Mobile Home Listings & News

City heading toward mobile home law

New ordinance would give East Palo Alto more oversight over owners

By Banks Albach / Daily News Staff Writer

A proposed law that is winding its way through East Palo Alto's political channels could give the city more oversight in how mobile home park owners convert their land to for-sale lots, as well as put the city in further legal jeopardy over its handling of a current conversion project.

Intended to fill a legislative hole at the state level, the ordinance lays out a host of requirements that a park owner would have to meet in order to get an application approved by the city.

The list includes a survey of necessary infrastructure repairs, land appraisals and a resident impact report. The planning commission reviewed the proposed ordinance Monday night and recommended unanimously that the city council adopt it. The council will likely hold a public hearing on the matter in early June. The ordinance is identical to one the city of Santa Rosa passed about three months ago.

"Why would it not be in the public's interest to know that information beforehand?" Commissioner Carlos Romero said.

The city is currently dealing with the conversion of the Palo Mobile Estates on 1885 East Bayshore Road. Its owner, who has sued the city for $14.6 million in damages over a conversion moratorium the city passed in March, is hoping to convert the 117 lots to for-sale properties.

State law forces the owner to give the current residents a choice to buy or stay on as renters. Low-income residents would be protected under state rent control, rather than East Palo Alto's rent stabilization program.

Not only was the moratorium illegal; the new ordinance is as well, said the owner's attorney, Thomas Casparian of the Santa Monica-based law firm Gilchrist and Rutter.

"You can believe me or not and let the courts decide," Casparian told the commission. "The city is stepping into trouble."

He said a similar lawsuit against Santa Rosa seeking to scrap that city's ordinance is due in court this summer.

Residents from the park lobbied the city council to stop the conversion earlier this year amid fears of higher rents, hidden homeowner association fees and even losing equity in their homes. Mobile home owners own the house, but rent the land. Still, the land boosts the market price of the home, which is somewhat like a form of equity. That would disappear for the tenants who stay on as renters.

The current state law guiding the conversion process is vague and does not force the park owner to give price estimates on the future lots until well into the city's application process.

Another part of the state law, which has become highly contested by those on both sides of the debate, requires a resident survey. The law does not spell how the survey should be administered or how the results should be analyzed. Some tenants feel negative survey results should considered a veto, while the owner claims they are irrelevant.