Rent-Hike Plan Angers Mobile Home Dwellers

More than 200 angry mobile home owners crowded into Moorpark City Council chambers Wednesday night, protesting that their landlord violated a City Council ordinance by proposing to raise their rents 25.9%.

Last year, the council approved an ordinance limiting rent increases at mobile home parks to the annual increase in the national consumer price index, or 5% a year, whichever is less.

“All I’m asking is that you stand firm,” Cheryl Fay, a mobile home park resident, told the council. “We have too many people on a limited income. Even if we could stretch this time, we don’t feel we could next year.”

Residents of the Villa Del Arroyo Mobile Home Park displayed notices they received Saturday that said their rents would jump to $350 a month beginning Dec. 1, and that each mobile home owner would begin paying for water usage now paid by the park owners. Rents now run from $278 to $346 a month.

Several months ago, the owners of the park, Villa Del Arroyo Ltd., filed a lawsuit against the city, asking $1 million in damages on the grounds that the ordinance had hurt them financially.

A decision will be made by the council on the rent increase within 75 days, Mayor Eloise Brown said.