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Monning bill lets cities recover costs of mobile home suits
February 17, 2011 by parkguy1 · Leave a Comment
By JASON HOPPIN – Santa Cruz Sentinel
Assemblyman Bill Monning, D-Carmel, introduced a bill Wednesday that he hopes shifts the balance in frequent and often long-running disputes between mobile home park owners and communities seeking to protect residents from eviction and rent hikes.
The bill, AB 579, allows governments that prevail in court to recover attorney’s fees in mobile home cases, something they aren’t currently allowed to do. Monning said the bill should particularly help small cities that can’t afford to pursue pricey litigation.
“Our current legal system is tilted against a local government’s ability and willingness to defend their mobile home rent control ordinances and AB 579 will level the playing field,” Monning said.
Monning said the bill provides parity for local governments, which can be ordered to pay the costs associated with litigation should they lose a case. Many of the suits focus on government efforts to control rents on the land beneath owner-occupied mobile homes. Shelia Day, of the Sacramento-based Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, said mobile home park owners have a First Amendment right to argue their cases in court and that one industry should not be singled out by lawmakers.
But advocates for mobile home residents praised the bill.
“One of the strategies the park owners use is to bludgeon smaller communities with the threat of litigation expenses,” said Terry Hancock of Santa Cruz Senior Citizens Legal Services. “To defend these lawsuits takes a lot of money.”
Santa Cruz County has seen its share of mobile home park battles over the years. In December, the city of Capitola estimated that it’s spent nearly $1 million defending its mobile home rent law.
And the city of Santa Cruz waged – and ultimately gave up on – long-running battles over its mobile home laws following a protracted battles with the owners of De Anza Mobile Estates, situated on a picturesque bluff on the city’s Westside.
There are 89 mobile home and recreation vehicle parks in Santa Cruz County, many of them located in unincorporated areas, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
