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Two new mobile home park conversion decisions just released. Colony Cove Properties v. City of Carson and Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates v. City of Los Angeles

There are two new mobile home park conversion opinions that came out of the Los Angeles County appellate court yesterday. Both decisions, in my opinion, are bad for mobile home park owners, despite the fact that one, Colony Cove Properties v. City of Carson, was technically a victory.

In Colony Cove Properties v. City of Carson, the appellate court affirmed the lower courts issuance of a writ of mandate which in essence stated that the City, when dealing with a mobile home park subdivision, must act in a strictly ministerial capacity, ruling further that the City of Carson had overstepped its authority in imposing more stringent requirements than that of the State when dealing with park conversions / subdivisions. The bad news….the appellate court went out of it’s way to disagree about City’s not having some discretion when reviewing tenant surveys taken as part of the subdivision application process. Read opinion here.

In Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates v. City of Los Angeles, the appellate court basically made the difficult job of a mobile home park conversion, extremely difficult if the mobile home park is located within a “coastal zone. Read opinion here.

Santa Rosa planning commission rejects mobile home park conversion

Read the article here.

I am not an attorney, but in my opinion, just like what happened recently in Palm Springs, these City “officials” have overstepped their authority in denying this mobile home park subdivision. Based on my reading of a recent appeals court decision (unpublished), Palm Springs Investment Co. vs City of Palm Springs, this park owner will prevail. The Palm Springs case is a very similar situation with similar park resident survey results. Some quotes from the decision…

” The trial court held the City Council (planning commission in this this case) had exceeded its jurisdiction in denying approval of the subdivision application by relying on the tenant survey to determine that the proposed subdivision was not a bona fide resident conversion. (the appellate court agreed)”

““[S]ection 66427.5 strictly prohibits localities from deviating from the state-mandated criteria for approving a mobile home park conversion application.” (Sequoia Park, supra, 176 Cal.App.4th at p.1299.)”

Brookings OR Mobile Home Park, Court upholds ruling in favor of Emerald Coast residents

The Oregon Court of Appeals has upheld a Curry County Circuit Court ruling that prohibited Emerald Coast Estates Inc. of Harbor from evicting a resident for placement of a “For Sale” sign on the home in violation of park rules. Read more here.

California Coastal Commission causing problems for Laguna Beach mobile home park owner trying to subdivide

The owners of the Laguna Terrace Mobile Home Park on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the commission in Orange County Superior Court. The suit asks the court to determine if the commission can exert jurisdiction over the park’s conversion to resident ownership. On July 20, the council approved subdividing the 20-acre ocean-view park developed in the 1960s by owner Stephen Esslinger’s grandfather, allowing the 157 lots to be sold for the first time to tenants. Even before the vote, the commission’s executive director, Karl Schwing, signaled his intention to contest the decision. Read more here.

Washington Mobile Home Park Tenants Win Class Action

The class action lawsuit settlement requires mobile-home park owners to drop the conversion language from its leases and stop using contracts that allowed them to automatically convert an annual lease to a month-to-month lease. The settlement does not provide reimbursements for class members, but it does allow the tenants to pursue back rent. Read more here.

As if San Luis Obispo County Mobile Home Park Owners were not regulated enough!

The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors has directed planning staff to begin developing a mobile-home park overlay zone that would contain incentives for park owners to protect and preserve the county’s largest stock of affordable housing — mobile-home parks. Read More here.

Courts rule for Capitola in mobile home park suit; Property owner must partially refund rent after services not kept up

An owner of a rent controlled mobile home park (like that’s not bad enough), now faces having to partially refund tenants rents.  Read the article hear.

Guggenheim v. City of Goleta

As a follow up to my earlier Guggenheim v. City of Goleta post, the decision now being heard En Banc was argued and submitted on June 22, 2010.  This decision is clearly of major importance to all rent control park Owners. The brief submitted to the court by the City of Goleta, arguing to overturn the decision can be read here.

Richard A. Epstein (University of Chicago – Law School) has posted “Takings Made hard.” Here is the abstract:

“The novel opinion of Ninth Circuit Judge Jay Bybee in Guggenheim v. City of Goleta could threaten the tortured jurisprudence that has protected regulatory takings and other property rights infringements from Fifth Amendment challenges. This article describes that jurisprudence, explains the economic and legal thinking underlying Judge Bybee’s opinion, and identifies a number of technical deficiencies with his opinion. The Supreme Court will likely take up an appeal of Judge Bybee’s opinion; hopefully it will use that opportunity to correct the Court’s many errors that have eroded property rights.”

Read the full article here.

All-Nude Mobile Home Park still has its followers (and peeping toms)

OK, this is funny / interesting.

There’s a very unusual mobile home / RV park near Sacramento. It’s a nudist colony!
Located near Wilton, CA, this very large all-nude encampment has hundreds of fans. And approximately 500 RV spaces, and about 50 manufactured homes.

Several of the manufactured homes are for sale in the park, and asking prices are among the highest in the state: $300,000 +. Of course, these homes are on leased lots.

Poway (San Diego County)…Council approves Poway Royal’s sale to Hometown America

Poway Royal, the 399 space, rent control park, owned by the city of Poway, looks like it will be sold for $38.5MM to Hometown America out of Chicago. That’s $96,491 / space for a park governed by rent control. Read story here.

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