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No merit in Meriton plans for caravan park residents By: MARK SKELSEY, LILLIAN SALEH IT MIGHTN'T have wide tree-lined streets and three-storey mansions -- but it's home.For the residents of the Landsdowne Caravan Park, their modest mobile homes and cabins are all they have. Now a plan by the site's owner, building giant Meriton, to rezone the land may leave residents homeless. Sydney property developer Harry Triguboff, Australia's sixth richest man with an estimated wealth of $1.4 billion, has owned the south-western Sydney park for 20 years. The park is zoned private recreation, which allows rental accommodation. A council rezoning to residential would allow the park to be subdivided and sold. A Meriton spokesman yesterday tried to hose down speculation, saying any rezoning would only see change "a long way down the track''. "We're still putting new vans into the park at the moment,'' he said. But park residents yesterday told The Daily Telegraph they would be left destitute if forced from the park. "Where will we go? This is our home. There is nowhere else for us,'' 64-year-old pensioner Zoe Morgan said. Mrs Morgan owns her mobile home and pays $104 a week in site costs. "There has been talk of this for 10 years but no one has ever said anything to us,'' she said. "We can't afford to just go and buy a house or rent somewhere else. "If it really went ahead this time, then the only decent thing they can do by us is relocate us.'' Fairfield councillor Thang Ngo said he was worried about the possible displacement of up to 1000 residents from low-cost housing. He said the park was also in a flood-affected area. |