By Marisa Endicott | Source |
Owners of Santa Rosa’s Carriage Court mobile home park plan to petition the city to raise rents by 75% — more than $400 monthly — on the land beneath the residents’ homes.
Park owners across Sonoma County have increasingly turned to the tactic of raising rents above the legal limit to trigger an arbitration since a wave of updates to decades-old mobile home regulations tightened rent control and added other protections.
In arbitration, park owners and residents face off in front of a neutral party who ultimately decides whether ownership is entitled to all or some of the requested rent hike in order to achieve what is a right to a fair return.
This would be the fourth Sonoma County arbitration to take place this year but the first in Santa Rosa since its new regulations went into place in early 2023. Those regulations inspired neighboring jurisdictions to follow suit in an effort to preserve what’s considered a rare remaining source of affordable housing in the state. The city limited rent increases to 70% instead of the previous 100% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the measure of prices for goods and services paid by consumers in an area.
“When rent increases are suppressed below the cost of inflation, a business is put on a slow path to bankruptcy,” said Nick Ubaldi, whose family owns Carriage Court. Ubaldi also works for Harmony Communities, the company that manages the park and more than 30 others in California and Oregon. “We are committed to annual arbitration in all jurisdictions that cap increases below CPI.”
In the rent petition sent to Carriage Court residents, owners mark the park’s gross income for 2023 at $606,684 for a profit of $223,315 after expenses. The notice compares those figures to statistics from 1997 when the park made $290,721. While still profitable, Ubaldi said, “we are losing $67,000 annually ignoring 25 years of inflation.”
Santa Rosa city spokesperson Kristi Buffo said the Housing and Community Services Department received the owners’ application Thursday, and staff will now review that all necessary information is provided before the hearing process is triggered.
The same ownership and management team recently initiated an arbitration at another park they operate, Little Woods Mobile Villa, in Petaluma, by requesting roughly 300% rent hikes. In June, an arbitrator denied the increase in full, but, in short order, owners issued another rent increase and notified the city of their intention to permanently close the park. The group currently has another arbitration scheduled later this month over increases initiated following its purchase in April of nearby Capri Villa.
In March, owners of another Petaluma mobile home park, Youngstown, won a $118 increase, less than the additional $900-per-month requested but still a serious blow to residents, who are now appealing the decision. There, too, ownership sent notices of intent to close the park as well as raise rents again.
The process has taken a heavy emotional toll on residents, who are often older and living on fixed incomes. An inability to keep up with rising costs is what initially pushed some to advocate for the recently strengthened rental protections in the first place.
“They experience constant stress and worry about what’s going to happen. People feel like they’re in a constant state of limbo,” said Karym Sanchez, lead organizer at North Bay Organizing Project, a community advocacy group that has been supporting Little Woods residents. And, while the arbitration process so far has come out in residents’ favor, “it costs money and time and resources,” he said. “Frankly, we don’t have as much money as Harmony does. They’re using it as a tool to let us know they have money, and they’re not going to let up.”
Ubaldi and others involved in park management have said that efforts to find alternative solutions have been rebuffed by residents and officials. As new mobile home regulations were debated, park owners advocated instead for targeted rental assistance for struggling residents rather than broad rent control, which they argue defeats long-range affordable housing goals by driving up mobile home prices. Since the new laws went into effect, Ubaldi and some owners have instead pitched vacancy decontrol, which would allow a park to reset a lot’s rent to market price after homes are sold. Without that, Ubaldi said “arbitration is the only option for owners to obtain their constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair return” and a last resort rather than a preferred approach. “It is a flawed process that costs all parties involved extraordinary amounts of money,” he said.
But, advocates and mobile homeowners say the strategy instead fits a pattern of pursuing profits at residents’ expense and using intimidation tactics to do so. Harmony Communities has been associated with a number of controversial rent hikes and attempted closures with parks across its portfolio. The Stockton-based company is also involved in litigation over its strict rule enforcement, rent increases and eviction attempts.
Sanchez, of the North Bay Organizing Project, noted that during the Little Woods arbitration process, several residents received notices to make fixes or clear unpermitted objects from carports or face possible eviction. In May, dozens of residents at Youngstown, which has different operators, received inspection notices requiring fixes ranging from weeding and power washing to painting and roofing. Management said the inspections are a standard happening every spring and fall, but residents said some notices demanded corrections within days and threatened potential eviction. Nonprofit Rebuilding Together sent 90 volunteers, joined by a few city officials, to help residents with repairs and maintenance.
At Carriage Court, a number of changes since Harmony Communities took over management in 2022 have left residents unsettled. Last year, to boost revenue, the park was converted to an all-ages park from one that was previously reserved for people 55 and older, spurring fears of displacement. In June, residents received a new set of park rules and regulations, now 42 pages instead of seven. New additions include restrictions on the number of potted plants allowed or how long holiday decorations can remain. Some residents, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, worry they’re being set up to be pushed out.
Ubaldi said instead that “the majority of written notices for rules violations are issued after complaints from other neighbors. Our rules are designed to keep the community clean and safe and are applied fairly.”
Based on what he’s seen so far, Sanchez is skeptical of good intentions. Their priority “is their bottom line,” he said.
