By Max Chun | Source |
A long-troubled mobile home park just up the hill from Soquel Village is facing an uncertain future after it was purchased out of bankruptcy earlier this year by a company with a history of hiking rents and attempting to close parks, raising concerns about a key piece of affordable housing in the community.
Stockton-based Harmony Communities owns or operates dozens of mobile home parks throughout the western United States, most of which are in California and Oregon. It purchased Soquel Gardens Mobile Home Park in February, following years of persistent issues with the park and its facilities, culminating in the state revoking its permit to operate in 2021.
Since Harmony Communities bought the struggling 20-space property, many of the tenants have left the park. The company has sent out eviction notices, though it’s unclear how many tenants left voluntarily. Just eight residents remain. On its website, Harmony Communities is advertising rents that local officials say are three times the typical average for mobile home parks in the county, and the area’s county supervisor, Manu Koenig, said the company has signaled it intends to close the park.
Sandy Paitowski, 58, is one of the people who received an eviction notice after Harmony Communities bought the park. She had lived at Soquel Gardens for about two years, and now is figuring out where to go next.
“This was nice for me, because I was right here on the main street,” she said of the RV park just steps away from the intersection of Soquel Drive and 41st Avenue. “I’m near a store, I got a Home Depot right here.”
Paitowski said that her communication with Harmony Communities has been accommodating and amicable, giving her 60 days from May 13 to leave the premises. Even so, her next move is uncertain. She said that she is likely going to have to try to get into Housing Matters’ shelter on Coral Street, but added that she would prefer to find a place that feels like her own: “I would like to get another spot and have my own freedom.”
Harmony Communities has been entangled in lawsuits elsewhere in California that allege unfair business practices and displacing tenants by rent gouging and closing parks. In San Luis Obispo County, the district attorney reached a settlement with the company and its associated real estate brokerage ordering them to pay a combined $61,000 in civil penalties along with a contribution to a nonprofit organization that specializes in tenant legal assistance. Harmony Communities allegedly did not reimburse background fees that it charged, and its brokerage company allegedly made misleading statements about listed housing units that Harmony Communities managed.
The company has also drawn scrutiny in several other counties, including Fresno, where residents of a mobile home park saw rents nearly double four years after they sued the company.
Nick Ubaldi, who works for Harmony Communities, told Lookout over email that Soquel Gardens had been neglected for years by its former owner, Cristina Locke, who also owns the Bayview Hotel in Aptos. Locke filed for bankruptcy last year after defaulting on a loan of more than $800,000 for the mobile home park. Court and property records show the park was purchased in February for $200,000, and a broker wrote that it needed $600,000 in repairs to roads, electrical and plumbing systems.
Ubaldi said the park’s creditor was forced to contribute money to pull the property out of bankruptcy so Harmony Communities could secure the permit to operate it legally as a mobile home park once again. He added that the company has spent $150,000 to fix health and safety issues in the park. Ubaldi did not respond to Lookout’s request for comment on what Harmony Communities’ plans are for the property, or whether it intends to close the park.
Andre’a Hicks, Locke’s daughter and the park’s previous property manager, said the poor conditions of the park shouldn’t be blamed on Locke, adding that the issues with the property were already there when her mother purchased the park about a decade ago. “That could be her fault as the buyer,” Hicks said, “but [the property violations] were present before she got the property.”
Hicks said the problems ranged from fences that were too tall and outside of property boundaries to poorly maintained roads and out-of-date utility poles. Hicks said her mother attempted to make fixes, but that Locke and park residents often didn’t see eye to eye on how to proceed. She said the community couldn’t come to an agreement on road maintenance and that residents were slow to address violations on their properties or refused to make changes altogether.
“A lot of people there are up in arms because the new owners are bringing things up to date without their considerations,” Hicks said. “You can complain about us, but then you can’t complain when a company comes in and does what they want with it.”
When the park’s permit to operate was revoked four years ago, residents were no longer required to pay rent, and many simply stopped paying their bills. Ubaldi said that after buying the property in February, Harmony Communities “removed the squatters and homeless individuals who had no rights to the property,” as the company worked to improve the park’s facilities. He said that the remaining tenants are welcome to stay “as long as they have RVs that are livable and do not present a health and safety hazard to others.”
District 1 County Supervisor Koenig said much of the park’s exodus has come because Harmony Communities has hiked rents or because tenants were now required to start paying rent again after the company restored the park’s permit to operate. He said the county also warned Harmony Communities that it demolished structures on site without a permit and illegally added a charge to tenants’ bills for sanitation services.
“The park has been in one state of limbo or another at least since I took office” in 2020, Koenig said. He added many of those who have left the park were renting their units. “Those leases were not renewed, and the RVs were hauled off site.”
Koenig said that if Harmony Communities does intend to close the park, the company has to offer relocation assistance to residents, and any decision to close the park must be voted on by the county board of supervisors.
“One way or another, some plan for residents has to be submitted in an application to close the park,” he said. “Any resident that is entitled and hasn’t gotten it should seek legal help.”
Koenig added that a potential closure of the park likely stems from the amount of work that must be done to rehabilitate the property, and because the county’s ordinance that controls rent for mobile home parks probably makes it difficult for the company to turn the kind of profit it would like to.
“Arguably, that’s the challenge with Soquel Gardens,” he said. “Park facilities are so degraded and need so much repair.”
Jean Brocklebank, a longtime member and current vice chair of the Santa Cruz County Mobile and Manufactured Home Commission, said she does not think that the possible closure of Soquel Gardens is reflective of broader pressures facing mobile home parks in the county. The issues facing Soquel Gardens were made possible only because the park has been mismanaged for years.
“It’s the first time in the county that I’m aware of that a mobile home park [might be] closed or converted,” said Brocklebank, who has lived in the Yacht Harbor Manor Mobile Home Park in Live Oak since 1988. The county has 87 mobile home, RV and manufactured home parks with nearly 6,670 total spaces, according to a 2021 report from the commission.
Brocklebank added that the new Soquel Gardens website shows that spaces are expected to go for $1,495 per month, much higher than the about $500 to $600 plus utilities typical for county mobile home parks. “I don’t know what their plans are for the park,” she said of Harmony Communities’ next steps.
While Brocklebank doesn’t think the park’s situation should raise concerns of losing affordable inventory at the rest of the county’s mobile home parks, she does think Harmony Communities was unwise to purchase the property in the first place.
“In my opinion, it was a bad business decision,” she said.
[ED. NOTE: Several GSMOL leaders in the area, as well as Jean Brocklebank, are helping the residents.]
