What would you do if suddenly informed your home had to be moved? And the cost was estimated at $35,000 to $224,000, and you didn’t know who would pay for it?
This is what some longtime residents of two aging mobilehome parks —built too close to the rail line owned by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission — are experiencing.
The RTC is building a multi-use trail in “segments” in the 32-mile rail corridor, starting in Santa Cruz and eventually to Watsonville.
The plan to build the Monterey Bay Scenic Trail alongside the railroad tracks in the Capitola area, known as Segments 10 and 11, from 17th Avenue to State Park Drive is extremely contentious due to unforeseen encroachments creating unexpected expenses.
Low-income seniors and families have been told by the RTC they must move their mobile homes away from the rail corridor by June 2025 because they encroach into the corridor by either inches or a few feet.
How many?
At the 128-unit Blue and Gold Mobile Home Park in Live Oak, 20.
At the 108-unit Castle Mobile Estates in Capitola, 24.
These families and their pets would have to pack up and move out while their homes are moved and water, sewer and gas utilities relocated. In a couple locations, the home must be replaced with a smaller one, to fit the space.
Some homes are so old, they may not survive a move. All this moving could damage streets in the park.
The RTC staff hired HMH Consulting Environmental and Engineering to analyze the costs of removing mobile home encroachments.
That draft report, presented to the County’s Mobile and Manufactured Home Commission Sept. 19 provided estimates to move each individual home, not a total.
At Blue & Gold, when the home must be replaced with a smaller one, two removal estimates topped $175,000.
For seven, with the awning removed, the estimate was $33,000 to $35,000. For the rest, it was $2,000 to $4,000 to remove and replace a fence, and remove a shed.
At Castle, three removal estimates topped $76,000 with the highest $224,000 to replace the home with a smaller one.
For 10, with the awning removed, the estimate was $33,000 to $35,000. For the rest, it was $2,000 to $2,800.
Some mobile home units were determined to require relocation to another park, but no nearby mobile home parks have space available.
No one knows who would pay for this.
The costs — which in all exceed $1 million — were discovered this year.
This is just one of the rising costs.
Two years ago, construction and right of way costs were estimated at $39.8 million for Segments 8 & 9 Project and for Segments 10 & 11 $78.3 million. The 2024 estimates are $55.9 million for Segments 8 & 9 and $104.4 million for the Segments 10 & 11.
The $43 million increase is not funded.
The state Department of Housing requires a 3-foot setback from the property line but 44 mobilehomes are closer than that.
A variance to the setback would have to be approved by the county supervisors and state Housing Department staff.
Mobile home owners own their home (but not the land) and never chose where on the lot their home is located.
Blue & Gold Star Mobile Home Park was built in 1965 and Castle Estates Mobile Home Park was built in 1971.
The rail line runs between them, and the homes are encroaching on the rail corridor.
Solutions?
The RTC’s open house presentation of the Draft Zero Emission Public Rail Transportation study did have an option to relocate parts of the Monterey Bay National Sanctuary Scenic Trail to Brommer or Nova street in Segment 10 due to encroachment problems.
But the HRH report, titled “Removal Options,” did not include the option of relocating the rail trail onto streets nearby to avoid conflicts with the mobilehomes. That perhaps could removing the need to have such a wide corridor to accommodate both rail and trail.
The report did not include an engineering analysis of the mobilehome drive aisles to see if a move was feasible, did not check whether new utility connections would be needed, did not analyze sewer line connections, did not look at the age of the mobile home or liens that could affect the ability to relocate.
Also not covered in the report: Costs to temporarily house residents, store belongings, and care for pets, removing or replacing trees or landscaping, the “skirt” removal and replacement, and moving additions or pop-outs.
One potential solution: Could mobile home owners sell? Having gotten this notice, it’s difficult.
Another potential solution: Could the RTC take advantage of “prescriptive use privilege,” a legal concept that allows individuals to acquire certain rights over someone else’s property through continuous and uninterrupted use?
No, because the RTC is an autonomous planning agency, not a government agency.
Could the RTC claim eminent domain? Take the property for a public use and compensate the property owner?
No, the City of Capitola or County of Santa Cruz would have to file that legal action on behalf of the RTC.
The RTC has filed a lawsuit claiming half the parking area for Hotel Bayview and Trout Gulch Crossing in Aptos, home to Caroline’s Non-Profit Shop and Norma Jean’s to make a 14-foot wide trail for Segment 12 of the rail trail.
Many wonder why the RTC is now forcing the encroachment issue when its agents bought the corridor “as is” in 2012 accepting all existing conditions.
The corridor as purchased is not wide enough for a trail next to the rail line.
