http://www.newsmirror.net/articles/2011/09/23/news/doc4e7a6179b9b76110192929.txt
By RACHAEL M. GUSTUSON Staff Reporter In a well-attended public hearing at Calimesa City Hall on Monday, Sept. 19, city council held its regularly scheduled meeting, with two agenda items regarding adoption of an annual rent control fee for mobile home parks and proposed amendments to the Calimesa Municipal Code of mobile home rent stabilization ordinance.
The first item included a public hearing and consideration of adoption of resolution 2011-13, establishing an annual registration fee on regulated mobile home parks to fund the administration and enforcement of the city’s Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Ordinance. Making the total monthly amount from each mobile-home space, $3.59, of which $1.79 would be paid for by the park owner and $1.79 to be paid for by the mobile home owner, as discussed at the meeting on Aug. 15, which was held at Mesa View Middle School.
“The goal of this meeting is to hear from you,” said Mayor Ella Zanowic. “There are some ground rules. Please keep it civil and on point.”
Assistant City Attorney Amy Greyson began by reminding council they directed staff to set a public hearing and to impose an annual registration fee of per mobile-home space. The annual amount of $43.08 per mobile home space was calculated in the recommendation. The fee would be paid for by the park owner who would in turn collect from each individual mobile home resident.
In the background information in the staff report, it indicated there are eight mobile home parks in Calimesa and 1,286 mobile-home spaces — 987 of those spaces may be subject to the ordinance.
Based on 2011 registrations, there were 699 spaces under the ordinance. The remaining 288 spaces are currently exempt from rent control provisions because they are on long-term leases.
The council then heard from the public, primarily park owners who were objecting to the ordinance.
In part of his objections, Big Oak Garden MHP owner Dennis Sullivan said, “Park owners receive no benefits from this ordinance. How are we gonna collect it? Monthly installments instead of one payment at the beginning of the year (would be better).”
Park owner Marilyn Green was also against the ordinance and the payment collection.
“The fee should be paid 100 percent by the residents and directly to the city,” said Green. “Why should the burden be on us to pay your fee?”
Other park owners voiced similar concerns.
“I don’t live in a park but our city is a great place to live,” said Calimesa resident Linda Molina. “A lot of people are affected by the rent control. They really don’t have any other place to go. I’m glad we have the ordinance. We have to consider the number of people who can not afford to live somewhere else.”
One speaker said the registration fees would protect the park residents. City Attorney Kevin Ennis addressed the council, “In our experience registration fees are very common. In terms of collection, that is your decision.”
Also discussed was potential late fees for the mobile home owner.
Councilwoman Joyce McIntire said she is whole heartedly against the late fee imposed on a mobile park owner. She referred to the $1.70 fee as buying a loaf of bread, and the residents need that money.
“As Kevin mentioned, the late fee is a policy decision,” said Greyson. “You can direct us to modify the language.”
Ennis added in terms of the one time annual payment to the city, it would streamline the payment.
Council Member Jim Hyatt asked if the parks collected the fees and the city could do monthly installments versus the yearly payment as indicated in the report.
“Because we’re telling a private owner how to collect their fees,” said Hyatt.
Council member Jeff Hyatt said he would agree to monthly installments and “some sort of penalty so it keeps people on time with payment.”
After much discussion about late fees, Mayor Pro Tem Bill Davis made a motion to accept as written with the addition that it is collected on a monthly basis by the park owner, with no additional late fees.
The motion passed unanimously and it will go forward to staff who will amend and bring back the issue at the next meeting.
The final item on the rent stabilization issue was on proposed amendments to the code in which city staff recommended that city council.
Ennis said it was primarily to update the language and to do so resulted in lengthening both ordinances.
Plantation on the Lakes owner Ron Hanson was against the amendments.
“We’ve been here 25 years as one of the premiere living communities. Why is this being done — 56 pages of regulations? I know it’s too complicated for you to understand. I hope that you have the leadership to do the right thing.”
Other upset park owners spoke against the amendments.
City Clerk Darlene Gerdes said, “We held a workshop in February with park owners and residents, also in June. They have been included in this process.”
“The problem is that we have two sides,” said Hewitt. “It’s not as simple as it seems. We can’t pull out any miracles here. We have threats on both sides.”
McIntire motioned to adopt the ordinances with a few changes. It was passed, four to zero, with Hewitt voting No.
