Mobile Home Park Owners Unite to Fight Rent Control : Election: Opponents have collected $100,000 to fight the proposal as residents prepare to vote Tuesday.

Orange County’s trailer-park owners are banding together to fight a mobile home rent-control proposal on Tuesday’s special election ballot, a measure that they believe could set a precedent for other cities.

Park owners have contributed more than $100,000 to oppose Measure A, which would scale back Anaheim mobile-home park rents to 1988 levels and keep annual increases to a maximum of 8%.

“Anaheim is kind of a model city, and everybody realizes that,” said Roger Evans, co-owner of Sunkist Gardens mobile-home park in Anaheim. “Anaheim and Santa Ana are two of the largest cities in the county, and trends tend to start there.”

Park owners say that rent control is a classic example of government meddling unnecessarily in business matters, and warn that rent caps will result parks being closed and sold to developers. Mobile-home owners, however, maintain that skyrocketing rents are forcing them out of the parks. For instance, monthly rents at the Orangetree Mobile Home Park in Anaheim have increased from $400 five years ago to $695 today.

Anaheim’s mobile home rent-control movement is being led by the Anaheim Political Action Committee, which has been trying to bring such a measure before voters since 1987. The group gathered enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot in 1987, but the city attorney declared the petitions invalid on technical grounds.

Though the group has raised just $4,656 in campaign funds, they believe the support for Measure A that brought the issue to a vote will carry it to victory on election day. Group members perceive the formation of the park-owners coalition as an indication that they are worried about losing.

“It makes me think they’re scared stiff,” said Clarice Jackson, president of the Anaheim Political Action Committee. “They’re doing their best to fight it and keep it from spreading around, because they see a lot of other cities where it could be a ripe issue.”

Park owners say they are concerned that mobile home rent-control movements will take root in other cities. Through a residents group supported primarily by mobile home park owners, apartment owners and realtors, voters are being warned that passing mobile home rent control is the first step toward further controls on property owners.

“It’s one step from mobile home parks to apartment complexes to the (reduction) of property values,” said Jack Stanaland, an Anaheim park owner whose corporation contributed $10,000 toward the anti-Measure A campaign.

Anaheim Homeowners and Taxpayers Against Rent Control has sent hard-hitting mailers to Anaheim residents, some using the Batman cartoon character the Joker to warn voters that the joke will be on city taxpayers who will foot the bill for the ordinance if it is passed.

City officials estimate that the ordinance will result in $422,500 in start-up costs and $466,650 in annual administrative costs, stemming from possible lawsuits and other expenses. There are 26 mobile home parks in Anaheim housing 3,722 trailers.

However, in San Juan Capistrano, the only city in Orange County with a mobile home rent-control ordinance, officials say their costs have been much lower.

“If you’re going to set money aside for lawsuits, it could add up to $300,000 to $400,000, but as far as administering it, it’s not costly at all,” said Jeff Parker, assistant to the city manager. “It’s easier to defend a process once it’s in place than it is to set it up.”