Can a trailer park be a protected landmark? The answer from the city of Santa Monica is “no,” at least for the Village Trailer Park, which is located at the corner of Colorado Avenue and 29th Street. The city’s Landmarks Commission, which will give landmark status to just about anything if the sob story is good enough, denied the designation for the Village Trailer Park at a meeting this week. The vote was 5-2.

The application for landmark status was before the commission because the residents were trying to do anything to prevent the property owner from kicking them out and building a new development. The owner, Marc Lazzutto, gave the residents eviction notices five years ago. The residents have managed to delay the process, but it appears their moment of doom could be coming soon.

Had the park been given landmark status, it would have given the residents some protection. City staff had recommended the status not be granted, despite consultant IFC International saying that the park qualified based on two of the six features that determine whether a property is a landmark. A property only needs to have one of these features for the landmark designation to be considered.

According to IFC’s report, the property “exemplifies, symbolizes, or manifests elements of the cultural, social, economic, political or architectural history of the city” and “embodies distinguishing architectural characteristics valuable to a study of a period, style, method of construction.”

“The subject property is an excellent example of a traditional trailer park exhibiting all of the key character defining architectural features typical of the type,” IFC’s report states. “In addition, as a cultural landscape, Village Trailer Park manifests the cultural history of Santa Monica through its planned design and the evolution of its landscape by the introduction of flora, vernacular landscape elements, and decorative additions to trailers and outdoor living spaces by its residents over a 60-year period.”

But most city officials were not persuaded.

“The Trailer Park is not extraordinary in its design and layout and does not possess any extant buildings or features of particular architectural interest,” the city’s planning staff wrote in their report. “Its integrity has been significantly compromised by the removal of the central driveway median and historic landscaping and therefore it is not able to fully convey its period of significance either as an example of transient accommodations or as post-war housing.”

The residents are not totally out of options. They could appeal this decision to the City Council. And if the council rejects it, they could then take their case to the courtroom. Most of the residents are low-income and elderly, so they probably do not have enough money to sustain lengthy litigation. But they have also attracted the attention of many bleeding-hearts, so it is possible they could have somebody do some pro bono work for them.

The property owner wants to use the nearly four acres of land to build 240 condominium units, including more than 100 that are “affordable.” And it is not as if he is going to throw the trailer park residents on the street. He has offered to find them new housing, but the residents and their supporters say that is not good enough. The residents want to live what, for many of them, are their final days in the same neighborhood where they have spent the past several decades.

It is good for the residents that they want to save the neighborhood, and it might even be something worth fighting for. But this latest stage of the battle is an example of using the government to try to do something it was never meant to do. The trailer park is not a landmark, it was never going to be one and it shouldn’t be considered one. No reasonable person would think this. But the residents were hoping that there were enough softies on the commission to give it to them. They managed to get two, so it was possible.