DUANESBURG — For Don Williams, the notice he received to vacate the Hillcrest Mobile Home Park was déjà vu.

Eight years ago, he was forced to leave the Fox Run Estates mobile home park in Albany, after the city expanded the nearby Rapp Road landfill. He settled his family at Hillcrest, where he lived comfortably until the state Department of Environmental Conservation ordered the park closed because of a faulty wastewater system.

“I figured here we go again,” he said Tuesday.

But with a combined effort by state agencies, the park’s longtime manager and a buyer, Hillcrest has received the reprieve Williams and dozens of other tenants had desperately sought. The Rochester-based Morgan Management officially sold the 53-site property to a pair of Capital Region investors for an undisclosed amount.

The new owners, Jude and Rose Watkins, agreed to fix the 42-year-old park’s failed septic system by January. Dan Heenan, the area agent who helped broker the deal, said the sale was in the works for months.

“It just took a bit of time,” he said.

News of the sale spread rapidly throughout the park this week and delighted residents. Though rumors of the deal had circulated for months, many of the Hillcrest tenants said they felt they were facing an uncertain future.

“You’re looking at a lot of happy people here,” beamed Diana Hewitt, an 11-year resident of the park. “We’ve been living with this apprehension for months.”

Their concern extended through 10 months and four holidays. Some tenants began to leave the park, while others kept their belongings packed, in anticipation of a final notice to leave.

Michelle Lane, the treasurer of the Hillcrest Tenants Association, celebrated the news by cleaning the bare walls of her home and mowing the lawn. This week, she plans to return her pictures to where they once hung and finally throw away the boxes she had saved — just in case.

“We were told it was going to be saved,” she said of the park. “But you always had this scary feeling of not knowing what to do if it wasn’t.”

hangs tough

Many tenants credited park manager Richard Dickershaid for his leadership when Hillcrest was facing almost certain demise. Dickershaid was a vocal opponent of the park’s closure and even lobbied local state legislators to help work something out.

“Dick promised us we would stay and he kept his promise,” said Williams.

Hillcrest was initially owned by Pittsford Capital LLC, a group that had all of its assets seized in July 2006 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged its principal owners with running a fraudulent promissory note scheme and raising more than $15 million. The park was sold to Morgan Management for $600,000 in October, two months after a U.S. District Court judge ordered Pittsford principals Edward “Ted” Tackaberry and Mark Palazzo to pay $11.7 million for their role in the real estate scheme.

After the sale, Morgan Management declined to fix the park’s failed sanitary system, which was first cited for releasing treated effluent into the Normans Kill in 2002. As a consolation, the company offered park residents up to $4,000 to relocate their homes to its properties in Porter Corners and Ballston Spa in Saratoga County.

However, many of the park’s residents were unable to move due to the age of their homes. Others balked at the offer because they would be forced to move nearly 40 miles away.

Dickershaid said the plight of the Hillcrest tenants over the past year should be enough to prompt state legislation. He was dismayed that the state could allow the failed wastewater system to remain for more than five years, but the park owners could order all the tenants out in just three months.

“People should be told this can happen when they move in,” he said.

State Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, on Tuesday said he intends to push for such legislation during the next session, if not sooner. He also intends to investigate the role of Pittsford Capital in prompting the events.

“I’m sure this has happened before and this should never happen again,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hillcrest’s residents are planning a party to celebrate a new lease on life for their park. Lane said all the people who helped save the park will be invited to help usher in its new era.

“It’s a whole new beginning,” said Lane.