Malibu : Mobile Home Park Ruling

Ruling that the Malibu City Council made procedural errors when it enacted a 1991 rent control law for mobile home parks, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ordered the city to void the ordinance while a preliminary study required by state environmental laws is conducted.

An attorney for Malibu, however, said that the ruling will be appealed and that the law will remain in effect in the meantime.

In her decision earlier this month, Judge Diane Wayne agreed with the Kissel Co., owner of the Paradise Cove mobile home park, that the city needed to conduct a review to justify its contention that the ordinance was exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act.

The rent law, approved shortly after the city incorporated two years ago, regulates rents charged to tenants of the Paradise Cove and Point Dume mobile home parks. Together, the two communities house about 550 residents.

Attorneys for the Kissel Co. and the Adamson Cos., owner of the Point Dume park, have fought the ordinance in state and federal courts, contending that the ordinance constitutes an unfair taking of their property without adequate compensation.

Christi Hogin, an attorney for the city, said this week that the city will appeal Wayne’s ruling to the state Court of Appeal as soon as Wayne’s formal order is issued, and that the ordinance will remain in effect during the appeal.