From: Merrill A Dellas
To: CityCouncilListPublic
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Fw: The Country resident (senior park zoning) Date: Monday, October 7, 2024 7:47:47 PM
Re: zoning for senior parks
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Merrill A Dellas >
To: [email protected] < >
Sent: Monday, October 7, 2024 at 10:11:14 AM PDT
Subject: The Country resident
To whom it may concern, I bought in at The Country MHP in April 2021.
Knowing it was a SENIOR park and that I'd fit in with the community; I felt it would be a great place for me! I truly enjoy this park and all that it has to offer me as a senior.
We look out for each other here. It's an outstanding community with really nice and helpful people! We respect each other's privacy and we help each other out wherever and whenever it is needed.
Our SENIOR parks should be zoned as such and they need to STAY that way. I know that the residents of all 12 senior parks would agree with me on this issue. There's a reason as to why we bought into a SENIOR park in the first place!
We are all on limited and fixed incomes! We simply can NOT afford a high space rent increase. This would force many of us to move perhaps out of this state.
Speaking for ALL
of us in our SENIOR parks, please zone our parks as designated SENIOR parks! Thank you!
Merrill A. Dellas
The Country MHP resident
From: Fred Allebach
To: City Council Public Comments
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Public comment to Santa Rosa City Council: senior mobile home park overlay study session Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2024 7:12:44 AM
Fred Allebach
Santa Rosa senior mobile home park resident
10/8/24
Public comment to Santa Rosa City Council on senior mobile home park overlay study session
Intro
I hope the Santa Rosa City Council will see clear to put senior overlays on all applicable mobile home parks (MHPs.) This to protect a vulnerable class of mobile home (MH) space-renters from being prey to investment entities looking to immorally leverage unseemly profits.
Just as Boomer generation seniors become a higher percent of the city and county population, with all their attendant age-related needs, is not the time to allow them to be run out of town with insupportably high mobile home (MH) space rents.
Economic and political philosophy are matters of choice and of justifying those choices, not a matter of immutable laws like physics and chemistry. We choose human law, as a reflection of our vision, values, morals, and of what is pragmatic. With a majority, the Council can decide the law for city zoning and how zoning steers our society to be more inclusive.
The core issue
The core issue with MHP regulations here is a putative legal “right to profit” versus lower- income resident’s right to live in this community within their means. Do we have an economic system that allows our most vulnerable to be tossed to the wolves in the name of profit or do we protect our respected elders? Who’s team are we on here?
When I look at my savings account or my job, I don’t see any “right to profit.” The fact is, this supposed right to profit is immoral and any consumer knows it about amounts to a right of big fish to rip off small fish. This right to profit is Social Darwinism, the law of club and fang, not what we might expect from an advanced, moral, socially just civilization.
If this were Star Trek, are we the Ferengi or are we Starfleet operating under the Prime Directive?
Philosophy of economics
Capitalist economist Milton Friedman said it is business’ job to make a profit and it is government’s job to provide a backstop to market excesses. Does anyone really believe that Adam Smith’s notion of an economic “invisible hand” guiding the creation of positive social goods through motives of individual greed really works? If so, where is the rising tide and the trickle-down benefits? Where’s the beef? What about greedflation?
In no moral universe is it OK to leverage unsupportable rent-seeking profit on the backs of vulnerable seniors and lower-income people. I hope the Santa Rosa Council will study the breadth of economic philosophy and realize that we live in a socially constructed universe, we have choices here; this “right to profit” or a corollary right to altruism is not a matter of any immutable economic “laws.” The choices here are ours.
I ask that Santa Rosa stand in a morally just place and act as a backstop to market excesses and fight with all it has against immoral, unjust forces that victimize the most vulnerable. We would not do this to our own grandmother or our kids, why would we do it to someone else’s? Let’s go with the Golden Rule here, and make everyone part of the in-group it applies to.
Naturally occurring affordable housing
Senior MHPs are an important source of naturally occurring affordable housing. Affordable housing is important because we have a serious housing crisis all over. People’s stake in the community is contingent on being able to even live here.
MHs are cheap and relatively costly to people of limited means The reason MHs come at less cost to buy is that they are cheaply built, flimsy, and have inherent maintenance problems and vulnerabilities. The most affordable MH units are older ones in need of costly plumbing, electric, roof, and foundation repairs etc. Older models have non-standard plumbing and electric. To boot, MH residents must deal with the state of CA and HCD to do any work which itself is costly and time consuming.
To upgrade an older model can easily cost $25,000 - $50,000 or more, on top of the market price which can go anywhere between $100,000 to $250,000+ per unit. Add on a high space rent and quickly this housing option is no longer affordable.
Potential buyers don’t know all the red flags and all that can go wrong with a MH and may be sold by the appearance of a quick paint and carpet job. So, while MHs are a less costly housing option for seniors and other city residents, they are an investment that comes with potentially costly maintenance vulnerabilities and hidden higher costs in the form of rising space rents.
By the time a new senior owner has bought and made needed repairs, a large hit to their retirement portfolio has been made.
Space rent usury
Lower-income seniors look to MH options to be an owner and not a renter to reduce the uncertainties of renting in old age. However, MHPs are set up for people to own their units but unit spaces must be rented from the park owners. Space rent ends up being a problem because the higher it goes, the less seniors will have at the ends of their lives when they need security the most.
Space rent goes up every time a unit is transferred and also can go up if unscrupulous owners use MHPs as an investment vehicle to leverage unseemly profits off a vulnerable class of renters.
Without MH options, lower-income seniors looking for lower-priced ownership options will be priced out of Santa Rosa, SoCo, and the Bay Area
Best course forward IMO
Santa Rosa takes off the gloves and fights for seniors and all those with big housing burdens.
Don’t signal any weakness or trepidation. Put up a string front. Stand for social justice and be willing to fight hard for it.
"We don't know where we're going but we have to stick together in case somebody gets there." Ken Kesey
From: Jo Ann Jones
To: Rogers, Natalie
Cc: Smith, Maraskeshia; _CityCouncilListPublic
Subject: [EXTERNAL] THANK YOU
Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2024 5:56:43 PM
Thank you all for your continued support of our efforts to keep our homes affordable. We cannot do this without you. The Senior Zoning Overlay will add an extra layer of protection to the senior parks, making it a little more difficult (while not impossible) for them to be changed into All Age Parks.
Our communities have served us well until a couple of predator owners decided they could make more money by using threats and extortion tactics.
It is our hope that this proclamation will keep moving forward until passed.
Sincerely,
Jo Ann Jones/ President
SRMOA
From: Tom LaPenna
To: _CityCouncilListPublic
Cc: Smith, Maraskeshia
Subject: [EXTERNAL] THANK YOU
Date: Wednesday, October 9, 2024 8:43:04 AM
Thank you so much for supporting the Senior Zoning Overlay to continue to move through the process on the way to enactment into the zoning code.
I was watching from Grass Valley as some of you know and was very proud of JoAnn Jones and all the speakers before you.
I appreciated also all the comments from the Council about understanding the need for this to be enacted and that it really just adds one additional layer of protection for our vulnerable Senior Community.
A piece of my heart is still with you all in Santa Rosa, but Donna and I needed to be closer to our new Grandson.
Thanks again for your support for the SRMOA.
Best regards and trust I will continue to monitor the progress of this legislation.
Thanks again,
Tom