Saratoga mobile home owners say they're being forced out

SARATOGA – More than a dozen residents of a mobile home park near Saratoga Lake will have to come up with $650,000 in cash or abandon their homes.

In a Jan. 9 letter to residents of Saratoga Lakeview Mobile Home Park, owner Brett Van Zandt notified them that Mike Giovanone of Giovanone Real Estate Partners will purchase the land on which their mobile homes are located. And because Giovanone "does intend to use the land for purposes other than manufactured home lot rentals” they will have to vacate the property or come up with the purchase price of $650,000, he wrote.

“This is a cash offer with no financing contingency,” Van Zandt wrote the residents. “The purchaser shall [also] be responsible for paying a real estate commission of $16,250 to Keller Williams Capital District.”

VanZandt did not respond to a Times Union request for comment.

But one resident said the small park is home to store clerks, waitresses and daycare centers workers who can't buy the park. Moving, she said, will be a heavy financial burden.

“Most people are low income or live on a fixed income,” said the woman, who would only speak anonymously fearing retribution from Van Zandt. “Most of the people will probably leave their homes, but they have no idea where they will go. … There is no affordable housing around here. People are looking to Schenectady and Glens Falls.”

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Currently, she said, renters pay $500 a month for the lot rental at the 3.2-acre park on Route 9P. Among those who live there, she said, is a family whose children attend Caroline Street Elementary School in Saratoga Springs. She said they don’t want to pull their children from the city school district.

“It’s a difficult situation,” she said. “Where are 20 families going to go? The mothers I spoke with are heart-broken.”

Cheryl Hage-Perez, executive director of The Veterans & Community Housing Coalition, said it will be hard for the displaced to find affordable homes.

“They have no recourse,” Hage-Perez said. “This remains a serious affordable housing shortage in Saratoga. ... They probably don’t have the funds to purchase land. Even to relocate is very expensive. Sadly, they have no options. They are going to have to move.”

However, not as quickly as Van Zandt wants them to. The letter indicated if Giovanone, who did not respond to a Times Union request for comment, buys the park, the new owner is “obligated to give you at least 6 months notice of its intentions to change the use of the park to give you time to vacate the park.”

However, Brian Butry, spokesman for the state’s office of Home and Community Renewal, said residents actually have two years before they have to vacate the property.

"HCR is working to ensure residents of the Saratoga Lakeview Mobile Home Park are informed and knowledgeable about their rights when a prospective sale and a change of use is proposed; residents must be allowed two years to find safe, decent, suitable housing and are entitled to receive relocation assistance,” Butry said.

Regardless, Hage-Perez said finding something comparable to $500 a month will be impossible. She ran down the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s list of fair market rental prices for the area. They are $809 for a studio, $912 for a one bedroom, $1,117 for a two bedroom, $1,389 for a three bedroom and $1,515 for a four bedroom. She also said that most mobile home parks in Saratoga County are essentially full.

“People who are from Saratoga or worked in Saratoga their whole lives don’t have any options,” she said.

This issue is aggravated by the fact that Saratoga Lake is being transformed from clusters of summer cabins into a bevy of luxury homes. The Saratoga Lake Association recently listed nine new developments pending in the area that include high-end homes and town houses. John Cashin, a board member of the lake association, said none of the projects include plans for affordable homes. He also pointed to another recently proposed condo project in Malta on the lake, that by town law, is supposed to include 35 percent affordable housing. It does not.

For years, Hage-Perez said mobile home parks were Saratoga County’s answer to affordable housing. A look at the website www.mobilehome.net shows the county is home to 119 of New York's 714 mobile home parks — more than any other county.

But if the parks dwindle, the woman who lives at Saratoga Lakeview Mobile Home Park wonders why there are no alternatives.

“Why is Saratoga only for wealthy residents and not for the families who provide the services that Saratogians so enjoy?,” she asked. “How can 20 low-income families just be pushed out of their homes?”