CALABASAS : Mobile Home Rent Compromise Reached

The landlord of a Calabasas mobile home park has reached a compromise with a tenants group that has been trying to block rent increases for tenants whose leases are about to expire.

Larry Rosenthal wanted to impose 40% rent increases on 47 tenants at Calabasas Village on Mulholland Highway, whose 10-year leases will expire in December, 1996. The other tenants at the 210-unit park are under long-term leases that will not expire until at least 2020.

Most of the tenants own the homes and rent the lots from the landlord.

Under the compromise, the rental increases will only be applicable in cases in which tenants sell their homes. Rents in such cases would be increased by 10% instead of 40%. In some cases, where rents are already deemed to be at fair market value, rents would not be increased at all.

“Like all compromises, not everybody was happy,” said Cathey Sinai, a tenant at the park who served on a task force that worked out the compromise. “But not everybody can have everything they want.”

The landlord, who lives in New Marlboro, Mass., is relieved that city officials did not enact a rent-control ordinance, said Julie Watt, a spokeswoman for Rosenthal.

“It’s an agreement we can certainly live with,” said Watt, of Stoorza, Ziegaus & and Metzger, a San Diego-based public relations firm hired by Rosenthal. “And we’re all glad it’s over.”

Some of the tenants wanted the city officials to impose rent control, but the Calabasas City Council, which opposes rent control, balked. To resolve the issue, the council set up the task force.

Sinai said that, in any case, tenants never viewed rent control as a perfect solution, because tenants with long-term leases would not have benefited.

Park tenants say their homes have been declining in value, and that the value would decrease even more if the rent increases went into effect.

The rent control issue was raised in another instance in Calabasas by tenants in Lincoln Malibu Estates, an apartment complex off Las Virgenes Road. Many tenants complained in December to city officials about rent increases at their complex. Some called for rent control, but the issue fizzled after the city released a study saying the rent increases were consistent with fair market value.