Mobile home parks are invisible pawns in battle over Saltworks project
In one of the most contentious development fights in the Bay Area's recent history, America's largest private company, Cargill Inc., and Arizona-based luxury home developer, DMB Associates, propose to build a new city of 30,000 people on retired salt ponds in Redwood City. The development, which would build 12,000 new units, has been fiercely contested by environmentalists, led by Save the Bay, who seek to restore the salt ponds back to tidal marsh.
Largely invisible in this clash are six mobile home parks on Bayfront Road, east of Highway 101 in Redwood City, which provide affordable housing to many hundreds of area residents. The closest existing neighborhood to the salt ponds, they are only separated from the proposed development by a fence and narrow flood canal. Residents currently enjoy fresh Bay breezes and some have sweeping views across the Bay to the East Bay hills.
If the new city was to be built, the impacts on these residents would be severe: 30 years of loud and dirty construction literally in their backyard, a wall of multi-story housing out their windows, and a major overpass right over their homes. Moreover, the mobile home park owners likely would seek to displace low-income residents to make room for new market-rate housing.