EVERETT – More than a dozen families facing eviction from a closing mobile home park in south Everett still have to move by the end of April.
Thanks to a developer’s promise Wednesday, though, they should have money to help find another place to live.
Residents say that brings them some consolation, but they still worry they won’t find spaces to relocate their homes before their moving deadline.
Gamut360 Holdings, which seeks to replace Holly Vista Mobile Home Park with 50 condos, agreed to pay 17 displaced households $2,000 each and offered to move or demolish their mobile homes free.
“The simple answer is, it’s the right thing to do,” said Bob Dobler, managing partner of the Everett-based development firm buying the park.
The offer was tacked to a City Council decision to relax building requirements, which allows the developer to build taller and closer buildings than city zoning rules dictate.
Dobler said his company recognizes the hardship the park’s closure has on people – some will be forced to tear down houses for which they still have mortgages.
Gamut360 will meanwhile seek reimbursement from the state of up to $12,000 for each mobile home it demolishes or moves.
Like most mobile home park residents, those who live at Holly Vista own their units but rent the ground beneath them.
When landowners decide to close, the tenants have to leave.
A state relocation fund, the only public safety net specifically designed to defray the expense of moving, is empty, because so many parks are closing at once.
Park owners and developers are not required to help tenants, other than giving them one year’s notice of a closure.
That is sparking a crisis for hundreds of Washington’s poorest residents, many elderly and disabled, who are being forced to pay thousands of dollars to move or demolish their homes.
Ishbel Dickens, an attorney with Columbia Legal Services in Seattle, has led a push in Olympia to enlist lawmakers to help vulnerable mobile home owners facing eviction.
Statewide, 36 parks with 1,342 households, will close between 2006 and 2008. Ten of those, with 533 families, are in Snohomish County, according to the state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.
A number of bills introduced by the Legislature this year target the operation of mobile home parks and the treatment of tenants.
The governor and lawmakers have also pledged to funnel $4 million to replenish the fund used to help residents relocate from shuttered parks.
For now, that won’t do much for the residents of Holly Vista, who have less than two months to leave.
Dickens said the park owner has a moral duty to help the residents being kicked out.
“It’s almost like the homeowners are the sharecroppers, and they’re helping build the investment potential for that property,” she said.
The Everett City Council in its deliberations Wednesday was told by its legal staff that it could not require the park owner, Paul McWherter, 93, or Gamut360 to soften the impact on residents.
The advice was based on a State Supreme Court ruling in the early 1990s that does not let local governments force mobile home park property owners to pay to move their renters.
At the same time, the government can require landowners to lessen a project’s impact on wetlands, wildlife, views, traffic and historic landmarks or artifacts.
Terry Klemetsrud, 62, who faces eviction from Holy Vista after living there for two decades, found that a curious paradox.
“You can protect salmon, but you can’t protect people,” he said, shaking his head.
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
