Residents of Mobile Home Park Getting Taxpayer Funds

Help While Getting the Boot by Developers

 

By Kenneth C. Rossignol

ST. MARY’S TODAY

LEXINGTON PARK (Aug. 28) --- More than 75 families of the National Trailer Park and White Oak Mobile only have about six months to pack up and get out.  That’s about half of the original number of families who either rent their homes or own their own mobile homes and rent lots in the two parks which are being cleared out for new development.

The two parks which have served many employees of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station for the past 60 years, are some of the last low to moderate income housing opportunities in the Lexington Park area and today the St. Mary’s County Commissioners lauded their housing authority staff on doing a good job of obtaining state money to help the residents find new homes.

Instead of working on a buyout plan to assist the residents to buy the land from the developers, the county government came up with $270,288 in funds from the Flat Tops redevelopment project to give to those who are eligible at the two mobile home parks.

St. Mary’s Housing Authority Director Dennis Nicholson told the board that the first priority for funds would go to those elderly and disabled who own their own mobile homes for assistance in moving the homes to other locations and then the priority would go to the elderly and disabled who are renting trailers in the two parks.

Nicholson said that approximately 43 out of the 71 White Oak families are still residing in the park and 33 out of 84 at National are still in place and all are in need of assistance.

Commissioner Dan Raley (D. Great Mills) asked if the county’s funds which are being used to assist the trailer park families would leave the Lexington Park Development project under-funded and simply have the staffers coming back to the commissioners with their hands out, pointing out that the commissioners dipped into their piggybank for the trailer parks.

Nicholson told Raley that they could spare the money and still had enough to carry out their plans.

The assistant county attorney and the housing authority were complimented by Raley for his hard work on achieving the agreement from the state to supply and additional $115,000 to add to the county funds.  

“I would like to compliment the housing authority and Dennis (Nicholson) on helping these people, this helps greatly and hopefully will help them in moving,” said Raley.

The assistant county attorney said that the arrival of this moving money will reinvigorate the momentum for helping people in the parks move on to a decent place. The attorney said that while about half of those residents in the parks had moved, the progress had slowed with the summer doldrums. 

The Board of Commissioners was told that a visit by state officials to the annual ‘State of the County’ talkfest in Lexington Park, where the board bloviates to the chamber of commerce crowd, would include the state’s housing secretary, who has told the local officials that he wanted to meet with the residents of the parks.

The residents have been openly critical of the process in which the park owners denied any sale of the properties for months, denying residents more time to be able to find somewhere else to site their mobile homes.
The White Oak park is owned White Oaks Properties LLC., which records show is owned by Timothy Kotorco and Christopher Holt, both from Finksburg.

Kotorco is also the permits director of Baltimore County, leading St. Mary’s officials to wonder why he did not take the White Oaks residents into confidence much earlier as he knows the rules and regulations.

Owners of the adjacent National Mobile Home Park Partnership, who once owned White Oaks also, distanced themselves from the sale at White Oaks but a few months later, also sold out.

National had asked its residents not to lend an ear to “rumors and false statements,” clearly informing its tenants about the facts as they stand, without mincing words.

After months of only hearing rumors, the 70-odd mobile homeowners, local lawyer Jacquelyn Meiser sent a four-point letter to the residents on October 20, 2006, that confirmed the property was indeed being sold to an unnamed developer as rumors were soon confirmed that the park was being sold to a developer.

 “Jim” Gordon Welch said last year that he had requested at least a year’s notice and was resolved to stay put and force the law-enforcement to move his home if sufficient notice is not given to the residents.

Meiser’s letter that was sent to each of the 70 families said: “My client purchased White Oaks in the Spring of 2001. To date, my client has operated White Oaks in a professional manner and is committed to fulfilling its obligations as detailed in your homeowners package and individual lease agreements. White Oaks Properties, LLC has taken no action to change the use of the White Oaks property from that of a mobile home park,” Meiser’s letter to the residents stated.

The National Mobile Home Park Partnership informed its residents by letter, “We have been, for some time, attempting to develop for commercial uses the vacant portion of our property. As many of you know, several years ago CVS bought a portion of the property and has erected a drug store. We anticipate that we will have other complimentary uses for the front of our property.”

The National Mobile Home Park Partnership, in stark contrast to the adjacent White Oaks Properties LLC said. “We are presently committed to operating National Mobile Home Park as a residential home community. As an example of this commitment we have recently purchased twenty-five (25) new mobile homes, removed our older and unoccupied homes, and are maintaining National Mobile Home Park as a desirable rental community. At the present time, all leases of our park-owned mobile homes will be renewed in the ordinary course of business and we will continually strive to improve the quality of life at our park.”

How many of the homes and residents in them that National leased to in the last few months before changing their game plan is unknown at this time.  But the taxpayers will be paying to move people from homes that the developers knew would be only temporary.

The funds made available, if split evenly, would amount to $5,500 per family for moving costs.

The cost of a move of a mobile home can easily exceed that amount and with many of the low income families living on fixed incomes, the cost of moving is prohibitive.

An alternative for the county would have been to convert the park to home ownership with land packages and financing through the state but that possibility never gained any support from the county officials, even though the St. Mary’s Commissioners have often talked about ‘workforce housing’.

Ironically, many of the residents of the White Oak and National Parks have previously been ‘relocated’ by county actions, one the closing of the old Garner Apartment Building at Great Mills and the other being the shut down of the Flat Tops housing area.

Some of those residents were given money for relocation with the amounts at Great Mills reaching as much as $37,000, enabling some residents to buy trailers and have lot rent pre-paid for a year, in lieu of cash being handed over to the displaced tenants and having the money spent on liquor and lottery tickets.

The assistant county attorney told the Board on Tuesday that he foresees more such displacement of low income residents of mobile home parks in the future, given the record of the last few years, the commissioners have demonstrated that it’s cheaper to move out the poor than it is to find ways to assist them in obtaining a home, all the while the median income and median price homes in St. Mary’s County continue to soar.