By Jason Islas
Lookout Staff

February 15, 2012 -- The Landmarks Commission voted Monday night against designating one of Santa Monica's two remaining trailer parks as a landmark Monday night, paving the way for the owner to move forward with plans to develop the property.

Residents of the Village Trailer Park at 2930 Colorado Avenue won't have their homes labeled landmarks after commissioners passed a motion 5 to 2 not to pursue the designation further after an initial motion to preserve the park failed.

Commission Chair John Berley, who was on the prevailing side, explained, “We don't have the authority to landmark such things” as trailers because they are mobile.

“The code requires that there's a physical betterment,” said Scott Albright, the City liaison to the Landmark Commission. The trailers themselves are registered as personal vehicles and mmet that criteria, even if they no longer have wheels attached, he said.

While it is frustrating to see this way of life passing away, Berley said, it isn't in the Commission's purview to try to preserve a community.

Planning Commissioner Roger Genser, whose initial motion to designate the park a landmark failed 5 to 2, said he understood the reasoning but thought some effort should have been made to preserve the park.

“In the final analysis, there is a certain aura about the place that is unique,” Genser said. “It's like an island, and we are basically sinking that island of culture.”

Genser's position was seconded by Commissioner Margaret Bach.

“The deliberation was complex, and I understood the reasoning to not designate the trailer park,” Bach said. “However, given the importance of the trailer park as a post-war housing type for Santa Monica, I believed that there was sufficient evidence to justify landmark designation.”

Genser called the circumstances unique, saying he had never been asked whether or not “to landmark a community.”

"Our hands were tied," Berley said.

Nearly 30 speakers testified Monday night, approximately one third of them opposing the landmark designation.

The fight over the fate of the Village Trailer Park started in 2006 when the owner of the park Marc Luzzatto decided to get out of the trailer park business and served residents with a 12-month notice that they would have to relocate.

In order to keep the park open longer, the City negotiated a good-faith agreement with Luzzatto. A Memorandum of Understanding designed to give residents more time to relocate is the main reason residents are still living at the park more than five years after Luzzatto initially announced his intention to get out of the trailer park business.

Residents held out hope that if the Landmarks Commission could designate the park a landmark, it would prevent Luzzatto from moving forward with his plans to build 240 condominiums and 109 rent-controlled units on the 3.85-acres site.