By Christopher Neely | Source
Railroad runs between two mobilehome parks, Castle Mobile Estates and Blue & Gold Star MHP
The tone of Christine Miguel’s voice was stern, rigid and uncompromising as she told Santa Cruz County government officials she planned to stand her ground.
“I am giving the Regional Transportation Commission notice that you are not allowed on my property,” Miguel, a resident of the Castle Mobile Estates park in Capitola, said before a county mobile home advisory panel on Thursday.
Miguel believed the commission was using bully tactics, and pointed to the RTC’s plan to send a team of land surveyors to the mobile home park next week to collect data on how to settle a sharply intensifying land dispute between the agency and residents. For each side, the stakes are so high that neither have given an inch since the issue was first raised 19 months ago.
If the RTC is correct, that more than 40 of the lots at Castle Mobile Estates and the adjacent Blue & Gold Star Mobile Home Park partially sit on the agency’s property and in the way of its long-envisioned Coastal Rail Trail and passenger trail project, it could mean park residents — who are largely low-income and are older adults — are hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs to move their properties. However, if park residents are correct that the mobile home parks control the rights to the land in question, it could upend a once-in-a-generation project to build the county rail and trail system.
Both mobile home parks ignored the agency’s June 30 deadline to clear out from the RTC’s property. Earlier this month, the agency alerted residents of its plan to send surveyors to the properties next week because the RTC “must move forward with collecting on-site information to inform options for removing or relocating unauthorized encroachments.”
Although the agency is firm in its civil code interpretation that surveyors have a right to access properties and collect data, Miguel and several residents disagree and plan to block the surveyors from entering their lots.
“If RTC sends surveyors there next week and residents ask them to get off the property and they don’t, I imagine residents will call the police,” Ed Chun, attorney for Millennium Housing, the Costa Mesa-based nonprofit that owns Castle Mobile Estates, told Lookout on Thursday. Chun sent a letter on behalf of Millennium last week informing residents that “whether you decide to allow [the RTC] to enter your space is up to you.” Millennium, he said, does not support the RTC’s surveying effort.
The issue has taken a turn since last month, when RTC Executive Director Sarah Christensen signaled that the agency was working collaboratively with Millennium and the City of Capitola to resolve the encroachments and keep the issue out of court. Just weeks later, a data collection effort appears poised for confrontation, and Christensen’s concerns now include the safety of the surveyors.
“I don’t know how this is going to go, I just hope things remain civil,” Christensen said outside of the mobile home commission meeting on Thursday. “Safety is the top priority. I’m not sure exactly what our direction to the surveyors will be, but that is the priority.”
Despite the agency’s efforts, Christensen acknowledged that the dispute over the encroachment would likely need to be settled in the venue of last resort: the courtroom.
Thursday’s meeting was charged, with several mobile home park residents verbally challenging the RTC claims about the land dispute. One resident said the encroachment issue was simply a “narrative” and that he hoped the issue would be taken to court. Chants of “Hear, hear!” rang throughout the room.
District 1 County Supervisor Manu Koenig, seated with mobile home park commissioners, said he supported the litigation route.
“I don’t disagree with those in the audience who are saying, yeah, it’s time for courts,” Koenig said. “If that’s what it needs to settle who owns what here, then, yeah … if that’s how we need to resolve it, then fine.”
