Village Trailer Park, a Landmark?

One of Santa Monica’s last remaining trailer parks is not fit for an historic landmark designation that could stall plans for its redevelopment, according to city planners.

The Village Trailer Park "is not extraordinary in its design" and has only an "association with Santa Monica’s history as a tourist destination," staffers wrote in a memo to the city's Landmarks Commission, which will vote Monday night on the matter.

The Lookout News called it a "yet another last ditch effort" to save the park.

In the summer of 2006, the property owner announced its intent to close the park, a community described by its residents, many of whom are elderly, as tight-knight, void of crime and altogether irreplaceable. Not wanting to lose their homes, they've fought the plans for development.

Two months ago, the City Council .

At about that same time, the Landmarks Commission commissioned a report on the site's history and met to discuss its potential designation.

The consultants, ICF International, found that the park met two of the city's criteria for landmark designation. On that finding, the commission filed an application to make the designation. It will make its decision tonight, though the vote could be appealed to the City Council.

"With over 950 trailer spaces in the City in 1952, Santa Monica was evidently a popular vacation destination for motorists towing recreational vehicles, and a noteworthy component of the city‟s tourist economy after World War II," IFC wrote in its assessment. "Village Trailer Park, with its 105 trailer spaces, exemplifies this aspect of the city‟s economic development in the 1950s."