BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Santa Clara County Housing Authority is abandoning its plans to redevelop Palo Alto’s Buena Vista Mobile Home Park with new mobile homes and an apartment building.
Instead, the Housing Authority will replace the utilities and develop a voluntary mobile home replacement program for the 4.5-acre park at 3980 El Camino Real, spokeswoman Brandi Johnson said today (Sept. 2).
The announcement comes after the Housing Authority put the $57 million redevelopment plans on pause in October 2024. Those plans are “unfortunately no longer viable,” Executive Director Preston Prince said in a letter to residents, dated Aug. 28.
“We understand that this has been a long journey for the community, and we are excited about the prospect of upgrading Buena Vista’s utility infrastructure and continuing the preservation of the park by providing affordable housing opportunities for the Palo Alto community,” Prince said in the letter.
Prince and his team declined an interview yesterday. Johnson said they’ll have meetings with residents in the coming weeks to discuss replacing the park’s water, gas, sewer and electricity utilities, and residents will get details about the replacement program late next year.
The Housing Authority, Santa Clara County and the city of Palo Alto purchased the park together in 2017 for $40 million after a campaign to save the affordable housing.
The previous owner intended to sell the property to a developer who would have evicted the residents and put up a high-end housing development.
The state gave the project a boost in December 2023 with a $24 million grant to rebuild the mobile home portion of the park, but the apartment building was still short $10 million, Director of Real Estate Flaherty Ward told council in March 2024.
Throughout last year, the Housing Authority made offers to residents for the trailers they own. But residents said their appraisals were too low, and they couldn’t get replacement homes that were large enough for their families.
Residents had independent appraisals that were “significantly higher” than the original estimates provided by the Housing Authority, according to Erika Escalante, president of the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park Residents Association.
Council has two emotional meetings to approve the redevelopment in August 2024.
Plans called for splitting the park into two properties. The half closer to El Camino was slated for 44 new mobile homes, replacing 79 RVs, trailers and coaches. The second half would’ve had a three-story, 61-unit apartment complex reserved for low-income residents.
Kids held signs at the meeting that said “Keep families together” and “We deserve better.”
Residents Maria and Nicolas Miramontes said they wanted a four-bedroom home for their family of nine, but the Housing Authority only offered three bedrooms because their daughter was away at college.
“I’ve never been treated this way. I’m begging for help to keep my family together and save my home,” resident Jose Ramirez said at the meeting.
Prince told council that the Housing Authority was struggling to accommodate residents around the size and value of their homes, and schedule delays were driving up construction costs.
“The reality is that we literally do not have the space, the available funding or legal means to meet all expectations,” Prince said at the meeting.
Bull! This county has plenty of money to even remodel the old Navy housing here in Concord California to get more of the homeless people off the street and won’t.
Just saddened me to see homeless people and there’s plenty of money and resources out there but do believe GOD ain’t please that people that’s able to build are not doing so.
If it were as simple as giving every homeless perso a place to get the homeless of the street, the ussue would have been resolved long ago. Truth is fo the majority of people who are homeless suffer from some mental issue including narrcotic use. And they dont want the help tha is offered and there are laws that prevent forcing help on them. So the cycle needs to be broken somewhere and yhat is through educa t ion. Start now teaching children how to become adults and then how to provide for their children all the support they need. Then homlessness will for the most part would fade away after 1 education cycle. Everyone of us is in part responsible for the homelessness even if you expect someone else to clean it up.
You read minds, do you?
A lot of money and time wasted, and the only thing to show for it is a lot of virtue signaling and civic self-congratulation.
If you rely on government for housing, food, education, transportation or safety, the results will always be subpar. People need to learn how to fend for themselves. If that means moving from an expensive town like Palo Alto to an affordable town like Bakersfield or Fresno, so be it. When the supply of labor dwindles in Palo Alto, employers will raise wages so that people can afford to live here.