Council might put mobile-home owners more in driver’s seat

Dave Brooks

Mobile-home residents might get a reprieve from the City Council as

it looks to clean up Huntington Beach’s law regulating the sale of

trailer parks.

At its Monday meeting, the council will consider amending the law

to protect mobile-home owners who feel they might be moved unfairly

following the sale and conversion of their mobile-home parks.

Residents at Cabrillo Mobile Home Park along Pacific Coast Highway

are worried that the site’s owner will sell the property and give

them minimal compensation for their homes, many of which can’t be

moved to another location.

Under the city’s law, mobile-home-park owners can pay residents as

little as $5,000 for the loss of a home or trailer following the sale

of the park. It depreciates the value of the home by 4.7% a year,

regardless of any improvements the resident has made to the unit.

Mobile home owners such as Kent Lucas said the law is unfair

because it doesn’t take into account the time or money people have

invested in their homes.

“My home hasn’t decreased in value,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of

work on it to make it go up. The idea that you could say my house is

worth $5,000 is ridiculous. If I lost my home, where would I go? What

would I do?”

The council is kicking around several ideas to protect mobile-home

owners, including requiring park owners to pay residents fair-market

value for the price of their homes if the park is sold and zoned for

another use. Park owners must also pay to relocate mobile home owners

within a 20-mile radius of their original site.

“The way the ordinance is currently written treats mobile homes as

if they were automobiles and that is clearly not the case,”

Councilman Dave Sullivan said. “The new ordinance would change that.

It would also protect seniors who have developed a support network in

the area and can’t comfortably move to another place.”

Councilwoman Connie Boardman is recommending that the council add

a provision to protect mobile-home-park residents from being forced

out of their homes through escalating rents.

Before announcing plans to sell, the park owner would have to

present financial information for the last three years, and identify

all residents with children, disabilities or elderly family members.

Any residents who lost their home due to abandonment or foreclosure

as a result of rent increases would receive fair market value for

their homes or trailers.

The City Council is restricted as to what it can do to dictate the

way mobile-home parks charge for space. A successful March 2002

ballot initiative makes it illegal for the city to impose rent

control. City Atty. Jennifer McGrath is researching whether the new

ordinance is legal under the guidelines set by the initiative.