The Difficulty of Displacement

Hallandale Beach bought a trailer park to eliminate it, but some residents are fighting back

Miami Sun Post © Feb 13, 2008

By Angie Hargot

Joe DeFalco, president of the Tower Mobile Home & RV Park homeowners association, is leading about 20 other residents in a lawsuit against the city of Hallandale Beach for unjustly seizing their homes to make way for a park. Photo by Richard M. Brooks

Diane Dupuis sat in a bikini, sunning on the porch of her 86-year-old mother’s double-wide, her brother George by her side.

“When we told my mother, she had a heart attack,” Dupuis said in a thick French-Canadian accent. “We had to move her back to a hospital in Canada.”

Dupuis’ family is just one of many that the city of Hallandale Beach has not only pushed out of the municipality, but out of the country. For more than three decades, the family has spent the bitter Canadian winters enjoying the warmth and sun of Hallandale Beach at the Tower Mobile Home and RV Park. Then, in August, they all received a letter telling them the trailer park would be shut down in a matter of months to pave the way for the expansion of nearby Peter Bluesten Park.

The 10-acre parcel at 600 Old Federal Highway in Hallandale Beach is still home to dozens of people — some full-time residents and some snowbirds like the Dupuis family, who now plans to spend winters in Mexico instead.

County records show that trailer park owners Dixon Perry-Smith Jr. and his company Tower Land, LLC sold the land to the city of Hallandale Beach on Sept. 6 for just under $10 million.

In March, the city’s Planning and Scheduling Committee, a subcommittee of the City Commission, authorized City Manager Mike Good to negotiate for “the 10-acre mobile home park” for an amount not to exceed $13 million, though few trailer park residents knew that at the time.

“It was a surprise for everyone — a lot [of residents] have already moved,” Diane Dupuis said, as she motioned to a line of boarded-up trailers. As a result of the exodus, the trailer park is becoming a haven for prostitutes and drug users, according to other residents.

“First, they offered us $5,000 to leave,” she said. “They cut the price by $500 a month since then.”

In the meantime, the city cut the residents’ $300 per month rent in half. The Dupuis’ plan to pay rent until the end of February, then leave forever. But some residents don’t plan on going so quietly.

Walking through the park, it’s not hard to see why. Their homes are not actually mobile. Some are too old to move. Others seem worth more than the $3,500 payoff amount they would currently receive. One World War II veteran suffers from lung cancer and requires an oxygen tank to survive. Several residents are disabled or live on Social Security.

That’s why Joe DeFalco, president of the Tower Mobile Home & RV Park homeowner’s association, and 20 other residents filed a lawsuit against the city.

Attorney Mitchell Chester, who filed the injunction, said the legal measure seeks no financial damages. His clients, Chester said, just want to stop the city from seizing their homes, based on the assertion that adequate affordable housing does not exist in Hallandale Beach and, therefore, the city’s efforts to push out the trailer park dwellers does not comply with state law.

“The money that the city has offered is more than the statute requires, but it is not enough to avoid homelessness,” Chester said. “They just want people to go away.” Chester is considering another lawsuit because the city is dragging its feet in complying with a Freedom of Information Act request that is weeks overdue.

The city has since filed a motion to dismiss the injunction.

“My home is worth more than $5,000,” said Maureen Guitar, another snowbird from Montreal, who winters at the park for five months a year. “Where am I going to go? My trailer is worth $50,000. The city made a mistake. They’re pushing us away. We bring money to the city, and they’re robbing us of our homes.”

Guitar, who refuses to accept the payoff money, said she knows three park residents who have recently fallen ill over the stress of losing their homes.

“All I’m saying is pay us what our homes are worth,” Guitar said. “Don’t steal our homes. If they sold the park for so many millions, why couldn’t they sell it for a couple more millions and pay us what our homes are worth? Instead, they said ‘take this and go away.’” Most trailer parks, which have age requirements for new trailers, would not even accept Guitar’s mobile home even if she could move it, she said.

Guitar said she is not worried that, as each day passes, she could receive even less money for her home. “We’re not getting anything anyway,” she said, noting that she also may have to winter in Mexico.

At the City Commission’s Jan. 22 meeting, another nail was driven into the coffin of Hallandale Beach mobile home park residents.

