Trailer Park Proposal Hits Opposition : Development: Santa Monica City Council sides with residents. They don’t want apartments and condominiums built on one of the last mobile home parks.

Residents of one of the last trailer parks in Santa Monica were jubilant when the City Council unanimously spoke out Tuesday against a developer’s plans to build condominiums and apartments on the five-acre park site.

About 50 residents of the Mountain View Mobile Inn trailer park picketed in front of City Hall before the council meeting, carrying signs that read: “I just say no to Watt (Industries).”

In a heated meeting two weeks ago, residents were stunned by the news that the 141-space park would make way for multifamily housing. The park is owned by Ramona Treffinger, but Watt has taken an option to purchase the property.

Watt officials assured park residents that they would be offered new apartments, but those attending the meeting were dissatisfied with answers that one woman called “noncommittal and evasive.”

Watt has a number of hurdles to negotiate before going forward with its plans. Mountain View is zoned for mobile homes and would have to be rezoned to allow condominiums and apartments to be built.

Last year, Mountain View residents, fearing changes such as those Watt has proposed, persuaded the City Council to rezone the park from light industrial to residential/mobile homes, a designation that allows only mobile homes, trailers, yard sales and small family day-care centers.

In addition, the park is under rent control. If the city Rent Control Board grants the developer a permit to change the park units, Watt would have to replace the rent-controlled units and provide relocation costs.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Phyllis Goff, representing the residents, spoke out against Watt’s plans and asked the council to make its stand on the issue known.

All the council members said they were against rezoning the park. Councilman Herbert Katz said that when Watt representatives told him of their proposal, he told them: “If you’re into pain, go ahead and waste your time.”

Rent Control Board Chairwoman Susan Packer Davis said the developer made a “fatal mistake” in setting eyes on rent-controlled property. She added that approval would be granted “over our dead bodies” and accused Watt of misleading residents by “claiming that (the project) was going to happen and the tenants better make a deal.”

Judy Maller, a spokeswoman and public relations consultant for Watt, said the developer did not care to comment on the council’s statements.

In an earlier interview, Maller said Watt had not applied for the necessary zoning change. She said such a move would be premature until Watt had talked with residents individually to determine how much rent they could afford and their needs and ideas for new housing.

Maller said all the park’s current residents would be able to afford the new apartments.

“If we don’t make it affordable, what’s the point of doing it?” she said. “It is our hope that we would be able to put condos and affordable housing that would be superior to what’s there now.”

But most of the residents were not satisfied with those assurances.

“I moved out of an apartment because the rents were going up,” said Barbara Kessel, who lives in one of the park’s 141 units with her daughter and granddaughter.

Calling the mobile home “a place of my own,” she said: “It was putting me into a financial situation that could put me in an early retirement, which would be totally impossible for me to do if they displace me. You’re dealing with not only tearing down rentals but taking away people’s own homes.”

Although Maller said the company will consider compensating residents for losing the homes they own, park residents doubt that the compensation would equal the values of their homes.

And despite Watt’s promises that they would get superior housing, most are not convinced that apartments would provide the quiet and almost crime-free environment of the trailer park.

Resident Donna Satterfield said she and others are ready to fight a “David and Goliath” battle.

Watt “wanted us to see this as an opportunity where everybody could benefit,” Satterfield said. “But we don’t see it that way. They acted as if there were nothing more to be said. We felt like the steamroller was rolling over us, and there wasn’t anything we could do to stop it.”

Kathryn Evans has lived in a trailer park for 42 years. She survived the Santa Monica Freeway construction that slashed Mountain View to one-third its original size. But now, Evans said, she may be facing life on the streets or in an “old ladies’ home” if Watt is allowed to go through with its plans.

Evans, like other longtime residents of Mountain View, is retired and lives alone. Her only income is Social Security, from which she pays about $200 a month for rent and utilities. In recent years, however, college students and families have moved into the park, taking advantage of the low rent.

“There’s an awful lot of people I know here who don’t have anything compared with what I have,” Evans said. She added that her health--she has bad legs--would make getting around an apartment difficult.