Owners of fire-destroyed Palisades mobile home park seek to displace residents for development deal

For months, former residents of the Pacific Palisades Bowl Cell Estates have feared the uncommunicative house owners of the property would search to displace them in favor of a extra profitable growth deal after the Palisades fireplace destroyed the rent-controlled, roughly 170-unit cellular house park.

A confidential memorandum itemizing the Bowl on the market signifies the house owners intend to do precisely that.

The memorandum, quietly posted on an internet site related to the worldwide industrial actual property firm CBRE, says that the Palisades fireplace created a “clean canvas for redevelopment” at a web site “ideally positioned for a transformative residential or mixed-use mission.”

“I simply thought, oh my god, that is a lot propaganda and false promoting,” mentioned Lisa Ross, a 33-year resident of the Bowl and a Realtor. “How can they even get away with printing this?”

Neither the present house owners of the Bowl nor the actual property corporations listed on the memorandum responded to requests for remark.

The memorandum describes the present single-family residential zoning as “favorable” for builders; nonetheless, town and cellular housing legislation consultants have painted a distinct image.

“Multifamily and mixed-use growth on this web site just isn’t allowed by current zoning and land use rules,” Mayor Karen Bass’s workplace mentioned in an announcement Wednesday, including solely low density single-family housing or reconstructing the cellular house park are presently allowed. “Mayor Bass will proceed taking motion and [work] with residents to revive the Palisades neighborhood.”

Metropolis Councilmember Traci Park additionally reiterated her give attention to getting the cellular house park rebuilt and permitting residents to return, with a spokesperson noting she just isn’t entertaining the potential for any rezoning efforts from a developer.

Zoning modifications sometimes require a metropolis council vote and are topic to the mayor’s approval or veto.

Past the zoning legal guidelines, the location can be presently ruled by a state legislation requiring cities to protect reasonably priced housing alongside the coast and a metropolis ordinance defending cellular house residents in opposition to sudden displacement.

Spencer Pratt, a resident of the Palisades and an outspoken supporter of the neighborhood’s cellular house neighborhood, criticized the mayor and the house owners in an announcement to The Occasions. “It’s unlucky that Karen Bass has not advocated for cellular house residents impacted by the fireplace,” he mentioned, “and that the present proprietor of the Bowl is ignoring good religion provides from residents to purchase the property.”

The mayor’s workplace disputed this, noting Bass not too long ago led a delegation of Palisadians, together with cellular house house owners, to Sacramento to advocate for restoration. “Mayor Bass’ precedence is getting each Palisadian house — single-family owners, city house house owners, renters, cellular house house owners.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks throughout a non-public ceremony exterior Metropolis Corridor with religion leaders, LAPD officers and metropolis officers to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires on Jan. 7, 2026.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)

Bass additionally advocated for the federal authorities to incorporate the Bowl in its particles cleanup efforts; nonetheless, the Federal Emergency Administration Company finally refused to incorporate it, in contrast to different cellular house parks impacted by the Palisades fireplace. Its reasoning: It couldn’t belief the house owners to rebuild the park as reasonably priced housing.

Court docket rulings through the years discovered the house owners routinely failed to keep up the infrastructure and labored to switch the park with an “upscale resort neighborhood.” Residents additionally accused the house owners of making an attempt to bypass hire management rules.

After the fireplace, it finally took greater than 13 months to start cleansing up the particles.

Ross mentioned she approached the house owners with unbiased cellular house park builders who have been serious about shopping for the fire-destroyed lot and letting residents rebuild inside months. She additionally approached the house owners with a proposition that the previous residents band collectively to purchase the park. She heard nothing again.

“They don’t talk,” Ross mentioned. “It’s a feuding household. That’s additionally why we had so many issues with upkeep and with upgrades within the park.”

Pratt, who’s operating for mayor in opposition to Bass, additionally referred to as on non-public builders like Rick Caruso to step in and save the Bowl. (Caruso’s workforce famous his rebuilding nonprofit is trying into the right way to assist residents of the Bowl.)

Ross is a fan of Pratt’s proposition. “We want these sorts of individuals — we’d like Rick Caruso. That may be nice,” Ross mentioned. To sweeten the deal: “I’ll prepare dinner for him. I’d make him all his favourite dishes.”