‘Unfit for human habitation.’ Pierce County city sues mobile home park as nuisance
The city of Lakewood has again sued property owners with Karwan Village LLC for not fixing up a mobile-home park the city has long deemed a public nuisance.
Lakewood alleges the property at 2621 84th St. SW has “dangerous” structures “unfit for human habitation” that were built without permits and contends the property is “littered with garbage, furniture, personal belongings and drug paraphernalia,” according to a civil complaint recently filed in Pierce County Superior Court.
“The Property remains without power or water and continues to be illegally occupied by squatters and transients. Defendants have not abated the dangerous and nuisance conditions on the Property,” the city said in the lawsuit. “The City has also found stolen and abandoned vehicles on the Property.”
Sofi Choi, a representative with Karwan Village LLC, told The News Tribune in an email Wednesday it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
“We have been working amicably with the City of Lakewood to resolve the outstanding items, some of which predate the current ownership, who has invested over $1.5M in the property over the past couple of years,” Choi said.
Lakewood brought property owners at this site to court in 2019 for similar issues, including “multiple failing septic systems,” “exposed and unprotected wires installed without permits,” “structures with leaking roofs that soak floors and walls,” broken windows, vagrancy, mold, collapsing carports and bathrooms “without any functioning plumbing and RV units without septic connections,” according to the city’s hearing examiner’s finding of fact.
In addition the hearing examiner found in October 2019, “Water [was] provided to some mobile homes via garden hoses” and “Makeshift water connections [were] illegally made above ground without backflow devices, facilitating the contamination of the park’s water supply,” according to court records.
“The most recent filing is the city’s next step in the abatement process to see this site cleaned up,” city spokesperson Brynn Grimley said in an email Monday. “We continue to work with the property owner to see these quality of life concerns corrected, and hope that the end result is the full cleanup of this site so that people who live there are living in safe conditions.”
City details raw sewage leaks, lack of maintenance
The city’s lawsuit, filed March 21, said a mobile home park with about 30 homes was established on the approximate 4.5-acre property decades ago, in addition to “two stick-built structures” with add-ons. In August 2016, the city issued Karwan Mobile Home Park a conditional license, and the Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer office assessed the value of the property to be about $2.5 million.
Over the years, the city says, the property was not “consistently or properly maintained” and required “a great deal of attention” from the city’s code and law enforcement team.
In October 2024, the city’s building official issued an administrative complaint to the owners and occupants of the property detailing the “dangerous and nuisance conditions” there, including the presence of raw sewage that was leaking out of the property’s failing septic system onto adjacent property and into a storm drainage system, according to the complaint.
The city met with the property’s owner and some occupants of the park later that month, and Lakewood issued an administrative order in November outlining the conditions of the property and establishing deadlines to address those conditions, the lawsuit said. The property owner filed a notice of appeal with the city in December and the city filed a motion to dismiss the appeal in January. The city’s hearing examiner approved the city’s motion to dismiss in January, according to court records.
“While Defendants made some progress on the Property, conditions still present a danger and nuisance to the community,” the city said in the lawsuit.
Lakewood is seeking remedies that include requiring Karwan Village LLC to pay a civil penalty or lien for the cost of abatement, correct the public nuisances outlined and issue an abatement order that includes the demolition of structures on the property. A court date is scheduled for July 25.
