PROTECTING MOBILEHOME
OWNERS SINCE 1962
GSMOL.org
TATE
Jodi Johnsor
/ice President - Area A-
GSMOL
Mendocino • Napa • San Francisco
San Mate no - Sacoma
SINCE 1962
707-478-7311
[email protected]
Mayor, City Council, City Staff,
My name is Jodi Johnson, and I am a mobile home resident as well as a volunteer GSMOL vice president zone A-1
In advance we thank you for your consideration for a much-needed rent stabilization ordinance for the senior mobile park residents in Yountville.
After decades of advocacy and ordinance enactments I would like to bring to your attention some details pertaining to the staff report being brought before the city council on Tuesday August 4th.
Certainly, you are aware that mobile park residents and mobile park owners have a unique relationship.
This is not regular housing or rental dwelling as the resident owns the mobile home and rents the land underneath. This is truly the last bastion of unsubsidized affordable housing where the residents themselves supply their own mobile home.
The California Mobile Home Residency Law (MRL) governs the rules, rights and responsibilities between mobile home park owners and resident owners.
Key Aspects of MRL law
Rent and Increases
Rules and regulations
Leases and Tenancy
Dispute Resolution and Help
Enforcement
MRLP The Mobile Home Residency Law Protection Program to assist residents in taking complaints and helping resolve severe MRL violations
GSMOL has drafted, sponsored and enacted many of the MRL laws.
Rent Stabilization is necessary to prevent gouging on the most vulnerable senior residents. While today residents may not see the larger investment owners seeking exorbitant increase, these circumstances can change quickly.
Many cities and counties did not proactively defend, enforce and strengthen protections, while allowing park owners to be the determining factor on how much is too much because all was well until it isn't.
That imbalance of wealth and legal funding can lead to unfair business practices.
Cited in your presentation is the Costa-Hawkins Act of 1995 and the Tenant protection Act of 2019.
Important to note that these acts have always excluded mobile park and mobile park residents.
While a few mobile homes may be owned and rented by the park owner the vast majority of mobile homes including Yountville are resident owned.
Rent Stabilization Ordinances (RSO) should include
CPI or % of CPI for annual allowable increase-typical is 70% to 75% of CPI Rent Cap no higher than 4% with 3% in multiple RSO jurisdictions.
Important to note that in just one city there were 7 arbitrations in just the last year, once park owners accounting is opened up the arbitrator found that with 70% of CPI annual increase that inflation has kept up with the profits for park owners.
Also important to note that out of all those attempted fair increase arbitrations with an ask of as much as $1530 more to ground rent the award was O to the large investment park owners with verifiable data to support no need to raise the ground rent MORE.
RSO must have a method to arbitrate, mediate that can be third party arbitrator or mediators assigned by counties or rent mobile home control boards. Unbiased third parties are standard.
A method must be determined in RSO to prevent so many methods being used that residents are buried in legal debt.
The standard held to the highest of our courts is MNOI.
This determines a base year and procedural accounting data.
In the city of Windsor with a substantial dollar ground rent increase asked for the arbitrator award was just $4.15 more a month.
Any RSO must defend, enforce and strengthen and certainly close all loopholes commonly used.
Arbitration and mediation must allow residents in the imbalance of wealth and power to legally have representation and expert witness testimony.
Fair Rate of return process including for pass through evidence based.
Any application for more than an allowable annual increase requires the burden of proof to be on the park owner.
The Birkenfeld v Berkeley case law in your presentation is for regular housing, which excludes mobile homes and the city of Berkeley does not have any mobile home parks.
The Kavanau v Santa Monica case suggests you are not obligated in determining methods for park owners to use in an application for fair increase but city upon city without a defined method or not using a MRL standard find arbitrations with 5- and 6-day processes.
In any RSO legal fees as a standard are not collectable in the arbitration process.
Pass throughs must have a vehicle to determine if they benefit the residents, unbiased oversight to determine if they are warranted and push back on weaponization of facilitating capitol improvements that are not warranted on the backs of the seniors that maintain their mobile home, pay registration or property taxes on their mobile home.
