With the lives of 100 residents on the line at Park Mobile, 80 percent of them living on fixed incomes, the council is concerned about relocation. Although the proposed facility will be no doubt serve some of the residents once it is completed, one of the current draws is a nearby hospital that currently meets many of the residents’ medical needs.
Noting she wants to make sure staff has done everything possible to ease the transition for the residents, Council Member Vera LeFranc said, “What’s happening is we have quite an old bylaw for manufactured homes, then we are guided by the provincial legislation but in the interim we want to make sure that any redevelopment that happens on manufactured home parks is handled in a really kind and ethical way.”
She is hoping the staff will do exploratory research that will result in a meaningful corporate report. She adds, “The difficult thing is what can we, as a city, legally do? Compared to the B.C. legislation, they’re also covered under the Residential Tenancy Act. It’s just so complicated. As we let staff work their way through that complicated legislation, we’ll figure out where we need to step up as a city.” ##
(Image credit: wikipedia commons–Surrey, British Columbia Coat of Arms)
