Mobile Home Owner News – June 2022
Resident curated mobile home owners news and information for residents of Mobile Home Parks owned by Kort & Scott (KS) companies. The MHPHOA also provides news coverage for Mobile Home Parks not owned by KS companies.
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Thu, Jun 30, 2022 – Mobile home park owners in Mountain View will no longer have the opportunity to create their own agreements with residents in place of following the city’s rent control ordinance. City staff said they gave the idea their best shot, but it just wasn’t working.
The Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Ordinance (MHRSO), which the council passed last September, caps annual rent increases for mobile homes at the rate of inflation, enforces eviction protections and prevents park owners from upping the rent when a tenant vacates and a new one moves in.
The law was a big victory for many mobile home residents in Mountain View, who have advocated for increased protections for years. But local mobile home park owners weren’t so thrilled.
At the time that the ordinance was passed, owner of Sunset Estates Mobile Home Park Frank Kalcic described rent control as something that, in his opinion, pits park owners like him against his residents and invites lawsuits. He suggested that Mountain View try something similar to what the city of Sunnyvale implemented: instead of having to abide by a rent control ordinance, allow park owners to instead reach a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with their residents.
Mon, Jun 20, 2022 – Mobile homeowners at the Colonial Mobile Manor in San Jose wrote to the City Council asking officials to fund a zoning change that would protect them from redevelopment. After two years of waiting, San Jose mobile homeowners say the city reneged on a promise to give them more protection.
The San Jose City Council in March 2020 unanimously approved a plan to put all 58 mobile home properties under the same land use designation –but only two sites have received the new layer of protection, officials said last week, leaving the remaining 56 properties in limbo. For the next fiscal year budget, the city has also reduced the original budget of $381,000 for the land redesignation to less than 8%, or about $30,000.
The new land use designation – mobile home park – limits housing density to 25 homes per acre and only permits mobile homes and amenities such as clubhouses, community rooms, pools and other common areas. The designation also requires the City Council to approve any requests to close a park or convert it for alternative uses, making it difficult for developers to swoop in with high-density, market-rate housing.
Mobile homeowners – the majority of whom are seniors living on fixed income and low-income families – said the lack of progress is a betrayal.
RE: Skandia Mobile Country Club, KSFG, IPG
Tue, Jun 7, 2022 – Seniors living at Skandia Mobile Home Park in Huntington Beach are increasingly worried they won’t be able to afford rent hikes, jeopardizing their ability to keep living in the homes they strategically planned to spend the rest of their days in.
But they’re not giving up on those plans without a fight. Residents at the park as well as other parks in Huntington Beach have repeatedly called on their city council members to put a measure on the November ballot that would let voters decide on a new law that would stop rent hikes at mobile home parks like theirs across the city.
Feeling ignored by their council members, they also have set their eyes now on state and federal representatives to help keep their rent rates in check.