Sun Is Setting for Residents of Shangri-La : Development: Encinitas mobile-home owners cry foul after being told to vacate beachfront land to make way for a resort hotel.

Dolly Minehan feels like an angel being muscled out through heaven’s gate.

Well, not exactly heaven, she says, but the closest thing earth has to offer--a cluster of aging trailers and cottages perched on the cusp of an Encinitas ocean bluff, affording a stunning view of Batiquitos Lagoon and miles of pristine North County coastline.

Residents of the tiny Sunset Shores mobile-home park have a name for their secluded Pacific coast paradise. They call it Shangri-La.

“There is nowhere on earth that is equal to this place,” the 73-year-old grandmother says, standing on the deck of her 18-year-old trailer, gazing out at the sea. “I love it here. This place makes me feel young. It keeps me alive. . . . It’s better than Valium.”

But Minehan and her neighbors know that their days in paradise are indeed numbered. Last year, the 4-acre property was purchased by Sports Shinko Co., the Japanese owners of the nearby La Costa Resort & Spa, which plans on developing the choice coastal property into a $30-million five-star hotel project.

Several months ago, the new owners notified mobile-home park residents that they would be required to vacate the premises--trailers and all--once they received the official go-ahead on their Encinitas beach resort.

Since then, a battle of wills has been waged on the shores of Shangri-La between the new owners and residents who say they are being shoddily treated by greedy developers. Sports Shinko, for its part, says residents are unfairly demanding the moon in return for moving their trailers.

Sunset Shores residents counter that they’re now being treated more like squatters than homeowners--many of whom have prized their bird’s-eye view of the sea for a decade or more. Of eight occupied dwellings at the park, half are owned by their occupants.

And while they acknowledge they never actually owned the land beneath their trailers, the residents, mostly retirement-aged folks like Minehan, claim they’ve been left largely in the dark about the timetable of the developer’s plans--a fact they say has cruelly affected their day-to-day lives.

They say they expect to be adequately compensated for their homes prior to relocation. But all they’ve gotten so far is a “laughable” offer on their trailers, and what they call a half-hearted effort to help them find another location for their mobile homes.

“I’ve had it with these people--I’m sick of being nice,” Minehan said. “These developers don’t even want to acknowledge we’re here--they keep saying this is a vacant lot. But it’s not a vacant lot. We live here.

“Really, all we want is for them to indicate that they’re going to provide for us adequately. But, so far, they haven’t done that. What they’ve offered me, you couldn’t buy a doll house with today. Their attitude is ‘Just leave. Scram.’ ”

The developers, however, say that they had made a good-faith effort to pay residents market-value for their mobile homes--figures arrived upon by a professional appraisal firm--and have offered to move them free of charge.

But there is a limit to how far they can go, they add, without becoming victims of deep-pockets diplomacy.

“We don’t want to reduce these people’s lifestyles, but the landowner has certain rights, too,” said James Hirsch, director of planning for the Austin Hansen Group, a San Diego architectural firm that is designing the hotel project and has been designated by Sports Shinko to deal with park residents.

“Sports Shinko wants to settle this matter equitably and fairly while not becoming a deep-pockets victim in the process.”

Nonetheless, Hirsch said, several residents have asked for outrageous amounts of money as compensation for their displacement.

“The problem is that these people feel that they own, in effect, the views and the environment in which they live,” he said. “They feel they own the rights to the beach, the sea and those cool coastal breezes.

“One of them told us that we had to buy back her rights to the view--for a figure in the neighborhood of $330,000. Well, all I can say is that I would love to be in the business of buying a mobile home for $20,000 or $30,000 and then turn around a sell it for $300,000 after living on a bluff for six or seven years.

“I’d sure rather be in that kind of business, let me tell you.”

Meanwhile, Encinitas has found itself caught in the middle of the fray as officials scramble to pinpoint just what responsibility they have to the mobile-home park residents.

“If there’s a responsibility, I’ll be the first one there for those people,” said Mayor Gail Hano. “But right now, it looks like it’s between Sports Shinko and the residents.”

City Manager Warren Shafer said city staff was researching the limits of state law in protecting mobile-home park residents in the event of such development projects. California law requires residents to be given six months to relocate after final approval of the project.

Some residents have claimed that city officials are more worried about protecting projected tax revenues from the completed resort than they are about the rights of residents.

But some city officials responded privately that the residents should pack up and move out now. “They’ve had a real estate bargain there for all these years,” said one official, who asked not to be named. “They don’t own the land, period. They don’t have any bargaining chips. They should take the money for their trailers and run--instead of playing games.”

Minehan insists that she’s not playing games. She’s just heartsick at leaving the three-bedroom, two-bath trailer she has called home since relocating there 13 years ago with her ailing husband, Jim.

Back then, doctors had given the career FBI man--who suffered from inoperable cancer--only months to live. So the couple left behind their hectic life in inland Orange County in search of somewhere off the beaten track.

They immediately fell in love with the tiny mobile-home park with its million-dollar views and hard-to-find narrow entrance road that curves westward from Highway 101 near Cardiff State Beach.

The place was so hard to find, Minehan recalled, they had to meet the realtor at a nearby convenience store--because they wouldn’t have been able to locate the park on their own.

They soon fell in love with the gentle coastal breezes, the ever-present roar of the crashing surf and the days and nights spent on their deck watching the passing dolphins, whales and deep-sea vessels.

