Newport Beach creates new Marinapark lease

June Casagrande

BALBOA PENINSULA -- Backing off on a proposal that would have roughly

doubled rents at the Marinapark mobile home park, city officials this

week put their stamp of approval on a lease that includes only moderate

rent increases.

City Council members voted unanimously Tuesday to renew the residents’

lease for one year, with two 1-year renewal options. Though the 15

full-time and 41 part-time residents had pushed for a long-term lease, it

was nonetheless a relief for them to learn they wouldn’t be getting the

worst of both worlds: long-term lease rents with only short-term lease

security.

To residents, the city’s last attempt to draft a new lease amounted to

just that. Exercising their legal option to raise the rents there to

market rates, appraisers hired by the city surveyed rents and similar

mobile home parks and came up with the recommendation to roughly double

what the waterfront lots now cost.

Residents countered that these rates were based on the value of a lot

with a long-term lease, and that with no security, there will still be a

mobile home park there in a year and a half. On their behalf, appraiser

William Hansen came up with what he thought was a fair price. In the end,

city officials agreed.

“This is the appraiser that was suggested by the tenant groups,” said

Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff.

Under the new lease, rents will remain the same until Sept. 1. Then

moderate increases will go into effect, based on Hansen’s suggestions.

Waterfront lots that now cost $1,225 a month will go up to $1,550; lots

not on the water that now cost $925 will go up to $1,125; and the $865

lots will go up to $1,050. These are much less than the city’s original

plan to charge $2,300, $1,850 and $1,700, respectively. Future annual

increases will be based on the Consumer Price Index.

The new lease does, however, allow the city to substantially raise the

rents if an owner sells a home there. Then the city would increase rents

by 30% to 50%.

The move brings to a close just one chapter of the contentious

Marinapark story. City officials have expressed hope that a luxury resort

will be built there by Sutherland Talla Hospitality. Residents at the

mobile home park have said that this plan amounts to a violation of the

spirit of their original agreement with the city.

They say that when the first lease was signed in 1985, they agreed

they would vacate if the city one day chose to build a park there. In

recent years, city officials changed the land-use designation from a park

to a “visitor-serving use,” such as a hotel.

Some say this violates the terms of the original agreement by

retroactively changing the risks. Many figured it was a safe bet that the

city would never turn a revenue-generating property into a park. But they

might have calculated the risk differently had they known the city could

turn the land into a for-profit use that would bring tax revenue to the

city.

Marinapark residents called for this story could not be contacted.