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Clearwater plans to relocate residents from the flood-prone area and create a park.
By CHRISTINA HEADRICK, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 28, 2002
CLEARWATER -- After five years of consideration, the city finally is ready to shell out $7.3-million to buy the Friendly Village of Kapok mobile home park and relocate the residents living in the park's 200 homes.
The city will use the land to create a nature park with wetlands and a small lake. The lake will allow the city to drain excess rainwater from other developments along Alligator Creek in northeast Clearwater, preventing flooding.
The lake also will filter pollution from the creek before it flows into Tampa Bay, city officials say.
This is the first time Clearwater has purchased a mobile home park, and residents will have a year's notice before they have to move, city engineer Mike Quillen said.
The city will reimburse the residents for the market value of their homes and help them find comparable homes elsewhere, said Terry Finch, who manages environmental projects for the city.
The city also plans to pay moving costs and provide temporary rent subsidies for some residents who have to move somewhere more expensive.
Nearly $17-million is budgeted for the project, which will cover acquiring the land, relocating residents and constructing the nature park and wetlands.
Acquiring the shady, 37-acre park is scheduled to be approved by Clearwater city commissioners at their 6 p.m. meeting April 4.
Engineers who studied numerous pollution and flooding problems along the creek recommended the city undertake this project five years ago. But as the city moves forward with the acquisition, residents at Friendly Village are anxious about the impending changes in their lives.
Tina Lafler, 42, has lived here with her two daughters for the past two years because it is close to Eisenhower Elementary School, where they are in the third grade, as well as near her job at a grocery store bakery. Lafler enjoys living here because her girls have a dozen other friends to play with among the moss-draped oak trees and she feels safe. She doesn't have any idea where they will move.
"I know it's going to be a heartache, because this is all they know," Lafler said. "They learned to ride their bikes here."
Residents have lots of questions that no one from the city has yet answered, said Ron Judy, 49, who has lived here with his wife, Deborah, for four years.
The Judys bought a home here after Deborah Judy suffered brain damage and was paralyzed in a 1994 automobile accident, beginning a series of misfortunes that included financial troubles and the loss of their home. Ron Judy, who suffered a disabling stroke several years ago, has spent hours working to improve his mobile home, widening doorways and adding a wheelchair ramp to make it accessible to his wife.
"What are they going to give me?" Judy asked. "Are they going to pay me for the mobile home? I don't know. If they do pay us, are they going to compensate us for all the handicap renovations? If they move it, it's a 22-year-old mobile home and what happens if it falls apart? . . . I can go on and on with questions that need to be addressed."
City officials say they haven't contacted residents yet to tell them about how and when they will be relocated because the owner of the park, a Michigan-based partnership called Wolverine Property Investment, requested the city not do that.
Within a week after the commission votes on the land deal, the city plans to hold a community meeting to answer questions, said Finch.
Then for the next year, the city will allow residents to continue living here, Finch said. During this time, the city will pay about $2.7-million to HDR Engineering to manage the park, contact residents to find out where they desire to relocate and help them move. As long as residents stay at the park, there will be no increase in the rents they pay for the lots on which their homes sit, Finch said.
"We're going to try to take care of them as best we can and be sensitive to their needs," Finch said.
For residents eager to leave the park, the city expects to begin acquiring mobile homes within a month of making the deal with Wolverine Property Investment, Finch said.
The city got two appraisals on the property, $7.55-million and $7.1-million, city records indicate, and then negotiated the $7.3-million price. The city expects a $3.5-million grant from the Florida Communities Trust to help finance the land purchase.