‘Adults-Only’ Mobile Home Parks OKd by High Court

The new state Supreme Court, in its first major civil-rights ruling, held unanimously Thursday that mobile home parks may restrict their occupancy to “adults only.”

The ruling was a sharp setback for civil-rights attorneys representing a Santa Barbara County family that challenged a local mobile home park restriction limiting residency to people 25 or older. Such a limitation, they contended, unfairly reduces the availability of affordable housing for families with children.

Justice Stanley Mosk, writing for the court, said the justices were “not unmindful” of the difficulty many Californians face in finding adequate affordable housing. “(But) the solution lies with the Legislature, not the courts,” he wrote.

The ruling will affect a substantial segment of the California market offering relatively low-cost housing. State studies show that there are about 400,000 mobile homes in California, representing 5% of the total housing stock. One study found that 56% of the 5,000 mobile home parks in the state limited admission to adults or senior citizens, restricting about 75% of the available spaces.

The decision also marked a shift in direction from the course the court took under former Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird on cases raising claims of age discrimination.

In landmark rulings in 1982 and 1983 the Bird court barred discrimination against families with children in apartment and condominium housing. The Legislature subsequently adopted those rulings in new statutes, providing an exception for housing for the elderly.

Thursday’s decision was the first in a major discrimination case by the new and more conservative court created when Gov. George Deukmejian’s three appointees took office after the defeat of Bird and two other liberal justices in the November election.

The new court left the two Bird era rulings intact, but said in future cases it would approve any age-based distinctions in the law as long as they were “rationally related to a legitimate state goal.”

The justices rejected the contention that they should apply the same high degree of scrutiny to age classifications that they would to racial classifications in the law. Children endure far less discrimination than racial minorities, they noted.

The new court’s stance on age-discrimination cases drew criticism from Justice Allen E. Broussard, an appointee of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Broussard said in a concurring opinion that while he agreed with the rest of the court that adults-only mobile home parks were permissible, the court’s “inflexible” standard might prevent it from adequately examining a law that deprived children of important rights.

James R. Provenza, an attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County, which represented the family challenging the restrictions, said there is a “strong possibility” the ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The ruling sends a negative message to Californians that some discrimination against families with children is permissible--and that’s the wrong message to go out at this time,” he said.

On the other side, Dale E. Hanst, a Santa Barbara attorney representing the mobile home park involved in the case, said the decision gave operators and residents of such parks legitimate “flexibility.”

He predicted that parks will be open to non-adults where the housing market demands it. “Many operators do allow children and will continue to allow children,” Hanst said.

The case before the court began in 1983 when two sisters, Teri and Toni Schmidt, sought a space in a mobile home at the Ranch Club Mobile Estates in Buellton and to live there with Toni’s 9-year old daughter and 18-year-old sister.

The Schmidts were denied admission because of a park requirement that all residents be at least 25 years old. The sisters brought suit against the park but a Santa Barbara Superior Court judge refused to order their admission.

However, a state Court of Appeal in Ventura ruled for the Schmidts, finding that the exclusionary policy conflicted with state civil-rights law prohibitions against housing and age discrimination. Thus a separate state law, enacted in 1975, allowing “adults-only” mobile home parks must be interpreted to apply only to “senior citizens,” the appeal panel concluded.

In Thursday’s ruling, the state Supreme Court held that the Legislature had intended to grant mobile homes an exception to civil rights laws and allow them to limit residency to “adults,” defined as persons 18 or older, not “senior citizens.”

Mosk, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and Justices Edward A. Panelli and David N. Eagleson, said the Legislature could reasonably enact the exception in the belief that mobile home parks--often constructed as an alternative to more expensive traditional housing--should not be required to provide facilities and protection for children that many residents would not use.

Such parks are often “ill-suited” for families, offering less space for children “as well as a general lack of soundproofing” that would allow “the play of young children and the music of their teen-age siblings (to) inordinately disturb the tranquility of their neighbors,” Mosk wrote.

The justices rejected contentions by attorneys for the Schmidts that the adults-only restriction infringed on the constitutional right to privacy--in this instance, the right to live together as a family.

“This action does not prevent the family from residing together in general, or within a particular area or zone; its only effect is to prevent plaintiffs from renting a space in a particular mobile home park,” Mosk wrote.

Justices John A. Arguelles and Marcus M. Kaufman issued separate concurring opinions, along with Broussard.