Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : City to Buy Mobile-Home Park : Housing: The move is intended to preserve affordable rents. But residents fear the facility will decline.

City officials looking to preserve affordable housing have agreed to buy a privately owned mobile-home park for nearly $3.9 million, but residents say they fear the city’s involvement will cause the attractively furnished park to decline.

City Council members, sitting as directors of the city’s redevelopment agency, voted 5 to 0 Monday night to approve the purchase of the Desert Sands Estates Mobile Home Park, developed in the late 1980s, from owner Daniel Chioles, a San Fernando Valley resident.

The deal is the city’s first mobile-home park purchase, although the city also is negotiating with several other park owners. City officials said they want to extend the city’s housing-aid programs to Lancaster’s mobile homes, which account for about 10% of the city’s housing stock.

Redevelopment Director Steve Dukett said the city’s goal is to preserve affordable housing for the park’s existing residents by guaranteeing their future annual rent hikes will not exceed 60% of the increase in the Consumer Price Index, a common measure of inflation.

“The residents are going to get a sense of comfort and reliability as far as future rent increases,” Dukett said. Larger increases sought by private owners of the 32 other mobile-home parks in the city have been a hot topic in recent years, with tenants often accusing owners of gouging.

But at the Desert Sands park, at the southwest corner of Avenue I and 25th Street East, residents Tuesday voiced mostly fear and concern of the city’s purchase. Escrow is expected to close within several months after the city issues bonds, to be repaid from rents, to finance the deal.

Residents, who learned of the impending purchase through a notice early last week, said they fear the city will fill the about 50 vacant spaces in the 120-unit park either with low-income residents or dilapidated mobile homes. And they complained about confusion over the city’s plans.

“Everybody’s upset about it. They don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Elaine Prince, who lives in a 3 1/2-year-old home with her two daughters. Prince said she picked the complex because its rules included requiring residents to install large new homes and landscape their lots.

Although the city sponsored an informational meeting last Thursday, residents went away with little clear sense of whether the city will continue those rules. Like most residents, Prince and her family own their home with a mortgage, but rent their space from the park owner.

The park is surrounded by attractive block walls and grass landscaping, and the homes are relatively new and well-kept inside. The complex also has a pool, tennis courts and a clubhouse. Residents have been paying about $350 a month for space rent plus their mortgages.

Dukett said he expects to present the City Council with details of how the city plans to operate the park. One issue to be addressed is whether the city itself will maintain ownership or perhaps transfer it to a nonprofit group that would run the complex under city guidelines.