Lori Carraway, chief operating officer and vice president of the nonprofit Millenium Housing, which bought Castle Mobile Estates in 2018, notes the original right-of-way filing stated the corridor was 35 feet wide.
However, RTC analysis states 36 feet is needed for both rail and trail.
Refusing to Relocate
Roxanne Stanley, whose home at Castle Mobile Estates encroaches 6’6” into the rail corridor, and her neighbor, Tim Dowling, who has a 7’2” encroachment want to stay.
They have children.
They do not intend to forfeit their homes and are worried about the significant negative impact on the value of their homes.
Recently, they organized a group of the affected homeowners to consult with an attorney to draft a letter to the RTC, refusing to relocate.
Dowling feels a fair and reasonable solution would be to have the mobile home park owners lease the encroaching areas from the RTC for 50 or 99 years, allowing the units to remain in place and remove their anxieties.
“We are drawing a line in the sand. We will not move.” said Ms. Stanley.
The RTC is not corresponding with the residents or the owners of the mobilehome parks.
The Human Factor
Before the HMH cost estimates came out, mobilehome owners addressed the county supervisors on April 30.
Cami Clementson Corvin, 64, who lives in Castle Mobile Estates, is retired. Her family has been in Santa Cruz for over 100 years.
“There are approximately 24 homes that are on the tracks with almost 50%, being senior citizens, mostly single, and one-third making up a diversity of the Hispanic population,” she said. “I’d like to address the human factor of the RTC section 10. It’s quite obvious that no one is listening to us or addressing this issue of the folks who live on the tracks and the alleged RTC boundary and the encroachment that they are claiming. Our lives will be uprooted with this plan and many of us will be displaced, and our enjoyment of life and living will change as we know it. How does the County and the RTC plan on addressing this?”
Christine, a neighbor in Castle Mobile Estates, said, “My home will have to be moved four inches for the rail, along with other residents being moved. Once again, that means our homes get cut down the middle and we will have to get new plumbing and put back together and hope it doesn’t leak. While that’s being done, where am I going to live with my pets? Who’s going to pay for this moving the home and my hotel? No one is talking to us. The only communications that we have is what we need to do and move by June of 2025 by the RTC.”
First District Supervisor Manu Koenig (who is on the RTC board) hosted a town hall meeting in early February with affected residents and RTC staff.
His purported opinion was that the RTC does not have money for a train, so there probably won’t be a train. He felt the RTC action was unnecessarily aggressive.
Mobile and Manufactured Home Commissioner Jean Brocklebank notes the importance of the missing pieces of cost estimates, and the absence of discussion of who will pay.
Second District Mobile and Manufactured Home Commissioner Henry Cleveland said, “We’ve all been waiting on pins and needles, just not knowing what is next.”
More Time?
Mobile home parks are an essential part of the county’s affordable housing stock.
For Carraway at Millennium Housing, the nonprofit owner of Castle Estates Mobile Home Park, the potential move is causing untold stress.
At Castle, 90% of residents qualify as low- and very low-income, and it’s the only mobile home park in Capitola with a rent control agreement as part of the purchase.
Carraway wonders why the RTC insists that the homes encroaching in the rail corridor must be moved next year, when there is no immediate plan to begin operating rail in Segments 10 and 11 of the Monterey Bay Scenic Trail.
“We are not trying to stop the project,” says Carraway. “We just want time to rectify the situation. As the affected homes are sold, the encroachment issue could be mitigated.”
Rent at Blue & Gold Star Mobile Home Park ranges from $475 to $725 per month.
The owner of Blue and Gold Star Mobile Home Park (an investor-owned park) was not available for comment.
For now, the homeowners in Castle Estates and Blue and Gold Star Mobile Home Park are waiting to see what the RTC will do.
“Put yourself in the shoes of these people,” says Carraway at Millennium Housing. “They have lived here for over 30 years. Their homes could be taken away now for a project that likely may not happen for another 30 years. County residents want the trail now and understand the rail will come later. So the RTC could give us and these low-income homeowners the time to correct the encroachments by building the trail only in Segment 10 and adding the rail portion later, after homes have been changed out at resale. All we are asking of the RTC is time to allow us to fix this problem, and end the stress these elderly residents are now experiencing.”
The June 2025 deadline looms large.
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For Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line history, see pages 20-1 through 20-65 at https://sccrtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021-09-02-RTC-agendapacket.pdf
To view the HRH report, see https://www.sccrtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SCBRL-MobileHomeEncroachment-RemovalOptions.pdf
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History of the Rail Trail Project
In 2012, the Santa Cruz County RTC bought the 32-mile rail corridor from Union Pacific Railroad, believing this could be a potential transportation alternative to Highway 1.