The revised ordinance will also come back at the next meeting.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Monterey County: Marina City Wins approval for Rent Control; Awaits final Vote on Oct. 4, 2011l
http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_18951738
Some mobile home residents have sought measure since early 1990s
Posted: 09/22/2011 01:29:42 AM PDT
Updated: 09/22/2011 01:29:43 AM PDT
By a bare majority late Tuesday, the Marina City Council gave a long-sought victory to activists seeking rent control in the city's five mobile home parks.
A majority made up of Mayor Bruce Delgado and Councilmen Frank O'Connell and David Brown voted to give a preliminary OK to the "Mobile Home Rental Stabilization Ordinance" after a two-hour hearing.
Council members Nancy Amadeo and Jim Ford opposed the measure, maintaining the stance they have had since the city began putting together the proposed ordinance this summer.
Some Marina mobile home residents have been asking the city to enact rent control since the early 1990s, but their efforts previously came up short.
"It's been a lot of years," Delgado said immediately after the vote. He said he believed the proposed ordinance would be fair both to mobile home residents and park owners.
But Manuel Vieira, a representative of the Marina mobile home parks, blasted the measure as being "fiscally irresponsible" and "a special interest pet project" pushed by the council majority.
In an email shortly after the vote, Doug Johnson, regional representative of the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, said, "It's too bad Marina taxpayers will have to foot the bill for this type of incompetence and fiscal mismanagement."
However, several mobile home residents urged the council to pass the measure, saying it was time for the city to enact protection for mobile home residents.
"Thank you for having the courage to even look at this," said Patty Cramer, one of the leaders in the rent-control campaign.
A final vote to adopt the ordinance is scheduled for Oct. 4, and if it wins approval, it would take effect 30 days later.
Consultant's advice
During Tuesday's hearing, much of the dialogue was between council members and city-hired consultant Kenneth Baar over fine-tuning portions of the 25-page rent-control measure.
At Baar's recommendation, the council agreed to raise the allowable annual rent increase park owners could charge from 80 percent to 100 percent of increases in the Consumer Price Index.
That would make the measure stronger from possible legal challenge, Baar said.
The measure would impose a fee on mobile home residents under rent control to pay costs associated with administering the program, which would put disputes before an arbitrator.
At first, Brown suggested a $10 monthly fee, but several mobile home residents said that would be too high. And since possible costs associated with the program aren't nailed down, the council decided to leave the fee amounts to a follow-up measure.
Baar estimated it would cost about $10,000 a year to administer the rent control program, and an arbitration hearing over contested rental rates would likely cost $10,000. Litigation costs would be far more, but he said most of the 90 California cities and counties with mobile home rent control have faced little litigation.
Testimony from residents
Mobile home residents offered divided testimony in earlier hearings. Many argued that mobile home owners, many of them seniors and others living on fixed incomes, are at the mercy of park owners.
Others contend the measure would only affect about 100 of the 399 spaces in Marina mobile home parks because the majority of residents now have separate leases setting rental rates.
But advocates argued that some of those residents were forced into the rental agreements, and when their leases expire, those residents, too, would be protected against large rent increases.
Fears of increases
Amadeo said she heard from two mobile home residents, deeply afraid of rent increases, who encouraged her to support the measure. She pointed out with the annual allowable CPI-based rent increases and monthly fees, the ordinance wouldn't prevent rents from going up.
Baar said the courts would throw out any measure that simply freezes rents. Park owners are entitled to a fair return, he said.
Larry Parsons can be reached at 646-4379 or lparsons@montereyherald.com.
Trailer Parks as Models for Affordable Housing
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2011/09/trailer-park-new-model-affordable-housing/160/
“Trailer” is to “rural” what “McMansion” is to “suburb.” But in Santa Monica, trailers are being transformed into something decidedly urban.
“Trailer” is to “rural” what “McMansion” is to “suburb.” But in Santa Monica, trailers are being transformed into something decidedly urban.
A well-designed trailer park might seem an oxymoron, but the much-maligned building typology has a lot of potential for an appealing alternative to more conventional low income housing. No surprise to see this happening in the particularly enlightened City of Santa Monica—the work it has done with resource conservation should be a model for any resource-challenged city—which purchased the Mountain View Mobile Home Park to preserve it for affordable housing a decade ago. Los Angeles-based Marmol Radziner Prefab won the contract to transform the park’s aging trailers and mobile homes into stylish and sustainable homes.
