VAN NUYS, SUN VALLEY : Rezoning Sought for Mobile Home Parks

A hearing on a proposed zoning change for two mobile home parks is scheduled for Monday, part of an ongoing effort by the city to protect low-income housing in the Valley.

“We’ve had a number of these cases,” said Eric Ritter, the hearing officer for the case of the mobile home parks in Sun Valley and Van Nuys.

The proposal would convert an eight-acre mobile home park at 7560 Woodman Place from a manufacturing zone to residential mobile home park zone. A 2.5-acre Sun Valley mobile home park at 11167 Penrose St. would also be changed from light industrial zoning.

Many mobile home parks were built decades ago before there was zoning but were later surrounded by manufacturing and commercial development and so were eventually zoned for those purposes.

“A lot of them were there before there was anything else,” Ritter said.

The city created the residential mobile home park zone as a way of preserving the low-income housing the mobile home parks provide.

The city has been gradually rezoning dozens of properties during the past four years as part of an ongoing process, Ritter said.

Ritter will be compiling the testimony from the hearing into a report for the city Planning Commission to take action on Aug. 26. The City Council will have to give final approval for the zone change.

“In the few of these I’ve worked on in the past, there hasn’t been any controversy,” Ritter said.