TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- March 31, 2006 -- The legislation that many local mobile home park residents have their hopes set on suffered another setback Thursday, as state Rep. Nancy Detert temporarily withdrew her bill from consideration in the face of likely rejection by a House committee.

Detert, R-Venice, tried to get the House Business Regulation Committee to endorse the idea that mobile home park residents should have the right of first refusal even in cases when a park owner receives an unsolicited offer to buy a park. Knowing she needed nine votes but only having seven for sure, Detert postponed her bill, hoping to fight another day.

Detert hopes that day will be soon, as the Senate Regulated Industries Committee has scheduled a vote on her bill for Monday. If the bill passes the Senate committee, Detert will resume her lobbying efforts in the House.

The lobbying on both sides of the bill has grown fierce, with several different mobile home interest groups trying to tip the scales in their favor.

"There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation going around," Detert said.

Detert, the Alliance of Park Residents and their lobbyist argue that giving park residents the right of first refusal to buy their parks is a constitutional way to level the playing field for a growing number of residents being forced by development to relocate.

The opposing group -- including the Business Regulation Committee chairman, the Florida Manufactured Housing Association and the Federation of Manufactured Home Owners of Florida Inc. -- maintains that legislating another right of first refusal violates the private-property rights of park owners.

Committee Chairman Frank Attkisson, R-Kissimmee, has already passed his own mobile home bill through the committee. He is sponsoring the House version of a bill by Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton,that would require local governments to financially assist displaced park residents.

While an attorney with Florida Legal Services said Detert's bill would not upset the constitutional balance of the "hybrid" property rights of park residents and park owners, a representative of a property rights group based in Orlando called it "a bad solution in search of a non-existent problem."

Rep. John Legg, R-Port Richey, a co-sponsor of Detert's bill, countered: "I have 10,000 seniors who are about to become homeless who may disagree with your comment that it's a nonexistent problem."

During questioning, Carol Saviak of the Coalition for Property Rights, said that Detert's bill, as well as current law -- which gives park residents the right of first refusal only in solicited offers -- is unconstitutional. But current law has never been challenged by park owners.

Others have raised doubts over whether giving park residents the right of first refusal in unsolicited offers even accomplishes much, since it would be difficult for residents to band together and put up the millions of dollars that mobile home park land is now commanding on the real-estate market.

Detert, along with park residents who traveled to Tallahassee, said they would be capable of banding together and coming up with the money with something like a 30-year mortgage. If the park owner gets the same sum of money in either case, they argued, why does it matter where it comes from?

Attkisson was the only member of the committee to debate the bill.

"This shuts down the market for future development by anybody" who might wish to redevelop a mobile home park, he said.

William Abraham, a former vice president of the board of directors of the Gardens mobile home park in Parrish, came to Tallahassee to fight for Detert's bill.

For the past few years, Abraham said, residents of the park have put a new sum of money on the table with the hopes that the park owner would consider it if a developer came knocking on his door.

Two years ago, the figure was $26 million, he said. This year they put down a $40 million offer, with residents banding together for $10 million and the rest coming from a mortgage.

"All we're asking for is to have that chance," Abraham said.

About 45 residents from the Manatee-Sarasota area will be traveling in a bus to Tallahassee next week to lobby for the passage of Detert's bill in the Senate committee.

Lobbyist Travis Moore said the Senate committee would be a "battle." He said he believes the measure currently has around five votes, and the committee has 10 members.

Complicating matters is the fact that other park residents around the state, specifically those aligned with the FMO, support the bill supported by Bennett and Attkisson, while opposing Detert's measure.

Bennett's bill has not yet been placed on the Regulated Industries Committee agenda.

© 2006 Bradenton Herald, Stephen Majors; all rights reserved.