- A long simmering dispute between residents in a Brighton area park model trailer resort and its owner broke out on Saturday.
About 15 residents/tenants of Timber House Resort, some waving placards at the entrance to the resort, protested being handed eviction notices.
Timber House Resort owns the land and the foundations on which trailers sit. Tenants own the trailers themselves.
Spokesperson for a Residents Association, Mary Robertson, says long-term residents of the park and the owner have been fighting over efforts by owner Dave Dingle to change their leases to open up the resort for more commercial and short-term rentals.
Many residents, a lot of whom are seniors, have been on a one year less one day occupancy lease and have lived permanently in the park for years. They are now leasing month to month.
View of some of the park model trailers along the shores of Lake Ontario near Barcovan Beach. (Photo: Quinte News)
In July, the Association was granted protection under the Residential Tenancy Act by the Landlord Tenant Board but it continues to fight eviction notices saying options for lease changes offered by the owner, such as becoming a shareholder, an independent contractor or a commercial entity were not satisfactory.
Robertson says eviction notices have been handed to 26 of 42 sites involving 39 people, 29 of whom are seniors.
“This ongoing battle has caused a lot of anxiety for people and some of the seniors have serious health issues. Where exactly do they go with there being such a low vacancy rate for rental units in this area?” said Robertson.
Meanwhile owner Dave Dingle, who’s operated the resort for over 30 years, says he understands the protesters’ feelings and has offered lease holders various options including ways to defer the termination of their lease agreements but “there’s been no uptake on any of them”.
“We haven’t been rushing people out of the park. It was never meant to be for long term residential. It was always meant to be a commercial/recreational business. This COVID-19 pandemic has really hurt any business to do with tourism. It’s knee-capped us. We have to find ways to keep the business viable or it will no longer exist and that won’t do anyone any good. We are doing our best to help people through a transition but the focus is keeping this business in business.”
A legal process continues.
Spokesperson for Residents Association Mary Robertson. (Photo: Quinte News)
