California MHP News

Wed, Sep 29, 2021 – Mobile home parks in the city of Santa Barbara will no longer be able to raise space rental fees beyond 10% between occupants.

Members of City Council approved the addition of vacancy control to the City’s mobile home park laws in the hopes the change would preserve a source of affordable housing.

The decision was unanimous – despite claims from Flamingo Mobile Home Park that the ordinance is illegal.

Mon, Sep 27, 2021 – The owners of Flamingo Mobile Home Park, located in Santa Barbara’s Eastside, feel targeted by two proposed ordinances, the owners’ attorney James Ballantine told the News-Press.

The City of Santa Barbara Planning Commission acknowledged the likelihood of a lawsuit as it approved an ordinance that could lock senior mobile home parks into their 55+ status.

The second ordinance, which the City Council will discuss Tuesday, adds a 10% vacancy control to mobile home parks. It was introduced during senior-park discussions.

The City Council passed an interim urgency ordinance in December to maintain the status quo at senior parks. To the city’s knowledge, Flamingo Mobile Home Park is the only senior park.

Pacific Current Partners, California-based mobile-home and RV park investors, bought the park in 2018.

In November of 2020, the owners sent a notice to residents: the park would no longer be a senior park and is opening available spaces to all ages.

Thu, Sep 23, 2021 – New oversight program allows residents of state’s 731 mobile home parks to lodge complaints. Almost 40% of the 241 open complaints in the state system are against just 10 mobile home parks, according to state data, and a quarter of all open complaints are against four large corporations that own dozens of parks around Colorado.

Together, these four corporations have accrued 66 open complaints across 65 parks, according to state figures. That’s roughly one complaint per park, on average – about four times higher than the rate of complaints against the rest of Colorado’s mobile home parks (175 open complaints across the remaining 666 parks).

1. Equity LifeStyle Properties
2. RHP Properties
3. Kingsley Management Corporation
4. RV Horizons-Impact Communities

Wed, Sep 15, 2021 – The Mountain View City Council voted 6-1 Tuesday to enact rent control for mobile homes, ending a years long battle by tenants fighting for protections against rent hikes and other predatory practices by park owners.

The vote, made through a convoluted motion shortly before midnight, was seen as a victory for mobile home residents in Mountain View who have pushed to extend renter protections for the last four years. Many voiced frustration that it's taken this long, and that mobile homes should have been included in the city's original rent control law passed by voters in 2016.

Mon, Sep 13, 2021 – Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) Multifamily today announced that effective immediately all future Manufactured Housing Community (MHC) transactions will include a series of tenant protections, as defined by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) Duty to Serve regulation, that go above and beyond current state and local requirements. The protections, which include renewable lease terms, written notice of rent increases, grace periods for late rental payments, and rights governing the sale of a manufactured home at an MHC, are intended to support those who own their home but lease the pad on which it sits.

Given their unique structure, MHCs represent a category of housing that often lacks protections afforded to a typical homeowner or typical renter. Freddie Mac examined the patchwork of state laws that govern MHCs in a 2019 white paper and determined that no state offered the comprehensive slate of tenant protections identified by FHFA in its Duty to Serve regulation.

Thu, Sep 9, 2021 – Just this year, two fires at the park located near Blackstone and Sierra, have injured a handful of people, killed one man, and destroyed five trailers.

The city plans to file a petition in the next couple of weeks with the Fresno County Superior Court to get a receiver, which is essentially a third party would be in charge of making sure the park gets cleaned up and to code.

At the end of April, 56-year-old Ronald Richardson died at Trails End. While covering the fire, our station uncovered a suspension of the park’s operating permit due to health and safety violations dating all the way back to July of 2020.

Tue, Sep 7, 2021 – Looking to protect residents at risk of displacement across the city’s six mobile home parks, the Mountain View City Council is set to vote next week on whether to extend rent control to mobile homes.

The ordinance, which will come before the council on Sept. 14, would cap annual rent increases at the rate of inflation and limit how much park owners can jack up the rent when a tenant leaves. Mobile home residents have demanded that they receive the same protections as apartment renters in Mountain View, fighting political and legal battles for rent control over the last four years.The ordinance, which will come before the council on Sept. 14, would cap annual rent increases at the rate of inflation and limit how much park owners can jack up the rent when a tenant leaves. Mobile home residents have demanded that they receive the same protections as apartment renters in Mountain View, fighting political and legal battles for rent control over the last four years.

Mountain View’s 1,100 mobile homes have long been considered a bastion of affordable housing, attracting residents who want to live in the Bay Area but cannot afford the exorbitant cost of living in the area. Many of those mobile home residents are seniors and people with disabilities as well as families working service-sector jobs.

So what’s in the upcoming ordinance? City officials say mobile home rent control will align closely with CSFRA protections, capping annual rent increases based on the consumer price index (CPI). The CPI had previously wobbled between 3.4% and 3.6% until COVID-19 hit, which caused inflation to plummet to 1.6% this year.

Mon, Sep 6, 2021 – Raise rent repeatedly, remove amenities: The core tenets of Colorado’s Mobile Home University and the people who suffer. Residents at Colorado parks owned by RV Horizons-Impact Communities complain of rent hikes, poor upkeep.

At Mobile Home University, the owners teach attendees to increase rents “relentlessly” because mobile home owners – contrary to their name – generally can’t afford to move. Remove amenities such as pools or playgrounds. Say goodbye to laundry rooms or vending machines.

Owners should keep raising rents, Rolfe preaches, because mobile homes are not, in fact, very mobile.

‘What I’ve found, and, again, just as a heartless person, is that… the customers are stuck there,’ Rolfe says in one Mobile Home University video. ‘They don’t have any option. They can’t afford to move the trailer. They don’t have three grand.’