Good news may be on the way for a few of the ousted homeowners of the Riverside Trailer Park in Brackendale.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman and District of Squamish staff have been working with the owners and managers of the Spiral Mobile Home Park, located on Government Road, about possibly adding new pads to that park for some of the residents of Riverside.
From the District’s regulatory standpoint, all that is needed is a building permit to install new pads, Heintzman told The Chief.
The permit application will reveal how many of the Riverside residents could move, she added.
The manager of Spiral told The Chief it was too early for him to comment on what may happen at the park.
Heintzman stressed that the final decision will be up to the owners of the park and likely based on the final cost of the expansion. It could be very costly given the servicing – pipes and infrastructure – required to set up the additional trailers, she said.
The owners of 19 trailer homes in the Riverside Trailer Park, located on Squamish Nation reserve land, have until Sept. 30 to find another place to put their mobile homes.
The Nation notified the residents in September of 2016 that the park had to close over “health and safety concerns.”
To upgrade the park, which opened in the 1960s, and connect it to District of Squamish water and sewer infrastructure would cost upwards of $500,000, according to a news release from the Nation published at the time.
As of last month, 16 of 19 tenants had signed agreements with Squamish Nation to move out by the closure date. About six owners have moved out already.
Ten of those who signed agreements to leave remain in the park.
While the District awaits an application for a building permit from Spiral management, Riverside resident Tom Green is hopeful. “I plan to be on the list and move over,” he told The Chief. “There’s a lot of goodwill trying to make this happen.”
