobile homeowner’s insurance is being canceled because the park is closing.

The city purchased the relocation site, where tenants will be given a lifetime lease, said Dan Brennan, who manages property for the city.

But the park will be for adults only. Residents will not be allowed to sublease, sell or rent their coaches.

“It stinks,” Smith said of the new arrangement.

“We bought this with the intention of retiring here,” she said.

Betty and Joe Nocella also bought their trailer for retirement, but they are relocating to the new site. They will also be forced to pay for moving part of their home: the skirting along its perimeter and a carport.

While the Nocellas were disappointed that the city did not find a better relocation site, they said they were satisfied with efforts done by city officials.

Luckier Than Most

“At least they’re doing something for us,” Betty Nocella said.

Another park resident, Ruth Perkiss, 86, said she is luckier than most because she owns a house in Huntington Beach and she is planning to move into it. But she is not happy about giving up her wall-to-wall-carpeted trailer.

“They do have the right to ask us (to move) but I am not happy about it. Fortunately, I can afford to move somewhere else,” she said.

Brennan said: “It was about the only site available that we could afford to purchase. It is better than being homeless.”

And said Huntington Beach Co. representative Holmes: “Nobody ever said the (mobile home) park would be forever. That was just an interim use.”