Lancaster Mobile Home Law Up for Vote

A bitter dispute that has pitted mobile home park owners against their tenants and the city of Lancaster will come to a head Tuesday in a special election over an ordinance that requires arbitration of rent disputes.

At stake is the city’s mobile home arbitration ordinance, which enables park residents to challenge owners’ proposed rent increases. If negotiations between the two parties fail, the city can bring in an impartial third party to arbitrate the dispute.

Park owners call the ordinance “rent control,” but renters at the parks call it a safeguard against skyrocketing rents, since it requires owners to justify increases.

The ordinance has existed in some form since 1979. It was beefed up by the City Council last year to give the city attorney the power to force a stubborn party into arbitration and to either nullify or validate a rent increase.

The council also added a hardship clause that allows the city to help pay the $750 arbitration fee if park tenants cannot afford their share--usually half.

City Has 28 Parks

Lancaster is one of several Southern California communities, including Westminster and El Monte, that regulate mobile home rents in some manner. The city has about 4,500 mobile home owners in 28 parks, estimates George Root, president of the Lancaster Alliance of Mobile Home Park Residents.

Proposition A on Tuesday’s ballot, sponsored by park owners, bans city restrictions on the sale or rental price of any property without a vote of the citizens. Proposition B, the only other measure on the ballot, asks voters to endorse the city’s existing mobile home ordinance and is supported by the City Council and mobile home park tenants.

If both measures fail, City Atty. David McEwen said, the existing mobile home ordinance stands. If Proposition A wins and B loses, the ordinance will be repealed, he said. If both win, the city attorney said, Proposition A would ban all future attempts by the City Council to cap rents, except those at mobile home parks. And, under B, the existing ordinance would remain in effect and provide arbitration for mobile home parks.

Two groups of owners--Friends of Lancaster/Yes on A and Lancaster Citizens Committee/No on Proposition B--reported contributions at the end of April of $87,911, mostly from owners. The tenants have raised $800, Root said.

During the last year, the two sides have argued over campaign tactics and over what constitutes rent control. The city unsuccessfully challenged the park owners, saying workers gathering signatures to get Proposition A on the ballot were not Lancaster residents.

A mobile home resident is suing the latter group for sending out a campaign letter under her name without her authorization.

In an unrelated action, the city is planning to file charges against the two groups for failing to submit copies of their mass-mailing literature to the city, an alleged violation of municipal laws.

Hearing Tenants’ Side

The mobile home ordinance aims “to give tenants some say” when a park owner raises the rent, said Susan Davis, spokeswoman for the city. At the same time, the ordinance states that landlords are to be assured a “fair return on their property and rental income.”

But park owners say the ordinance amounts to rent control. It’s not the classic form of rent control--a percentage limit on rent increases each year, as in Santa Monica--admits Peter M. Wanserske, president of Friends of Lancaster. But the arbitration requirement “is still rent control in that it is a control on a business,” he said.

Wanserske said he fears what might come if the measure remains as it is. The ordinance “can be changed by the City Council to a percentage or whatever they want,” including limits on apartment rents and house sales, he said..

“It just snowballs. . . . It will involve the whole community,” he said. “Look at Santa Monica,” he added, contending that that city has, under rent control, suffered from deteriorating buildings and an influx of tenants on welfare.

Flyers Mailed

The owners groups have mailed about eight flyers in as many days, referring to Santa Monica and stating that “other cities with rent control” have cut senior programs and other services and have hiked utility taxes.

The mailers amount to scare tactics, the city and tenants say. “We have never had rent control,” McEwen said. “The council does not want to sit as the decision-making body to decide what rents should be paid.”

City officials said the city does not provide senior services--the county does--and does not levy utility taxes. The flyers represent “a real example that people running this campaign have no idea of what Lancaster’s all about,” McEwen said.

“It’s a fair ordinance,” Root said. ‘It’s just arbitration and negotiation, that’s all it is.”

Without the ordinance, “the rents would just go out of sight,” he said.

About six rent disputes have gone to arbitration in the last five years, Root said.

The one case to be heard under the strengthened ordinance, involving Four Winds Mobile Home Park, involved the hardship clause. The 17 members of the park’s residents association appealed to the City Council for funds to arbitrate when the owner announced a 17% increase in rent last June, said Gordon Russell, president of the Four Winds Mobile Home Owners Assn.

$25 Increase

For his plot of land, 66 feet by 36 feet, the rent went from $150 to $175 a month, Russell said.

Generally, the arbitrator orders that the association and the park owner equally split the $750 arbitration fee. But, Russell said, in the Four Winds case the tenants were hard pressed to come up with the money because they were few in number and many are elderly and live on fixed incomes.

The City Council agreed to pay one-third of the $750, with residents and owners each putting up another third. An arbitrator is scheduled to hear the case May 23, Russell said.

Ray Yatuni, manger of Four Winds, said he thinks the City Council was fair in reducing the arbitration cost for both parties. But, he said, he would rather see no government interference--including arbitration. The “free market will eventually take care of” any rent increases, he said. If a landlord charges an exorbitant rent, “people don’t pay it,” Yatuni said.

But it’s not that easy, resident leader Root said. “Once you move your mobile home into a space, it’s no longer mobile,” said Root, who estimated that moving the home can cost $5,000 or more.

And free-market forces are not enough to regulate rents, mobile homeowners say. The ordinance, Russell said, is a “check and balance system to keep the owners from going wild.” With arbitration, “as long as they’re reasonable and not trying to steal from us, they can get what they need.”