LAGUNA BEACH : Law Would Preserve Mobile Home Parks

To the relief of mobile home residents, planning officials have voted to create a new zoning ordinance that would restrict future development in Laguna Beach mobile home parks.

Under the proposed ordinance, which must be approved by the City Council, existing mobile home parks would have to remain so and could not be developed for other purposes, such as hotels or private residences.

Commissioners also voted 3 to 2 to recommend a six-month freeze on mobile home rents to gain time to study other tenant issues.

“It’s a cleaner way to have a moratorium on rents now than perhaps to have owners later return money,” said Commissioner Becky Jones, who voted for the rent freeze. “And, if we leave it uncovered, low- and moderate-income people could be priced out.” Mobile home park residents have complained that they are being forced out of their homes by steep rent increases and say that this could pave the way for other development, such as estate homes and condominiums.

City officials have said they are sympathetic to the tenants, many of whom are senior citizens on fixed incomes.

The council last year placed a moratorium on building applications in mobile home parks. Because that freeze expires in December, commissioners will recommend that the City Council extend it by one year. “We’re really supportive of what the city is doing,” said Michael Kenney, president of Treasure Island Resident’s Assn. in South Laguna, the most vocal opponent of developments in mobile home parks. But “it’s not enough because there are still other issues to address.”

For example, he said, mobile home residents should be protected by permanent rent control, relocation compensation guidelines and should have first option to buy if owners decide to sell the park.

But Commissioner Wayne L. Peterson said this week that there is no guarantee that rent control will ever be incorporated into an ordinance.

The mobile home ordinance is one of a dozen zoning changes that the city has been considering since annexation of South Laguna at the end of 1987. By law, those changes must be in place by the end of this year.

Peterson voted against the rent moratorium at Wednesday night’s meeting, saying he had “difficulty with doing it for those who don’t even live (at Treasure Island) and use it only as a second home.”

The 27-acre Treasure Island parcel overlooking the ocean in South Laguna was purchased in August by a partnership including Costa Mesa-based Richard A. Hall Co. and MLH Income Realty of New York for $43 million, a figure that residents say they had offered the previous owner, who rejected it.

The new owners, Treasure Island Associates, have proposed a 10-year lease to go into effect Jan 1.