Colony Mobile Home Park residents try to beat the odds and buy their Salmon Creek park

In December, residents received a certified letter informing them that their park was up for sale.

The sale follows the death of the park’s owner, whose estate has put the property on the market with proceeds intended to benefit charity. California-based Community Foundation for Monterey County, which has taken ownership of the property, is overseeing the sale.

According to an online listing, Colony Mobile Home Park and Silver Shores, a manufactured home park in Everett, are being sold together, though potential buyers may place bids on just one of the properties, said Dan Baldwin, president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Monterey County.

The properties are being sold through a bidding process, with the deadline set for Friday.

Residents have formed Colony Mobile Community LLC and are working with ROC Northwest, an Olympia-based nonprofit that helps manufactured home communities purchase their parks. The organization is assisting the residents in securing a roughly $14 million grant to support their bid, resident Baer Dobson said.

Residents are trying to raise about $39 million, Dobson said. The residents are also turning to the public for help through a GoFundMe site.

The sale comes after Senate Bill 5198 went into effect in Washington in July 2023, granting mobile home park residents the right to purchase their parks.

Park residents have not had much success. But Colony Mobile Home Park residents said they remain determined, despite obstacles, until the clock runs out.

Unaffordable future

Clark County manufactured home parks have become prime targets of investment companies. Colony Mobile Home Park residents fear the park could be sold to a developer intent on redeveloping the land into condominiums or other more profitable housing.

The park is near Skyview High School, a new Trader Joe’s and other developments.

“We are developer food,” said Dobson, a single father who lives with his teenage daughter and mother.

The Community Foundation for Monterey County consulted brokers about the potential for redeveloping Colony Mobile Home Park, but they didn’t think that would pencil out, Baldwin said.

“The new owners could make changes, but the idea of displacing the residents for a new development made no financial sense to any of the brokers,” Baldwin said.

According to an online property database, Colony Mobile Home Park is zoned for medium-density residential housing, which includes options such as single-family attached housing, low-rise apartments and multifamily developments.

Residents are also concerned that a new owner could raise rents. Currently, most residents pay about $685 for the land on which the manufactured houses they own sit. Dobson said when he was knocking on doors to gather signatures to form the co-op, 15 families told him they would be displaced if rents were raised even a little bit.

“Seven of them would end up homeless,” Dobson said.

Regardless of Colony Mobile Home Park’s future, residents agree that its sale would deal a blow to affordable housing options in Clark County.

“Is there even an American Dream anymore?” Hendrix said. “This is such a stepping stone in whatever direction you are going with your life, whether you’re just starting out or people trying to slow down their life. It’s frustrating. It’s heartbreaking.”