THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006

‘I Am So Relieved’

Rand Mobile Home Park Safe From City Acquisition

More than 100 residents of the Rand Road Mobile Home Park, sporting buttons saying “Save my home… Save our community”, attended Monday night’s Des Plaines City Council meeting hoping to hear good news.

Their wait lasted only a few minutes.

As Mayor Tony Arredia predicted just a few days earlier, aldermen voted to exclude the mobile home park from a map that identifies property that could be sold in the area to make way for redevelopment. City leaders, however, made it clear that they intend to pursue the establishment of a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district in that area, but that the mobile home park would not be listed as property that would be developed under the city’s plan.

That was the best news residents of the mobile home park could expect. They left the meeting elated that the city’s TIF and redevelopment plan will not result in their being forced to move.

Mayor Arredia in an exclusive story in the Friday, Mar. 3 Journal, said that he feels the mobile home park owners should not be part of a list that could force the sale of their homes. He said that if a “big box retailer” wanted to build in the 90-acre River-Rand area earmarked for a TIF, it would likely prefer frontage property. The mobile home park takes up little space along Rand and River roads.

“I am so relieved for my neighbors,” said Terry Nelson a resident of the Rand Road mobile home park who is a leader of the Mobile Home Owners Association of Illinois.

“It went pretty fast. They didn’t even give us a chance to thank them. Everyone in the community is sleeping so much better now. It was a pleasant surprise.”

The proposed TIF area, if approved by City Council, would extend from Perry Street on the south to Golf Road on the north along River and Rand roads.