Marilyn Bauer said she sees the handwriting on the wall. And she accepts it.
"Times change, and we have to change, too," she said.
Bauer was among more than 100 Oak Manor Trailer Park residents who Sunday night learned details of a plan that would reimburse them for leaving the mobile home park and finding new homes.
Under the plan, the owners of most of the 89 mobile homes in the park would receive about $5,000 in relocation costs. That sum could be tweaked on a case-by-case basis, depending on individual circumstances.
The owners of a handful of doublewide mobile homes in the park would be compensated differently. Details weren't presented Sunday.
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Old Oak Partners, which sponsored the Sunday meeting, plans to build a 228-unit apartment complex on the site of Oak Manor.
Gorman King, the attorney representing the developers, said the mobile home park - just south of Interstate 94 between 25th Street and South University Drive - is aged and at the end of its useful life.
The proposed project took a step forward earlier this month when Fargo's Tax Exempt Review Committee agreed to establish a tax increment financing district that would help pay for part of the proposal.
The city would sell bonds and use some of the proceeds to pay for utility costs, demolition of the homes and relocation of the people living in Oak Manor.
City Commissioner Linda Coates, who was at Sunday's meeting, said reimbursing Oak Manor residents for moving is the right thing to do.
"In my opinion, this is making the best of a bad situation," Coates said.
She said the city is likely to hire a relocation coordinator to help Oak Manor residents.
About half of the residents already have found other homes, King said.
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The project still must clear two hurdles.
The land on which Oak Manor sits must be rezoned from commercial to residential, and the tax increment financing plan must be approved.
The Fargo Planning Commission meets at 9 p.m. Wednesday and is expected to vote on whether to recommend the zoning change.
And the City Commission meets at 5 p.m. Aug. 2 to consider the tax increment financing plan.
The commission would need to approve the financing plan a second time, most likely at its Aug. 16 meeting, before the plan would become official.
The offers unveiled Sunday wouldn't go into effect unless both the rezoning and financing plan are approved.
It was uncertain Sunday how long residents might be allowed to remain in the mobile home park if the project gets the official OK.
That's a big concern to Karen Mann, who moved into Oak Manor this spring with her husband, Glenn, and their three children. Two are in high school, the third in sixth grade.
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The couple wanted their children to attend south Fargo schools, she said, and a mobile home in Oak Manor was the only home they could afford.
Now Mann doesn't know where the family will be moving and whether the children can remain in south Fargo schools for the 2004-05 school year.
"There are still so many questions," she said.
But the Manns, like most other Oak Manor residents at Sunday's meeting, seemed resigned to leaving sooner or later.
Bauer said she's trying to accept the situation gracefully.
"We might just as well make the most of it," she said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Jonathan Knutson at (701) 241-5530
