2 Mobile Home Parks Sue Over Rent-Control Law : Litigation: Owners contend the city is trying to provide affordable housing for people who don’t need it.

The owners of two Malibu mobile home parks have filed lawsuits against the city, contending that a rent-control law enacted by the City Council in December is unconstitutional.

In separate actions, the Adamson Cos., which owns the Point Dume mobile home park, and the Kissel Co., owner of Paradise Cove mobile home park, each seek damages of at least $1 million.

The lawsuits, which were filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, had been expected after the council, by a 4-to-1 vote, approved the rent law.

Christi Hogan, an attorney for the city, said Wednesday that Malibu officials had not yet seen the lawsuits.

The law mandated an immediate rollback of rents to 1984 levels, a two-year freeze on cost-of-living rent increases, and limits on how much the owners can increase rents in future years for both current and prospective residents. In addition, the law makes it more difficult for the owners to convert their properties to other uses.

With few exceptions, the roughly 550 residents of the two parks overlooking the Pacific Ocean lease the spaces beneath their mobile homes for between $300 and $800 a month.

The residents include many elderly people on fixed incomes, but also include wealthy individuals who use their mobile homes as weekend retreats and as investments.

Depending on the views they afford, it is not uncommon for mobile homes in the two parks to sell for $400,000 and more.

City officials have defended the rent law as a way of protecting residents from possible abuses from what residents say is a monopoly enjoyed by the park owners.

And as Malibu officials prepare a general plan to serve as a blueprint for future development, they also view the ordinance as a way of meeting an obligation to promote affordable housing in a city where real estate prices are astronomical.

But park owners who contend the ordinance cannot be justified as an affordable housing measure complain that it was enacted to placate park residents at the expense of other Malibu taxpayers who will have to foot the bill for defending the measure in court.

“A significant portion of the people who live in these parks have incomes substantially in excess of the overall median income for Los Angeles County,” said John Gamble, an attorney for the Adamson Cos. “They (the City Council) are trying to provide affordable housing for people who clearly don’t need it.”

Elizabeth Watson, an attorney for the Kissel Co., said rents at Paradise Cove are already below those at similar mobile home parks along the Southern California coast.

She characterized the law as an effort “to take luxury properties and make them affordable.”

Only Mayor Larry Wan voted against the law, saying it would invite costly litigation and would be too expensive to administer.

Besides the park owners, who have the most to lose from the law, critics usually cite the objections raised by the mayor, while others fret privately that the law--which applies only to the mobile home parks--may open the door to a similar measure for apartment rentals.

“These lawsuits have the potential to bankrupt the city long after those of the City Council who approved the ordinance are gone from the scene,” said Paul Grisanti, a real estate broker who is a candidate for City Council in the April election.

He faulted the council for enacting the law “despite warnings from the city’s own attorneys that it would result in litigation.”

However, Hogan, of the city attorney’s office, defended the law.

“There is a legitimate policy debate over what the terms and scope of the ordinance should have been, but in the end, we believe the council made policy decisions that were legally sound,” she said.