Barrie mobile home park residents and developer reach a deal

By Bob Bruton Barrie Examiner 

It’s a done deal at Barrie’s Burton Avenue Mobile Homes park.

The remaining residents have accepted an agreement with developer Vellinga/Melchior to be off 196 Burton Ave. by July 1, 2015, in return for $7,500, which will allow a residential development to go ahead there.

This deal was announced at Friday morning’s Landlord and Tenant Board hearing in Barrie.

It affects as many as 22 tenants, who withdrew their applications to the board.

“It gives us a little wiggle room to when we have to move on,” said Dave Currie, who’s lived there for about eight years. “But it’s been a year of nightmares and the fear of being homeless.”

“It allows everyone to move forward,” said Dino Melchior. “I’m sure both (sides) would have liked it differently, but at the end of the day you come to a settlement and everyone gives a little bit.”

Mandy Hillyard, an affordable housing and anti-poverty advocate in Barrie, said the deal was better than she expected.
“That was at least a civil compromise for the remaining 22 residents of the Burton Avenue park,” she said.

“What has been avoided is a move during the winter and spring months, enough time for residents to find another place to live and help to deal with the mobile homes that are over 10 years old and therefore can’t be moved by law.
“This has been a very emotional and disruptive situation, with a civil ending.”
Lawyer Peter Rosenthal, who represented most of the residents, said tenants will receive $3,000 by Feb. 28. They will need to vacate the premises on or before July 1.

As for their mobile homes, owners can remove them from 196 Burton Ave. or sell them to

Vellinga/Melchior for $1, and receive another $4,500.

“There are no residents who are not participating in the deal,” Rosenthal said.

Where these residents will live once they leave Burton Avenue remains a question.

“I will be staying with my brother, but I feel bad for all the people who have no place to go,” said Dave McDonald, who has lived there for about a decade.

“Where are these people going? There is nothing affordable in Barrie.”

“I’m not too sure I can even live in Barrie anymore,” said Currie, 58. “The waiting list (for social housing) is 10 years.

“I want someone who will step up to the plate and help. Most of us are handicapped or elderly. We need help.”

McDonald said the agreement also represents a large capital loss for many of the tenants.

He bought his mobile home for $30,000, McDonald says, and put another $15,000 into it.

“It’s an older unit,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s in any condition to be moved.”

Friday’s deal brings to an end a story that began in the summer of 2013, when about 200 people living in 86 mobile homes at 196 Burton received eviction notices. This was to make room for plans to build 96 street townhouses and 20 walkup apartments at the 10-acre site, on Burton’s south side, east of Robinson Street.

There’s been a trailer or mobile-home park on the site for more than 50 years. It has been managed by Melchior Management for the past 15 years.

Last May, city council gave final approval for a rezoning application and subdivision draft plan for the property. The majority of 196 Burton is already properly zoned for the redevelopment. Only a small portion required rezoning from commercial to residential multiple second density.

The provincial Landlord and Tenant Act allows the eviction notices; city staff have said the municipality has no ability to affect those laws.

City councillors will consider a new affordable housing strategy, ‘A Place to Call Home’, on Monday. The 10-year plan includes a goal of building 600 new units in Barrie.

The Vellinga/Melchior redevelopment of 196 Burton Ave. would increase annual property taxes on the land by more than $175,000 annually, to $214,000.

But the bottom line on development charges (DC), paid to the city to fund infrastructure costs, would be zero.

Based on the number of townhouses and apartments, the DC total would be more than $2.5 million.

But if redevelopment occurs within five years of the removal of mobile homes/trailers from the site, the owner is eligible for a credit of almost $31,000 per unit.

It works out to more than $2.9 million. The city doesn’t have to pay the difference, but it would mean no DC revenue.