John Montagna is ready to move into a new RV park in the Green Meadows West section of Harbor City, near his job as a longshoreman.
But he is still making a two-hour commute from Bakersfield, after opposition from neighbors helped stall the opening of the park.
“Save Green Meadows West” signs have popped up on many lawns as residents express fears about crime and declining property values, while people like Montagna say the park, called Ocean’s 11, offers an affordable option amid the area’s sky-high rents.
“There’s people that live nice in RVs,” said Montagna, who plans to pay $1,250 a month to live at the park in his 2021 Tiffin Allegro Bus. “Anybody who moves into any neighborhood can be a safety issue. You can’t be stereotyping just ‘cause it’s an RV park.”
Nicole Paulsen, who lives on President Avenue about a block from the proposed RV park, worries about a “Breaking Bad” scenario of drugs and violence, noting issues with RVs illegally parked nearby on Western Avenue. She said the RV park’s developer has not adequately included neighbors in the planning process.
“It’s not going to be our neighborhood anymore,” said Paulsen, who grew up in San Pedro and moved to Green Meadows West in 2019 after having her second child.
Still, Paulsen acknowledged that many of the people who eventually move in will probably be law-abiding. She stressed that some of her opposition comes out of fear that the RV park’s residents, who she said will be “packed in like sardines,” won’t be safe themselves.
Jerry Long, who has lived across from the property for 13 years, said he would prefer a residential development over an RV park, which he said will be too high-density.
“It doesn’t fit the character of the neighborhood,” he said. “This was zoned for single-family.”
For more than a year, Ocean’s 11 has been mired in litigation and procedural roadblocks, including a measure authored by Councilmember Tim McOsker and approved by the full City Council that requires an environmental analysis of the nine defunct oil wells on the property.
For now, the RV park sits nearly empty, with only a security guard living there.
Stewart Silver, an entrepreneur who started Avon Rent-A-Car and owned an Anaheim professional roller hockey team, purchased the 1.2-acre parcel near the southern tip of Los Angeles for $1.6 million in 2023. He has opened four other RV parks and still operates two in Santa Clarita and North Hills.
He said he spent more than half a million dollars prepping and building the Ocean’s 11 site. He then began offering the lots, which have water, power and sewer hookups as well as space to park a car and create a small yard, to prospective tenants.
Silver used a city process available to RV parks, which allows them to be designated as a “public benefit project” if they meet 12 standards, including noise regulations and graffiti removal. These projects are not required to be debated in public hearings.
But then, residents caught wind of the project. Many have lived in the neighborhood, with its neat lawns and single-family homes, for decades. A three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on President Avenue was recently advertised for $799,000 on Zillow.
Last June, Paulsen started a GoFundMe, quickly raising more than $30,000 for legal representation to fight the RV park.
“We are uniting to express our concerns about the proposed construction of this RV park which will harm the safety of our quiet neighborhood, overcrowd our area with traffic, and negatively affect the privacy and property values of neighboring residents of this RV park,” neighbors wrote on their website, “Save Green Meadows West.”
“I followed all the rules. We’re going to be good neighbors. These are communities that I build,” Silver said. “The people we cater to at these things are … everyday people, salt of the earth people.”
Silver has promised that the RV park will be staffed with a security guard 24-7.
Dana Goller, a security guard who already lives on the property with his wife, said the park will make the neighborhood more safe, not less safe.
“Everybody moving here is people just like them,” he said. “They work. They live. They pay bills. … What Stewart’s opening here is a blessing, not a sin. This is not a homeless camp.”
McOsker, who represents the area, said he heard from locals like Paulsen who were concerned about the RV park.
In his motion requiring the environmental analysis of the oil wells, McCosker cited alleged issues — from missing children to assaults with a deadly weapon — at other RV parks Silver has operated.
“The operator has demonstrated several public health and safety failures … and the potential for this type of nuisance activity to occur in Harbor City and impact public safety should be taken into consideration,” McOsker wrote in the motion.
Silver said that he sold an RV park in Wilmington nearly five years ago and that there was “no crime” when he ran it.
In an interview, McOsker said he was horrified by the conditions at the Wilmington site, including narrow driving lanes, food for sale outdoors and washers and dryers connected with extension cords. He feared Silver might soon sell the Ocean’s 11 property, which could allow it to similarly deteriorate.
“It looked like a very dangerous encampment,” McOsker said of the Wilmington RV park.
After the City Council passed McOsker’s motion in June 2024, the Department of Building and Safety closed the project’s permits, effectively putting it on hold.
McOsker and neighbors say that Silver has not built his park up to the 12 standards required for public benefit projects, though city agencies have signed off on the project multiple times.
McOsker said he also believes the project needs a conditional use permit, which would require public hearings and a more formalized process.
“This is not about stopping anything. This is about requiring a safe and inhabitable property,” he said. “It’s about applying our code fairly, where we are protecting health and safety of the residents at the property.”
A conditional use permit could codify requirements for Silver and subsequent owners, McOsker said, such as spacing the RVs to allow emergency vehicles to easily maneuver.
Silver said McOsker’s measures were “thinly veiled” political efforts to stop Ocean’s 11 from operating in his district.
Some advocates for more affordable housing agreed with Silver.
“It’s disappointing when City Council members continue to disrupt affordable housing, and Councilmember McOsker is certainly trying to use procedure and political moves to do so with this [conditional use permit] process,” said Zachary Pitts, the Los Angeles director of YIMBY Action.
Last July, after McOsker’s motion requiring the environmental review passed, Silver sued the city.
Last month, a judge ruled largely in Silver’s favor, saying the city must issue the permits it has been withholding. McOsker’s argument that the project needs a conditional use permit “conflicts with the city’s own long-standing, consistent interpretation” that an RV park needs only to meet the 12 standards to qualify as a public benefit project, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Alison Mackenzie wrote.
The city attorney’s office declined to comment on the case or whether it plans to appeal.
McOsker is fighting back with more legislation. Last month, the council approved his motion for city staff to draft an interim ordinance that would prohibit the issuing of permits for RV parks built as public benefit projects.
The ordinance, when it is published, will be in effect for 45 days and can be extended for months as the city works to adopt new land use rules.
It’s not clear whether the ordinance would affect Ocean’s 11. McOsker’s office said the RV park’s permitting will “be most likely resolved through judicial and administrative determinations both at the court and at the city.” Silver believes the judge’s ruling entitles him to permits.
“This ruling really hurt me,” said Paulsen, who started to cry.
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