Ace Hardware owner abandons plan to turn trailer park into lot

Gene Pedrotti, who bought a mobile home park so he eventually could move with his Ace Hardware store out of Southampton Shopping Center, has changed his mind.

During public comment at Tuesday’s Benicia City Council meeting, he withdrew his application to close the mobile home park, saying he didn’t realize the challenge of finding housing for low-income residents.

Nor could he afford to indemnify the city, a “boiler plate” portion of the city’s application that might have come into play when an attorney representing the mobile home residents threatened to sue if the park were closed.

After learning more about the challenges of being poor in Benicia, Pedrotti made another announcement Tuesday night. He pledged $10,000 a year for the next 10 years to the nonprofit Community Action Council, which supplies multiple services to low-income Benicia residents.

Pedrotti bought the 50-year-old East N Street Trailer Park, 501 East N St., in October after he became frustrated with diminished parking and other conditions at Southampton Shopping Center.

He applied to close the park, his right under state law. The closure would have displaced 23 residents, most of whom are low-income, some of whom are disabled or elderly. They pay $360 a month for their trailer pads.

Several of the residents of the park, also called Benicia Trailer Court, attended a July 9 Planning Commission hearing of Pedrotti’s request to urge the panel to find a way to deny the required permit.

Pedrotti had been required to submit a Relocation Impact Report (RIR) that outlined how he would mitigate those impacts to the park’s residents.

In addition to information in the RIR, Pedrotti told the commission that he has offered $5,000 to any mobile home resident who wanted to leave that home behind, and offered $3,500 to those who want to abandon their smaller travel trailers because they are too old to move to other parks.

Apartments would start at double the price the park residents currently pay, and mobile home spaces rents were comparable, the relocation impact report said. Moving costs would be more.

The report said Pedrotti would reimburse actual costs to move a mobile home within 20 miles. He would provide temporary lodging up to four nights at $100 a night while the mobile home was moved and set up; would cover personal property moving costs within 20 miles; and would pay costs to modify a replacement unit to accommodate a handicapped or displaced person.

In addition, the report said Pedrotti would cover a year’s worth of payment equal to the difference between the cost of the resident’s space at Pedrotti’s property and the cost to rent a space at a comparable trailer park.

For residents 62 years old or older or who are permanently disabled, the compensation of the difference in rents would have lasted two years.

Pedrotti said he had been told Benicia Housing Authority waiting lists were six months to two years, and one of the requirements of the approval would have been for him to handle those expenses for two years.

But he said he later was told by park residents that the housing agency was accepting no requests from most low-income residents, and the disabled and elderly were told they were on a waiting list that could take six months to “several years” before an apartment would be available.

“How long is several years?” Pedrotti said before Tuesday’s meeting. He explained he understood residents’ fears that his relocation impact plan would leave them out in the cold after two years. “I’m not going to do it. I can’t in good conscience.”

At last month’s Planning Commission meeting, park residents begged the panel to block the park closure. They said they didn’t want to leave Benicia and go to some of the cities where Pedrotti’s report said spaces were available.

They described the struggle they would have stretching their limited incomes to accommodate both rent and food. They told of the camaraderie the neighbors have and concerns they would be forced to live somewhere that wouldn’t accept their pets.

One resident said a neighbor was so despondent about the possible park closure that he had threatened to remove his oxygen and die.

Pedrotti rarely finds himself in the position he experienced that night.

During disasters, he programs his store’s computers so residents can make donations to the American Red Cross when they make purchases, then he matches those donations. His store contributes to many community events and activities. The hardware store has been a family business for more than 90 years.

As much as he wanted to avoid the lawsuit threatened by Irene Ross, an attorney with Legal Services of Northern California, who challenged the businessman’s intent and report, Pedrotti now has another concern: low-income housing.

“Twenty years ago, the Council fought affordable housing,” Pedrotti said. That has changed. But the city has lagged in assuring residents there would be homes they could afford.

Pedrotti called the city’s approach “passive,” passing laws but not requiring construction of actual homes.

“During the last seven years — it’s a seven-year cycle — 161 units were built,” he said. “Five were low-income.”

The city has been including what he calls “granny flats” as low-income housing. That is inadequate, he said. “The city needs to take a more aggressive role.”

He said older mobile home parks are on track to be closed, one of the most recent in Palo Alto.

Mayor Elizabeth Patterson agreed, saying the city lost its momentum when the Great Recession started.

Pedrotti said he didn’t expect to change the the city’s approach to low-income residents’ needs by himself. “Passing laws doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is not going away,” he said.

“I hope to raise awareness.”