WESTMINSTER : City to ‘Fine-Tune’ Mobile-Home Draft

Already more than a year in the making, a proposed ordinance that would regulate the conversion of mobile-home parks to other uses has suffered yet another delay.

Following a two-hour study session last week, the City Council decided to send the third draft of the ordinance to a two-member panel for review following protests from mobile-home park owners who described the proposed ordinance as unfair.

Council members Tony Lam and Charmayne S. Bohman, appointed to the panel, will “fine-tune” the ordinance with help from City Atty. Richard Jones and Michael Bouvier, the city’s planning and building director. The full council is expected to review the draft in January.

“If it will take more months, so be it,” Bouvier said. “The council will not rush just to put something in the books.”

Bouvier said the council is “struggling with the issue of ‘unrelocatables,’ ” mobile homes that cannot be moved to other mobile-home parks.

“They are not happy with the current definition,” he said. “It needs to be tightened.”

Vickie Talley, executive director of an association of mobile-home park owners, said that under the proposed ordinance, “practically every mobile home is unrelocatable.”

In addition, Talley said, a study conducted by the park owners indicated that the cost of relocating park residents under the ordinance could go as high as $30,000 each, while under state law, the average relocation cost is about $5,000.

Under the proposed ordinance, park residents displaced by a park closing must also be paid a housing allowance of $125 per day for 10 days. An additional $40 per day must also be paid to each member of the resident’s household.

If the park resident moves to another park with higher rent, the owner desiring to close his park must pay the “rent differential.”

Despite the delay in the adoption of the ordinance, mobile-home park residents said they are happy that the council is making efforts to protect them.

“I commend them for trying to do the right thing,” said Stan Hirsch, a resident of Mission Del Amo mobile-home park who heads a coalition of park residents pushing for the adoption of the ordinance.