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Take park buyout or fight? Either choice is a loss

As a mobile home park closes, residents split over what to do. Either way, they're told, the park will close.

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published June 26, 2006

SEMINOLE - Frank Laczo settles against the freshly fluffed pillows in the bed where he lies dying.

Over the soft hiss of the oxygen that feeds him through a plastic tube, Laczo says he has one question about the plight of mobile home owners who must find new homes after they are displaced for new development.

"Where are the churches?" Laczo asks. The churches should be there helping the elderly and poor who need it so badly, he says. But they have been silent.

Laczo's wife, Pat, doesn't have an answer. That's not surprising. There have been few answers about an issue that pits the rights of landowners against the rights of those who own the homes attached to that real estate as mobile home parks across Florida make way for condominiums, townhomes and other development.

It's a dispute that has hit the Laczos and other residents of the Harbor Lights Mobile Home Park hard. They've known for a year that the park was on the block. But a deal fell through and they were given a respite while the property owners and buyer went to court.

That suit has not been settled, but a new buyer has surfaced. Add to that the fact that the original buyer still wants the property. Then last Monday, residents were notified that the park is closing. Period. Full stop. Closing.

They have yet to receive their six-month eviction notices as required by law. They also were offered a buyout. But the offer has split residents between those who want to fight to stay and those who want to take the offer, cut their losses and get out, said Mike Rizzo, head of the homeowners association.

It's the vote of the association's board that will decide whether the deal is accepted. That vote should come sometime around July 5.

Pat Laczo, who serves on the association board, said she wants to fight. If she fights, Mrs. Laczo knows she'll do it alone. Her husband, 88, has congestive heart and kidney failure. Hospice workers visit her home. She does not expect him to live long enough to have to move.

"I'm stubborn. I want to stay," she said. "I would like to fight it to the end."

Mrs. Laczo also is aware of the difficulties many of her neighbors will face by having to move.

Tess and Joe Ladone, both 83, come to mind.

Mrs. Ladone is blind from macular degeneration. She also suffers from many other illnesses. But it's the blindness that will cause the most difficulty. She's able to cope at Harbor Lights because she knows the layout well after having lived there for 32 years.

Then there's finding a place. The Ladones live on a combined income of $1,100 a month from Social Security. Mr. Ladone has begun looking for a new place, preferably in a park where the residents own the land. One place, he said, wanted $93,000 for a trailer and lot.

"We can't get mortgages at this age," Mr. Ladone said.

Under the terms offered by the Travis family of the East Madeira Corp., which owns Harbor Lights, the residents would get $3-million to be divided according to the length of time people have been in the park.

The Laczos, who have been there 18 years, and the Ladones would get about $15,000 each if they took the deal. Those who have been there the least amount of time will get $3,000 no matter what they paid for their homes.

If they don't take the deal, they'll get only the state-mandated $1,375 for a single-wide and $2,750 for a double-wide. If they take it to court, they get nothing, according to a June 16 letter from East Madeira to the homeowners.

And, in the end, the owners will lose their homes no matter what, because, as the letter says, "The park will be closed."

The letter gives the Harbor Lights Homeowners Association three choices:

"A. Do nothing. Result - our offer will be withdrawn.

"B. Reject the offer. Result - the law requires that we pay $1,375 for a single and $2,750 for a double.

"C. Accept the offer. Result - each resident has a choice. They can settle and get a share of the $3-million. They can refuse to settle and do as they wish. Each resident decides what is best for them."

"Our offer is simple," the letter says. "It allows those who want to settle to do so. Those who do not want to settle can do what they think is best for them."

The association has until July 10 to decide.

The association has sent letters to all residents in a kind of straw poll to see what they would like to do.

Rizzo said last week it appears the majority want the board to accept the offer.

Those who want to take the deal, Rizzo said, tend to be the longer-term residents. Those who have not been there as long are more prone to want to fight because they stand to lose the most.

Some of those, he said, have paid as much as $95,000 for a trailer in the past year or two. Those people will get only $3,000 back.

It's a difficult decision, Mrs. Laczo said, because someone will be hurt no matter what happens.

"I don't feel like it's the board's place to tell everybody their mobile's going to go," she said.

"It a very hard thing to make a decision like that. I don't know if I'd want someone making that decision for me."

[Last modified June 26, 2006, 07:31:20]