STANTON : Park Owner’s Offer Averts City Action

City intervention in a lengthy dispute between residents and the owner of Katella Mobile Home Estates was averted this week when the owner came up with a lease offer.

The City Council tabled discussion after hearing that the owner, Marsha Carter, was willing to offer tenants a long-term lease, locking in rent increases at 4% a year for the next three years, if she could get 70% of the residents to sign leases.

Carter’s offer came after residents of the city’s largest mobile home park recently protested her attempts to raise rents by 6%. Carter gave in to tenants’ complaints and reduced the rent hike to 4%.

The council proposed last month that a committee be formed to mediate numerous disputes that have arisen in the park over the past two years. The committee, which was to be composed of representatives from both sides, was supposed to begin holding monthly meetings this summer and report its findings to the council in January, 1996.

Mayor Harry Dotson said the council should hold off setting guidelines for the committee until residents have an opportunity to consider Carter’s latest offer.

Park owners said they continue to oppose the establishment of a committee.

Vickie M. Talley, executive director of the Manufactured Housing Educational Trust in Orange, a group representing mobile home park owners, said, “We especially oppose any expansion of the committee to include other parks beyond Katella.”