LAGUNA BEACH : Mobile Home Park Rent Freeze Extended

In the latest of a long series of packed and emotionally charged meetings, city officials Tuesday extended a temporary freeze on rent increases at Treasure Island Mobile Home Park until May 1.

The City Council directed the park’s tenants and owners to seek the help of a mediator to resolve the lease dispute. The tenants wanted the rent freeze to extend to Aug. 31, but council members said they wanted the issue to be settled sooner than that.

Although the move to shelter tenants from rent increases was extended to all three mobile home parks in the city, the action was taken primarily in response to the feud between Treasure Island residents and their park’s owner, a partnership of developer Richard A. Hall in Costa Mesa and Merrill Lynch Hubbard in New York.

The partnership, Treasure Island Associates, purchased the 27-acre prime ocean front property last August with plans to eventually build luxury homes and condominiums on the land.

Since then, busloads of Treasure Island residents have crowded City Council chambers protesting proposed rent increases which they say will force them out of their homes.

To give residents and owners more time to settle their lease dispute, the City Council in December voted for a 70-day moratorium on rent increases for Treasure Island, Laguna Terrace and Thurston Trailer Park.

At the same meeting, officials locked in mobile-home zoning at Treasure Island and Laguna Terrace, both in South Laguna, as part of the consolidation of South Laguna with Laguna Beach.

That zoning prohibits future development of condominiums or other non-mobile home uses without another zoning change. Since that meeting, lease negotiations between Hall and Treasure Island residents have stalled.

The last of a series of lease proposals asked for a 10-year lease with 7% annual rent increases. At the end of the lease, the park would be closed and Hall would purchase the trailers at 1990 fair market value, the lease said.

An additional lease clause stated that tenants who publicly opposed future development plans would be fined.

Last month, the lease was rejected by the majority of tenants, a mixed group of senior citizens on fixed incomes, middle-income families and wealthy professionals. Hall scheduled another lease meeting with tenants on March 17.

Monthly rents at the 266-unit park range from $400 for small trailers to $2,100 for large parcels.