LAKE FOREST : Mobile Home Rent Pact to Be Considered

A proposal to stabilize rents at mobile home parks goes before the City Council tonight.

However, the plan doesn’t include the rent rollbacks that park tenants consider vital. An attorney for the renters said Monday that his clients were not likely to accept the pact without rollbacks.

“We have a major problem on our hands here,” attorney Thomas Whaling said.

The proposed 10-year lease would affect the more than 1,200 mobile home tenants in Lake Forest. The rent agreement could be passed as an ordinance or be subject to approval from both landlords and tenants in the city’s four mobile home parks.

Although it doesn’t return rents to their 1989 levels, the rollback sought by tenants, the proposed lease does limit rent increases to the consumer price index.

Rent hikes would be no larger than increases in the price index. Only 70% of a consumer price index increase of 7% or more could be passed along to tenants.

However, Whaling said that mobile home renters have seen excessive increases in the past five years. Without rollbacks, any future space fee hikes would be piled on top of already excessive rents, he said.

The decision to leave out rollbacks was made by a council subcommittee that has met with landlords and tenants over the past four months.

“The subcommittee felt that it comes down to whether government should be interfering in private business concerns,” said Councilwoman Ann Van Haun, who worked on the subcommittee. “We felt a certain empathy to the senior citizens (who live in the mobile home parks), but most of us felt that the council is dealing with this situation reluctantly.

“We had no business forcing (landlords) to do anything. However, I feel we have accomplished something here” with the proposed lease.