Preview:
Residents of the Kentucky Gardens Trailer Park shivered together around a pot of hot coffee Monday to discuss concerns that the park’s owners have hung them out to dry, while the owners say they have done everything they can to help residents.
Resident Hannah Morse and others organized the BG Mobile Homeowners United advocacy group in response to the park’s rezoning to planned unit development after approval from the Bowling Green Board of Commissioners in August.
Owners Joy and Eddie Hanks purchased the park in 2020 for $600,000 along with several adjacent properties, according to property records.
They revealed in July this...
Our thoughts on this story:
Have you heard this narrative before?
Owners Joy and Eddie Hanks purchased the park in 2020 for $600,000 along with several adjacent properties, according to property records. They revealed in July this year plans to construct “Digs on the River,” a 23-acre project to include apartment buildings, commercial and restaurant spaces, a boutique hotel and potentially a boardwalk down on the bank – but no trailer park. Those within the park, encompassing over 30 trailers, will be forced to move sometime after July 31, 2024, with 90 days' notice.
Yes, it’s the fourth such article this week regarding parks being torn down for a higher use of land. If you want to stem this tide the simple solution is to make mobile home parks a higher use of land. And you only get there with much, much higher lot rents. As I’ve said a thousand times, low rents = redevelopment.
But here’s also a narrative you’re seeing a whole lot of this week:
Many claim their requests to meet face-to-face with the Hankses have been met with resistance. Morse, a resident of five years with her fiance and two young children, said discussions with the couple were “making progress” until about a month ago when Joy Hanks requested any further questions be sent in writing and declined to meet in person.“I just want to have a conversation,” Morse said. “I just want to have a real, human conversation, and I’m a businesswoman too. I plan to be perfectly professional, and I don’t want any conflict that she thinks will happen.”
Mobile home park residents and bureaucrats think they can talk owners out of making smart financial decisions. The problem is that only money talks in the investment arena. The owner is not going to meet with the residents because it’s pointless and only opens the door to litigation in a screwed-up America. If the rents had been higher there would not have to be a meeting and the park would continue on as part of that mixed use development. With apartment rents at $2,000 per month on average – and you can stack them two of three high – mobile home park lot rents would have to be triple the U.S. average in many cases to even dent the rate of speed you are seeing parks close down.