The Virginian-Pilot
©
CHESAPEAKE
The City Council on Tuesday unanimously rejected a developer's proposal to build multi-family homes at a South Military Highway mobile home park.
But a representative for the developer, KZ Properties Inc., said the Providence Mobile Court will still be sold within four months and redeveloped into condo units, resulting in the displacement of more than 100 mostly low-income families.
"Development is going to be happening, whether it's rezoned or not," said Jayson Day of Exit Realty Specialists, who said he was representing KZ. "It is a sad situation, it is."
Providence Mobile Court residents, many holding yellow signs saying "Where Are We Going to Live?" said the council meeting left them with mixed feelings.
"It is a victory. But if what he says is true, we have an uphill battle," said Katherine Stanley, an 11-year mobile home park resident who sells hot dogs in Norfolk.
After the vote, the developer's representative said residents would have about a year to find a new home, assuming the sale goes through. Activists with a nonprofit social justice group said they were still hoping the property would not be sold and said they would stick by residents for the long haul.
"We're not going to stop until we know everyone is adequately housed," said Lauren Cogswell, a volunteer with the Virginia Organizing Project.
Council members gave a variety of reasons for denying the request - none of them tied to the protests of residents.
"I don't think it's a great application," said Councilman Rick West. "I don't think we need multi-family homes there."
Representatives sought a continuation of the vote, but the council wouldn't bite. The developer's plan called for building 73 condominiums in a neighborhood called Highland Glen, and Day said KZ Properties will still be able to build single-family homes without rezoning.
The plight of the mobile home park has drawn the attention of local and statewide groups as an example of the disappearance of affordable housing in South Hampton Roads. The city is trying to develop a strategy to help find homes for mobile home park residents displaced by redevelopment.
"For years, these neighborhoods have been targeted for redevelopment with no concern for the residents," said Teresa Stanley of the Virginia Organizing Project.
Residents have complained that the park's owner, Robert Dietrich, has misled them about plans to sell the park. Dietrich declined to comment Tuesday and was not at the council meeting.
"We have suffered so much crap," said Bea Jones, who's lived in the park for 20 years. "We're just up in the air."
Minutes before, Jones told the council that she has always had a place to live. "Now, I'm 62 years old, and I've got to worry every day, 'Are we going to get a notice that we have to move?' I've looked and looked and looked. I can't find a place that I can afford."
Mike Saewitz, (757) 222-5207, mike.saewitz@pilotonline.com
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Move out!
My response to the Providence Trailer Park residents is: get a job and buy a home or rent an apartment...trailer parks are ugly, unsafe, and de-value adjacent property...enough is enough!
Working Poor Have Rights Too
Read the article again. The residents are working people with jobs. A large percentage of the jobs in this area do not pay enough for people to buy or even rent increasingly expensive housing. It is telling about this area that so many working stiffs are quick and even adamant in their defense of the the rights of property owners and landlords at the expense of people that might as well be yourselves. Maybe this is a side effect of too much tea.
blah blah blah
You buy a trailer park you get a trailer park. Right now the taxpayers of Chesapeake cannot afford to pay for the roads and infrastructure just so another developer can build more condos. The developers were only giving $50K for the schools when the city should be getting closer to $400K as Patricia Willis pointed out last night. So which of you want to raise the taxes to pay for this developers project again?
Kidding me
Your research skills leave a lot to be desired. Looking at VOP's website, there is no connection to ACORN at all! Looking at Virginia's State Corporation Commission, there is no mention of that organization in the least when you look at VOP's records. Where do you get this stuff?
They do, however, help people get organized who are getting their butts kicked unfairly. The owner of this park said he would evict anyone who spoke publicly against the rezoning. That's bullying.
Sure, it's his property, let him sell it if he wants to. The point is, south Hampton Roads cities aren't doing enough to help people in this income bracket (who are the bedrock of the labor force) to find decent, safe, affordable places to live. That's what needs to change.
The paper should do a
The paper should do a profile on every resident of the trailer park. I am betting the "bedrock" is actually sandstone.
the owner has rights too
The owner owns the property--it is a business--not a charity. IF some community organizers want to buy the property and keep the trailer park let them raise the funds and do so...if not he can do with HIS land what he wants. Anyone who rents knows that. This is still the USA.
Mobile Park
I'm very sorry the people are being evicted from the trailer park....but are we, the city and taxpayers required to provide funding and homes for them? NOT NO....BUT HELL NO! T^his type of situation is why we should require a new mayor and city council every election! VOTE THE BUMS OUT!
Issues
Though is would be nice if everyone got to live where they wanted and stay there forever, the fact is that the owner of the property has gotten a better offer. What ever that offer is, I'm sure it has nothing to do personally with the people that live there. As for moving the working class out in this area, it has been happening for years and the urban sprawl will continue to occur as long as the cities involved allow it too.
I'm not quite sure what this all has to do with people moving to India.
What I am sure of is that the jobs will continue to move out of this country as long as the median wages of the union workers is unstastainable, (ie GM). If those that complain about job losses actually did something about it, they would have less to complain about. Stop buying goods made outside the U.S., stay out of Walmart for a week, hit them where it hurts, in the pocketbook.
Stay out of Walmart forever.
Stay out of Walmart forever.
Alert - Check out Virginia Organizing Project
Look this organization up on Google and go to their home page. They are the point organization for many of Barack Obama's pet projects, including, as it states on their own History page, Health Care for America Now. They are also the organizing group for the Hands Across the Sand Protest. They also canvassed door-to-door in political campaigns. They are not as altruistic as this article makes them seem. It seems to me that their interest is in preventing the property owner from exercising his right to his own land, rather than in asssisting the residents in any concrete way to find new housing.
Pilotonline, your writers needs to do a much better job background-checking the organizations to whom they give free publicity.