Residents Move: No Replacement for Housing in GT

Residents make way for new town center

10:00 PM PDT on Thursday, April 20, 2006
By JULIE FARREN
The Press-Enterprise


GRAND TERRACE - Leo and Maria Garcia will drive out of Terrace Pines Mobile Home Park for the last time today.


Stan Lim / The Press-Enterprise
Joe Boyd, a resident of the Terrace Pines Mobile Home Park in Grand Terrace, is reflected as he plays in a the grass around an unoccupied mobile home. The park is scheduled to be the new home of Lowe's Garden Center.

The couple will take 14 years of belongings and memories from the Michigan Avenue trailer park and create a new life at another mobile-home park in Reche Canyon.

The Garcias are among 27 owners who sold their mobile homes to make way for development of the Grand Terrace Town Center along Barton Road and Michigan Avenue.

Leo Garcia, 56, said he had heard of mobile-home owners being displaced in other cities by redevelopment.

"I never imagined that it was going to happen to me," Garcia said.

The mobile-home park demolition plans have gone more smoothly than the city's efforts to take the Barton Road home of Jo Stringfield, who is fighting the eminent-domain proceedings.

Stringfield does not want to leave her family home. Her 1.9 acre parcel is within the 20 acres planned for the town center, which will include a Stater Bros. Market and Lowe's Home Improvement store as its anchors.

The mobile-home park, which is more than 50 years old, will be demolished after May 1, said property manager Sarah Sandlin. All of the tenants will have moved by then, she said.

The park, along with other property, was purchased for development by a company called D&MJFHI, LLC, last summer, Sandlin said. The land where the park sits will be the home of the Lowe's Garden Center, she said.

Sandlin said she began meeting with residents in October to talk about selling their mobile homes and relocation options.

"My main goal was not to push them out there and say 'Good luck to you,' " said Sandlin, a marketing assistant for the property developer. "It was 'What is the best solution for you?' "

The residents had lived at the park between six months and 22 years, said Sandlin.

The amount of money given to each owner depended on their circumstances, along with the year and model of the mobile home.

Sandlin said the owners were paid $9,000 and up for their homes.

Half of the owners received help finding a new home.

Twenty-one of the 27 owners already have moved, Sandlin said.

Alex Belforti, 30, and her family chose to move to a rental house in Bloomington.

Belforti, her father, Giuseppe, 82; mother, Yoleida, 54; and sister, Gioconda, 32, lived at Space 24 in the park for almost two years.

When she heard that the park was going to be sold, Belforti decided she wanted to live in another mobile-home park, she said.

"At the beginning, I wanted to be relocated," she said. "But then I found out that my (mobile home) was too old so it couldn't be moved."

She saw a newspaper ad for a four-bedroom home rental and the family moved in late January.

The Garcias chose a mobile home in Reche Canyon but plan to live with their son, Daniel, for several weeks at his house. Leo Garcia said they will have to keep things in storage before they can move in to their new home.

They moved to Grand Terrace 14 years ago after living in Riverside, Garcia said. He was impressed with the mobile-home park when they first moved in.

"It was real quiet, real clean, real nice people," he said.

But over the last few years, the park had started to deteriorate, residents said.

Craig Freeman, 49, said he had noticed the difference. He and his wife, Laurel, moved into the park seven years ago after selling their home in Perris.

Freeman said the park did not have an on-site manager. The lawns, which were the owners' responsibility, were not being kept up. Even the streetlights were not being replaced.

Freeman, who moved with his wife in late January to a mobile-home park in Colton, said he supports the town center project and believes it's a good move for the city.

"I think it's going to bring in needed revenue," Freeman said. "The city of Grand Terrace just needs to progress."

Reach Julie Farren at (909) 806-3066 or jfarren@PE.com