Kelowna trailer park residents face 'demoviction' from their affordable homes
Walking into Central Mobile Home Park in Kelowna you see well kept yards, towering evergreen trees, people walking their dogs and chatting with neighbours. The community of mostly seniors is slated to razed to make space for redevelopment but they don't know when.
The mobile home park was purchased by Kerkhoff Construction in 2020, and the company has plans to redevelop the 24.5-acre property, leaving tenants in the 134 homes with an uncertain future as they stare down a renoviction.
Michael Hladiuk, 83, is one such resident who doesn't want to leave.
“I'd like to stay here, period,” Hladiuk said. “I fixed this place up, and I figured that they'd be carrying me out of here, but I guess that's not going to be the case.”
Hladiuk moved into Central Mobile Home Park in 2007. People in the park own their homes, but rent the land they live on. Hladiuk pays a pad fee of $590 a month and he figures his property taxes are around $300 a month for a home with a yard which is near downtown Kelowna and Okanagan Lake.
After 17 years in the park, his retirement plan is on the chopping block to make room for denser housing, but at the moment the development is at a standstill, according to the city’s planning department.
Hladiuk said he likes the community in the park, and isn't sure what he'll do when the development moves ahead.
"We all stick together in this little corner here," he said. "I really don't know... there's no room in old-age homes."
Yesterday, Oct. 21, Kelowna city council was presented with options to improve protections for tenants going through demovictions or renovictions where a developer buys an occupied property and forces people out, often to build more housing.
Central Mobile Home Park is among several renoviction situations in the region including Shady Lane Mobile Home Park in West Kelowna and the 100-block of Mills Road in Rutland.
At the moment developers aren’t obligated to do much for current tenants. Developers have to give a year’s notice to tenants about a potential demoviction and the city prefers that developers build affordable housing to replace demolished units.
The affordable housing has to be 30 per cent lower than the current market rate and it doesn’t have to match what previous tenants were paying, according to the city.
READ MORE: HOUSING CRISIS: What are mobile homes worth when a developer buys the land?
At Monday’s meeting, city council decided to have staff look into more protection for tenants in demoviction or renoviction situations. These protective measures could include making the developer have a tenant relocation plan, and other financial supports for people who are forced to move because of redevelopment.
This presentation to the council was just the first step. The city is going to work on a more detailed plan for what these tenant protection bylaws will look like over the coming months.
The city wants to balance protection for tenants with Kelowna’s need for more affordable housing. Almost half of the city’s future residents are going to be renters, and about 35 per cent of people in Kelowna make less than $60,000 a year.
“You don’t want to do anything so onerous as to slow down construction in this town,” councillor Rick Webber said during the meeting.
City council emphasized the lack of formal protection for tenants facing this kind of eviction, and that Statistics Canada reported 20 per cent of people cited relocation as a contributing factor for homelessness.
“It’s ironic how we think that we’re putting more and more rental units in the city and of course sometimes we could be taking a hundred very affordable rental units off the market and we don’t know where those poor people are going to go,” councillor Maxine DeHart said.
People like Hladiuk, who live in mobile or manufactured homes, face an additional problem because they own their home but rent the land it sits on.
Homes in Central Mobile Home Park have been dramatically decreasing in value over the last few years while most housing is going up in price.
Hladiuk has his home’s value assessed each year. Last year it was valued at roughly $208,000, and this year the value went down to $155,000. He said most of the other residents in the park are dealing with the same issue of decreasing value.
“Big developers, this is what they want,” he said. “A lot of people are peed off because of this.”
BC Assessment previously told iNFOnews.ca it values mobile homes based on various factors.
READ MORE: BC sees drop in rental prices but rent still 25% more than 2021
“BC Assessment reviews the best indicators of market value (sales) from both within and outside manufactured home parks to determine the assessment,” Boris Warkentin, deputy assessor with BC Assessments, said. "Some examples are zoning, current and potential uses, current and potential revenue value, and other factors. Professional appraisers at BC Assessment consider these factors and rely on market evidence, typically in form of sale transactions, in determining the assessed values."
Hladiuk said there is no set date for tenants to vacate the mobile home park since it’s up to the developer.
“We may have another two, three years. Who knows?” Hladiuk said. “Maybe we'll squeak it out to five, so that puts me at 89.”
Kerkhoff Construction was not immediately available for comment.
- With files from Rob Munro
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