Homeowners Losing a Great Deal

For three decades, Herb Williams knew his Balboa Peninsula home’s waterfront views and below-market rent added up to a sweet deal that could end at any time.

On Tuesday, that time came for the 82-year-old retired trucker when the Newport Beach City Council voted to close city-owned Marinapark and evict 57 mobile home owners within the next year to make way for a public park or marina.

Williams’ home, where he raised three daughters and hosts a neighborhood Fourth of July party, evokes strong memories. Moving will be hard. “I’m going to cry,” he said. “And you don’t want to be around an 82-year-old who’s crying.”

The council’s action saddened residents who have lived with the threat of Marinapark’s closure for years. But what angered many was the city’s relocation offer -- up to $23,000, along with some moving expenses. Residents say that is far short of what is needed to find comparable housing in Orange County.

“You’re hanging a lot of people out to dry who don’t deserve it,” John Rettberg, 68, president of the Marinapark homeowners association, told council members Tuesday.

Homeowners want at least $100,000 each and have hired an attorney to negotiate with the city. City officials counter that the below-market rent residents have paid for decades exceeds any possible relocation benefit. Besides, they add, residents waived their right to such benefits in 1973 when contracts were redrawn to provide below-market rates.

Both sides acknowledge the debate will probably end up in court.

Marinapark is the latest mobile home park in Orange County to face closure. The 40-year-old Dana Point Marina Mobile Home Estates has been closed and sold to a developer. The El Morro Village mobile home park was shut this month to make way for a public beachfront campground.

Newport Beach has owned Marinapark since 1919. Its 4 acres were a city campground until it was converted in 1955 to its current use. The mobile home park offers stunning waterfront views and earns the city about $750,000 a year from leases. But officials say that because the park is on tideland, state law requires it to be put to public use.

The city plans to convert the property into a park, a marina or a combination of the two. There are eight proposals on the table, and city officials said they expected to start discussing them later this month.

Mayor Don Webb said Marinapark’s closure would help the city address a shortage of open space.

“It’s a situation where a very small group of people has been able to use a valuable public asset for many, many years,” he said. “And it’s time for us to open it up to the general public.”

Residents pay between $1,072 and $1,550 a month to rent space. City officials estimate those rents, when compared with market rates, have saved residents about $14 million since 1985.

“I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the city to subsidize” the residents anymore, Councilman Tod W. Ridgeway said.

Some residents said they had recently spent thousands to renovate their homes and that the offer wouldn’t be enough to move them. Emotions ran so high that at one point the assistant city attorney threatened to have some residents removed.

Ridgeway agreed that the compensation being offered “isn’t fair,” drawing applause from the audience.

But then he added, “Life isn’t fair.”