Greenberg Traurig attorney Debbie Orshefsky, on behalf of developer Hallandale Park Central LLC, acquired two land use amendments for its trailer park-occupied land at 426 N.W. Fifth St. One asked for an increase in residential density to 50 units per acre for the proposed condo development that will be built on the site currently occupied by the Seville Mobile Home Park. Although Mayor Joy Cooper and other commissioners were shocked that the exception to the code was brought before them with no development agreement, planning and zoning staff recommended approval of the items.

“There is a lot of work that still needs to be done,” City Manager Mike Good said. “This is just the beginning. When we come back, it might not even be the same project.” Good promised not to bring the item back to the commission without a full development agreement.

“Where’s the affordable housing?” DeFalco asked commissioners that Tuesday. “You’re going to lose your whole workforce by pushing people out. We really gotta start facing the facts. You’re kicking people out of the mobile home park.”

DeFalco said some Tower residents live on Social Security checks of $500 or $600 a month. “What’s rent going to be, $1,500 per month?” he asked. “You’re chasing these people right out of Hallandale.”

“This project is two years in the making,” Orshefsky said of the Hallandale Park Central land, owned by Luis Birdman and Harris Friedman. Her PowerPoint presentation focused on the city’s expected population growth of 13,000 people by 2030, the need for “workforce housing” and the desire to redevelop the area. Orshefsky said she hopes the project construction will begin by spring, although Good said the item could reappear on the agenda as late as July.

Hallandale Park Central, like the city of Hallandale Beach, also offered residents $5,000 to leave their homes. The developer approached residents via the land acquisition firm the Urban Group. City Manager Good explained that the state statute for evicting mobile home residents allows for a maximum payout amount of $1,375 unless they have a double-wide, and they must show evidence of ownership. Florida statutes also have a few different provisions if residents are warned within six months of a trailer park’s closing. Then owners don’t have to pay out anything.

“The project increases ad valorem taxes from $115,000 to over $2 million,” Orshefsky said of the proposed residential project. “It eliminates what, at times, is a difficult place to maintain — the Police Department knew the area all too well. In the past couple of months, we’ve been working with all of the residents. Urban Group has assisted people in finding new places to live — 109 of the 125 residents who have chosen the relocation plan started out being paid $5,000. It’s currently at $3,600. Eight of the 125 have not selected a plan. They have until May to take the option.”

Orshefsky suggested that the residential project set aside 30 units for workforce and affordable housing.

The mayor believes Hallandale Park Central’s project is a benefit for the city. “We’ve been very sensitive to this issue,” Cooper said. “… We commend the applicant for going above and beyond…. The only reason I would consider [voting now without a development agreement] is because it is where we want to develop in the city.”

Although Cooper attempted to make clear that the Jan. 22 vote moved the item forward, but gave no “entitlement” to the project, she was also concerned that, in a volatile market, a transfer of development rights to a second party could open the door to provisions the city didn’t anticipate. The “workforce housing” could dry up if the real estate market comes back and the rentals are converted to condos.

“Fully amenitized rentals are actually doing very, very well,” Orshefsky insisted, adding that “more and more families are moving into condos.”

Commissioner Keith London was weary of allowing the increased density. “Once we give the land use, it’s there for perpetuity,” he said.

Although both items passed unanimously, Good said the public has three more chances to hear the item: the planning and zoning meeting, the City Commission and the second reading.

The commission did not discuss the item on Feb. 6.

“We have 800 more mobile homes in our city, and we’re gonna have to deal with it,” Vice Mayor Bill Julian said of the future of mobile home parks in the city.

“There needs to be an investigation; somebody [in the city] has got their hand in the cookie jar,” said DeFalco, standing in the pink flower-lined walkway in front of his six-room trailer. When the trailer park was sold, the residents were not properly noticed, DeFalco said. When he came upon surveyors for the previous owner, they told him the work was being done to install a sprinkler system.

“This place has never been listed for sale. [Mike Good] was negotiating the sale of the land for $13 million long before March. There needs to be a federal investigation into the city manager and into the way they bought this place.”

Hallandale Beach’s next Planning and Zoning Board meeting is scheduled for Feb. 28.

“We are not going away and we are not going to stop our legal remedies,” Chester said. “There’s an affordable housing crisis. The state statute is extremely old, over 20 years old.”

Chester said he is currently laboring to alert local and state lawmakers to the ineffectiveness of the state code that applies to the displacement of trailer park residents. “It has to stop at Tower,” he said.

Comments? E-mail angie@miamisunpost.com

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