By Jason Islas
Lookout Staff

December 5, 2011 -- The City Council Tuesday night will take up a "last ditch effort" to save one of Santa Monica's two remaining mobile home parks, but the council member behind the effort concedes the prospect seems unlikely.

At Council member Keven McKeown's behest, the council will once again explore options to halt plans by property owner Marc Lazzutto to turn the Village Trailer Park on Colorado Avenue near Stewart Street into a condominium complex, including purchasing the property.

“This is a last-ditch attempt” to save the park, Council member Kevin McKeown, who has been a vocal supporter of keeping Village Trailer Park open, told The Lookout Friday.

McKeown is hoping that the council will direct staff to look into buying the land from Lazzutto or work out another way to save the park, which provides some of the most affordable housing in the beachside city.

However, it doesn't look promising. Efforts to explore the options failed to move forward on November 22, when McKeown and Mayor Pro Tem Gleam Davis supported the motion voted on by only four of the seven council members.

McKeown decided to continue the item on Tuesday's agenda in the hopes of garnering more support from a full dais.

At the November meeting, City Staff reported that, according to recent appraisals, the cost of buying the park – a 3.85-acre property – would set the city back $22 to $30 million.

However, local landlord attorney Rosario Perry, in a letter to the council, estimated that the actual fair market value is closer to $8 million.

Tuesday's action will be the council's last effort to end the five-year battle to save Village Trailer Park, although tenants have threatened to take legal action against the property owner, according to McKeown.

The controversy started in 2006 when Lazzutto served residents with a 12-month notice that he would be closing the park to build 240 condominiums and 109 rent-controlled units and that they would have to relocate.

News of the pending closure caused a stir among the park residents, many of whom are elderly or disabled.

The City initially contested the closure, but officials determined they had no legal grounds for preventing Lazzutto from getting out of the mobile home business, according to City Staff.

That isn't much comfort to residents.

“The people who are living here have nowhere to go and don't want to move,” Village Trailer Park resident Nick Sanelli told The Lookout.

Residents from the trailer park were given priority on Community Corporation's lengthy waiting list for affordable housing, but McKeown thinks relocation is more complicated than just finding a new place for many residents.

“There are 40 or 50 vulnerable seniors” living there, McKeown said. He added that forcing them to move could be traumatic to those who expected to live out their lives in the park.

McKeown said that even if the council doesn't move forward, the tenants will continue to fight to keep their trailer homes.

“They're feisty,” McKeown said.