The fees to close or convert a mobile home park in Petaluma “may be substantial,” the city attorney said.
By Jennifer Sawhney | Source |
Amid an ongoing fight with mobile home park owners who officially signaled their intent to close two parks where nearly 200 city residents live, the Petaluma City Council has added a fee to the city’s master fee schedule that would charge the owners for closing their parks.
The new “mobile home park conversion fee,” passed unanimously at the council’s Aug. 5 meeting, is a means of recouping expenses by the city as it prepares necessary reports and gathers other information pursuant to its closure procedures – a months-long process begun after the owners of Youngstown Mobile Home Park and Little Woods Mobile Villa submitted a joint letter on June 21 stating their intent to close the parks, according to a staff report.
“This fee … is really just to recover the fully loaded cost of staff time that’s expended in administering and responding to the applications,” City Attorney Eric Danly told council members. “I don’t know exactly what that will be, it’s not capped.”
Council members voted 6-0 to add the fee, with Janice Cader Thompson absent. In May, the City Council approved updates to its fee structure which did not include any mobile home closure or conversion fees.
Danly said the city has not undergone this type of process – closure or conversion of any of its mobile home parks – since it adopted its mobile home regulations in 2006.
For a park to close under the city’s regulations, the city must find whether there are enough mobile home lots in the county to accommodate those displaced by a closure, or if there’s adequate alternative housing options, and that “reasonable” relocation costs are covered, he said.
“To propose to close the communities in which almost 200 of our households reside is a very significant and a very disruptive undertaking and it requires very careful consideration by the City Council, which hopefully, our regulations will facilitate,” Danly said.
Based on a quick calculation, council member John Shribbs concluded that if the closure process involved 100 hours of staff time, which likely would include attorneys and upper management, facilitating the park closures could cost the city anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000.
Danly did not say whether the ballpark figure was accurate but did say that “It’s true that the fees may be substantial. We really have no estimate as to precisely what extent because of the newness of this kind of a process and (staff’s) experience.”
City Manager Peggy Flynn clarified that “Even though we’re going through this process, it doesn’t make closure imminent. We do believe that just closure of a mobile home park here, or elsewhere, is astronomically expensive.”
Considering the large undertaking the closures will require, council members Shribbs, Mike Healy and Karen Nau all said they hoped for a cost estimate from staff.
“If we publish the estimated costs, just from what you described, that might give (owners) the decision not to (close),” Nau said.
The item came hours after over 100 mobile home park residents crowded City Council chambers to speak during public comment, which in turn came after city leaders met to discuss pending litigation in closed session.
In their comments, the Petaluma residents decried park owners’ actions and asked the city to enforce its mobile home rules.
“I agree this is bordering on elder abuse because I’ve been struggling with depression, anxiety, and we know that we’re on the bottom rung of the economic ladder,” said David Jones, a resident of Capri Villa mobile home park. “And there’s no deep pockets. As soon as we let go of that last rung, our choices are basically homelessness or suicide.”
Harmony Communities bought Capri Villa in late April and quickly proposed rent increases of over $300 that triggered an arbitration hearing held Tuesday. The Stockton-based company also owns Little Woods Mobile Villa – a 78-unit all-ages park on Lakeville Highway – and over 30 other communities in California and Oregon.
Danly said the city posted a notice of violation at Little Woods after owners attempted to issue a second rent increase of over $600 in late June – just days after an arbiter denied park owners’ previous proposal to raise rents by $1,531.22. Residents at other Harmony-owned parks in Fresno and Santa Rosa have faced similar battles with park owners.
Meanwhile, last March an arbiter issued a $118 rent increase to residents at Youngstown Mobile Home Park, a 102-unit seniors-only park on N. McDowell Boulevard. The park owners, Three Pillars Communities – which operates over 70 parks in 13 states, according to its website – wanted a rent hike of over $900 a month.
Echoing the residents of Harmony-owned parks, the Youngstown residents decried what they described as retaliatory behavior by park management.
Danly said the council and city remain “firmly committed to ensuring the effectiveness” of the city’s mobile home rent control and closure and conversion regulations, and will continue to “vigorously uphold, enforce and strengthen those regulations.”
He acknowledged the concerns voiced by residents, including allegations that park owners refused to offer rent control, violated the city’s senior overlay and more.
“We received information about requirements by mobile home parks that residents waived their rights under our regulations,” he said. “That is expressly illegal under our regulations.”
