WESTMINSTER : Mobile Home Plan Going to City Council

After nearly a year of delay, a proposed ordinance designed to regulate the conversion of mobile home parks to other uses finally will go before the City Council today.

The proposal has the support of mobile home park residents, but mobile home park owners have described it as unfair and have indicated they may challenge it in court if adopted by the council.

“It borders on taking property without just compensation,” said Norm McAdoo, part owner of Villa Magnolia and Kensington Garden mobile home parks. “It may not stand a legal test.”

But residents of the city’s 18 mobile home parks said the ordinance would provide them with better protection if the park closed.

The ordinance, for example, would require the owner to find space in a “comparable park” within 35 miles. In addition, the park owner would have to pay for all relocation costs, including a daily allowance of $145 per adult and $40 per child for each day a family must stay in a hotel.

If the mobile home can’t be relocated, the park owner is required to buy the mobile unit, including accessories, at a negotiated price.

Vicky Talley, who works for an association of county mobile home park owners, said under the ordinance park owners may have to pay up to $30,000 for every mobile home that would be relocated. The average relocation cost is about $5,000 under state law, she said.

But Ethel Hirsch, one of the leaders of a group of mobile home park residents, said that without assistance many of the residents would end up homeless. She said that elderly people, who make up a majority of the 5,000 residents of the city’s 18 mobile home parks, are particularly vulnerable.

The Planning Commission voted early this month to recommend the adoption of the ordinance.