LAGUNA BEACH : Mobile Home Rent Issue Up for Action

Unable to persuade owners of the city’s three mobile home parks to agree on a uniform rent increase, the Laguna Beach City Council will decide tonight whether to lift a moratorium which has frozen rents since December.

The council voted May 1 to accept a plan from the owners of Treasure Island Mobile Home Park, which would have allowed a 7% increase for one year while freezing rents for low-income senior citizens. The rent freeze was extended to today to allow the city staff time to seek a consensus with owners of the other two parks.

However, the agreement reached with Treasure Island owners was not accepted by the city’s two smaller parks. The owner of Thurston Mobile Home Park was willing to accept a 6% increase but would not allow a special allowance for senior citizens, while the Laguna Terrace Mobile Home Park owner agreed verbally to increases only slightly higher than 7%, according to City Manager Kenneth C. Frank.

Connie Vlasis, treasurer of Treasure Island Residents Owners Assn., said that tenants already have received notices of 7% rent increases. “The people are really upset,” she said.

Vlasis said some mobile home owners at the other two parks are now upset with Treasure Island residents, who have been by far the most vocal group about their differences with park owners. Vlasis said her 80-year-old mother, who lives in Laguna Terrace, probably will have to move: “It’s too expensive for her now.”

Frank is recommending that the council approve the agreements with Treasure Island and Thurston while negotiating “within the spirit of preventing extraordinary increases” with Laguna Terrace. Thurston residents are expected to receive a 6% increase in August, Frank said.