Plan OKd for Tenants to Buy Mobile Home Lots

Forty tenants in Lomita’s Grandview Mobile Home Park, 35 of them senior citizens, moved a step closer to buying their lots this week.

The City Council unanimously accepted a plan that allows the tenants to purchase half the park from the owner, who hopes to build town homes on the other half.

“This is the first time in the South Bay that a tenant group has (successfully) negotiated with the landlord when the park has been marked for closure,” said James Dewer, leader of the residents’ cooperative. The agreement came after nearly six months of weekly negotiation sessions between developers and the tenants’ group.

The arrangement for tenants to purchase the west end of the park on Pennsylvania Avenue for $1.56 million developed after the council postponed accepting the required relocation impact report from the developers in May.

At that time the council gave park owners Craig Knickerbocker and Dennis Barsam six months to respond to concerns from tenants and neighbors.

The plan requires each tenant to put up $4,000 by next Oct. 1 that will go toward the $156,000 down payment. If the tenants fail to close escrow within a year, they revert to a four-year lease arrangement and must relocate after that.

Congratulating both sides on the compromise, Councilman Charles Belba said he hopes such efforts will become common at mobile home parks threatened with closure.

But the Torrance real estate developers, who bought the site in 1986, noted that the council must still approve their proposal to build 59 town homes on the rest of the 96-unit park, while adding 75 parking spaces. That portion of the property is usually occupied by transient recreation vehicles, Knickerbocker said.