GSMOL Helped Advocate for Pilot Program to Transfer Service to Utilities
by Brian Augusta, GSMOL Legislative Advocate
For many years, the presence of sub-metered utility systems in mobilehome parks has created enormous difficulties for homeowners. In a sub-metered park, the serving utility (e.g. Edison or PG&E) only supplies service up to the park master meter at the street. The park owner owns and operates the system within the park, and is responsible for delivering service to the individual spaces, including reading of meters and billing for the service. The residents pay gas and electric to the park owner, and must rely upon the park owner to keep the utility systems maintained.
As these park-owned systems have aged and homes have improved, the park-owned infrastructure has not been upgraded or maintained to keep pace, and few park owners have been willing to incur the expense of needed upgrades. Since they cannot pass on most gas and electric expenses to homeowners, there is no incentive for park owners to invest further dollars in the infrastructure. And so the industry was at an impasse, with health and safety and reliability of service become a bigger problem as time passed.
For more almost three years GSMOL’s corporate counsel Bruce Stanton represented the interests of homeowners in a proceeding at the Public Utilities Commission to address these aging systems and connect homeowners directly to utility service. GSMOL’s goal was to ensure that homeowners did not unfairly bear the burden of paying for the costs of system transfers or improvements. The end result was a voluntary pilot project to convert 10% of the parks to direct service over the next few years, with those having safety issues being first in line. the cost will be borne by all utility customers, both commercial and residential, throughout California.
Last month, the first completed upgraded transfer system went live in Colton, CA! More system upgrades are now underway and will follow soon in other parks, as more than 10% of park owners have filed applications for transfers.
To read more, see this news release from SoCalGas: http://www.prnewswire.com/
