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Not much is all they’ve got
Lucky and Elizabeth Robinson are among the residents of the Lower Pines trailer park on Ashland Street in Ashland who may have to vacate their spaces in about a year. The 10-unit park’s owners have agreed to sell the site to PremierWest Bank, which hopes to build a full-service branch on the lot in 2002. Bank project would close low-income trailer park By Sara Murphy ASHLAND — Elizabeth and Lucky Robinson sit in their minivan because it’s too cold in the trailer. "No insulation," says Elizabeth, who shares a bright-blue 1972 mobile home with her husband. It’s not much, they know. But it’s about all they’ve got. "You know the old saying, ‘We’re low on dough and got none to spare,’" Lucky asks. "That’s this bunch," he says, looking around the Lower Pines trailer park on Ashland Street, where spaces rent for $150 a month. "None to spare." The Robinsons and their neighbors in the 10-unit park across from Wendy’s may be asked to leave their spaces next spring. The park’s owners, Galpin LLC and Adams Group LLC, have a deal to sell the .6-acre site to PremierWest Bank, which hopes to build a full-service branch on the lot in 2002. "We just think that Ashland will be a great location for us," says Rich Hieb, executive vice president for the Medford-based bank. The bank’s chosen location, though, has landed at the center of one of Ashland’s toughest growth debates: affordable housing vs. development. "Part of what we have to balance when we look at development is, ‘Does that development warrant taking out affordable homes?’" says Rich Rohde, regional organizer for Oregon Action. "If you subtracted that they’re low-income homes — if they were somebody else’s homes — people would be really upset about it," he says. "People are really upset about it." Rohde is working to organize residents of the trailer park on Ashland Street — as well as tenants at The Pines, an unrelated park behind The Beanery coffee shop — to ensure they have a voice in planning decisions that will affect their future. "One of the key issues, I think, is whether people see this housing and the people who live there as positive assets in our community," Rohde says. "A lot of people see that as part of the important diversity in Ashland. "To develop them out of town would be a tragedy." On the other side of the issue, some folks say the property at 1651 Ashland Street is too valuable to be a run-down trailer park. "This housing issue that’s come up, it’s a little perplexing to me," says Dan O’Connor, a land-use attorney representing PremierWest. "Whether the bank buys it or someone else buys it, they’re not going to be running that trailer park. "(Chris) Galpin and (Gregg) Adams own the property and I know they have the property to make a profit," he says. "The property is only going to make a profit if it’s developed." Galpin couldn’t be reached for comment Friday and Adams declined to discuss the trailer park property. O’Connor says PremierWest has agreed to purchase the property from Galpin and Adams, contingent on the Planning Commission’s approval of plans to build a 4,381-square-foot branch office with two drive-through lanes. "It’s a good project," O’Connor says. "We’re not building a box." PremierWest — a combination of Bank of Southern Oregon and Douglas National, which merged last year — has 12 branches in Southern Oregon, including three in Medford and one in Central Point. It also recently acquired Timberline Community Bank in Northern California. Hieb says the bank is founded on "community banking" principles: You’ll get a person, not a machine, when calling with a question. The Ashland branch would employ about 12 people. "People doing business with people, that’s our philosophy," Hieb says. "Banks can be good citizens for communities, too." The bank’s request for a site review and conditional use permits, originally set for a public hearing Tuesday, has been postponed until Feb. 13 while details — such as easement agreements with neighboring property owners — are hammered out. One of those property owners is Ernest Lehman, of San Jose, Calif., who owns the vacant flag lot adjacent to the trailer park. He says the bank’s going to have to change its plans — he won’t agree to parking spaces on his property. "My bottom line on this property easement is that I will not go along with it," Lehman says. "I have nothing to gain from it. "Whether they can go forward with this bank project without it, I don’t know." O’Connor, who hadn’t received notice of Lehman’s decision Friday, says the project could move forward without Lehman’s help. "We’d just modify the plan," he says. Lehman’s decision buys the trailer park residents some time to organize before the public hearing, but he says he wasn’t really trying to help. "I would be in favor of seeing that eyesore removed," he says. "I have to be honest on that point. "Of course you feel bad for the people who have to vacate, but I think it’s inevitable," he adds. "Progress will happen." Some groups, including the Ashland Community Land Trust, are working to ensure that "progress" doesn’t forget folks who live on tight budgets. "It may be, in some people’s eyes, too valuable to be a trailer park," says Carlos Harris, president of the land trust board. "I would contend that it’s really too valuable to the community to become another strip mall," he says. "We have enough of those in Ashland." About 27 percent — or 2,237 — of Ashland’s households had an income of less than $19,400 in 1998, according to the 2000-2004 Consolidated Plan. Harris says The Pines and Lower Pines trailer parks represent some of last housing stock within the city for people with low incomes. Those properties, he says, should be rehabilitated rather than removed. "It will serve no purpose to a community as desperately in need of affordable housing as Ashland to take substandard housing and turn it into no housing at all," Harris says. O’Connor says it’s the city — not the bank — that’s allowing the property to be developed. Building a bank branch, he says, is a permitted use for the property, while the trailer park is "non-conforming" within the commercial zone. "When (the Planning Commission) zoned the property commercial, they’re the ones that said residential is not an appropriate use for that property anymore," O’Connor says. He sent a letter to the trailer park residents last week that said they’ll get a year’s notice to vacate if the bank buys the property. The one-year notice relieves the bank from legal obligation to help the residents with relocation. O’Connor, however, has offered to assist the residents by finding available space in other parks and contacting agencies that can help them find alternative housing. "As to paying cash for moving, I don’t have any knowledge of anything like that," he says. "The bank hasn’t made any commitments to anything like that." Trouble is, Rohde says, the residents are sitting on the brink of homelessness if they don’t get some help. "Whether they have a year’s notice or not, these people won’t be able to move those trailers," he says. O’Connor knows it: "I have concerns that other trailer parks won’t allow those trailers," he says. "They have standards." Sandy Burke, who lives next door to the Robinsons, says she knows it too. Several years ago, she looked into moving and discovered that her 1972 trailer "was too big for the old courts, not pretty enough for the new courts." Burke, who’s lived in the Ashland Street park nearly 16 years, says the court used to be in better shape. She’d like to leave, but doesn’t have the means to move — especially if she wants to stay in Ashland. "I call this the ghetto court, but I can’t afford to move," she says. "My income’s $309 a month. My rent’s only $150. "There’s no place else to go." Reach Ashland bureau reporter Sara Murphy at 482-4655, or e-mail smurphy@mailtribune.com |
