CRYSTAL COVE STATE PARK – The residents of El Morro Village mobile home park have long enjoyed a low-cost version of the California dream, paying hundreds in rent for million-dollar real estate along the Pacific Ocean.
For 25 years they have known the clock was ticking on that dream, that one day the state, which owns the land under their homes, would ask them to leave to expand the surrounding park.
The day of reckoning has arrived. Barring a last-minute court reprieve, the nearly 300 families who rent space from the state at El Morro must give up what for many is their only hope of beach living in one of the most expensive areas in the United States.
"It's the end of a romantic era when you could live in a funky little beach place for a little bit of money," said Greg Wise, 49, whose father's mobile home has been a family gathering spot since 1974. "It's sad."
Aside from the nostalgia, there is anxiety. Resident Vicki Gorham says some residents – the number is in dispute – are on fixed incomes and will have to move far inland to find a place they can afford.
"People talk and say they're going to chain themselves to their trailer, but who knows what's going to happen," Gorham, 52, said. "I know people are frightened and upset."
The homes in El Morro Village aren't mobile. Many have built-on, enclosed porches and are weather-beaten and rusting from the salt air.
The homes sit inside Crystal Cove State Park, between the ritzy Orange County cities of Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, where few houses sell for less than $1 million. California bought all the land from a developer in 1979 for $32 million – at the time, the most expensive purchase ever for the state park system.
Everyone at El Morro knew their leases were due to run out, but the residents once received a five-year extension from the state and hoped for another. There is a chance that a judge will delay their pending eviction, a possibility that irritates would-be visitors who have grown tired of waiting for the state to finish its park.
"They've had 25 years to adjust to the idea of getting out," said Fern Pirkle, president of the Friends of Newport Coast, one of about a dozen local groups that have campaigned against further lease extensions. "Don't you and I deserve a chance to spend a night there like them? I think so."
A prime section of Crystal Cove State Park has been effectively off limits to the public because there is no parking or easy access in its southern portion, where El Morro Village sits. State officials want to tear down the 295 mobile homes, including 72 right on the beach, and build 60 camp sites, parking and restrooms.
A state judge in Orange County ruled this month that the tenants had adequate notice and that the evictions could proceed. Residents filed an emergency appeal of that decision and are also hoping for a favorable ruling in a separate lawsuit in federal court that challenges the state's compliance with environmental regulations.
The state won't begin eviction proceedings until Jan. 17, after the hearing in federal court, and has offered tenants a transition agreement that would let them stay rent-free until April 1 if they each pay $3,000 for utilities and the cost of demolishing their mobile homes. The tenants also would have to drop further litigation.
When the public acquired the land in 1979, the state didn't have the money to develop the park in full so it made a deal with the El Morro residents: They could stay for 20 years on month-to-month leases in lieu of relocation payments. When the time was up, the state wasn't ready and extended the leases five years, until Dec. 31.
