As Palisades Bowl owner Eddie Biggs continues the process to convert the mobile home park above PCH into resident ownership, the residents are enlisting help from state and city officials to prevent the conversion. On Tuesday, three members of the Palisades Bowl Residents’ Association met with government officials, including Laurie Newman (State Senator Sheila Kuehl’s office), Norm Kulla (Bill Rosendahl’s office), Sal Poidonmani and Kim Strange (California Housing and Community Development–HCD) and Pam Emerson (Coastal Commission). The focus of the meeting was the instability of the hillside below Asilomar and above the Bowl and the liability that the owners would have to assume if the conversion were allowed to proceed. Although the land in the mobile park is under state jurisdiction, part of the hill directly below Asilomar is under city jurisdiction. Additionally, the entire hill is under the domain of the Coastal Commission. The dueling jurisdictions have left the residents with numerous unresolved maintenance issues. Last Friday, Palisades Bowl residents recalled the recent history of the hill. They told the Palisadian-Post of the fire that burned the mountain behind them in January 2004 and how L.A. Firefighters stopped it from progressing up the hill, saving houses on Asilomar. They remembered how the then owner of the Bowl was cited by the city because there wasn’t adequate water pressure (which was discovered while the firemen were fighting the fire). To the residents’ knowledge, the problem was never fixed. They recalled how, during the rains in 2005, the hill slid once again and the Fire Department ordered the evacuation of 12 tenants. Some were still without gas nine months later. Some units were without electricity, but that was eventually “fixed” by hanging an electrical wire between the park’s laundry room and a palm tree and then stringing it to another tree close to the hillside. When a city official was asked Tuesday who would be responsible if the wire fell during an earthquake and started another fire on the hill, the official, who did not want to be quoted, told the Post that the Fire Department would put it out, but that one problem with the Bowl was that no single government agency was responsible for that area. Glen Bell of Neighborhood Friends, which advocates for mobile home parks, said that although the state is responsible for conducting inspections in the Palisades Bowl, HCD is grossly underfunded. “Less than 5 percent of mobile parks will ever be seen,” Bell said. “Parks could go 30 years without ever having been inspected.” In the Bowl, the street has been dug up numerous times and been filled in unevenly; some of the roads are surfaced with gravel. The sewage pipes have been replaced, but the city and Coastal Commission did not conduct any inspections. Some Bowl residents have asked to replace their older homes on the pads with newer ones, as well as other construction, but the owner has issued a moratorium on building and construction. Biggs’ lawyer David Spangenberger explained that the reason the streets have been dug up is that new water, gas and sewer lines were installed connecting the mobile homes to the street. Currently, the main lines connecting to the laterals are being replaced. When asked about the electrical wire hanging between palm trees, Spangenberger said, “The electric system is owned by DWP. We are working with them to improve the system.” In terms of new buildings and construction, that is tied up with the electrical system as well, according to Spangenberger. The current system can’t handle the requirements of newer homes. Other construction is also stopped until it can be determined where the drainage systems will go. “We may have to transverse someone’s lot,” Spangenberger said. “We don’t want to have to dig up something they may have just built.” Councilman Rosendahl has said, “I’m very concerned about Palisades Bowl residents and the diminishing affordable housing stock which includes the Bowl.” He will meet with residents and the press at the Bowl on Monday to look at issues first-hand.
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