Santa Clarita Council Temporarily Bans Mobile Home Park Closures

A developer’s plan to close a mobile home park where 92 people live and replace it with a shopping center has prompted the Santa Clarita City Council to enact a 45-day moratorium on such closures.

The moratorium came too late to help the residents of the Desert Gardens Mobile Home Park, but it will temporarily prevent further closures until the young city can assess the role such parks play in city life and what type of zoning should be provided for them.

The council, which approved the moratorium on a 4-0 vote Thursday night, agreed to exempt Desert Gardens at the request of Mark J. Forbes, vice president of Jovet, a Beverly Hills development company overseeing the park’s closure for its owner, Towne Square Ltd.

Desert Gardens, on Soledad Canyon Road in Canyon Country, was exempted from the moratorium after Forbes argued that it could ruin financial agreements worked out by the developer, park residents and lenders to move some of the mobile homes, Forbes said.

Forbes said two residents already have moved, and several others are preparing to leave.

The council asked Forbes to report back in 30 days on the progress of relocation efforts.

There are about 2,200 people living in Santa Clarita’s 18 mobile home parks, according to estimates by the Golden State Mobilehome Owners League, a statewide residents’ group.

David Evans, local director of the Western Mobilehome Assn., a trade group representing 2,400 park owners statewide, said he did not know if there were plans to close other mobile home parks in Santa Clarita.

Warning a Month Ago

Forbes said he officially notified Desert Gardens residents Wednesday of plans to close the park. He said he had warned them a month ago that the park would be closed. The residents have until Aug. 1, 1989, to leave.

The testimony of several park residents who said they realized that the park’s closure was inevitable apparently influenced the council’s decision to exempt Desert Gardens.

Park resident Don Carrara gave an emotional speech urging Forbes to treat park residents, many of

them retirees, with compassion during the relocation process.

“They tell us they’re going to relocate us,” Carrara said sarcastically. “You can’t relocate a life.”

But even Carrara stopped short of saying Desert Gardens should be included in the moratorium. He asked that residents be given more than 12 months to find new homes.

Ron Bates, president of the park’s residents association, said: “I don’t want to move, but I realize the move is inevitable.”

Forbes said state law requires that firms wanting to close mobile home parks help residents find new housing. He conceded that it will not be an easy task.

The vacancy rate at mobile home parks in the Los Angeles area is slightly more than 1%, according to the Golden State Mobilehome Owners League.

Joe Carreras, a senior housing planner with the Southern California Assn. of Governments, said a recent study by the Federal Home Loan Bank in San Francisco found that in 1987, there were about 850 vacancies out of 47,000 mobile home spaces in Los Angeles County.