Clock Counting Down for Cherry Lane Park After New Agreement Executed
SOUTHPORT, N.Y. (WENY) -- WENY News is taking a closer look at the licensing agreement between the town of Southport and Cherry Lane Park mobile home park on Sherman Avenue.
On July 17th, the Southport town board voted to approve a license agreement with Cherry Lane Park through December 31st, 2023. According to an agreement obtained by WENY News through a Freedom of Information request, Cherry Lane Park's owner has 10 days to apply for a demolition permit. Monday, July 31st is the tenth business day since the agreement was executed. The Southport town clerk informed WENY News there is no record on file at this time.
According to the license agreement signed July 17th, 2023, Cherry Lane Park, LLC has 45 days to remove condemned trailers from the property from the time the demolition permits are issued.
"Most notably the fact that they're gonna remove 10 of the trailers, within a 45-day period, I think is, is very key," said Town of Southport Supervisor Joe Roman at the July 17th board meeting. "The other thing that I think is very important is anytime there's a code violation, they have five days to remedy that violation."
Cherry Lane Park LLC is working with AJH Design to come up with a plan to reconfigure the mobile home park in compliance with the town code. At the July 11th town board meeting, attorney for Cherry Lane Park, Michael Bruno, indicated the owner plans to build new trailers on the property, which would be sold to residents.
"Every tenant that's in good standing will have an option, and we'll try to work something out with those tenants to relocate into those new units as we phase them into the park," Bruno told the town board at the July 11th meeting.
Across the street, Sherman Avenue neighbor Tina Moore feels the plan to build new trailers and sell them to the existing tenants is not plausible.
"You're gonna tell me they're going to try selling these new trailers to the people that live there? That already thinks it's low income?" questioned Moore at the July 11st town board meeting. "What do you think they're gonna charge? You know what they're doing? They're trying to get everybody in that park, before you either one shut it down, or two, they renovate so they don't have to spend a dime housing nobody. It doesn't take a fool to figure it out."
Neighbors living across the street from the mobile home park, feel they'll believe the improvements will happen when they can see them. Moore has been following the developments for nearly two years. Moore and her neighbors Mary Davenport and Grace Gee have repeatedly call for the mobile home park to be shut down by the town, due to the amount of crime, code violations, fires, and other issues they've witnessed over the years.
"They let us down, which we had a feeling it was gonna happen, but it was inevitable with that many adjournments in two years and still no progress on the park's behalf being done, and the town code enforcement overlooking it all, it was inevitable," said Moore.
Currently, eleven mobile homes in the park remain occupied. According to the new license agreement, Cherry Lane Park can not re-rent any of the existing units after a tenant moves out without an inspection by the town of Southport Code Enforcement.
On Monday, July 31st, WENY News filed a Freedom of Information request for the demolition permits, and a copy of the license to operate for Cherry Lane Park. The Southport Town Clerk emailed WENY News saying, "At this time we do not have either record on file."
The next monthly meeting for the Town of Southport is Tuesday, August 8th at 6 p.m. Southport has not yet released the agenda for the meeting.
