3 Supervisors Support Mobile Home Rent Control

A majority of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors said Friday that they will support a proposal to restore mobile home rent control in unincorporated areas after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold local rent control laws.

In a letter dated Thursday, Supervisor Susan K. Lacey asked her fellow supervisors to direct county staff to prepare an ordinance reinstating rent control upon sale or transfer of existing mobile homes.

Under the present county rent control ordinance, park owners can increase rent up to 5% annually on mobile homes that do not change ownership. But they can freely increase rent once mobile homes are sold.

“I request that our board act immediately to revise our ordinance,” Lacey said in the letter. “This inequitable provision, and the injustice it creates, should not be allowed to remain one second longer than necessary.”

Supervisors John K. Flynn and Vicky Howard said they plan to support the motion.

“I haven’t read her letter yet, but Supervisor Lacey and I have been in agreement on this for some time,” said Flynn, recounting his past support of rent control laws.

“That’s a very significant change,” Howard said of the Wednesday ruling in which the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that local rent control laws apply even when mobile home tenants sell their spaces.

Supervisor Maggie Erickson Kildee said she needed to study the issue further before commenting, but was likely to support the measure.

“I have always been in favor of rent control, (but) we need to look at where we’re at right now.”

Supervisor Maria VanderKolk could not be reached for comment Friday.

Ventura County has 106 mobile home parks with spaces for about 10,000 mobile homes. State and county officials did not know how many were in unincorporated areas.

Mobile home owners across the county said the ruling could eliminate rent increases that make their homes less desirable to buyers.

Wesley Kent, who lives at Ojai Oaks Mobile Home Park in an unincorporated area near Ojai, said he was pleased with the ruling but remained cautious.

“It’s important that the supervisors take action,” Kent said. “Otherwise the (park) owners will do nothing unless they’re forced to.”

“It’s absolutely thrilling,” said Helen Currier, a Santa Paula mobile home owner who has been heading a drive to place a mobile home park rent control initiative on the city’s November ballot.

Currier said the ruling does not affect her petition drive. “We’re still going ahead.”

The initiative would limit rent increases to $25 each time a mobile home is sold and allow park owners to automatically implement annual cost-of-living increases. A 25% increase is now permitted by the Santa Paula rent control ordinance when a mobile home is sold.

Mobile home park owners and city officials said the recent ruling remains unclear.

David Milton, the executive director of Western Mobile Home Assn., which represents park owners, said the ruling overturns only a 1986 case from Santa Barbara, in which a federal appeals court ruled that the city could not limit rent increases when mobile homes were sold.

“A lot of people are reading more into the decision,” said Milton, who said the ruling has no effect in areas without rent control.

Bill Schweinfurth, director of Vedder Park Management in Glendale, which operates five mobile home parks in Ventura County, said it is too early to determine whether rents will stabilize. He believes the ruling left many issues unresolved.

“A great deal of uncertainty still exists,” he said. So far, mobile home park owners in Ventura County have been able to raise rents without resorting to the courts to resolve disputes.

“Every time we’ve had a dispute, we’ve gone to our residents and worked it out,” he said.

After the 1986 Santa Barbara ruling, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors and the cities of Oxnard and Moorpark decided to eliminate provisions in their mobile home rent control ordinances that prevent park owners from raising rents when a space is sold, said Marion Woods, a vice president with Golden State Mobilehome Owners League.

The cities of Ventura and Santa Paula also relaxed their rent control ordinances to allow rents to be raised upon resale, Woods said.

Santa Paula permitted increases of 25%, and Ventura allowed 15% rent increases.

Thousand Oaks never amended its mobile home rent control ordinance and still prevents owners from raising rents after a space is sold, a city official said.

The city of Oxnard signed an August, 1991, settlement with park owners enabling them to increase rents freely each time a mobile home is sold after the city’s 21 park owners threatened to sue the city for compensation of lost property. The agreement remains in effect indefinitely, said Carl Lawson, compliance services manager for the city.

“It’s hard to say how the ruling will affect us,” said Lawson, who added that the city attorney is analyzing the Supreme Court ruling.

Kent of Ojai Oaks Mobile Home Park said he plans to pursue the Supreme Court ruling.

“The supervisors will hear from enough of us to put things back the way they were,” he said.

Times staff writer Psyche Pascual contributed to this story.