Developers want mobile home parks

As vacant land dwindles in Pinellas County and developers bid for parks, worried residents look to their elected officials for protection.

By EDIE GROSS

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 15, 2000

Shirley and Frank Furtner found their little slice of paradise on lot 21 at the Palm Harbor Resort trailer park.

The breeze blowing off Sutherland Bayou stirs their neighbor's wind chimes and rustles the clean laundry on nearby clotheslines.

Manatees loiter under the park's dock where pelicans strut, hoping for a fisherman's handout.

The Pinellas Trail winds right past the park, which has an entrance off Alt. U.S. 19 just wide enough for the couple's Southwind camper.

In short, the trailer park provides everything a few winter refugees from Rochester, N.Y., could ever want.

"It was 15 degrees when we left," said Shirley Furtner, who drove from New York last week with her husband, their dog, Toby, and their house plants. "We just said this morning how blessed we are. This is just great."

The waterfront property also tantalizes developers. More than one has approached the park's owner, Roy Wilson, and offered to take the 4-acre wedge of land off his hands.

With vacant land dwindling in a county more than 95 percent built out, developers have begun casting their eyes toward mobile home parks. Ironically, some of the most valuable land in the county is occupied by trailers and doublewides, often owned by folks on fixed incomes.

The Palm Harbor Resort is valued at just under $600,000 by the Pinellas County Property Appraiser's office. Parsley's by the Gulf, a much larger mobile home park in Redington Shores, is valued at $8.6-million.

So far, owners of both parks have resisted developers' advances. That is not always the case.

In November 1998, the longtime owner of Snug Harbor Mobile Home Park in St. Petersburg sold her 38 acres to developer Grady C. Pridgen III for nearly $1.3-million. Residents of the park have protested the arrangement, which forces them to move, and have appealed to county commissioners for help.

State law protects mobile home park residents in some instances. A proposed amendment to that law -- co-sponsored by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Palm Harbor; Sen. Jim Sebesta, R-St. Petersburg; and Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Clearwater -- attempts to bolster that protection.

Commissioners are trying to decide if there is more they can do to ensure that residents are treated and compensated fairly in similar transactions.

"If they're given $1,000 or $1,500 and told to pick up and leave, that's not right," Commissioner Barbara Sheen Todd said after hearing Snug Harbor residents speak last week. "The best properties in Pinellas County are mobile home parks, and if we don't think we're going to see them redeveloped, we're kidding ourselves."

The county has about 275 mobile home parks and another 44 trailer parks, where the campers are smaller than 400 square feet, that are not owned by the residents who live there.

Under state law, if the owner solicits a bid to sell the park, the park's homeowners association must be offered the chance to buy the property first.

The law ignores instances in which the owner does not solicit a bid but is approached by an interested developer. The proposed legislation would close that loophole, requiring notification to the homeowners association in all cases.

But if the park does not have a homeowners association, as was the case at Snug Harbor, the law does not apply.

Snug Harbor residents, who live within view of Tampa Bay just north of Weedon Island, say they learned of the sale of their park after Pridgen had the zoning changed in December 1998 so he could pursue plans to build townhomes and large single-family homes on the waterfront.

The county rescinded its decision a few months later, after realizing that Pridgen failed to notify the residents of his plans to change the land's use, a requirement under the statute. Pridgen reapplied for a zoning change in February 1999, the same month he sent letters to residents warning they would be evicted in a year.

The county's Development Review Services staff has recommended that the zoning change be allowed. But county commissioners say they will not approve the change until Pridgen compensates the remaining nine Snug Harbor residents.

County records show that Pridgen has paid some residents up to $2,000 for their mobile homes. He also distributed information about other nearby mobile home parks with space available.

Ed Kittinger, whose parents put a mobile home in the park in the late 1980s, said Pridgen's efforts are not enough. Some residents just abandoned their homes because they did not want to fight with Pridgen for more money, Kittinger said.

"We had a lot of elderly people in here. They just got sick and felt they couldn't fight it. They just gave up," he said. "We just want a little compensation for our homes. What he's been offering is just not reasonable."

Pridgen did not return phone calls Friday.

Kittinger and several of his neighbors, who must leave the property by Feb. 29, appealed to county commissioners at last week's meeting. The commission was not scheduled to review Pridgen's zoning request until March, but Commissioner Bob Stewart sent Pridgen a letter asking him to update the board at its Feb. 22 meeting on his efforts to help residents.

Assistant County Attorney Jim Bennett said he was not sure what the county could do to protect other mobile home park residents from similar transactions.

"I'm not sure where we can go without running into state pre-emption problems," Bennett said. "Until we review the proposed legislation, I'm not sure where we could carve out more protection for residents."

The section of the statute requiring a new park owner to compensate mobile home residents for displacing them was declared unconstitutional in 1992. The Supreme Court is considering the matter.

The value of the homes from a resale standpoint may not be much, Bennett said. But for someone who cannot afford to move elsewhere, they may be irreplaceable.

Kittinger said some mobile home parks will not accept his double-wide because it is at least 10 years old. Furthermore, it might not hold together well enough to be moved.

He is disabled. His 78-year-old mother lives with him. He said he had hoped to remain indefinitely in Snug Harbor, a spot his parents picked out because it was surrounded by water and large pine trees.

"It was waterfront, and they liked the woodsy effect," Kittinger said. "They liked the chipmunks coming up to the door and demanding a peanut. It was just beautiful."

The plight of Snug Harbor Mobile Home Park has not gone unnoticed. Louis Hashagen, an officer in the Federation of Mobile Home Owners of Florida Inc., lives next door in Riviera Harbor Mobile Home Park.

Residents there are nervous that their waterfront property could be sold too, Hashagen said.

"When people move into mobile homes, the outlook is rosy. You think it's going to be safe and sound, and then you end up with an eviction notice," he said. "It could happen to us, too."

Oakley Pyron, who has owned Riviera Harbor since 1964, said developers have been courting him for years. His 30-acre property is right on Tampa Bay.

"People write me all the time, but I don't usually answer them. They make me offers, but I haven't taken one yet," said Pyron, who estimates that the highest offer he has refused so far is $7-million.

His property is valued around $4.5-million for taxing purposes, according to the Property Appraiser's Office. But it likely would sell for more than that.

Pyron said he probably will not hold onto his land forever.

"Everything's for sale if you've got the right kind of money." So far no one has named the right price for members of the Parsley family, who have owned Parsley's by the Gulf mobile home park since 1948. The 23-acre park on Redington Shores sits on the Intracoastal Waterway and has beachfront access on the gulf.

The park features tournament grade shuffleboard courts, a fishing pier and 12 apartments where guests of residents can stay. Its owners have not been tempted to part with the property despite numerous offers, said manager Bill Sheils.

"As far as I know, they have no intentions of selling," he said. "They feel this is part of their home and their heritage, and they want to keep it."

The owner of Palm Harbor Resort trailer park is not likely to sell his land either, said Gail Hasbrouck, a resident of the park since 1983 and the manager for the last 11 years.

That's good news for the Furtners, who plan to make the park their regular winter hangout.

"We even got a telephone this year," Shirley Furtner said. "Why not? It's like home now."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.