Rent Again Divides Escondido Park, Mobile Home Owners

The always-volatile issue of rent control at mobile home parks is again erupting in Escondido, and through the acrimony this week emerged this proposal: that representatives of the park owners and mobile home owners officially mediate rent disputes with the help of a professional arbiter.

The debate will resume among Escondido City Council members Feb. 11, when they are expected to give City Atty. Dave Chapman parameters on the kind of ordinance they might want to adopt.

The proposed ordinance would then be subjected to public hearings.

Escondido does not have a mobile home rent control law despite several attempts to institute one, the most serious in 1984. That year, voters rejected, after a hotly contested campaign, Proposition G, which would have given the City Council authority to overturn rent increases if they were deemed as more than a “fair return” on a park owner’s investment. The definition of “fair return” was somewhat ambiguous, however.

For several years, residents of the city’s 33 mobile home parks have had the option of complaining about excessive rent increases to a panel representing park owners and mobile home owners.

But that panel has fallen into disuse because it relied only on public and peer pressure to get the targeted park owner to reverse his decision. Supporters of the plan said it worked because it did not involve government intervention; detractors said it was ineffective because the panel had no teeth to control rents.

In recent months, a City Council subcommittee has heard hours of testimony from park residents pleading for a rent control ordinance, and the issue went before the City Council at an hourlong workshop Wednesday night that didn’t lack fireworks.

Don Olmsted, spokesman for the Golden State Mobilehome Owners League, argued that mobile home owners need protection from park owners who, by increasing rents without check, wield the power to “economically evict” park tenants--even though those tenants are property owners in their own right because they own their homes.

“We are not tenants, and a lack of this recognition is at the root of our problem,” Olmsted told the council. “We simply pay a fee for the use of land on which to place our home.”

He suggested that the council establish a rent review board made up of the City Council itself; or five persons--who are neither park owners, mobile home owners nor owners of investment property--or two park owners, two mobile home owners and a fifth, “neutral” person.

That panel, he suggested, would review complaints about rent increases and disallow any increases that exceeded a “fair return” for the park owner. That fair return, he said, would be figured on a base rent plus itemized “pass through” expenses plus 40% of the Consumer Price Index increase for that year.

That proposal was quickly criticized by Mayor Jim Rady, who said it would be unfair to the park owner to only allow him to recoup 40% of inflation versus the full 100% of inflation.

Buzz duPont Jr., an Escondido park owner, said the proposal is unfair because it does not allow “the free marketplace” to resolve rent charges, especially when a park changes ownership.

He proposed that a fair rent for the park be based on the rent charged for the last five spaces leased prior to the park’s sale.

That suggestion was quickly criticized by Councilman Jerry Harmon, who said the possibility existed that “through shenanigans” a park owner could line up “ringers” who could lease the last five spaces at artificially inflated prices in order to manipulate future rent charges.

DuPont responded: “That’s really stretching the limits of one’s imagination.”

Brent Swanson, an attorney representing most of the Escondido park owners, said that if the city was bent on adopting a rent control ordinance--something his clients oppose--the council should consider his proposal:

Residents of a park could circulate a petition objecting to a rent increase if at least 10% of the residents initially balked at paying it. If more than half of the park’s residents signed the petition, a committee of park residents and the owner would negotiate the rent increase. If the issue was not resolved, the residents could appeal to the city’s rent review commission, which would be made up of two park owners, two mobile home owners and a fifth member who would be a professional arbiter.

That panel would then decide whether the rent increase was more than a “fair return” for the owner. Either side could then appeal the decision in Superior Court, bypassing the City Council altogether.

In any case, the park owner would be allowed to increase rents equal to the Consumer Price Index increase plus increases mandated by insurance, government regulations or utilities.

Such an ordinance, Swanson said, is the lesser of two evils as far as park owners are concerned.

“Rent control is one of the most expensive things a city can ever get involved in. It is not the political solution you hope it is. They (mobile home residents) will be back year after year,” Swanson said.

He termed the mobile home league’s ordinance “one of the most unfair and unworkable as any you’ll find anywhere in the state” and characterized it as “one of the most liberal--left of the Hayden-Fonda group.”

One of several flaws with league’s proposal, he said, was that its formula did not take into account that a mobile home park’s property value might increase at a faster rate than the CPI. “No mechanical formula can take that (property values) into account,” he said.

If the city adopts the league’s proposal, Swanson said, “I guarantee you litigation running out of your ears” from park owners.

The council members did not formally indicate their preference among the proposed ordinances, but Councilman Doug Best told members of the audience during a break: “You’re close to getting what you want if you just let us adopt this (Swanson’s) ordinance.”

Throughout the meeting, there was verbal sparring between the council and the audience, composed mostly of mobile home owners. When one man in the audience threatened to use the initiative process to win voter approval of a rent control ordinance, Rady shot back, “Yes sir, dammit, but not in this room right now.”

And when Olmsted told the council, “Don’t back mobile home investors into a corner and invite an initiative,” Best angrily demanded to know which mobile home park residents were contemplating such an idea. Olmsted declined to elaborate, and Harmon interjected, “Mr. Best, please understand that use of the initiative is as American as apple pie.”

To that, Best rejoined, “I’m astounded you’ve orchestrated this (meeting) as well as you have.”

The most boisterous point in the evening came when Best complained to Olmsted, “You’re not a resident of Escondido, and yet you’re up here fanning all these flames, and I take offense to that.”

After the audience’s boos and catcalls toward Best quieted, the next speaker, Swanson, introduced himself and gave his business address--in Santa Ana.

The audience erupted in laughter.