By Jason Islas
Staff Writer

August 14, 2012 -- The owner of Santa Monica’s Village Trailer Park will consider revising plans for a development on the four-acre property that would preserve some of the trailers currently on the site.

In a letter to the City Council dated August 9, co-owner Marc Luzzatto asked that an August 28 hearing be postponed in order to revise the original 486-unit mixed-use development to save some of the trailers belonging of the 42 full-time residents currently living on the property.

A concrete slab where a trailer used to be (photos by Lookout Staff)

“In the last two weeks we spent a significant amount of time exploring a large number of possibilities, and while most were infeasible we did identify an option that has the potential to be feasible,” Luzzatto wrote in an email to The Lookout.

“A great deal of work remains to be done, but we are cautiously optimistic that we may have found a creative way to leave some trailers/trailer pads in a portion of the existing Village Trailer Park,” said Luzzatto.

As part of the development agreement for the East Village project, Luzzatto and his partners agreed to accommodate 25 to 32 residents by “buying them brand new replacement homes in the city-owned trailer park four blocks away,” said Luzzatto.

If a plan could be drawn up that saves some of the trailers on the Village Trailer Park site, it would “help bridge some of the gap between the number of existing full-time residents and the number of spaces available at Mountain View mobile home park,” he said.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” said long-time Village Trailer Park resident Nick Sanelli.

But he was adamant that special care needed to be taken of the park’s elderly residents because, he said, if they have to move, “it’s gonna kill them.”

Mayor Richard Bloom, who supported Luzzatto's request for a continuance, said that the letter "shows that they are paying very close attention to the public process."

Council member Kevin McKeown, who has been a vocal advocate of saving the park, agreed.

"At July 24's Council meeting, members of the public suggested alternatives to protect VTP's vulnerable seniors in their homes, and I suggested a couple of ways in which that could be made economically feasible," he said. "I'm hopeful Mr. Luzzatto's consideration of these options, indicated by his postponement of the August 28th hearing, will result in a happy ending."

	As part of the development agreement, residents have been offered several relocation options including a first right of refusal for one of the 38 low-income or extremely low-income units in the new development. Sanelli maintains that getting rid of the park was “a crime” because it is “a slice of old West L.A.”
Some trailers at the Village Trailer Park

When asked if the Goldman plan had any influence on their decision to revise the project, Max Baldi, a spokesperson for The Luzzatto Company, said “No… The numbers in the Goldman plan do not add up.

"It simply is not economically feasible," Baldi said. "Our plan has a similar goal -- preserving at least some of the trailers -- but the proposal will accomplish it in a different way and on a different scale.”

But Baldi said that the new plan may just work.

“We’ve done preliminary analysis and the numbers tentatively work out,” said Baldi.

The details have yet to be worked out, but “we hope to get more definition within the next week to ten days,” said Luzzatto.

This development is the latest in a six-year long effort by Village Trailer Park, LLC to develop the property.

The controversy started in 2006 when Lazzutto served residents with a 12-month notice that he would be closing the park to build the East Village project.

The City originally contested the closure, but it became clear that under state law, the City’s power to prevent the closure of the park was very limited.

As a result, the City negotiated a good faith agreement with the developer that would ensure the park remain open as long as possible, while Village Trailer Park, LLC went through the development agreement process.

According to Baldi, the new plan could go before the council in October or November, but it is still too early to say exactly when.

"I'm looking forward to seeing the proposal," said Bloom. "I'm sure a lot of people in the community are anxious to see it, too."