Evictions
Halted as City Launches into Trailer Park Development Agreement
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By Anita Varghese
Staff Writer
December 3 -- Residents of one of Santa Monica’s
two remaining trailer parks, many of them elderly, were given a
reprieve from imminent eviction last week when the City Council
voted to pursue a development agreement with property owners who
want to build a major residential complex on the site.
As part of the agreement, the developer -- Village Trailer Park, LLC -- agreed
to halt evictions at the 2930 Colorado Avenue site while negotiations with the
City are underway.
“I am very optimistic that this process is going to end up in a positive
place,” said Mayor Richard Bloom. “We are talking about people’s
homes, so this is never easy.”
Trailer Park residents would have been evicted by January 28 if the City did
not enter into the development agreement discussion process, Catherine Eldridge,
a trailer home owner, told the council.
Eldridge, one of the residents who gave emotional testimony, said the project
-- which calls for 240 condominiums and 109 rent-controlled units -- would do
much more than displace tenants.
“If this project passes the legal hurdles, it will change the allowable
development picture for the industrial areas and the city as a whole,”
she said.
The proposal is one of several major developments proposed for Santa Monica’s
east side that will significantly impact traffic, with more than 1,000 new vehicle
trips estimated to be generated by three projects currently in development,
Eldridge said.
The trailer park redevelopment plan calls for removing the 109-space rent controlled
trailer park and adding mixed-use residential units, studio commercial space
and neighborhood serving retail, according to the proposal.
But the project’s developers -- Village Trailer Park, LLC -- contend
that locating workforce housing in Santa Monica would relieve traffic congestion
caused by employees who live outside the city.
In addition, neighborhood retail would reduce the number of vehicle trips if
people lived within walking distance of frequently used services, Village Trailer
Park officials said.
“We believe the project achieves many objectives,” said Marc Luzzatto,
who is president of the corporation, which consists of a group of investors.
According to the developer’s proposal, three separate buildings would
be constructed on the 3.85-acre site, with one of the buildings a single room
occupancy apartment complex featuring 109 rent controlled units each at 250
or 325 square feet.
Another building would feature 240 market rate condominium units, and the third
has 40,030 square feet of studio commercial space with 8,030 square feet of
retail area.
Parking is provided by 34 above-ground spaces and a subterranean garage with
469 spaces.
Council members agreed that the overall size, scale and density of the project
need to be reduced, and site plans need to identify more amenities, landscaping
and open space.
“I think we need to reluctantly enter into a development agreement,
but this doesn’t mean we are going to approve one,” said Council
member Ken Genser.
“It really depends on what the development agreement is because there
are a range of quality of life and financial equity issues that need to be considered.”
Developers are offering trailer park residents relocation options, such as
renting an apartment on-site, a first-look option of buying a condominium on-site,
purchasing trailer homes, subsidizing rents elsewhere or paying for relocation
to the city’s only other trailer park at Mountain View.
“We will accommodate the Village Trailer Park residents,” Luzzatto
said. “We will make sure they have a good, safe and secure place to live
on a site they have lived on for many years or at the Mountain View mobile home
park, which would more closely replicate the experience they have now.”
Many residents said previous property owners and managers have deliberately
run down the trailer park and not allowed residents to sell or upgrade their
trailers because redevelopment ideas have been in mind for years.
“I own and have invested financially in my trailer, which is what they
are trying to take away,” said Jack Waddington, who has lived in Village
Trailer Park for nine years.
“I prefer trailer park living, which I have been doing for 20 years,”
Waddington said. “It is my own space with a patio, foliage and no shared
walls. There is a strong sense of community that can never be found living in
housing complexes.”
Luzzatto said he understands why trailer home residents are upset, however,
he said they should not focus on what would be lost but what would be gained
-- units with more security, disability accommodations and energy efficient
new appliances.
With phased in construction and the apartment building going up first, trailer
park residents would not actually have to move for at least two years, and they
can immediately relocate to a rent controlled apartment unit, he said.
“The park was built in the 1950s as a short stay park for people coming
from the Midwest or East for vacation destinations on the West Coast,”
Luzzatto said.
“As the years went by, people stayed longer and longer until the 1970s
when it became a full-time community,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the infrastructure was never designed to support a full-time
community, and it has gotten worse because it just isn’t capable of handling
this much use.”
A development agreement halts the eviction process, said Eileen Fogarty, the
City’s director of planning and community development, but staff recommended
the City Council not finalize one until a clear Land Use and Circulation Element
(LUCE) vision is hammered out for the industrial areas.
“Everything we have heard has indicated that people would ideally like
to see the mobile home park not redeveloped,” Fogarty said. “There
has been a large number of letters, the majority of them not in support of the
project.”
Zina Josephs, a Friends of Sunset Park board member, presented a letter signed
by all of the active neighborhood groups in Santa Monica, including the Santa
Monica Coalition for a Livable City, opposing the project.
The signatories oppose the zoning variance from a trailer park to mixed-use
residential because the park is now a “quiet oasis of affordable housing
and economic diversity.”
City officials hold a powerful card because they do not have to grant a zoning
variance, Josephs said.
If a development agreement process did not begin and Village Trailer Park residents
were evicted, Luzzatto and his partners would be limited to owning a parcel
of land that is zoned only for trailer homes.
“The zone RMH is a mobile home park,” Fogarty said. “The
General Plan designation is special office district and the language in the
General Plan says to preserve the existing trailer park to the extent feasible.
“When we look at this proposal, while it meets the existing floor area
ratio of the existing General Plan, it really covers almost the entire site
and is a very intense proposal greater in scale than surrounding uses.”
One of the three buildings also does not comply with the existing General Plan,
because the developer is proposing to build it 50 feet high, she said.
Council members want staff to carefully review the square footage of the site’s
units, with a possible minimum square footage set to 600 instead of the 250
and 325 in the proposal.
Also taken into consideration are Planning Commission recommendations such
as allowing one-bedroom and two-bedroom units in the apartment building, providing
financial assistance that would let trailer park residents purchase condominiums
and identifying a more appropriate methodology of valuing trailers if trailer
owners choose to sell.
Another issue that Council members and commissioners hope would be addressed
in the development agreement process is how to prevent “site
ghetto-ization” because the current proposal places the majority
of former trailer park residents into the apartment building, while
wealthier new tenants would live in a separate condominium building.
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