Calif. Evicting Renters From Pristine Park

[Rose Siding]

CRYSTAL COVE STATE PARK, Calif. -- Residents of a mobile home park on the Pacific Ocean have long enjoyed a low-cost version of the California dream, paying hundreds in rent on million-dollar real estate.

But for 25 years they knew the clock was ticking on that dream. The state, which owns the land under their homes, would eventually ask them to leave so it could expand the surrounding Crystal Cove State Park and allow public access to undeveloped back country and pristine shoreline.

The day of reckoning has arrived: Barring a last-minute court reprieve, nearly 300 families who rent at El Morro Village mobile home park must give up their homes in one of the most expensive areas in the United States.
...
California bought the land from a developer in 1979 for $32 million, at the time the most expensive purchase ever for the state park system. The state didn't have the money to fully develop the park then, so it made a deal with the mobile home residents: They could stay for two decades on month-to-month leases in lieu of relocation payments. When the 20 years was up, the state still was not ready and extended the leases five years -- until Dec. 31.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-clearing-the-cove,0,3131243.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

A woman named Pirkle is quoted in support of development of the park for the public. But here's a snip from an old (poorly formatted) piece, apparently from an unspecified "Times" in '97-

snip>
Fern Pirkle, president of Friends of the Irvine Coast, said she came away with a generally positive impression of the environmental safeguards planned for the resort. "It seems to me that a lot of the environmental problems, they are dealing with very directly . . . Like almost everything that goes into preserving the environment, a price goes with it."
She said that while the rooms will cost more than some can afford, (*up to four hundred a night*) the trade-off is that public access will increase, "and that, to me, seems to be a public benefit. She noted the high cost of renovating the cottages, which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

But Jeannette Merrilees of Laguna Beach, who also toured the cottages Wednesday, was far more critical. "It sounds to me like it's going to be a resort for the wealthy, and it doesn't sound like ordinary people are going to be able to use the area," said Merrilees, a volunteer docent who leads tide pool tours for the park.

http://moab.off-road.com/pipermail/ren/msg03335.html