CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLERIGHTNOW) – Weeks after residents of the Carlton Mobile Home Park were notified that the park’s owner had received a $7 million offer to purchase the property, the City of Charlottesville is getting involved. 

“The city is participating in a separate conversation about a potential offer that might hopefully make it possible for that [sale] to not occur,” Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders told Charlottesville Right Now. 

“We don’t know what the intentions are for the site,” Sanders said of the would-be buyer.  “We would imagine that because it is a mobile home park, that would be viewed as a lower of best-use options. So there’s probably a redevelopment strategy that someone is considering that then triggers that concern about displacement.”

The larger of the two mobile home parks left in the city, Carlton Mobile Home Park comprises just over six acres and provides 66 affordable housing units for approximately 200 residents, according to City Councilor Michael Payne.

 It’s a “wonderful, interesting neighborhood,” Payne told Charlottesville Right Now, describing one resident who’s lived there for 44 years.

In June, as first reported by Charlottesville Tomorrow, residents received notice of the $7 million offer from an unidentified buyer and an explanation that state law gives them 60 days to come up with a counteroffer.

According to Payne, the law says that if at least 25 percent of residents petition to make a counter offer, that offer must be considered. Currently, he said, 50 percent of the residents have signed a petition.

“I think what the City, City Council, Habitat [for Humanity] and other nonprofits are looking at, is, is there a way to assemble a counter offer, to ensure that none of those residents are displaced in the long-term?” 

Payne says losing the Carlton Mobile Home Park would be devastating for the residents. 

“There’s only two vacant lots in Central Virginia you could even move a mobile home to, and most of these trailers are so old, they’re dug into the ground and if you were to move them, they’d probably break apart,” he said.

Many of the residents own the mobile home and pay just $400 to rent the pad on which it sits. 

“Obviously there’s really nowhere else they could go,” he said. “They’d probably need to move into far Southwest Virginia or out of state were they to lose their homes.”

Payne said in addition to Habitat for Humanity, other nonprofits including Legal Aid Justice Center and Sin Barreras are getting involved in the effort to help residents make a counteroffer.

“There’s no guarantee if a counteroffer is made that it even gets accepted,” said Payne. “But I think everybody is at the table wanting to be able to make a counteroffer.”