Watchdog for Mobile Home Park Owners

Mobile home park owners won’t take “no” for an answer (“Mobile Home Park Owners Fight Law,” Nov. 13). Park owners, represented by Vickey Talley, executive director of Manufactured Housing Education Trust, have announced that they intend to fight the rent stabilization law in San Juan Capistrano.

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in favor of mobile-home owners and rent stabilization, but park owners continue to use their financial muscle to threaten cities with expensive lawsuits to fight rent stabilization ordinances.

In fact, the California Appeals Court has also recently affirmed the legality of rent stabilization and denied park owners the absolute right to increase space rents when a home is sold (Sandpiper Mobile Village vs. City of Carpinteria, November, 1992).

Contrary to Ms. Talley’s opinion that “we feel (this law) transfers the value of the land from the owner to the tenant,” rent stabilization ordinances seek to protect mobile-home owners’ investments and remedy an inequitable market situation caused by the scarcity of mobile-home sites.

Rent stabilization ordinances also provide park owners with a reasonable return on their investment. But reasonable isn’t good enough for park owners. In the majority of Orange County cities, they have enjoyed a decade of skyrocketing rents with no limits, served on a population of homeowners, not renters, who are unable to pack up and leave.

A mobile home is a valuable commodity. Without the rents generated each month, the land on which they sit would have no immediate value. The value of land and the value of housing have an equal part of the equation. Rent stabilization ordinances simply serve as a watchdog to greedy park owners.

LYNN HARKINS

Anaheim