“If I was younger I would have stood out in the street and screamed,” said the park's 38-year resident. “A lot of naughty things, too.”
Smith and 24 other Park Hill households have been waiting for nearly two years to see if new owner Brent Butcher would follow through with his plan to evict them and build condos on the property.
On Friday, a collective sigh of relief was instead heard when the 55-and-older community and local officials threw a barbecue to celebrate the end to those plans.
“It's been two years of hell,” said resident Laverle Robbins, who has lived there for more than 20 years.
“You have no idea, no idea at all. It's made everybody sick. [Now] it's wonderful.”
Last week, after seven months of tedious negotiation, housing authority representative Kip Paul persuaded Butcher to sell the property to the county for $1.2 million, ensuring that the mostly fixed-income community would not have to relocate.
“I couldn't believe it,” Smith said. “It was wonderful. A relief you can not believe.”
Paul, who is an investment specialist with Commerce CRG, a Salt Lake City commercial real estate brokerage firm, said Butcher was reluctant to sell at first, and he doesn't blame him.
“He would have made significant money building condos there,” Paul said.
When residents first heard of Butcher's plan they contacted Salt Lake Area Community Action Program organizer Virginia Marrufo Martinez for help.
“When I saw [Robbins'] house and others similar to this, with senior citizens and veterans and people that are disabled, I thought, 'I can not let this happen,' ” Martinez said.
Martinez brought the issue up to the County Council. It decided to take more time to discuss the issue and meet with Butcher.
From February until last Friday, Paul negotiated the sale with Butcher and reminded him that “for these people, it's their community.
“It was almost like we wore him out,” Paul said.
Butcher did not return a call from The Salt Lake Tribune for comment.
The county purchased the Park Hill property with the help of a $700,000 loan from Fannie Mae and two deferred loans from the state and the county, each in the amount of $275,000, housing authority executive director Kerry Bate said.
“It's really rare that a park threatened with foreclosure is saved,” Bate said. “We think [Butcher] did the right thing and we're very appreciative of him.”
At the barbecue, Park Hill residents, county council members, county Mayor Peter Corroon, county housing authority employees and Martinez ate carne asada and tortillas and thanked each other for helping save the small trailer park community.
“We were very fortunate to have a lot of people jump on board,” Councilman Jim Bradley said. “What this does is preserve extremely affordable housing in Salt Lake County.”
Robbins said that if she had been forced to move she would have ended up living with her daughter.
“She prayed really hard,” Robbins joked about the potential move.
jbergreen@sltrib.com
