Campground residents to leave city for new mobile home park
By the time Destin Campground on Beach Drive closes, owner John Gronning says he hopes he’ll have found somewhere for at least a few of his tenants to live.
“I’ve talked to Hazel Light, who owns Forest Grove Mobile Home Park,” Gronning told The Log, “and I’ve got a couple of big lots in Fort Walton Beach ... and a couple in Mary Esther.”
Destin City Council voted Jan. 7 to buy the five-acre lot for $4.4 million. The road, along with land to the west, will be used to build a road between Beach and Benning drives, with two acres possibly available for a “workforce housing” project. About $1.3 million of the cost will come from a $2.2 million bond. The council voted to cover the cost with short-term financing, hoping to pay back the money with a state grant and a payment from whoever develops the housing.
Gronning and his partner, Carl Napoli, had hoped to swap the land for another site they could use as a campground, but the city wasn’t able to find a suitable spot.
Florida law says that when a park closes, mobile-home owners must be given six months to leave and can receive moving expenses from a state relocation fund financed by payments from the park owners.
The Florida Mobile Home Relocation Trust Fund pays the homeowner’s cost of moving to a new park within 50 miles, up to a maximum of $3,000 for a single-section home or $6,000 for multi-section homes. Alternatively, owners can leave their home behind and accept a smaller payment.
Critics of the plan say the payments aren’t enough to cover the cost of moving, and there’s often nowhere to move to within 50 miles.
Gronning said he wanted to keep the campground open as long as possible and thought the contract shifted the burden of eviction to the city.
“I didn’t want to tell any of these people they had to move,” Gronning said. “Some of them have been there since Day One; they don’t have any place to go. I don’t want to be the one to tell them they have to leave.”
Gronning said that after further discussion, he’d accepted that he would be the one to tell them. The contract won’t close until the end of the year, however, so Gronning said he still has several months before that happens.