Santa Paula Relaxes Rent Control on Mobile Home Spaces; Allows 25% Hike

The Santa Paula City Council this week relaxed the city’s mobile home rent-control ordinance, over the objections of mobile-home owners who contended that the change would make their homes unsalable.

The new measure, which will affect about 1,000 dwellings--one-eighth of all the residences in Santa Paula--allows mobile-home park owners to raise rents on park spaces by 25% whenever a new tenant moves in. The space rentals now average $250 monthly.

The council approved the controversial rent-control ordinance partly to appease mobile-home park owners, who say the previous law, passed in 1985, does not allow them to make a fair profit. That law allowed a rent increase of only $15 for new tenants.

Rochelle Browne, a Los Angeles attorney hired by the city to help rewrite the ordinance, said the new law represents the city’s attempt to stave off lawsuits from park owners and comes in the wake of a recent federal court decision.

Court Ruling

Last month, U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters ruled in favor of a Santa Barbara park owner who wanted to raise space rents, concluding that controlling mobile-home park rents tends to artificially inflate the resale price of coaches. While mobile-home owners in such a situation stand to make a sizable profit, the park owner, who owns the land upon which the homes stand, makes nothing.

Explaining the court’s decision, which came down in late July, Santa Barbara City Atty. Steve Amerikaner said, “If the goal of rent control is to make housing more affordable, that goal is not achieved by controlling rental spaces upon sale of the coach because lower space rents translate into higher selling prices.”

Mayor Les Maland said the ordinance is an attempt to strike a balance between mobile-home tenants’ rights and those of the park owners to make a “fair and just return.”

“It’s not perfect. If it were, we could sell it for a lot of money because there are lots of cities out there looking for an ordinance that works perfectly,” he said.

But many mobile-home owners are concerned about the provision of the new law that allows park owners to charge new tenants up to 25% more for the same space.

Ruth Schaff, a resident of Santa Paula West Mobile Home Park, said the prospect of paying an added 25% in rent would discourage potential mobile-home buyers.

“We naturally disagree with the 25% increase in rent because it would make our places unsalable,” she said.

“Isn’t it a terrible situation when the park owner wants us to move?” she asked. “We’re not welcome. They’d just as soon see us move so that they can raise the rent 25%.”

Senior Citizens

Many of the 40 or so park tenants, mostly senior citizens, attending Tuesday night’s council meeting nodded and muttered in agreement from their chairs.

Browne said the rent-control ordinance will protect park tenants because it imposes a ceiling on the amount mobile-home park owners may charge for rents.

Under the new ordinance, mobile-home park owners must file a rent-increase application explaining the reason for the increase with the city rent administrator.

Other provisions of the ordinance tie rent increases to the Consumer Price Index, limiting rent hikes to 75% of the annual increase in the CPI.

No hike for existing tenants can exceed 7%.

Park owners, with city approval, may pass on to tenants the costs of capital improvements, such as repaving or major remodeling. The costs would come as an additional bill, not a rent increase.

Schaff expressed concern that park owners would let regular maintenance lapse until it became a major capital improvement expense, then pass those costs on to park tenants, but Councilman Carl Barringer said tenants could inform the city if they believed park owners were neglecting regular upkeep.