LAGUNA BEACH : Mobile Home Park Zoning, Rent Frozen

After a heated discussion, city officials locked in zoning for two South Laguna mobile home parks and placed a 70-day rent freeze on all three mobile home parks in the city.

The decision Tuesday night was met with applause from mobile-home residents and dismay from mobile-home property owners and some city officials.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Ron Shepard, 43, a military retiree and resident of Treasure Island Mobile Home Park. “This is the first place I’ve ever owned in my life. If they had raised the rents, I would not have been able to live here anymore.”

But Richard A. Hall, owner of Treasure Island, said he was “very disappointed.”

“I did expect a possible mobile home zone,” he said Wednesday. “But we feel that the necessity of rent control for wealthy people with second homes is not a necessity. What’s amazing is they say they can afford to buy the park but they can’t pay rents.”

The decision was the final step in a series of 26 public hearings held to merge South Laguna, annexed to the city two years ago, into Laguna Beach’s land use plan.

The mobile home ordinance, one of several zoning changes made in the consolidation, prevents future development such as condominiums at Treasure Island and Laguna Terrace, both in South Laguna, without another zoning change.

Thurston Terrace, the mobile home park in Laguna Beach, was included in the 70-day rent freeze suggested by City Manager Kenneth C. Frank.

Residents of Treasure Island, a 27-acre parcel overlooking the ocean in South Laguna, have long lobbied the city for help in their lease dispute with Hall, who bought the park in August for $43 million with plans to build luxury homes on the site.

Residents have said that they had offered the previous owners an equal amount but were rejected. They now want first right of refusal should the present owners decide to sell.

Treasure Island Associates proposed a seven-year lease whereby rents would be increased 20% the first year and 7% each year thereafter. A revised lease proposal called for a 10% increase for four years and 7% increases in subsequent years. Details of subsequent proposals were not available on Wednesday.

Residents claim such increases are a contract to close the park and say they cannot afford them.

In response to pleas from trailer park residents, some of whom are seniors on fixed incomes, the Planning Commission previously voted to recommend a six-month moratorium on rent increases.

After voting on the 70-day moratorium, Mayor Lida Lenney urged residents and owners to try to reach an agreement soon.

Rents at the 265-unit park range from $400 for small trailers to $1,700 for large parcels, Hall said. About 45% of the tenants live there full time, and the rest use the trailers for second homes, he said.

Councilman Dan Kenney said he had “very little concern for the millionaires” who want rent control.

Treasure Island owner Hall has repeatedly said that rent control ultimately will not benefit the tenants and reiterated that he never intended to raise rents for seniors on fixed and limited incomes.

“I was willing to accept a low return on my investment now for future redevelopment,” Hall said. “Now that I’m zoned for a mobile home park, I’ll have to start getting higher rents. . . . I’m sorry to have to do that, but I’m entitled to a fair and reasonable return if I’m going to have to operate exclusively as a mobile home park.”

Treasure Island Associates have not been the only opponent of mobile home zoning and rent control.

At the final public hearing last week, Marilyn Smith of Laguna Terrace Park said her family has owned that property since 1943.

“To confiscate the land, to lock in the (mobile home) category . . . is a taking of property rights,’ she said.

And Vickie Talley, executive director of the Manufactured Housing Educational Trust, said that senior households in mobile home parks can receive subsidies from the Orange County Mobile Home Rental Assistance Program, sponsored by park owners.

“And the balance of the tenants in the parks have demonstrated that they could afford to pay more than double their current rent rates when they offered to purchase the park for over $40 million,” she said.