Westlake Puts Rent-Control Law on the Ballot for a November Test

Westlake Village voters will decide the fate of a controversial city rent-control ordinance that applies only to residents of the tree-shaded, 162-space Oak Forest Mobile Home Park, the City Council has ruled.

The council unanimously voted Wednesday to put the rent-control measure before voters in the Nov. 3 election, a move sought by the park’s owners, Oak Forest Mobile Home Estates Lt.

The park’s owners gathered the signatures of more than 10% of the city’s registered voters, forcing the council either to abolish the rent-control law or to schedule an election on the issue, said City Manager James E. Emmons.

5-Year Extension

The rent-control ordinance, which was unanimously passed by the council in 1982, was extended for five years in May by a 3-2 vote.

But, under state law, the ordinance now is suspended until the election, Emmons said.

The park’s owners, however, have pledged to impose only a nominal rent increase--equal to 75% of the annual increase in the consumer price index--in July. That is the amount that would have been permitted under the city rent-control ordinance anyway.

“It would be absolutely ridiculous of us to rescind the ordinance,” said City Councilwoman Bonnie Klove, a former resident of the mobile home park. Putting the measure on the November ballot will allow “both sides to get the truth out,” Klove said.

Klove was apparently referring to a series of full-page advertisements--viewed by some mobile-home residents as relying on sensationalism and scare tactics--placed by the park’s owners in a local newspaper.

Potential Liability

The ads emphasize the city’s potential liability in a $1-million federal lawsuit that the park’s owners have filed against the city. The suit claims the rent-control law is an unconstitutional abuse of the park owners’ property rights. It is scheduled for trial in September, almost two months before the election.

During the signature-gathering campaign, half a dozen residents and four paid workers gathered 915 signatures, 662 of which were declared valid. The signatures of 400 of the city’s 4,000 registered voters were required to qualify the measure, Emmons said.

The signatures of 178 others were disqualified because one of the petition gatherers was not a registered voter, he said.

Mobile-home park residents contend that they have made extensive improvement to the lots, that it is very difficult to move their coaches to another spot and that mobile-home parks are relatively scarce. Therefore the mobile-home park owners have their tenants at a disadvantage and rent controls are needed, tenants say.

The owners claim mobile-home parks are different from apartments and other rental housing because rents on the sites are passed along whenever a coach is sold. Park owners contend that coach owners have made profits as high as $100,000 on the sale of their coaches because of those artificially low rents.

$50,000 Spent So Far

Richard O’Hara, one of the park’s owners, said after the meeting that the park’s owners have spent close to $50,000 thus far on the attempt to get voters to knock down the law.

The park’s owners also hired Harvey Englander, a veteran campaign consultant, to help with the election.

The park, which in 1938 served as Sherwood Forest for filming of the Errol Flynn movie “The Adventures of Robin Hood” is the only housing in Westlake Village to which the law applies; the city has no apartment buildings.

Councilman Irwin Shane, a former owner of the park, said a committee of mobile-home park tenants has been “ready since May, 1976, to negotiate” the sale of the land from the property owners, creating a mobile-home condominium park.

O’Hara said after the meeting that the park’s owners have spent $80,000 since 1982 seeking to reach an agreement that would allow mobile-home owners to buy the land on which their coaches sit.

The negotiations have stalled over city requirements that the park owners build a secondary access road around the park and contribute money for the building of a bridge, as well as over questions about who should handle negotiations for the tenants, he said.