In collaboration with manufacturer Golden West Homes, Marmol Radziner recently completed half of 20 planned mobile homes in the Santa Monica trailer park. The low-income rental units (available to those who earn 80 percent or less of Los Angeles County’s median income) show how good design and manufacturing can co-exist—and be sustainable, too. Dispelling preconceived notions about trailer homes, these modest yet attractive models are constructed with formaldehyde-free wood products and come equipped with renewable energy sources such as a 2kW solar photovoltaic array that sends energy back to the grid. In April, the first residents moved in to the transformed neighborhood.
Better known for its high-end architectural modernism in Southern California, Marmol Radziner enjoyed the challenge of designing with constraints—of which there are many. Designing a series of homes rather than the one-off typical of most modern prefab helps bring down costs through economies of scale. But that scale brings its own challenges: Land zoned for mobile home parks is typically limited in its capacity to support high density, mixed-use communities, since the parks have designated spaces for units and often do not allow multi-unit or multi-story housing. But there is still hope for the urban trailer park, as firm principal Ron Radziner explains. “The best model for new development is to repurpose existing mobile home parks that may be in good locations, but have low quality, out-of-date homes, and upgrade them to modern, green homes,” he says. The firm is currently exploring new markets and opportunities with its partner Clayton Homes.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Contra Costa Coungy OKs emergency waterline to Marsh Creek Road mobile home park
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18937980
Posted: 09/20/2011 02:12:42 PM PDT
Updated: 09/20/2011 05:21:23 PM PDT
The owner of a remote mobile home park on Marsh Creek Road outside Clayton cannot be compelled to hook up the homes of a dozen landowners along the route of its emergency water pipeline.
The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously rejected a lower panel's demand that a water district upsize a line to accommodate the residents who live between the end of the existing pipe and the Clayton Regency Mobile Home Park and require park owner, General Electric, to foot the bill.
In 2007, county health inspectors declared a public health emergency at the mobile home park after a series of failures of its water system.
In what was supposed to be a temporary fix, the park began trucking in water daily for its 280 residents.
Contra Costa Public Health Director Wendel Brunner, who ruled four years ago that the use of trucked water leaves open the chance of contamination during transport, warned supervisors that he will be forced to shut the park and evict the residents unless he sees substantial progress toward construction of a permanent source of clean water.
The supervisors' vote clears the path toward the installation of a 4-inch, 3-mile pipeline for the sole use of the mobile home park.
The intervening landowners along Marsh Creek Road who have been denied access to a pipeline that will be constructed in front of their properties expressed frustration and anger.
"We are not rolling over and we are not
going away," said Harry Williamson, a Marsh Creek resident since 1973."You have to realize that General Electric ... has very deep pockets," added homeowner Walter Molina. "They can afford to put in a larger pipe. They can afford to put in fire hydrants. They can afford to make peace along that stretch. They can afford it, and I don't understand why you aren't sticking it to them a little bit and making them pay."
Supervisors were sympathetic to the residents' plight but said they could not force General Electric to pay the extra costs associated with a bigger pipeline.
"All of you have the right and ability to pursue (and apply to) the Contra Costa Water District ... to obtain your service," Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho told the residents. "I get that it is expensive. I understand that. But it's not General Electric's responsibility to be Robin Hood."
The board was acting on an appeal of a July decision by the county Planning Commission, whose members ordered the construction, at General Electric's cost, of a pipe large enough for all possible uses, including the intervening landowners and fire hydrants.
County planning and legal staff said the bigger pipe would trigger a costly and lengthy full-scale environmental analysis, attract significant environmental opposition and lead to the delay, or the possible rejection, of the emergency waterline to the park.
Councilwoman angered by conditions, rent prices at El Monte mobile home park, San Gabriel Valley
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_18940412
EL MONTE - Councilwoman Norma Macias is speaking out against what she calls "shameful" conditions at a local mobile-home park.
Macias recently visited Brookside Mobile Country Club, next to Mountain View High School, after receiving complaints from some residents of deplorable conditions and exorbitant rents.
The councilwoman said she intends to do whatever she can, including raising the issue with her council colleagues, to support residents of the park.
"What is taking place here is nothing short of criminal, to take advantage and gouge these people," Macias said. "I, for certain, want to make an issue of what is going on here. We need to do our best to protect our residents."
Officials with Tatum-Kaplan Financial Group, which owns the park through its subsidiary Brookside Investments LTS, declined an interview request for this story. The park's management company, Mobile Community Management Co., a Santa-Ana based group also owned by Kaplan, responded with a fact sheet about the property and company.
