Round 5 for trailer park law draft

Deirdre Newman

It’s an issue so complex that the Planning Commission has continued

it four times.

On Monday, the commission will again consider a draft version of a

law to expand the city’s procedures for dealing with mobile home park

closures and conversions to other uses.

“I think we have all the information we need, and I’m hopeful, if

not confident, we can send something on to the City Council,”

Chairman Bruce Garlich said. “I’m just not sure what it will be.

There are lot of parts and a lot of alternative language.”

The City Council supported revamping the city’s procedures on the

conversion of mobile home parks after residents of the El Nido and

Snug Harbor trailer parks complained that they weren’t being offered

fair compensation for having to leave the parks, which are being

closed.

The city cannot deny an application for a permit to convert a

mobile home park or prevent a property owner from closing a mobile

home park. All it is required to do now is review a report, required

by the state, analyzing the effects of the conversion or closure on

the residents. It may then impose measures that the park owner must

take to lessen negative effects without exceeding the reasonable

costs of relocation.

In preparing the proposed law, planners reviewed the ordinances of

cities such as Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach, as well as the

Golden State Manufactured Home Owners League.

The proposed law defines terms such as “closure of a park” and

“conversion of a park.” It requires that a park owner file a

relocation report, and it specifies what must be in the report.

The issue was last continued on Jan. 12, when the commission asked

for more information and refinements, including clarifying what the

city can do to compensate mobile home owners for relocation

Planning staff members included alternative language that

identifies the time frame in which mobile home owners, whose homes

can’t be relocated, have to chose a replacement lot. If they reject

the replacement lot, then the park owner is limited in what he has to

do to compensate them.

Language was also added that would allow the commission to

consider the on-site and off-site fair market value in determining

the appropriate payment to owners of mobile homes that can’t be

relocated.

Garlich said the commission may have to go through the draft

ordinance in the same way that the City Council handles the consent

calendar, seeing if there are any parts of it that commission members

want to deliberate individually.