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.

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 Based on my reading of a recent appeals court decision (unpublished), Palm Springs Investment Co. vs City of Palm Springs, this park owner will prevail.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.)”

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.

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.