“We were just looking for a place where Jim could enjoy the time he had left,” she recalled. “Instead of just months, Jim lived here for almost 10 years. I think the beauty and peace of this place kept him alive. It was like therapy for him. That’s why we started calling it Shangri-La.”

Over the years, residents of the seven trailers, one house and two cottages became close neighbors and friends. For a long time, the mobile-home park owners lived right there at the site.

Dorothy Luke, a 73-year-old widow who for seven years has rented a cozy trailer just down the gravel road from Dolly Minehan’s place, moved to Shangri-La with her sick husband, Vernon.

Instead of months, he survived several years with his emphysema--thanks to the atmosphere of the coastal community, she says. But like Minehan, Luke stayed on after her husband’s death. Where else in Southern California could she live smack dab on the ocean for less than $700 a month?

Still, she says, residents were always aware that the property was up for sale. One day, they all knew, the end would come.

“Mr. Nims, the owner, was upfront about his goal to sell the place,” she said. “So, whenever I’d see something about the park in the paper, I’d yell over to him, ‘Should I start packing my bags yet?’ And he’d say ‘Not yet. They haven’t decided what to build yet.’ ”

In 1986, however, the owners finally sold the tiny swatch of land to a development company that proposed to build a 180-room hotel there. But the company went bankrupt before its project plans could be approved.

Enter Sports Shinko Co., the Osaka-based owners of more than 50 destination resorts worldwide, who paid more than $7 million for the 4.3-acre site. Their plans for Shangri-La are no less ambitious.

They plan to construct a lavish 122,540-square-foot resort with 130 rooms and an exclusive 200-seat restaurant and ballroom--a place that would draw customers from around the world.

“The view is obviously the key,” Hirsch said. “Sports Shinko feels that offering a beachfront resort so near to its La Costa property will be a major marketing tool in penetrating the worldwide resort market.”

Guests at the Encinitas Beach Resort, of course, would also have entree to the amenities at the La Costa Resort & Spa--the golf, tennis and genteel atmosphere--just a short limousine ride away, Hirsch said.

“This wouldn’t be a place for people who might check the local chamber of commerce looking for a beach bargain,” he said. “This will be a five-star hotel with rooms going for $300 a night--reservations required months in advance.”

Dorothy Luke, with her perky terrier named Wacko perched on her lap, says she wonders why such a rich corporation would quibble with residents over such a relatively small sum.

“You feel cheated--to have a place as beautiful as this sold right out from under you,” she said. “I saw a neighbor the other day who told me he was taking another look at all the little things he might have taken for granted around here. Well, that’s how I feel.”

Residents say the beginning of the end came when Paul Graham, vice president of the La Costa resort, knocked on their doors last fall with the promise that he would keep them informed about project developments.

A few months later, they were issued a June 1 deadline to move from their homes. While that deadline was eventually canceled, they say Sports Shinko has been less than forthcoming about its timetable for the project.

Hirsch says the delays haven’t been their fault. Project plans have been waylayed by the city’s often-cumbersome design review process--which requires developers to first receive approval from a neighborhood panel before moving on to the Planning Commission and City Council. Eventually, the plans must also be approved by the state Coastal Commission.

“The fact that these residents are frustrated,” he said. “Well, we are, too. We’re real frustrated.”

Design review delays have pushed the expected approval date to the fall, he said, which means the homeowners can expect to be required to move by the middle of next spring.

In the meantime, Hirsch said, they’ve been offered a fair price for their dwellings. And while mobile-home space in North County is presently non-existent, the company has located the residents space in Pomona--an inland community in the Los Angeles area.

“Who wants to move to Pomona?” says Minehan. “Let them move to Pomona. We’ve lived in the North County for so long, and this is where we want to stay. Ever since this park was sold to developers in 1986, I’ve lost control of my life.

“I can’t sell the place--who would buy it? And I can’t afford to move because most trailer parks won’t allow older units--and spaces in the North County are like hen’s teeth to find, anyway. I know, I’ve spent four years looking. I’ve combed North County like a fine-toothed comb.

“Anyway, it would cost me too much to replace my trailer. And they expect me to walk away with a pittance just to clear the way for their five-star hotel?

Added resident Beverly Conner: “They’ve told us rental units are in abundance around here. That’s been their attitude all along--that we should just disappear into the woodwork, become renters, after so many years of owning our own homes.”

For now, Minehan says she’s going to stay put--doing just what her late husband, Jim, would have her do--enjoy her little Shangri-La. And spend each day looking out past the pair of wooden sea gulls on her deck, to the ocean she says has soothed her life.

“I’m not looking forward to the last day I see this place,” she says. “Because once this place is gone--it’s gone. I’ll never be able to have anything like it ever again.”

With Wacko now yapping at anyone who comes to the door, Dorothy Luke says she feels like an inmate on death row. “But you know the governor is never going to call,” she said. “We’re not going to get a stay of execution.”

But Hirsch says the developer has done it’s part. They’ve offered what they believe is a fair relocation plan to park residents--a condition he says was set by the city of Encinitas before public consideration of their project could be started.

Sooner or later, he says, the final deadline will arrive. Because before they build it, they must go.

“The two sides are still very far apart,” he said. “But somewhere between our offer and their claim is a fair price. I only hope we can find it.”