Avoyelles Port Commission wants to get rid of mobile homes

Avoyelles Parish needs economic development, not another trailer park.

With that philosophy in mind, the Avoyelles Parish Port Commission is seriously pursuing options to get rid of dozens of vacant mobile homes at the port site.

The commissioners have discussed the need to move the mobile homes that were homes to residents of the “Canadaville” community that was established for Hurricane Katrina refugees.

The number of residents was over 200 in 2006, a year after the community was established. There are less than 10 tenants in the trailers now. About half of the 50 trailers are suitable as a home.

The port inherited the mobile homes when the site was donated to the parish for use by the port in 2010.

Most of the units, now over 13 years old, are unoccupied and have been burglarized and vandalized over the past eight years since the experimental community closed.

DETERRENT TO PROGRESS

Laiche said he believes having a residential community onsite may be a deterrent to port’s progress. Some industrial tenants may be wary of operating close to a residential neighborhood.

The commission has been discussing the matter with the Town of Simmesport to determine if the municipality may have a need for the trailers that are still in usable condition. Repairs to many of the mobile homes are not economically feasible, Laiche said.

“We have decided the port should not be in the housing business,” Laiche said. “We need to find a way to dispose of the housing units.

“If we cannot reach an agreement with Simmesport -- if the town cannot afford to move them -- the only other option would be to put them up for sale to the highest bidder,” Laiche added.

The trailers have to be moved, he said. If an investor wanted to purchase the trailers and pay a lease to operate a trailer park at the port site, “that would not address our overall desire to remove the residential presence at the port,” Laiche noted.

CANADAVILLE HISTORY

The community was created in 2005 by Australian-Canadian industrialist Frank Stronach to serve evacuees displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

It was called Magnaville, after Stronach’s company, Magna International Inc., but residents soon took to calling their new home “Canadaville.”

Stronach envisioned a model community where its residents would work together to raise livestock and seafood that would be sold at his Gulfstream Park racetrack/casino in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

The community occupied 912 acres and officially closed down in 2010. It initially consisted of 75 mobile homes that were 1,420 sq. ft. with three bedrooms, two baths equipped with air conditioning, washers, dryers and other amenities.

The residents were able to live in the trailers rent-free for five years on condition that all able-bodied residents learn new skills or use existing skills to help the community.

Canadaville developers hoped the communal experience would better prepare the residents to be more productive citizens than they had been before Katrina.