Mobile Home Rent Amendment Delayed

Councilman Chris Evans has delayed the Moorpark City Council’s discussion of the prickly issue of mobile home rent control.

An amendment of the city’s rent control ordinance, which Evans helped craft, was scheduled to be introduced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. But Evans asked his colleagues to pull the item off the calendar and has not penciled in a future date for its review.

Before the matter returns, Evans said, he needed to meet with the homeowners’ association president of the city’s largest mobile home park. While he had planned to meet with Rosalie Gehres, who represents the 240-space Arroyo Del Villa mobile home park, before Wednesday’s meeting, he said his schedule made that impossible.

The existing ordinance allows a mobile home park owner to increase rents annually by either 4% or by the consumer price index, whichever is higher. The proposed amendment would limit how park owners can raise rents by pegging increases only to the consumer price index.

Both the Arroyo Del Villa residents as well as the lawyer representing park owner Dale Williams said before the meeting that they were dissatisfied with the proposed changes.