Another Mobile Park Might Close : Development: Owner of Garvey Avenue property wants to build a shopping center on the land. It is the third such proposal in the area this year.

The owner of a mobile home park on Garvey Avenue is seeking permission to develop it as a shopping center--the third such proposal in the vicinity this year.

Owner Shawn Lu’s plan to close the Greeley Mobile Lodge has put him at odds with some of the park’s 40 tenants, many of them low-income or elderly.

Even though relocation financing is being offered as part of Lu’s efforts to obtain city approval of his project, some residents of the park’s 23 mobile homes say they may be unable to find comparable low-cost housing elsewhere.

“I’m disabled and I don’t drive,” said Josephine Valenzuela, 66, who has lived at Greeley for 20 years. “I have the post office and the drug store down the street, and the bus so I can go shopping . . . I always planned to stay here.”

Valenzuela and her fellow tenants find themselves caught in a wave of changing economic times, in which owners of mobile home parks are finding it more profitable to convert aging parks into shiny office buildings or stores.

“I haven’t raised the rent every month like other owners used to, and some of them don’t pay their rents on time, so I’m losing money too,” Lu said, explaining his desire to close the park.

He is not the first owner to think that way. The stretch of Garvey that runs from Rosemead to El Monte once had 86 mobile home parks on or near the street. Eleven have closed since 1985, city officials said. They added that most of the sites have been converted into commercial space.

One of the 11, Colonial Trailer Park in Rosemead, was vacated earlier this year. The owner of Redwood Trailer Lodge in El Monte also proposed closing part of the facility.

A decision on the Greeley proposal may come by September. Meanwhile, the Rosemead Planning Commission has asked both sides to prepare detailed reports on the cost and logistics of relocating residents.

Tenant Valenzuela says the $620 she receives from Social Security and disability checks each month is already stretched thin to pay for food, rent and doctor visits. She fears that rents elsewhere will be higher than they are at Greeley. A consultant to the owner said residents at the park pay between $200 and $300 a month for spaces.

The consultant, Gary Werner, a Diamond Bar councilman, said Lu is doing his best to accommodate residents’ needs. Werner has prepared a relocation impact report that outlines a variety of assistance measures totaling as much as $3,120 per tenant. Sick or disabled residents could receive ambulance transportation to their new homes if needed. Tenants also would receive rent subsidies for two months, and a one-time rent assistance stipend of $400.

The report also said the owner will try to relocate residents within a 30-mile radius over a six-month period. However, only about 15 available spaces have been found among the 49 parks surveyed, the report said.

Werner said four mobile homes had been relocated as of Thursday, leaving 23.

To counter the owner’s relocation report, Greeley residents have banded together into an informal committee headed by Tony Navarro. They say financial assistance being offered is insufficient, and that they may be forced to relocate in crime-ridden areas. They also question whether there will be enough available spaces near Rosemead to accommodate them.

Reports from both sides will be presented at a meeting of the Rosemead Planning Commission scheduled for Sept. 16 at 7 p.m.

Garvey Avenue was one of the busiest east-west routes in the San Gabriel Valley during the first half of the century, said Harold Johanson, El Monte’s director of planning. Numerous trailer and mobile home parks sprang up along the thoroughfare.

But when the San Bernardino Freeway was built through the area in 1961, it diverted much of Garvey’s traffic and sapped its vitality, Johanson said. Many parks deteriorated and became low-rent enclaves for senior citizens and struggling blue-collar workers.

Joan Stoner, regional manager of the Golden State Mobile Home Owner League, said the tenants’ concerns are not uncommon these days as revitalization efforts sweep streets such as Garvey.

“These parks are getting old and many haven’t been maintained,” said Stoner, whose organization has been working with the Greeley residents since June. “Land is valuable and instead of fixing them up, owners can make more money by making them into malls or office spaces.”