Tacoma mobile-home park residents saved 59 sequoias. Now they hope to buy park
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Residents mobilized after plans to remove 59 sequoias, forming a co-op to buy land
- Owner cited sewer and road risk; arborist recommended selective root pruning
- Residents’ push is a victory for affordable housing in Tacoma.
A wall of sequoias over 100 feet fall abuts a 25-unit mobile home park in Eastside Tacoma. Crows perch in their blue-green branches. Resident Viola Stewart, who has lived there nine years, enjoys watching the wind rustle the needles.
In August, residents of the Ohana Estates at 8211 E. McKinley Ave. learned that 59 giant sequoias might be cut down. The incident prompted them to mobilize. By January, the neighbors plan to start a co-op to buy the community from their landlord, thus ensuring their housing stays affordable and the trees remain cared for.
Owner Kelly Verduin told The News Tribune on Oct. 21 that she’s owned the property with her husband and other partners since 1989, in addition to other mobile home properties in the South Sound. Verduin said she’s optimistic the sale will go forward, with the help of Resident Owned Communities USA (ROC USA), which is assisting the manufactured-home community residents in forming a cooperative and navigating the purchase and management of the property. According to Pierce County records, the property was worth $1.72 million in 2025.
“If we didn’t sell to the residents, we would end up selling to a private investor, who would, of course, have to make their return and then raise rents,” said Verduin, who is based in Poulsbo. “This would be the fourth [mobile home community] we’ve sold to the residents, and it is a win-win. There’s something very rewarding about … [the tenants] retaining that forever. The value of their homes are worth more because it’s not a land-lease situation anymore. They own a share of the cooperative.”
Verduin said the trees were planted before she purchased the property. Originally there were cedar trees planted in between each sequoia, but the sequoias quickly took over the limited space, she said.
ROC USA has helped 356 manufactured-home communities purchase their land nationwide since its founding in 2008, according to its website. That includes 24,415 homes. The organization, which is headquartered in New Hampshire, touts its model as a way to build wealth and investment power in working class and BIPOC communities through community ownership.
On a walk around the neighborhood on Oct. 20, neighbor John Burns said his biggest fear is that the owner would sell to a developer “and kick us all out.” He’s lived at the park next to the sequoias for more than 20 years.
“It’s like being in the forest,” he said. “Nothing has brought the community together more than these trees.”
Verduin said she considered cutting down the sequoias because she was concerned their roots would harm the sewer line nearby and buckle the road, which would be more costly to fix down the line. Now that the residents are planning to take over the property, it would be their responsibility to find solutions to any future problems, she said.
For now, the trees will stay. An arborist contacted by the neighbors wrote in a preliminary assessment that, “In my professional opinion, removing the entire row of trees seems highly unnecessary and an exaggerated response to minimal initial impacts to structures. Many, if not all, of the concerns brought forth could be mitigated with selective root pruning.”
Philip Stielstra got involved after residents reached out to him in August to help save the trees. Stielstra is the president of the nonprofit PropagationNation, which was founded to propagate and plant millions of giant sequoias and coastal redwoods around the Pacific Northwest. On Oct. 20 one of the sequoia Stielstra measured was 4.6 feet in diameter.
“They sequester carbon at two to three times the rate of native Northwest trees,” he said. “I think Tacoma is not doing well by their trees, especially in the south and east parts of the city. Overall, the canopy is only 20%, it’s one of the lowest in the state … I mean, you can have the Tacoma Tree Foundation planting as many trees as you want, but it’s going to take 50 years to get to be the size and the beneficial nature of the ones that they were going to allow to be cut down.”
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 5:15 AM.