Macias, who is considering running for the new 32nd Congressional District, said mobile- home residents are naturally placed in a tough situation when it comes to renting spaces for their homes. Despite the name, mobile homes are often difficult to move because they are damaged or a transfer is too costly. Park owners take advantage, Macias said.
"These people are stuck," she said. "The landlord knows these people are stuck. It really breaks my heart."
One resident, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said his family has lived in the community for more than 30 years and has seen their rent skyrocket.
When they first lived there, rent was $100. Now, it is $1,160 a month "just for the dirt," he said.
According to the U.S. Census American Community Survey, the median rent for apartments and homes in El Monte from 2005 to 2009 was $1,003.
The man said he would move from Brookside but doesn't have the money.
"It can cost $10,000 to move one of these," he said. "We live on a fixed income, and (the landlords) know it. It is all for the money."
Some people have moved away. Walking through the more than 400-space mobile home park at 12700 Elliot Ave., it is easy to tell the park has numerous vacancies. Bare, gray cement slabs are scattered throughout as homes have been removed or transferred. Other homes have been left behind, now boarded up to prevent transients from squatting.
"They have an astonishing rate of vacancy," El Monte redevelopment attorney Dave Gondek said.
Roads are cracked and in one area of the park a former retaining wall is broken and buried beneath a hill of sand.
The park's poor appearance also stems from some residents' lack of concern or an inability to perform maintenance, officials said. Some homes are cracked and worn, and others have overgrown brush and weeds.
Police Capt. Santos Hernandez said police and city staff helped an elderly resident by cutting back overgrown shrubs in the back of her property.
Code-enforcement officers said they are reviewing the property, including the retaining wall, but had no determinations on violations.
Rent control
Like the feudal system in medieval England in which a free man owned his cottage and a feudal lord owned the land and charged a fee for using it, most mobile-home residents own their homes but rent the land beneath the property.
Renters at the Brookside property said rent ranges from $1,000 to $1,500.
Officials with other local cities said mobile-home spaces rent for about $800 or less. Glendora has rent control that keeps rents at about $800. Advertisements show rents in Palmdale, Riverside and Pomona for more than 1,000- square-foot lots are about $450. The Whittier East Community rents lots at $593 a month. In Laguna Beach, a 2,400-square- foot lot is advertised at $1,876.
Unlike Glendora, El Monte doesn't have rent control because of a 1990 ballot initiative. That same initiative also prevents the city from even trying to revisit the issue, which was passed with the help from the owners of Brookside, the Tatum-Kaplan Financial Group, Gondek said.
In 1988, in an effort to stymie rapidly increasing rents for mobile-home parks, the City Council adopted a rent-control ordinance, Gondek said.
It established an avenue for rent review between tenant and park owner with mediators overseeing the review.
Park owners challenged the ordinance with a referendum, but narrowly lost.
Two years later in 1990, the Tatum-Kaplan group, led by Jeffrey Kaplan, brought forth an initiative that proposed to abolish the rent-control ordinance, Gondek said. The selling point of the new plan was rental assistance for low-income senior citizens. Those who qualified would receive a 10 percent discount on rent.
Voters passed the ordinance, and it has been the rule of law ever since.
And if the city ever wanted to challenge it, it couldn't, Gondek said. The redevelopment attorney said Kaplan's team was "clever," and within the language of the voter- approved ordinance, the city is forbidden from contributing any staff time or city funds toward efforts to overturn the law or establish rent control.
For the city to get involved, a new ballot initiative must overturn the law to free the city, Gondek said.
"The language of the ordinance pretty much puts the city of El Monte, as a unit of local government, in a straitjacket," he said.
Tatum-Kaplan's history
Anderson said he is familiar with the Tatum-Kaplan Financial Group, the firm that owns numerous mobile-home parks under several business names, including Brookside.
"They have a tendency to look at the bottom line. A lot of them are that way," he said.
Jeffrey Kaplan and Thomas Tatum own Mobile Community Management Company. Although that company runs Brookside, the land at Brookside is owned by First National Finance, another organization run by Kaplan and Tatum, according to company officials and the Los Angeles County Assessor's Office.
Kaplan, a lawyer who heavily invested in the mobile- home business in the 1980s, owns more than a dozen mobile-home parks in Southern California, according to records from the California Secretary of State's office.
He purchased the Brookside park in the 1980s and initially leased the land, including a 2.1-acre parcel from El Monte Union High School District, city officials said. He later bought the property, including a 2004 deal to buy the school district property for $450,000, according to the purchase agreement.
