Mobile home residents lose fight to stop luxury apartments

ATHENS - Residents of a mobile home park who fought unsuccessfully to save their rental homes from apartment developers are moving out. <br> <br> The Garden Springs park near the University of Georgia was targeted by developers for a new apartment complex for students. <br> <br> Hundreds of low-income tenants learned in June that the 22-acre park had been sold for $1.7 million to developers. The deadline for leaving was March 1. <br> <br> The residents tried to fight the sale, even considering buying the land themselves for $2 million, but failed to stop plans for the new complex. <br> <br> Their plight won attention from students and local church members, who fear Athens has too little affordable housing. <br> <br> For people living in Garden Springs, the campus activism didn&#39;t help much. <br> <br> Longtime city residents complain that as the university&#39;s academic standards rise, more affluent students have declined to live in campus housing and are edging out nearby residents of modest means.