Another trailer park pegged for commercial redevelopment

Friday, Nov. 2, 2007

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Jesse Yeatman Toni Tate, a resident of California Mobile Home Trailer Park said the new developers of the property haven’t been communicating enough information to the residents about pending redevelopment. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Development plans were submitted two years ago, but the project was derailed when the county commissioners refused access to the county’s right of way behind the Bay Country shopping center.

Under the new plans, the existing shopping center would be demolished and 115,000 square feet of commercial space will replace the trailer park on 13 acres.

The developer is DRS Development of Virginia Beach, which paid $5,565,000 for the property.

The anchor store will be a Walgreen’s Pharmacy, said Dan Ichniowski of NG&O Engineering. A bank and four other stores are also planned.

The residents of the trailer park have been notified that they will have to be relocated. However, at least one resident said the developer hasn’t been forthcoming enough. ‘‘Nobody’s telling us what’s being done. Nobody’s being up front,” said Toni Tate, resident of the trailer park.

‘‘A lot of people right now call this home and they don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said. ‘‘They don’t need to take out the low-income housing just to put up another store.”

A workforce housing task force reported to the county commissioners this spring that 61 percent of the county’s population doesn’t make enough money to afford a median-priced home.

DRS Development would be responsible for relocation assistance.

At the trailer park, there is room for 24 lots, and at least 12 are occupied.

When the project first emerged, planners wanted one of the entrances to be off FDR Boulevard, which doesn’t exist north of Route 4. Wildewood is constructing a portion of the road as part of plans for new apartments, but it doesn’t connect to Route 4 because a nearby church owns the property.

‘‘The applicant since then has been doing his due diligence,” in acquiring that property and it is under contract for sale, Ichniowski said.

That way the project can build the rest of FDR to connect at the intersection of FDR Boulevard and Route 4. ‘‘That’s an asset in itself right there,” said planner Bob Bowles.

There will also be a right-in, right-out entrance to the shopping center between the intersection with FDR Boulevard and the one at Three Notch Road. The current entrance to the Bay Country shopping center will not be used.

‘‘Where the current entrance is, is dangerous,” David Berry said, planner with the department of land use and growth management.

The Route 4⁄Route 235 intersection is misaligned and has been since it was constructed in September 1980 for the new Route 4 road leading to the Gov. Thomas Johnson Memorial Bridge. The Bay Country shopping center was already there and the road was curved away from it.

The developer would also have to build or pay for a portion of the Three Notch hiking⁄biking trail, which runs along an old railroad right of way.

The redevelopment project needs approval from the county commissioners and SMECO to cross that right of way. Then it can go to the planning commission and board of appeals for approval.

Bowles said of the latest redevelopment plan for the trailer park, ‘‘This is a lot better than the last one.”

There are 23 trailer parks left in St. Mary’s County and new ones aren’t permitted unless through a special planned unit development. National and White Oak trailer parks in Lexington Park are going to be redeveloped as well.