Kaplan also led a failed state initiative in 1996, similar to the El Monte ordinance, to do away with rent control for mobile homes.
Kaplan and his companies have had their share of lawsuits regarding mobile home parks. Kaplan, Tatum or Mobile Community Management are named in 11 civil suits in San Bernardino County dating back to 1998 and another 10 in Orange County from 1989 to 2010, including fraud, unfair business practices and breach of contract.
A lawsuit has also been filed by residents at Brookside, but attorneys representing the group did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Objecting to rent increases, some Brookside residents formed an association in 2008 and threatened a rent strike, according to the fact sheet provided by Mobile Community Management.
In 2009, about one-third of Brookside residents filed a lawsuit against their landlords after meetings with them dissolved, according to the sheet. Park managers deny any wrongdoing, according to the fact sheet.
Residents disagree.
"They are finding the fastest way to get money out of people's pockets," a resident said.
HEMET: Firefighters provide 'invaluable' assistance with alarms to Mobile Home Owners
http://www.pe.com/localnews/hemet/stories/PE_News_Local_D_efire21.3f1d6a4.html
10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The first mobile home that Hemet fire Capt. Bill Herder entered Tuesday morning had a smoke detector that was 40-something years old, had no battery system and was hard-wired into the home's electrical system.
In a matter of weeks, the Hemet Fire Department will replace that unit, and others, at no cost to residents.
On Tuesday, nearly two dozen members of the department, most off duty, visited the Hemet West Mobile Home Park and inspected 83 homes in the 771-unit park, checking for working smoke detectors. Every resident who signed up for the service got the batteries replaced for free, and those with faulty units will get a new device paid for, and installed, by the department.
The funds will come from the Hemet Firefighters Association's charity account, not from the city.
Tuesday's event was part of what the department hopes will be an ongoing tour through the city's numerous mobile home parks, where many of the residents are seniors and are physically unable to fix the devices.
"I think the citizens see a tremendous value in it and appreciate it," Hemet fire Capt. Steve Sandefer said. "This is part of what we do."
Five mobile homes have caught fire this year, according to department call logs.
Firefighters on Tuesday said mobile homes tend to burn quickly and, because they often are close to one another, fire can spread fast. Since older residents may not be able to flee a structure quickly, every second of notice given by a smoke alarm is important.
"It's a mobile home park; they tend to go 'poof!' and you have less than three minutes per house," said Larry Graves, the Hemet West homeowners association president, who helped organize the event. "And we don't want blue-haired ladies on stepladders trying to change batteries."
The department hopes to tie its tour to the months around the spring and fall daylight-saving time changes, which is when many officials recommend changing smoke alarm batteries.
Hemet West resident Sue Howard said one of her detectors was working, but was too quiet to be heard throughout her home. The department will soon replace it, and she is grateful.
"I think this is wonderful," she said. "This is invaluable."
$2 Million For A Double-Wide Mobile Home? That's Malibu For You
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/20/140629530/-2-million-for-a-double-wide-mobile-home-thats-malibu-for-you
The word is spreading about the $2 million — in cash — paid recently for a double-wide mobile home in Malibu, Calif.
Since AOL Real Estate reported the news last week, the story's been picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle and others. The home, as Malibu Real Estate Blog reports, has a great view from a bluff above the Pacific Ocean, two bedrooms, two baths and a two-car garage.
The rest of the story, so to speak, is that there's something of a trend.
As The Vancouver Sun reported earlier this month:
After some down times for Malibu mobile home sales in 2009, "there has been a rebound at these mobile home parks located in world-famous Malibu, home to numerous celebrities. Sale prices at Paradise Cove [one mobile home development] reached as high as $2.5 million in the past year, and at Point Dume [Club] a sale is pending on a two-bedroom home listed at $1.25 million."
These lines in the Sun's story particularly stand out:
"What is being sold in these gated communities is not so much the luxuriousness of the homes but the views and easy walk to the surf. The price does not even include the land — as is common at mobile home parks, the lot the structure sits on is rented.
" 'You are not buying land, you are buying air,' said Paradise Cove newcomer Gina Carlson, who moved into her 1,500-square-foot, $645,000 home in June."
At Paradise Cove, though, you are buying "access to a private beach, tennis courts, a children's playground and a clubhouse," as the Los Angeles Times wrote in 2008. And at Point Dume Club, there's "a pool, a large spa, saunas, tennis and basketball courts, a clubhouse and proximity to Point Dume State Beach."
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