Appellate civil cases are different.
Imagine a fair increase application where the park owners bury residents in methods and pleadings, asking for $595.00 more a month and receiving an award of $4.15 and then trying to collect their legal fees of just under $500,000.
I attach the other Senate and Assembly bills notated in your presentation just to show they have no relevance to mobile park rent stabilization other than one with just a 2 city allowance.
We offer that any RSO must be thoughtfully drafted, historical loopholes closed, give park owners a vehicle for proving loss or needed increases and allow residents to be protected from severe increases.
Almost every mobile park owner including the large equity mobile park owners have done due diligence before purchasing a mobile park.
They are aware of the profit, and they are certainly aware that the most vulnerable live in their parks and own their mobile home.
The senior mobile park residents of Yountville deserve to be protected, as your constituents, and certainly deserve to live their retired years many on fixed income without threat of being driven to the street.
Thank You for your thoughtful due diligence to enact a rent stabilization ordinance that protects these seniors.
These are not residents of wealth, but they are residents of value.
SB940
California Senate Bill 940 (2022) is a law regarding mobilehome parks and local rent stabilization ordinances, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 28, 2022. It updated exemptions for new construction and allowed local rent rules to apply to specific spaces. [1]
Key Provisions
• Redefining New Construction: Revised Civil Code definitions so that local rent caps can govern newly added mobilehome spaces in existing parks. [1] • Exemption Limits: Maintained incentives for building entirely new mobilehome parks by providing a 15-year exemption from local rent stabilization for newly constructed parks. [1, 2]
• Effective Date: The legislation went into effect on January 1, 2023.
AB978
California Assembly Bill 978 (AB 978), enacted as Chapter 125 and effective January 1, 2022, caps space rent increases in specific mobilehome parks. It applies to qualified mobilehome parks located within and governed by more than one incorporated city. [1, 2]
Key Provisions of AB 978
• Rent Cap Limit: Prohibits increasing space rent by more than 3% plus the percentage change in the cost of living (inflation), up to a hard maximum annual cap of 5%. 11]
• Frequency Restriction: Bans raising the gross rental rate in more than two increments over any 12-month period. [1]
• Protections Added: Extends specific anti-rent-gouging and just-cause eviction protections to eligible mobilehome park tenants. [1]
• Targeted Application: Designed initially to assist vulnerable senior and low- income residents in unique cross-jurisdictional parks (such as parks sitting across dual city boundaries like Anaheim and Fullerton). [1, 2, 3] If you need help with a specific mobilehome park location or want to know how local rent ordinances interact with state caps like AB 978, let me know! AB978
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO
ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) California has a severe housing crisis.
(b) The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted California homeowners, tenants, and landlords significantly.
(c) To help keep those affected by COVID-19 housed, California and the federal government have assisted with eviction protections and rental repayment assistance through the passage of the COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act.
(d) California recently broke the $800,000 median home price mark for the first time in history, showing the need for California families to have the support of the State of California to assist them in achieving the American dream of one day owning a home. (e) Mobilehomes are an excellent option for affordable home ownership for many Californians.
(f) Many of California's mobilehome owners are seniors, veterans, and families seeking an affordable community environment in which to live.
(g) Just like apartment renters that have faced rent increases, some mobilehome residents in nonrent control jurisdictions may have experienced rent increases. (h) Mobilehome residents are different from traditional apartment residents in that they own their home and have equity, but rent the land on which their home resides. Rents paid by mobilehome residents cover park amenities, park common areas, and maintenance of in-park infrastructure like roads and fences, and, in addition to rents, residents are still responsible for making other payments just like other homeowners, including paying mortgages and taxes, as well as making payments for repairs and maintenance.
(i) In enacting this legislation, it is the intent of the Legislature to protect mobilehome owners in qualified mobilehome parks that have been subject to rent increases that reside in counties with populations between 2,500,000 and 3,250,000 according to the last census count.
