Unable to resolve several challenges aired Thursday night by an attorney representing a trailer park’s residents, Benicia Planning Commission postponed until August a decision on whether to permit closure of the park at the request of its new owner.

Gene Pedrotti, owner of Pedrotti’s Ace Hardware, bought the 50-year-old East N Street Trailer Park, 501 East N St., in October, and asked the commission for permission to turn the 1.1-acre site into a vacant lot.

On one hand, state law gives Benicia little option but to approve the request, even though closing the oldest trailer park in Solano County would displace 23 residents, Community Development Director Christina Ratcliffe told the commission during Thursday’s meeting.

In addition, most of the residents are low-income, elderly or disabled people who said they could ill afford to move or pay higher pad or apartment rents. Nor did they want to move to such cities as Vallejo, Antioch or Concord, as a report Pedrotti submitted suggested.

One resident told the panel that a neighbor threatened suicide if the park is closed.

Ratcliffe said the commission does have the right to make sure Pedrotti’s Relocation Impact Report (RIR) and relocation plan for residents of the park, also called the Benicia Trailer Court, mitigate the impacts of moving the low- and moderate-income residents for “a reasonable transition period” as well as handle long-term displacement.

Pedrotti’s family-owned hardware company has been in business for more than 90 years. He has been a long-time tenant of Southampton Shopping Center, but he has had disputes with the way the plaza’s owner, Weingarten Realty, operates its commercial development.

Among his concerns has been encroachment on parking spaces by automatic teller kiosks, recycling bins and other structures that have been added to the shopping center.

Pedrotti told the commission Thursday that other businesses — ABC Music and Bookshop Benicia, in particular — have moved from the shopping center to First Street, but that’s not an option for his hardware store. Nor are there many flat parcels for sale here that would be suitable for a new building, he said.

However, his hardware store plans weren’t in front of the commission Thursday night. Instead, Pedrotti asked permission to turn the trailer park into a vacant lot — a legitimate “new use” under state law, both Ratcliffe and contract city attorney Kat Wellman said.

That didn’t make Commissioner Steve Young happy.

Young repeatedly but unsuccessfully sought a description of the ultimate use of the land.

“I understand this is a difficult process,” Pedrotti told the commission. “I struggled with that.”

He said he sought other options for a year before finally making the purchase, but afterward he found running a trailer park was too complicated.

“I sell hardware,” he explained.

Pedrotti said he hired Overland, Pacific and Cutler, of Irvine, to prepare his RIR and relocation plan, and brought in attorney Jack Schwartz, who specializes in mobile home park law, “for due diligence.”

In addition to information in his 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.

The RIR said more than 35 mobile home and recreational vehicle parks within 20 miles of Pedrotti’s property were examined.

While Ninth Street tenants pay $360 a month for their pads, rental space in other parks range from $600 to $875. Most would accept mobile homes that are 10 years old or younger, the RIR said, though Vallejo Mobile Home Community and RV Park in Vallejo would accept travel trailers.

Mobile home prices range from $25,000 to $150,000, but the report said the agency received “a very limited response” when researchers sought information about availability.

Only one mobile home was available for rent in the area, and that would cost $1,100, the report said.

Other types of housing were sought within 15 miles of Pedrotti’s property, and apartment rents ranged from $725 to $2,070 a month, according to the RIR.

The report said information about Benicia Housing Authority’s low-income accommodations has been provided to the trailer park’s occupants, but they told the Council that applicants can wait years before they become eligible.

Moving mobile homes can cost as little as $5,000 and as much as $16,000, depending on its size, the report said. The cost to move travel trailers depends on its condition and whether it can be towed, it said.

Cost to demolish and remove a mobile home is $3,000 to $4,000.

Should a trailer park resident decide to move into an apartment, moving costs range from $880 to $1,570, the RIR said.

California Government Code Section 65800 gives Benicia the authority to require Pedrotti to mitigate the impact of the park’s closure, but limits those costs to those considered reasonable and associated with relocation.

As requirements for condition of approval of Pedrotti’s request, Benicia Municipal Code lists those reasonable costs as payment of the cost to move the owner-occupied mobile home or trailer and its contents to a maximum of 10 miles from the park; moving assistance for low- and moderate-income residents for 12 months if they move to a comparable mobile home park or rental housing; and moving assistance for two years to those 62 and older and to any who are medically permanently disabled.

Another condition is for there to be land zoned for replacement housing or adequate space in other mobile home parks for the displaced residents.

The RIR said moving the trailers to another mobile home park “is likely not an option” for most of the residents, because finding spaces for the trailers, “particularly for the older coaches, will be a challenge, if not impossible.”

Most of the residents are on fixed incomes or qualify as having extremely and very low income levels. That would make purchases of comparable mobile homes in a different park a financial burden on the residents, most of whom have said they don’t want to leave Benicia, their long-time home.

Some of the residents are disabled, requiring wheelchair access, and others have pets they said they don’t want to surrender if new accommodations don’t accept animals.

The report said Pedrotti would reimburse actual costs to move a mobile home within 20 miles; provide temporary lodging up to four nights at $100 a night while the mobile home is being moved and set up; cover personal property moving costs within 20 miles; pay costs to modify a replacement unit to accommodate a handicapped or displaced person; and 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, unless the resident is 62 years old or older or is permanently disabled. In the latter case, the compensation of the difference in rents would last two years.

