COUNTYWIDE : Mobile Home Park Victim of Progress

Jayne Jessee would have paid off her one-bedroom mobile home in about three years. But Jessee, 31, probably won’t get that chance.

The Buena Park mobile home park where she lives is in the way of a Santa Ana and Riverside freeways widening project and is scheduled to be purchased by the California Department of Transportation.

“It’s the pits. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Jessee, who lives with her husband at the Manor Park, an older mobile home park off Orangethorpe Avenue, next to the Santa Ana Freeway.

A portion of the two-acre park is targeted as the area where the existing Southern Pacific Railroad tracks will be relocated to accommodate the freeway widening, said Linda Wilford, a Caltrans spokesperson.

The Manor Park is among 77 commercial and residential properties in Buena Park, Anaheim and Fullerton affected by the freeway project, Wilford said.

“It appears that the mobile home park will need to be purchased, because the access in and out of the park will be modified,” Wilford said.

Jessee and other park residents said they may not find the same low rent in another park in the county.

“It’s one of the cheapest places around, and it’s going to be hard to find another cheap park,” said Dawn Hinman, 27, a resident at the park since 1981, who lives there with her husband, Bill, 43, and her stepdaughter, Lucy, 15.

The average monthly space rent is about $275, said B.H. Woodson, owner of the 43-year-old Manor Park, which has 44 mobile home spaces. “No matter what you do, you can’t give these people a comparable location,” Woodson said.

The Caltrans project includes adding one traffic lane in each direction and one car-pool lane in each direction on the freeways.

The estimated cost of the improvements is $160 million, and Caltrans plans to complete the work by the year 2000.

Wilford said mobile home owners will be paid market value for their coaches and are entitled to relocation benefits.

Jessee’s husband said the project may offer an opportunity.

“I’ve been wanting to get out anyway,” said Steven Jessee, 43. “Maybe we can put the money (from Caltrans) down on a house.”

An open house for the public on the freeway project will be held July 29 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Buena Park Community Center, 8150 Knott Ave.