Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
LAYTON — With an apartment building taking shape on the parcel abutting the rear of her mobile home, Vilma Puente gets nervous.
When might she have to leave to make way for the expected redevelopment on the parcel where her unit and 50 or so others sit at Cedarwood Mobile Home Park in Layton?
"If they take me out of here, I don't have money or anyplace to go," she said. Her husband is dead, she said, and she doesn't have family or friends in the area who can take her in.
What's more, though some of the scuttlebutt circulating among Cedarwood residents suggests redevelopment may be three to 10 years off, no one knows for sure. Back in September 2021, when Provo-based Boulder Ranch confirmed the development plans that led to the departure of an initial batch of 15 or so Cedarwood families, the Cedarwood owner said the rest — Puente and her neighbors — would have to leave once the first phase of work was done.
"No one knows anything," said Jorge Gonzalez, Puente's next-door neighbor. The current construction is focused on the land where the former Cedarwood residents lived.
Neither reps from Boulder Ranch nor the developer of the 6.26 acres surrounding what remains of Cedarwood, Holladay-based Rockworth Companies, responded to queries seeking comment. Chad Wilkinson, Layton's community and economic development director, said his office hasn't received any development applications or plans for the site.
"Haven't heard anything," he said.
However, he understands the development project now underway abutting the homes of Puente, Gonzalez and other Cedarwood residents should be done by March 2026. The plans call for a six-story, 253-unit apartment building and two smaller commercial buildings,
Meantime, the residents — consisting largely of Latinos and immigrants — carry on with their lives, some jittery, others taking the uncertainty in stride.
"It's like life. There's nothing certain in life except that you're going to die," said Gonzalez, a landscaper originally from Mexico.
Wendy Salto and her husband have "kind-of, sort-of-ish" tried to come up with a plan in the event they have to leave. Most Cedarwood residents, though, don't give the topic too much thought, she suspects. "They're just kind of waiting it out, mostly," she said.
The future of Cedarwood came into focus in early 2021 when some residents learned they'd have to leave to make way for development, the mixed-use project that includes the apartment building now in the works. As renters of the land where their units sit, mobile home park residents can have little say if a park owner decides to sell, and the impacted Cedarwood residents found they had little recourse but to leave. They were initially given nine months notice, as required by law, but the period was ultimately extended to March 1, 2022.
Mobile home parks typically cater to those with more modest incomes, and some Cedarwood residents were left scrambling as they tried to chart their futures. Some searched for apartments or moved in with friends. Many of the vacated units were too old, by law, to move and had to be abandoned, though a few were able to move their mobile homes to other parks.
"They're stuck between a rock and a hard place," said Louise Brown, a Layton resident who has assisted the impacted Cedarwood residents in exploring their housing options.
The rent for their mobile home space is typically lower than the rent for a traditional apartment, she said, so many of the families still at Cedarwood plan to stay as long as they can. They'll figure things out when and if the time comes that they have to leave. The current Cedarwood rent is $615 a month, up from $565 earlier this spring.
'Everyone was panicking'
According to Wilkinson, work on the 6.26-acre site containing the former Cedarwood section vacated in 2022 started earlier this year. It sits at 189 S. Main, across the street from the Layton FrontRunner station and Kay's Crossing, a six-story, 156-unit apartment building.
The plans, Phase 1 of the project, call for two two-story buildings for retail and commercial space along Main Street and the six-story apartment building behind that, all of it abutting the remaining 4.5-acre Cedarwood section. "A second phase will occur in the future for development of the remaining property south of this project to Layton Parkway, including the remainder of the mobile home park and other various properties," reads the 2022 planning documents outlining the project details.
A Sept. 8, 2021, notice from Boulder Ranch to Cedarwood residents had said that on completion of the first phase, the rest of Cedarwood would close. For now, though, what exactly comes next has not been relayed to the remaining Cedarwood residents.
"It's very, very worrisome," said Puente, originally from El Salvador.
Watching the construction progress, Salto has mixed feelings. "It kind of worries me. But at the same time, they take so long," she said.
Langitoto Finau, who lives in a unit near Gonzalez, takes a positive approach. Their mobile home is new enough that it could be moved from Cedarwood. "Just be positive and have a positive mind. That positive momentum will elevate you to a higher level," he said.
His wife Vika Finau, however, is a bit more wary, recalling the jitters in 2022 when the first contingent of 15 or so Cedarwood families had to leave. "It was scary. Everyone was panicking," she said.
