Relocation specialists are meeting with residents of Nick’s Trailer Park on El Camino Real as the 56-year-old mobile home park begins the complicated process of becoming tenantless and permanently closing.
The 2-acre property just east of Poplar Avenue was purchased in July 2014 for $5.9 million according to real estate website Zillow.
Park owner Sunnyvale Park LLC, has expressed interest in closing the mobile home park to develop a new mixed use project, but an application has not yet been filed.
Oakland-based relocation firm Autotemp Services has already begun working with residents, according to Sunnyvale city staff.
The process will likely take a year as several steps are required to occur per city regulations that aim to protect affordable housing options for the city’s low-income residents. In December, the new mobile park owners hosted two meetings for residents of the park regarding the proposed closure.
Relocation “will be very challenging, but thank goodness we have a very experienced relocation firm that is really interested in going above and beyond for the residents,” said Sunnyvale Housing Officer Suzanne Ise. “It was during the December meetings that they really built trust with the residents and made it clear their mission is to make sure they’re taken care of.”
Most residents attended one or both of the meetings, Ise added. Staff of Project Sentinel also attended the meetings and offered to help residents with negotiations regarding relocation benefits.
The relocation specialist now has the task to meet individually with each household to gather information needed for a conversion impact report to be provided to the city, which could be completed in six months.
Future development plans cannot begin at the mobile park until the city council has signed off on a relocation plan.
The Sunnyvale City Council made some changes to the city’s mobile home park conversion policy in 2012 after three years of studying the issue. The old policy was reviewed again after the closure of Flick’s Mobile Home Park in 2007.
Nick’s was listed as “substandard” in 2007 in the city’s Precise Plan for El Camino Real. Living spaces include makeshift sheds, fences and patios. A dilapidated public restroom has broken doors with tagging on the walls and garbage in the shower stalls. Nevertheless, approximately 125 residents in 32 trailers call the park home.
The city ramped up relocation assistance, basing it on tenants’ actual relocation costs or requiring the applicant to buy the home for 100 percent of its “in-place value,” rather than the previous 85 percent. In addition, a longer noticing period was added so resident organizations could negotiate to purchase the park themselves.
There are 15 mobile home parks within Sunnyvale with nearly 4,000 mobile homes that make up 7 percent of the city’s total housing stock. Thirteen of these parks are in the residential mobile home zoning district, which means that these parks cannot be converted to other uses without a General Plan amendment or rezoning.
