Dear Mayor Patino, Mayor Pro-Tem Escobedo, Councilmember Aguilera- Hernandez, Councilmember Flores and Councilmember Soto:
My name is Gary Hall. I am a resident of Rancho Buena Vista Mobile Estates at here in Santa Maria. I represent the North Santa
Barbara County Manufactured Homeowners Team or NSBMHT. I am unable to attend the November 18, 2025, Santa Maria City Council meeting, so I am emailing my Public Comment to the City Clerk for inclusion in the official record.
NSBMHT’s Primary Goal remains to “Provide protection to ALL Santa Maria mobilehome residents, presently living in an unregulated rental market….”. The 2020 Model Lease and Enforcement Agreement, with all their flaws, have proven to be ineffective in maintaining affordable mobilehome housing --which is of course, is what it was originally intended to do!
3- years and 5-months ago, this Council passed a Motion, with the intention of improving the 2020 Model Lease or replacing it. That improvement attempt has failed. We believe it is now time to look at replacing the Model Lease with an “honest to goodness” Mobilehome Rent Stabilization program. A uniform, mandatory and enforceable program much like those in our neighboring- city & County jurisdictions. A program that protects the residents by maintaining affordability while still providing the park owner with a FAIR return.
Santa Maria also needs to prevent senior Mobilehome parks from being converted to all age parks. I know that this is being researched by Santa Maria Community Development department personnel and I remain hopeful that a new or revised Ordinance will soon be introduced, like what was used by Santa Barbara County.
It’s time, NO, it’s past time to add both Mobilehome Rent Stabilization and Senior Mobilehome Park Conversion Prevention to a near term, future meetings’ Agenda!!!
PLEASE Act SOON. WE DO NEED YOUR HELP!
Sincerely,
Gary Hall