Treda Hodge stood outside the Liberty County Courthouse Annex last month, tears welling in her eyes. “We’re not blight!” she said.
On March 19, the Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission board voted unanimously to rezone the land where Hodge, a forklift driver at Walmart, and her family have lived for 26 years. Soon, her and her neighbors’ mobile homes will be forcibly moved so a developer can build 34 townhouses and 184 apartments on the land, which will be transferred inside Hinesville’s city limits.
Hodge and her neighbors in Liberty County are not the only ones being displaced. Real estate developers nationwide have targeted mobile home lots as prime locations to buy and repurpose for higher-density apartments and condominiums or more expensive single-family-home subdivisions.
The city and the developer call this a win. The deal will bring Hinesville more property tax revenue and boost the number of homes near Fort Stewart and other local employers.
But the drastic action came without much warning — or information — for those most directly impacted by the move: the people living in the Georgia Homes at Live Oak Mobile Home Park. They are the same kind of working families that the new development plans aim to help, but that the developer has ignored and frozen out of decision-making. At Live Oak, residents with mortgages on their mobile homes pay a few hundred dollars’ lot rent for the land underneath. Renters pay about double that for the used mobile homes the company owns.
The LCPC says the new development offers a promising future for Hinesville residents, one that county planners said would replace what they called “blighted” homes with modern, affordable dwellings.
In theory, the plan offers a rosy roadmap to a county in need of more affordable housing. At worst, it could harden perceptions that working poor families can’t trust their elected officials or businesses who claim to want to help.
But for Hodge and her neighbors, the change brings up their worst fears: of becoming financially insolvent and homeless near retirement, despite years of hard work and steady payments. She and her husband, Harold, who works at the Port of Savannah, have three months left to pay on their mobile home, a place where all three of their grandchildren were born.
“They’re ripping us apart,” she said. “They’re moving me too far from my work.”
Another resident, Joseph Lopez, worried that the integrity of his mobile home will be compromised in a move not of his own choosing, leaving him with major bills he can’t afford. “My thing is, it costs a lot of money to move a trailer, right? Because every time you move a trailer, you break it. So the house is gonna be broken down. So now we have to pay to repair the house,” he said.
The landlord
The park, which sits on Live Oak Church Road a few car lengths outside of Hinesville’s city limits, is owned by Newbridge Residential Parks LLC. Newbridge shares an address with Hudson Realty Capital, a New York commercial real estate investment management firm. In Liberty County alone, Newbridge also owns other mobile home parks and hundreds of acres along Islands Highway’s burgeoning warehouse zone.
After Hudson took over the property portfolio, the company tried to prove its good will to the community, donating land near their Walthourville trailer park for a clubhouse for the Liberty County Boys and Girls Club. Newbridge sponsored a golf tournament to buy a K-9 for the sheriff’s office.
Smaller investments
Those who live in Live Oak are extremely house proud.
Bonnie Hammontree is an artist who takes care of her mother and partner. A few years ago, Hammontree bought one of the used mobile homes on site for $12,000 from the park’s former owner. She put about another $40,000 into rehabbing it, mostly by herself with a little help from the Hodges.
The bathroom window has been brightened up with a window cling made to look like stained glass. Small shrubs sprout at the corners of her home. A cat lazes in front of the garden border leading to the raised porch, which offers a welcoming place to sit in the shade and chat.
At the Hodges’, Henry points out the skirting, the vinyl soffit-like material covering the area below their home. He says park management required them to install the skirting, which cost about $1,000 per home.
Then, he said workers the park had hired to cut the grass shredded holes in everyone’s new skirting by wielding a string trimmer too closely.
The last to know
Although negotiations to redevelop Live Oak have been underway since last year, residents only learned of it a few weeks ago.
Hudson’s managing director of asset management, Maryann Rossignol, has come to Hinesville several times to advocate for the new plan, but no one from her company had reached out directly to the residents who would be affected, according to city and county officials.
By February 15, a draft plan, which made no mention of the residents, was making the bureaucratic rounds.
Hodge told The Current the residents’ first clue was a yellow “Zoning Action Pending” sign at the park’s entrance.
When residents contacted the management office to ask what was going on, Hodge said she and others were told not to worry about it, that it had “nothing to do with” them.
As word spread that something was up, residents got activated.
By then, mistrust had set in.
Residents demand answers
About a dozen residents showed up for the county’s March 19 zoning and annexation, seeking information. But the hearing was about the technical aspects of the site plan, not specific details of how it would affect people already living there.
