Trailer-Park Owners Petition to Abolish Rent Control

The owners of a Westlake Village mobile-home park, where rents are frozen under a disputed city law, said Wednesday that they have enough signatures to force the City Council to either abolish the law or put a measure to do so before voters in November.

Richard O’Hara, part owner of the Oak Forest Mobile Home Park, and several citizen supporters Wednesday gave city officials petitions they said contained the signatures of 936 voters--more than double the number necessary to qualify the measure for an initiative vote.

400 Signatures Needed

If at least 400 signatures are found to be valid, the City Council has a month to either abolish the rent-control law or schedule an election to decide the issue, said City Manager James E. Emmons.

Westlake Village Mayor John McDonough predicted that the council will not rescind the law, allowing the voters to decide the issue.

The rent-control ordinance is the target of a pending $1-million lawsuit by Oak Forest Mobile Home Estates Ltd., the park’s owners. It was unanimously passed by the City Council in 1982. By a 3-2 vote last month, the City Council approved a five-year extension of the existing ordinance, which was scheduled to lapse June 30.

If the council does send it to a vote, the rent-control ordinance would have to be suspended until the Nov. 3 election.

However, O’Hara said, the park’s owners plan to seek only a nominal rent increase--equal to 75% of the increase in the consumer price index--in July, as permitted under the ordinance.

“We believe in the free enterprise system. We don’t believe in governmental abuse,” O’Hara said at a news conference outside City Hall.

The oak-shaded, 162-unit mobile home park, which long ago served as Sherwood Forest for filming of the Errol Flynn movie “Robin Hood,” is the only housing to which the law applies.

The suit, filed in federal court in 1985, contends that the ordinance unconstitutionally denies the owners their property rights by pegging rents to an artificially low base rate set in May, 1978.

Park owners complain that the inexpensive land rental at Oak Forest makes living in the mobile-home park so attractive that some homeowners have been able to realize profits of up to $25,000 on the sale of their coaches.

‘The People’s Wish’

Ray Chaiken, another part owner of the park, has said average rent is $350 a month.

City Council member Bonnie Klove, a former resident of the park, agreed with the mayor that the City Council is unlikely to abolish the law.

“If that’s the people’s wish to put it on the ballot, we certainly will if they have the valid signatures,” Klove said.

She accused Chaiken of “holding a lawsuit over the heads of the people.”

Harvey Englander, a veteran campaign consultant hired by the park’s owners, said the 936 signatures were gathered in 19 days by more than a half-dozen citizens and four paid workers.

“To get 230% of the signatures necessary in 19 days is unheard of. Those are staggering numbers in this business,” said Englander, who worked for the successful passage of Proposition 13 and for the election campaign of Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo.

Murray Freund, president of the Oak Forest Homeowners Assn., accused Chaiken of using “scare tactics” by taking out a series of full-page advertisements in a local newspaper emphasizing the city’s potential liability in the lawsuit.

“When the ballot time comes, we’re positive that many of the people who signed the petitions will support rent control,” Freund said.