Residents of a Port Moody mobile home park face an uncertain future after it was sold to a developer.
PC Urban said it intends to build a 235-unit rental apartment complex on the 1.7-acre site on Dewdney Trunk Road not far from the Inlet Centre SkyTrain station.
PC Urban principal Brent Sawchyn said the company has been in contact with the seven tenants who still live in the park to advise them of its intentions for the site, but it has not been able to provide a timeline.
“It’s still early days for the development of our future plans,” Sawchyn said in a statement. “In the meantime, we continue to operate the site as a mobile home park with the few remaining tenants in place.”
The provincial Residential Tenancy Act mandates owners of mobile home parks provide a year’s notice to tenants if the park is to be redeveloped, along with financial compensation equivalent to 12 months rent after redevelopment is approved by a city.
When it does come time for those tenants to vacate the property, they may have a hard time finding a new location for their mobile homes, said Al Kemp, the executive director of the Manufactured Home Park Owners Alliance of B.C. that represents about 375 of the 1000 mobile home parks in the province. He said the average vacancy rate in the province’s mobile home parks is about half a site.
Port Moody mayor Mike Clay said there’s little the city can do for the park’s residents at this point.
“It’s a private land deal,” Clay said. “What happens between them is really not much of the city’s business.”
But as the project moves forward, the city may be able to leverage accommodation for those tenants as part of the site’s rezoning process.
“That’s where we have an opportunity to negotiate and flex what power we have,” Clay said.
In 2006, the city of Coquitlam adopted a policy requiring mobile home park owners to have a re-settlement plan in place for all residents that would be displaced by redevelopment before the property is rezoned. The policy also requires a residential developer to provide an affordable housing option for tenants who want to remain at the site.
Clay said Port Moody has learned some valuable lessons from previous redevelopment projects of mobile home parks in the city.
“Where we have an opportunity to be involved, we can say ‘hey, what are you going to do with those people on the street?’”