Hinesville officials had rejected Newbridge’s first request, according to LCPC officials, because the city didn’t want to clear the site if the redevelopment deal fell through. They also wanted the company to state in writing that it would move the residents within 18 months of signing the agreement.
Rossignol repeated that promise. “We have given our word” that would happen, she said, adding that her company had space to relocate all the Live Oak residents to its Coastal Oaks mobile home park, formerly known as Cedar Hill, in Walthourville. “We have 86 vacant spaces there, and we have enough space to move the homes and existing tenants into that property,” she said.
Rossignol also said the company would pay approximately $5000 for each resident to move their mobile home — but didn’t explain where the company got that figure or what that would include.
Nor did Rossignol mention that the move would add new strains to the residents’ monthly budgets.
Walthourville is in the process of considering a 15-mil property tax and has instituted a monthly $31.60 fire fee through at least December 2024. The city council is also contemplating increased garbage fees.
Resident Benjamin Roque stood up to speak. “What I understand is they’re going to move us to a new location. And it’s not going to cost us anything?” he asked.
“That is part of the development agreement,” LCPC Board Chair Phil Odom said.
“This is gonna be relocated in Hinesville?” Roque asked.
“It’s in the Hinesville area,” said LCPC Executive Director Jeff Ricketson. “That park is technically in the Walthourville city limits.”
Another resident, Myron Dilworth, questioned who would pay for any damages to the homes during the move.
“What about the repair on the trailer?” Dilworth asked. “Once you start dragging it up and down that street is when the screws and bolts gonna start coming out of it.”
“That has nothing to do with the petition we’re rezoning for,” LCPC Board Chair Phil Odom said. “I’m sorry.”
After the hearing, several tenants gathered outside, trying to figure out what was going to happen to their homes. Nearly all were seniors, disabled, retired, or veterans.
David Solomon said he used to work for RTS Homes, which builds residential homes around the area and is owned by developer Trevor Sikes. After Solomon’s foot was amputated, he said, he was no longer able to paint houses or do whatever jobs needed doing at the subdivision sites. As a renter and someone who helped create homes for other people in Liberty County, he is hard-pressed to find another place he can afford.
George Griggs said had called a trailer moving company and gotten quotes of $3,000 for a single-wide and $7,000 for a double-wide. He didn’t understand who would be on the hook for paying for furniture storage in the move, and said the LCPC should have provided residents with a copy of the development agreement.
Last-minute meeting
When the matter came back before the Hinesville City Council for discussion on March 21, several residents showed up again, still seeking answers to their questions about the move.
Before the meeting, Rossignol told The Current that her company was going beyond its legal obligations to help out the Live Oak residents.
“We don’t have to do this. We’re doing it out of the goodness of our hearts,” she said.
Amid discussions of amenities the city wanted to see at the new development, District 2 Councilman Jason Floyd asked a pertinent question: “Has communication taken place with the current residents?”
“We didn’t want to scare anyone,” she said.
Rossignol replied, “We didn’t want to put the cart before the horse,” adding that the 18-month window to remove the mobile home park meant the company had plenty of time to tell residents what was happening.
Mayor Karl Riles was visibly annoyed by the answer. “One of our concerns is, whatever your intentions are, the residents now know the intention, and they are contacting the representation to make sure we ask these questions. The residents you worry about stirring are stirred. They know that something’s going on and they are quite concerned. That’s why we asked you to come back…it might be time to check on those folks.”
Councilwoman Diana Reid, who had previously questioned whether the company was paying attention to the residents’ concerns, said she had been in touch with Rossignol since September: “We are not going to let anything happen to you all.”
After Riles suggested the company get the tenants’ information, Rossignol met with them outside council chambers, finally fielding their questions face to face.
When residents told her that no one from the property manager’s office had notified them that rents were going up $50 per month, Rossignol said that rent notices had been “provided and posted.” When they denied having gotten any such notice, she said, “I know our person and she’s very responsible, so I’m going to doubt that a little bit.”
Nelida Sinclair, a retired Army master sergeant and Hodge’s sister, asked whether residents would just have to move again the next time the company chose to redevelop.
“What about Walthourville ten years from now?” she said.
Rossignol cut her off. “I can’t answer for the future,” she said. “I cannot.”
But she asserted the company had the residents’ best interest in mind.
“Some developers come in and they don’t have anyplace else, and they displace tenants. We have proactively worked with everybody here,” she said. “We are going above and beyond…I’m trying.”
Hodge wasn’t soothed.
“If my house breaks, what happens to me?” Hodge asked, tears in her eyes.
“We’ll figure it out,” Rossignol said. “Trust me.”
Hinesville’s city council is set to vote on the final development agreement on April 4.
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