CAMARILLO : Legal Staff Opposes Rent Control Plan

City attorneys are expected to urge the City Council today to turn down a request for rent control sought by area mobile home park tenants.

Deputy City Atty. Lisa Kranitz said Tuesday that such an ordinance could result in expensive litigation. “There are probably 50 lawsuits up and down the state,” she said.

In a recent Santa Barbara case, rent control was found to unlawfully deprive a mobile home park owner of the right to income.

Park owners complained that they lose under rent control because mobile home owners can sell their coaches for higher prices when they are in rent-controlled parks, Kranitz said.

Residents of The Lamplighter Mobile Home Park on Pleasant Valley Road, one of four mobile home parks in the city, recently petitioned the city for an ordinance to prevent park owner Ed Delaplane from raising rents when coaches are sold.

“Residents of the Lamplighter Mobile Home Park are currently unable to sell their homes,” park association representative Michael Matthews wrote to the city. “The reason is that the owner, Mr. Delaplane, has raised space rents approximately 25% to the range of $475 to $500 per month for those people selling their homes.”

Delaplane could not be reached for comment, but a man who identified himself as the mobile home park manager verified Matthews’ figures.

Kranitz said city attorneys would not oppose an ordinance that prohibits increases on mobile home space rental when ownership is transferred between spouses or through estates.

“Western Mobile Home Assn. has agreed to those transfers,” she said, referring to the powerful statewide lobby for mobile home park owners.