The purchase price of $14.2 million was paid in part with $11 million from a state Proposition 116 grant for alternate transportation funding. The RTC agreed to the purchase “as is,” accepting due diligence documentation that included a known contamination site, utility easements and other easements 10 feet on either side of the track’s centerline.
The Deed stated that the purchase was for “AS IS” and “WHERE IS” “CONDITION WITH ALL FAULTS” (Exhibit B, page 30), with Union Pacific Railroad withholding and maintaining Right of Way License for the final area of track in Davenport, MP 31.39-MP 31.90. (see page 29 for Exhibit A in: https://sccrtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/100803-RailLinePurchaseSaleAgreement.pdf)
There was no legal property description included in the Deed, as it was “to be attached” (Schedule 1 of Exhibit B, page 31), but it did exist: https://sccrtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/090901-FinalTitleReport.pdf
Freight service was only in Watsonville as Cemex closed the historic cement processing plant in Davenport in 2010.
In 2013, U.S. Rep. Sam Farr worked with the RTC to approve the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Network Master Plan, revised in 2014, that added a trail component into the rail corridor.
That squeezed a lot into a small space.
Why Now?
Why did the RTC wait until now, more than 10 years after purchase, to conduct property boundary surveys along the rail corridor?
In 2021, the commissioners approved hiring RRM Design Group of San Luis Obispo to conduct a boundary survey for the rail line. See: https://sccrtc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Replacement-Pages-for-item-21.pdf
According to RTC staff:
”The RTC purchased the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line in 2012. RTC did not have dedicated funding to complete a boundary survey of the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line property at that time. RTC began to collect revenues that could be applied to a boundary survey after the approval of Measure D (2016). RTC began to make real property investments associated with ownership, management, maintenance and development of the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line once sufficient revenues were collected. RTC began to program available revenues for to work associated with completing a boundary survey of the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line in 2020. The County of Santa Cruz approved and recorded the boundary survey in the area of Segment 10 of the Coastal Rail Trail in Fall 2023. A recorded boundary survey is required to define the presence and extent of encroachments within the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line. This was completed prior to notifying any property owners with encroachments into the publicly owned right-of-way.”
There has been no regular locomotive use of the rail corridor since 2017. Does that mean the rail corridor has been abandoned?
No, that requires a formal application.
No formal application for line abandonment has been filed by the carrier contracted by the RTC to operate service on the Santa Cruz Branch Line Rail Line.
Current operator Progressive Rail has threatened to file for abandonment.
The RTC managed to negotiate that Progressive would not abandon the line without prior notice and instead endeavor to find another willing carrier.
A U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that: ”When the railway abandoned the right of way, the easement terminated and defendant’s land became unburdened of the easement, conferring on him the same full rights over the right of way as he enjoyed over the rest of his parcel.”
The Court concluded its opinion with the following:
More than 70 years ago, the Government argued before this Court that a right of way granted under the 1875 Act was a simple easement. The Court was persuaded, and so ruled. Now the Government argues that such a right of way is tantamount to a limited fee with an implied reversionary interest. We decline to endorse such a stark change in position, especially given “the special need for certainty and predictability where land titles are concerned.”
Measure D Funding
In November 2016, Santa Cruz County voters approved Measure D, a ½-cent sales tax to fund transportation projects and programs.
The Measure D Expenditure Plan provides funding by formula for five categories of projects over 30 years.
Two of the categories include funding projects related to the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail/ Rail Trail (17%) and also the Santa Cruz Branch Line Rail Corridor (8%).
This permanent source of revenue is being used to fund and leverage grant approvals for the RTC projects with the County as a partner.
In December 2022, the County was awarded $67.6 million from the California Transportation Commission’s Active Transportation Program for Segments 10 and 11— the largest grant that State program has ever given.
The RTC plans to increase funding $2.4 million to cover costs of encroachment issues and vegetation and drainage projects on the railway.
Plans call for adding $753,000 for rail infrastructure maintenance and repairs.
Measure D is expected to generate $27 million to $30 million per year over the next 5 years.
The Draft Five-Year Measure D Strategic Plan calls for spending $17.4 million on Segments 10 and 11, payable to Santa Cruz County Public Works, as the lead agency of the project.
Anticipated revenue needs for the Highway and Trail investment categories will exceed projected revenue on a year-to-year cash basis.
To support the proposed plans to expeditiously deliver Measure D projects and leverage grants over the next 5 years, financing such as bonding may be needed starting in 2025.
TOP PHOTO: This Google Maps image shows how close homes are to the rail line in Castle Mobile Estates.