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Pleasanton CA, mobile home park owner settle $29.1 million suit

After a six month legal battle, the park owner and City agree to settle. The City has approved the sale of a 208 space MHP to the park residents with certain concessions from the park owner. Read article here.

Looks like the residents of “Marina Park” will get to stay a little longer

The city of Newport Beach cannot afford to move forward with plans to tear down a  bay front Mobile Home Community it currently owns and build a city park. Read article here.

House Bill will exempt inexpensive manufactured homes from property taxes

Residents in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Lane counties who own inexpensive manufactured homes may soon get a pass on property taxes. Read article here.

City of Palm Springs fails to stop Mobile Home Park subdivision

City of Palm Springs tried to deny the conversion of the Palm Springs View Estates Mobile Home Park to a subdivision with individual lots which could be sold to individual park residents. Palm Springs Investment Co. vs City of Palm Springs

Fight over mobile home park housing likely headed back to court

A park owner in Soquel, CA (Santa Cruz County) is trying to subdivide his mobile home park. Read article here

Grover Beach moves to regulate mobile-home park conversions

Like many areas in OR, WA and CA, Grover City Beach is making a mobile home park conversion more difficult.

“To obtain a conversion permit, a park owner would have to distribute a questionnaire to residents and hire a relocation specialist to help prepare a conversion impact report and help residents find alternate housing.

The park owner would have to hold an informational meeting for park residents, and the Planning Commission would subsequently hold a public hearing on the completed impact report.

If the report is approved by the commission, the owner could have to mitigate the impacts by paying for relocating residents’ mobile homes, paying residents for their coaches or paying the cost of tenancy in a comparable park or other housing or the purchase of a home.

Residents also would be given right of first refusal to move into any housing that replaces the mobile-home park.”

see this article

Ventura Mobile Home Park Being Sold to Residents

If you are a California rent control mobile home park owner….take notice!!!!!

I just read this morning that a well maintained, 40 year old, 125 space rent control park is being sold to the park residents. This sale reportedly could bring in up to $200k per space! The park residents will have the option to either buy their space or continue renting, BUT,  at increased rents (remember…this was a rent controlled park). The Ventura Planning Commission voted unanimously to allow this conversion earlier this month.

Lets run some numbers…The current space rent is reportedly $390 – $550 for a 125 space park. Lets, for the sake of analysis, say that all spaces are paying $550 and that expenses for the park are approx. 25%. This would give you an NOI for the park of approx. $618,750. Estimating a 6% CAP rate (generous for a rent control park), the value for the park in an ordinary sale might be approx. $10,312,500 or $82,500 per space (note: this is a guess,  I have not visited the property, nor have I seen the income or expense figures for the park) . If the park is sold at $200k per space, the sale price would be $25MM. You do the math!

The state of California will give up to $2MM per park selling to the residents (to help residents purchase their site) and this assistance is given on a first come first serve basis and guess what, there is only $8MM total available for all of California. Hurry, man, hurry!

Congratulations to the park owner and the attorneys that put this deal together.

Read the article here.

Mobile Home Sells for $1,060,000 in Malibu

I read this morning that a mobile home sold for $1,060,000 in a Malibu mobile home park. See this blog post.

Malibu, like Santa Cruz, Sequel etc.,  is one of the many cities with a rent control ordinance that allows park residents to benefit (at the expense of the park owner) when selling a mobile home that would otherwise sell for 1/5 the true market price because of an imposed low space rent.

Thanks Malibu for helping yet another poor defenseless park resident sell their $1.06MM home. What a joke.

New Oregon Mobile Home Park Liability Case 11/18/09

If you own a mobile home park and one of your tenants coaches is unsafe, you may be liable.

This case involved a guest of a park resident, that fell down the entry stairs of a coach and sued both the coach owner and the mobile home park owner. The park owner filed for summary judgment and won. The Plaintiff appealed and the summary judgement was overturned by the Oregon appellate court.

Because most tenant leases call for the resident to keep his coach in good and safe repair, should park management turn a “blind eye” to an obviously dangerious condition, the park owner may be held liable.

Here is the case Buoy v. Kim

Tumwater property rights case will be interesting

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published December 01, 2009

The city of Tumwater is plowing new ground with two ordinances passed this year aimed at protecting the rights of mobile home park residents who simply want to stay in their residential mobile home park.

On the other side of the issue are the park owners who insist that the ordinances violate their rights.

And that’s what this battle boils down to: the rights of mobile home owners to stay put, versus the rights of the park owners to do what they please with their property.

This is one of those issues that will require court intervention to sort out.

The key, in our opinion, is finding balance — balance for the property owners who may want to convert their land to other, more profitable uses, and balance for residents who own their manufactured home but not the property it sits on. In many cases, the mobile home owners cannot afford to move their unit to another park.

When these conflicts arise — conflicts between tenants and property owners — the goal should be to convert the mobile park to ownership by the tenants. That way the property owner is able to make a return on his or her investment and the tenants are able to secure their future. Finding the money for the tenants to purchase the property is generally a big hurdle.

It will be very interesting to see how the Tumwater ordinances play out in court challenges because the rulings will set a precedent. The Tumwater ordinances are thought to be the first of their kind in the state.

Mobile home park owners say the Tumwater ordinances go too far in protecting the rights of tenants and not far enough in protecting the rights of the property owners.

Owners of two Tumwater parks and the Manufactured Housing Communities of Washington, a nonprofit association representing park owners statewide, have appealed to Thurston County Superior Court a state board’s ruling that one ordinance complied with the Growth Management Act, except on one issue.

Separately, the petitioners, joined by a third park owner, have sued in federal court in Tacoma, alleging that the ordinances violate their constitutional rights.

In their two-pronged court battle, the park owners say the exclusive zoning under the ordinances disproportionately burdens them with what should be a shared community responsibility to provide affordable housing. They say the ordinances are an illegal “taking” of their property in violation of the Growth Management Act — the law passed by the Legislature early in the 1990s to stop urban sprawl by forcing new development into cities and their growth areas.

As cities grow, less and less land will be available for development. That will increase property values and higher values will entice mobile home park owners to change the use of their property from mobile home parks to a higher use — whether it’s residential or commercial.

Ken Spencer, the manufactured housing association’s executive director, said under Tumwater’s ordinance the city is preventing redevelopment opportunities that could bring more affordable housing, because the same properties could sustain double or even triple the number of dwellings.

Dan Beedle, 75, a resident of Laurel Park Estates, said if the property were sold out from under him, he could not move to another mobile home park because his manufactured home is too old to move. Beedle said some park residents who live on $700 a month in Social Security checks, “would be out in the cold.”

“It (the ordinance) gives us the coverage we need, but it still gives the property owner the opportunity to get it rezoned,” he said. Under the ordinance, there’s sufficient time for park residents to organize to try to buy the property or move elsewhere if the property owner pursues rezoning, Beedle said.

The Tumwater City Council unanimously passed the ordinances saying that under the state’s Growth Management Act, they are required to identify land for housing for low-income families. Mobile home parks fit the bill.

Tumwater officials deserve credit for a bold effort to protect affordable housing options. The question the courts must decide is if city officials went too far and violated the rights of property owners in the process.

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