SEC. 2.
Section 798.30.5 is added to the Civil Code, to read:
798.30.5.
(a) (1) Subject to subdivision (b), management shall not, over the course of any 12- month period, increase the gross rental rate for a tenancy in a qualified mobilehome park more than 3 percent plus the percentage change in the cost of living, or 5 percent, whichever is lower, of the lowest gross rental rate charged for a tenancy at any time during the 12 months prior to the effective date of the increase. (2) If the same homeowner maintains a tenancy over any 12-month period, the gross rental rate for the tenancy shall not be increased in more than two increments over that 12-month period, subject to the other restrictions of this subdivision governing gross rental rate increase.
(b) For a new tenancy in which no homeowner from the prior tenancy remains in lawful possession of the mobilehome space, management may establish the initial rental rate not subject to subdivision (a), unless the applicable local agency or jurisdiction has adopted an ordinance, rule, regulation, or initiative measure that limits the allowable rental rate for a new tenancy, in which case that ordinance, rule, regulation, or initiative measure shall apply. Subdivision (a) shall be applicable to subsequent increases after that initial rental rate has been established, except as otherwise provided in this section. (C) A homeowner with a tenancy subject to this section shall not enter into a sublease that results in a total rent for the premises that exceeds the allowable rental rate authorized by subdivision (c) of Section 798.23.5. Nothing in this subdivision authorizes a homeowner to sublet or assign the homeowner's interest where otherwise prohibited. (d) Management shall provide notice of any increase in the rental rate, pursuant to subdivision (a), to each homeowner in accordance with Section 798.30. (e) This section shall not apply to a tenancy for any of the following:
(1) A mobilehome space restricted by deed, regulatory restriction contained in an agreement with a government agency, or other recorded document as affordable housing for persons and families of very low, low, or moderate income, as defined in Section 50093 of the Health and Safety Code, or subject to an agreement that provides housing subsidies for affordable housing for persons and families of very low, low, or moderate income, as defined in Section 50093 of the Health and Safety Code or comparable federal statutes.
(2) A mobilehome space constructed and maintained in connection with any higher education institution within the state for use and occupancy by students in attendance at the institution.
(3) A mobilehome space subject to any ordinance, rule, regulation, or initiative measure that restricts annual increases in the rental rate to an amount less than that provided in subdivision (a).
(4) A mobilehome space within a resident-owned mobilehome park, as defined in Section 799.
(f) (1) (A) This section shall apply to all rent increases occurring on or after February 18, 2021.
(B) This section shall become operative January 1, 2022. (2) In the event that management has increased the rent by more than the amount permissible under subdivision (a) between February 18, 2021, and January 1, 2022, both of the following shall apply:
(A) The applicable rent on January 1, 2022, shall be the rent as of February 18, 2021, plus the maximum permissible increase under subdivision (a). (B) Management shall not be liable to a homeowner for any corresponding rent overpayment.
(3) Management subject to subdivision (a) who increased the rental rate for a tenancy on or after February 18, 2021, but prior to January 1, 2022, by an amount less than the rental rate increase permitted by subdivision (a) shall be allowed to increase the rental rate twice, as provided in paragraph (2) of subdivision (a), within 12 months of February 18, 2021, but in no event shall that rental rate increase exceed the maximum rental rate increase permitted by subdivision (a).
(g) Any waiver of the rights under this section shall be void as contrary to public policy. (h) For the purposes of this section:
(1) "Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers for All Items" means the following:
(A) The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers for All Items (CPI-U) for the metropolitan area in which the property is located, as published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, which are as follows:
(i) The CPI-U for the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area covering the Counties of Los Angeles and Orange.
(II) The CPI-U for the Riverside-San Bernardo-Ontario metropolitan area covering the Counties of Riverside and San Bernardino.
(iii) The CPI-U for the San Diego-Carlsbad metropolitan area covering the County of San (iv) The CPI-U for the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metropolitan area covering the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo.