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Plan for Clarksville housing development threatens mobile home park residents

Posted at 10:29 PM, Nov 19, 2020
and last updated 2020-11-19 23:31:06-05

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A plan for a new housing project in Clarksville is clashing with neighbors who have lived in the area for years – neighbors who’ve been told they have to move out.

Many of them are on fixed incomes and say they now don’t know where to turn.

Ask Clarksville's Ron Dimura, and he'll tell you It's the people who make Campbell Heights Mobile Park truly feel like home.

"Everybody's friendly around here, let me tell you something: we help one another, we watch each other's kids here," said Dimura.

But a new housing development is threatening to tear this community apart. The park was originally slated to close with just about 90 days notice leaving many here on a fixed income soon without a home, and without a plan.

"How am I supposed to move with no money?" asked Dimura. "I only make $800 a month -- I don't make anything else, that's what I'm on!"

The owner of the property, Robert Durrett, says the leasing manager Allen Berry first sent out the 90-day notice alarming many of the people who live there, even though Durrett says he didn't know about it.

Durrett says he's sent a follow-up letter to people in the mobile home park, saying he wants to work with the neighbors there, giving them until the end of May to find a new place to live.

The much longer time frame helps Ron says. But like his neighbors, he still has no answers.

"I don't know where I'm going to go," Dimura said. "I honestly don't know, there's no place here in Clarksville. I'm going to have to move away! I have doctors here and everything else, I don't know what I'm going to do!"