If a resident’s mobile home can’t be moved, the report said Pedrotti would pay costs of moving personal property within 20 miles of the park. For those with low and moderate incomes, Pedrotti would pay the difference in “economic rent” of a mobile home at his park and the replacement housing rent, which the report said would start at $600 and go up to $1,100, instead of the $360 a month the park tenants actually pay.

Young pounced on the phrase “economic rent,” which the report used to describe combining pad rent as well as the inherent value of the mobile home or travel trailer. He said that combination would reduce the compensation Pedrotti would pay to displaced residents faced with higher apartment rent.

Saying he had worked with mobile home park conversions before, Young said, “‘Economic rent’ is new to me,” and he told John Morris, senior agent with Overland Pacific and Cutler, “You can’t use artificial numbers.”

He urged Morris to revise the report “and look at the numbers again.”

Irene Ross, an attorney with Legal Services of Northern California, told Young she had not seen the phrase applied this way in other real estate cases.

“The actual current rent is $360. There is nothing to justify double or tripling,” as the report had done when factoring in the value of the mobile homes and trailers.

To do so, she said, would harm “vulnerable, low-income residents,” and would make Benicia itself vulnerable to litigation.

Her four-page letter to the Council was determined to be of such technical nature and contained enough new information that, under open-government laws, the hearing should be continued to another meeting to give city employees an opportunity to study and respond to the concerns Ross raised, Wellman advised.

The commission concurred, advising city staff to assure that residents received a revised relocation report and plan document 15 days before the Aug. 13 meeting.

Ross’s agency represents low-income Solano County residents. She told the commission that among her clients are the low-income, older and disabled trailer park residents.

She challenged the park’s conversion to a vacant lot, saying such action wouldn’t meet Benicia Municipal Code requirements and isn’t consistent with the Benicia General Plan, which calls for continuance of “existing, economically viable mobile home parks.”

She said Benicia’s ongoing failure to comply with its own General Plan “likely contributed to the current threat to affordable housing.”

Nor does Benicia have adequate land zoned for replacement housing, or spaces in other local mobile home parks to accommodate the residents. She said Pedrotti’s mitigation plan is inadequate in most areas and “wholly fails” to mitigate long-term displacement of older and disabled residents.

“Furthermore, the proposed conversion plan does not identify a single available mobile home space for rent or purchase within the city of Benicia,” Ross wrote in a letter she read Thursday night.

Of 18 mobile home parks contacted when the report was written in April, only one park in Vallejo had sites, limited to new or good-condition younger mobile homes. Average age of the homes in Pedrotti’s park is 37 years, Ross wrote.

By looking as far as Pacheco, Concord and Antioch as well as Vallejo and American Canyon, the report is suggesting Benicia rely on other jurisdictions “to justify the condemnation of affordable housing within its own boundaries,” Ross wrote.

“To do so would defeat the primary purpose of state housing element law.”

Reminding the commission of a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recommendation that housing shouldn’t take up more than 30 percent of a person’s income, Ross said Benicia’s own General Plan acknowledges that older residents often can’t afford to buy or rent homes in the city.

Mobile homes are a reasonable, stable option, she said — and if Pedrotti’s trailer park is lost, she said, it isn’t likely that the affordable housing units would be replaced.

“Adding insult to injury, the report fails to identify a single available unit at a rental price commensurate with what the park’s mobile home owners pay for their space,” she wrote.

She chided the report’s writers for inflating park residents’ actual $360-a-month pad rent to “economic rents” of between $600 to $1,100 because of the value of the mobile homes and trailers.

“This is blatantly impermissible,” she wrote. “The proposed economic rents do not reflect the amount currently paid by park residents, and therefore violates Benicia Municipal Code.”

She said the report’s estimates of rent are low, and said they must be amended “to reflect true market conditions.”

For those reasons, she urged the commission to deny Pedrotti’s request.

Commissioner Kari Birdseye recommended a complete update, adding Pedrotti’s offers to pay residents for their mobile homes and trailers and other pertinent information.

Almost a dozen park residents and supporters pleaded with the commission to keep the trailer park open.

Dave Jeffrey, whose wife, Patti, uses a wheelchair for mobility, said the couple’s mobile home has adequate space for the wheelchair, but most single-bedroom apartments would not.

“We have lived in Benicia 15 years. Why are you doing this to us?” he asked. At the mobile home park, the Jeffreys can afford their pad rent and still eat, he said.

“If we have to move, how are we going to eat?” he asked.

Another resident said he lived on Social Security checks of $500 a month, and has found nowhere else he could afford to live.

“There’s no place for us to go,” said Susan Wilkes, who has managed the trailer park for the 21 years she has lived there.

Wilkes objected to suggestions of moving to Vallejo, calling it “trashy.” She added, “Our park is decent,” and lamented, “They’re going to turn us out on the street.”

Sandra Quiroz, who needed help to slide her oxygen tank to the lectern, told the commission, “I’m completely disabled,” suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney failure. She said she didn’t want to leave Benicia because it has an excellent dialysis clinic.

As for Housing Authority apartments, Quiroz said she has applied multiple times and has been waiting between three and four years.

“I haven’t heard a word,” she said.

She said an ill park neighbor told her that should he be evicted from the park, “he’ll take his oxygen off and die.”