Midfield Mobile Home Park residents won’t go without a fight

A letter has been sent to tenants at the Midfield Mobile Home Park telling them they have three years to find somewhere else to live.

The City of Calgary said in a release, “The water and sewer lines at Midfield are over 40 years old and have long reached the end of their life cycle,” in the northeast community along 16th Avenue.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said tenants will be given a transition package to help with the move.

It includes up to $10,000 in moving costs, a $10,000 payout and access to counselling services.

“Council weighed all the facts very carefully before making this difficult decision,” said Nenshi.

“Now that the final decision has been made, tenants know that they have three years to find other accommodation and that they will be given a package to help ease the transition. We know it’s never easy to go through change like this, but we will make sure that the City provides the services and support tenants need.”

Midfield Mobile Home Co-operative president Rudy Prediger said residents are confused and angry over the notice. They called the compensation package offered from the city “a joke”.

“My first reaction when I got this notice, “here were go again”. This has been going on in here for years and it’s just to undermine us all the time,” said Prediger.

Looking through a box full of notices and communications about the park, which date back more than a decade, he said the co-operative was not consulted in this decision to shut down.

“They never talked to us about this, not one word,” said Prediger. “Why didn’t they have a meeting with us? Now we get people coming here from the media to talk to us about something we don’t know anything about.”

He said the community will be calling for a meeting with the City and will not be forced out without a fight.

He estimates he could lose upwards of $100,000 if he has to forgo his home of 40 years.

The City has also decided not to build the new East Hills Estates mobile home park at 800 84th Street Northeast, further limiting the options of where residents could relocate.

City Councillor for the area, Gian-Carlo Carra, said he believes the relocation compensation offered to residents is generous.

He said the land where the mobile home park now lies could become a mid-rise, mixed use, mixed income neighbourhood.

“My dream would be that you would be able to transition. It’s going to be very difficult to do that, but I’m confident that people who are committed to staying in the neighbourhood, and have deep roots in the neighbourhood, through Homewood Solutions through the buyout package, will find a way to make that happen,” said Carra.

Pointing out Calgary is in the midst of a housing crisis, Carra said the expectation is that the private sector will be getting into the mobile home park game as the City pulls out over the next three years.

A spokesperson for the office of Land Servicing and Housing said they have had a lot of interest from private industry in building mobile home parks and companies have been holding out as they do not want to compete with city property.

The Midfield Mobile Home Park, one of the two remaining city owned parks, was developed 46 years ago and consists of 173 mobile homes.

Midfield Mobile Home Park

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