Setting up San Jose, California’s next big land-use brawl, Winchester Ranch Mobile Home Park will start the closure process later this year as the property owner prepares to sell the 16-acre site to PulteGroup, the national homebuilder.
The park’s residents, all of whom are seniors, were told of the plans at a community meeting this week, San Jose Mercury News reporter Ramona Giwargis reported July 30, 2015.
The announcement was not unexpected: The property, spitting distance from Santana Row and Westfield Valley Fair, has been on the market for several years, and Pulte surfaced publicly as the likely buyer last year.
“My first reaction was pure anger and then deep depression,” 71-year-old Mari Jo Pokriots told Giwargis.
The developer’s interest shows the lengths builders will go to right now to acquire well-located development sites in red-hot Silicon Valley.
Redeveloping mobile home communities is extremely complex, and just getting approvals will take years. A messy entitlement fight seems likely.
Indeed, the news comes as concern mounts over relatively affordable mobile home parks being redeveloped amid the region’s red-hot housing boom.
[Photo credit: Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED]