Residents Hope to Buy Into Paradise : Camarillo: Those living in a mobile home park get a chance to purchase their lots. But some say the price is too high.

Bob Davis and his wife chose to retire to Camarillo’s Rancho Adolfo Mobile Home Park because of its nine-hole golf course, swimming pool and the long roster of social activities for the park’s elderly residents.

And for the first decade after the couple’s 1978 move, everything was great.

“We were living in paradise,” Davis said.

But in the late 1980s, one of the owners of the 250-lot park died, and no one knew whether the remaining owners would sell and, if they did, how the buyers would run the park.

And with such looming uncertainty, paradise was lost.

But in the years since, Davis and some other Rancho Adolfo residents have worked out a deal that they say will make life in their pastoral community better than ever: The residents will buy the land under their mobile homes from the park owner.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for these people to be independent of rent,” Davis said.

Even the Camarillo City Council has jumped in to help, committing $417,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds toward a low-interest loan program for the park’s lower-income residents. The council is scheduled to set the program’s terms tonight.

Residents began two weeks ago to lay down $1,000 toward purchasing their lots and as of Tuesday, city officials said 117 residents had taken this first step toward purchasing the property.

The park’s owners have required that at least 175 residents buy into the park for the conversion to go forward.

But some residents of Rancho Adolfo say the owner has priced the lots far above market value, gouging the park’s fixed-income elderly residents.

“They’re terribly overpriced,” said 77-year-old Ben Weiss, who has lived in the park since it opened in 1978.

Added his neighbor, 82-year-old Harry Barnes: “It just isn’t worth it.”

To buy into the mobile home park, residents will have to pay an average price of $58,500, which will give them ownership of their lots in addition to a share in the park’s common areas.

Altogether, the residents will pay $14.6 million for the 35.6-acre spread at Rancho Adolfo Drive just west of Mission Oaks Boulevard.

Barnes, a retired attorney and certified public accountant, said he checked prices on comparable properties and determined that the park should cost no more than $12 million, with each lot going for about $45,000.

Barnes said he’s concerned that the city’s $417,000 will not stretch far enough to help all of the park’s residents afford the purchase price.

Currently, the average rent for the mobile home lots, which are typically about 40-by-60 feet, is $400. But the average monthly mortgage payment will be about $500 for residents who take out 30-year loans, residents said.

“How are these people going to do it?” Weiss asked.

Camarillo Planning Director Matthew A. Boden said city officials estimate that about 40 mobile home residents will qualify for the low-interest loans.

“If there’s 40 people out there that qualify that all need some assistance, you can see the amount of money we have isn’t going to go very far,” he said. “We’re going to be looking at those with the greatest need first.”

Although the loans would be available to people with household incomes of $27,800 or less, Boden said many of the park’s residents live on Social Security payments that total only $12,000 a year.

Despite complaints by some residents, Leonard Butler, one of the owners of the property, said the lot prices are fair.

He pointed out that he negotiated the sale terms with a committee of five park residents elected by their neighbors.

“Now it’s up to the individual tenants to see if they want to purchase the lots,” he said.

Those who don’t buy could continue renting from the new homeowner association that will take control of the property, Butler said.

Barnes and other opponents of the conversion said they believe most people will purchase their lots, even if they don’t like the price.

But, he said, “the way this whole conversion is set up, we are being forced to.”

Davis said, however, that he thinks long-term residents of the park have just gotten out of touch with real estate prices.

“This is an expensive area,” he said. “It’s just a little traumatic.”