By Jason Ruiz |
Residents of an East Long Beach mobile home park received notices late
last month that the rental price for their land would be going up after a
nearly $30 million improvement project was completed by the property
management company, leaving some angered and wondering if they can
afford to stay.
The Belmont Shores Mobile Estates located on Loynes Drive just north of
Pacific Coast Highway is a senior living community for people 55 years
and older.
The gated community has been undergoing a capital improvement
program over the past few years which included improvements to water
and sewer lines, street lights, storm drains, roadways and the electrical
infrastructure of the community.
A letter sent to residents in late September from Newport Pacific Capital
Company Inc., the group that manages the park, noted these
improvements and that rents had not been raised on existing residents
since January 2017 and that the increases, some of which are as high as
35%, were needed to account for the improvements and the current
market.
“An adjustment is necessary to take into account many factors including
the financial commitment from the owners, the time passed since the last
adjustment and the work and the improvements to the park,” the letter
said. “Further, we analyzed local housing market conditions and
comparable mobile home park rents which reflect the current rents at
Belmont Shores Mobile Estates are significantly under-market.”
Officials at Newport Pacific Capital Company Inc. were not immediately
available for comment.
The letter, first reported in the Press-Telegram, stated that residents had
until Nov. 15 to make a decision on if they wanted to continue with a new
lease under the new payment structure.
Former Long Beach City Councilman Mike Donelon has called the estates
home for the last eight years and loves it. He said that even if he had $1
billion he wouldn’t move, and doesn’t plan to leave even with the rent
increases that pushed his payment from $1,070 per month to $1,425 per
month.
However, some of his neighbors have already expressed that they wont
be able to make the same decision.
“Most people here including me are on fixed incomes,” Donelon said.
“Many will have to move.”
Donelon, like other residents, has been offered a two-year rent credit that
could help offset the charges that will go into effect at the beginning of
next year. His credit structure would provide him with $200 per month for
2020 and then $100 per month in 2021. After that, the credits run out and
residents will be on the hook for the entirety of their individual increases.
“It’s their dirt they improved,” Donelon said. “If they came in an improved
my trailer then it would be fine.”
Trailer owners pay rent for the land that it sits on. Some trailers are paid
off, while others have been financed, so there is a spectrum of financial
situations that exist in the park. He said that the letters have been the talk
of the neighborhood and everyone was shocked at the increases.
He said he hasn’t bothered to reach out to the City Council to step in
because as a former council member he knows there is little that can be
done. He noted that the City Council dealt with a similar issue with the
Windward Village mobile home park in West Long Beach while he was
still on the council and he quickly found that the council’s hands were
tied.
“The only thing they can do is listen to everyone vent and then
respectfully say ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do,’” Donelon said. “And
people don’t want to hear that.”
However, not everyone agrees that the increases were surprising.
One resident, who wished not to be identified because of the highly
emotional response the letters have created and possible fallout with
neighbors for speaking counter to the outrage surrounding the increases,
said that the property management group told residents that rental rates
would increase to about $1,500 per month after the capital improvement
program concluded.
“They told us it was coming,” she said. “And they’ve done a really good
job of giving us a very nice place to live.”
The resident said that if she had the same size home with the same
proximity to the beach, she’d easily be paying double the cost to live in
the Belmont Shores estates.
Recently the City Council adopted a tenant relocation ordinance aimed at
reigning in excessive rental increases with landlords required to pay as
much as $4,500 per unit in relocation assistance to displaced renters as of
Aug. 1.
State legislators separately approved a statewide rental cap increase in
September and the governor has signaled he will sign it into law next
week. The law would cap rental increases to 5% annually, plus inflation.
The law would go into effect in January.
Neither, however, applies to mobile home parks.
