Tuesday, the Moab City Council will determine whether to rezone prime acreage near the heart of town from residential to commercial.
Landowner Randy Day wants to sell six acres to Wyndham Hotels and Resorts to build time-share condos.
It could set the stage for the clearing out of two adjacent mobile home parks on the land near 100 West and Williams Way. The property's value is too high not to sell, Day said. Rezone or no rezone, the mobile home parks are going.
"The economics just won't let you keep a trailer park," said Day, who lived in a trailer park when his family moved to Moab in 1972.
Three dozen families will be displaced and many of them wonder how they will stay in Moab.
Longtime Moab residents Keith and Pam Menz aren't hopeful.
"Affordable housing in Moab is nonexistent," Keith said. "We just want a place to move our trailer."
Although Day has offered to move the mobile homes, many of the units in the Red Rock and Mountain View mobile home parks are too old to be moved. Under federal law, units made before 1976 cannot be relocated. Under federal law, units made before 1976 cannot be relocated.
That leaves city leaders in something of a quandary. Since the days of the uranium booms in the 1950s and '70s, work force housing and mobile homes have been inextricably linked. But mobile home parks have vanished across the country where property values rise.
And Moab's tourist economy depends on a low-income labor force.
Unlike resort areas, like Park City, where workers can commute from nearby towns, Moab is isolated, said Mayor Dave Sakrison.
"It's a huge challenge," Sakrison said, of his town's lack of work force housing. "We're really struggling with it."
Moab, in conjunction with the Housing Authority of Southeastern Utah, is close to completing a study that will include an assessment of the area's work force housing needs. It also will review obstacles - such as zoning and financing - that now stand in the way of construction.
But for now, the housing crunch is on. And City Councilwoman Sarah Bauman, said Day's rezone request is not a done deal, despite the Planning Commission's positive recommendation.
"Affordable housing is on everyone's mind right now," she said. "I don't want to see our work force pushed out."
