Lancaster Presses Forward With Mobile Home Park Purchases : Housing: The city has bought two facilities and is looking at others. The goal is to preserve affordable living options for lower-income residents.

The city of Lancaster is forging a new path in the quest to provide affordable housing in California by buying up mobile home parks to preserve housing options for low- and moderate-income residents.

Through its redevelopment agency, Lancaster already has purchased two mobile home parks and discussions are under way with the owners of at least three other parks.

Although Lancaster isn’t the first California city to purchase a mobile home park, the north Los Angeles County community is “pioneering” in its efforts, according to a consultant involved with mobile home park issues.

“I think Lancaster is to be congratulated for going after it as they are,” said John F. DuPriest, a Northern California-based real estate broker and park resident advocate. “Other communities I’ve been involved with are not near as ambitious as Lancaster.”

Lancaster redevelopment Director Steve Dukett said, “We’re really getting into this mobile home park business in a big way. There’s an obvious need.”

Lancaster isn’t stopping at merely buying the parks. The city has three programs that offer everything from rehabilitation grants to help in the actual purchase of mobile homes for income-qualified residents.

Councilman George Root has been a driving force behind Lancaster’s efforts to buy mobile home parks. Until a few weeks ago, when he and his wife moved into a condominium, Root had lived in a mobile home for about 15 years.

“It’s a lifestyle. It’s affordable (and) it’s low maintenance,” Root said of mobile home park living. “Seniors can handle that very well.”

Root said it is important that the city establish affordable housing in the community.

Mobile homes can be bought for far less than a single-family home and are a good way to provide affordable housing, Root said.

But not everyone agrees.

William Reed, president of the Palmdale/Lancaster chapter of the Western Mobilehome Park Owners Assn., believes the city’s actions are motivated more by politics than anything else. Mobile home park residents, he said, make up a large segment of the voting public.

It is not as though Lancaster’s 33 mobile home parks with their combined 3,700 spaces are going away, said Reed, who happens to be a resident of the park the city most recently purchased. “That housing was remaining in the market.”

Despite his feelings, Reed said the park owners association has not taken a formal position on Lancaster’s acquisition program. The organization, which includes 150 member parks in the Antelope Valley, is the largest trade association of park owners in the state.

Locally, Reed said association members are divided. About one-third are opposed to what Lancaster is doing and another third are ambivalent. The rest of the members, he said, support the city’s park purchase efforts.

“Some park owners don’t believe the city should be their competitors and that (the city) will set artificial pricing,” he said. “Other park owners think that’s OK because they want to sell their parks and the city turns out to be one of the best-qualified buyers.”

It’s not just park owners who are divided.

The Golden State Mobilehome Owners League, a statewide organization with about 80,000 member households, has not taken a position on government purchases of mobile home parks.

Pat Lowery, vice president of the league’s Southern California zone, said her organization is concerned with the rights of park residents. Whether their lives are more secure because of a city purchase of a park depends on many factors.

“It’s all according to how they set it up,” Lowery said, noting that in most cases it has benefited residents. “It usually seems to work out pretty well.”

In the case of Lancaster, the city is buying the parks as well as offering grants to help qualified residents repair their mobile homes or buy new ones.

Through the Substandard Mobilehome Inventory Replacement Program, income-qualified mobile home owners can receive grants of up to $7,500. The money is to be used to remove the grant recipients’ “substandard” mobile home and help with the purchase of a new or rehabilitated unit.

Through another program, $5,000 rehabilitation grants are offered to qualified mobile home owners to fix up their units.

Under the federally funded HOME program, first-time home buyers in Lancaster can qualify for interest-free loans to purchase new mobile homes. The loans of $35,000 to $40,000 are repaid by the homeowner over 15 years.

Eligibility for the replacement and purchase programs is based primarily on income. A household with a family of four, for example, must have an annual income of no more than $38,650 to be eligible.

Lancaster first became involved in mobile home parks, beyond its enactment of a rent-control ordinance, about 18 months ago when the city bought 20 acres of vacant land for a planned mobile home park.

The park would have provided a place for residents living in rundown parks to relocate.

In researching the issue, the city concluded it was more cost effective to buy existing mobile home parks than to construct new ones. At the same time, several park owners began contacting the city, offering to sell.

Escrow closed Dec. 15 on Lancaster’s first purchase, the 123-space Desert Sands Estates Mobile Home Park. This week the city took title to the 311-space Brierwood Mobile Home Estates.

Councilman Root said the city doesn’t have a specific number of parks it hopes to purchase. There are at least four dilapidated parks, he said, that it hopes to buy and then close. Residents of those parks would be moved to other city-owned parks.

Lancaster will purchase parks only where there is a willing seller and at a price the city can finance 100% through bond sales. Residents of the park must also support the city’s purchase.

This summer the council reversed its decision to purchase the 121-space Lido Estates Mobilehome Park, in part because residents were opposed.

But at Brierwood, residents seem to be optimistic about the city’s takeover of the park.

Nan Randall, a Brierwood resident for about six years, said she hopes that her annual space rental hikes will diminish under city ownership.

“I thought it would be good for the park and for the city,” she said.

Lila Allen, an eight-year resident of Brierwood, is taking a wait-and-see approach, but believes the city’s purchase will ultimately prove beneficial.

“I felt that we had a chance to go ahead and see what will happen,” she said. “I think there are opportunities there to make it a good change.”

Root said he never expected the city’s interest in mobile home parks and their residents to reach the point where Lancaster would be buying parks.

Nonetheless, he said, “It pleases me to be able to go out and do these kinds of things.”