A revised bill that could increase the rent of some new mobile-home
owners got a second stamp of approval Monday from an Assembly panel.
The Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee passed a
measure that would let park owners phase in rent increases when mobile homes are sold in communities with rent-control ordinances that otherwise would ban such increases.
The
committee had approved the bill in May, but the amended version delays
its start-up date by one year to 2011 and stretches out the phase-in
period from five years to seven.
The
measure, Assembly Bill 761, calls for an appraisal to identify the
market level of rents before they are raised under the bill.
A
park owner would be able to set the initial new rate only at the lesser
of this rate or the phase-in schedule, which calls for increases to
begin at 14.285 percent over the previous rent charged and rise
annually to reach a maximum of twice the last rent charged in 2017.
The
bill wouldn't affect the rents of existing mobile home owners, nor
would it prohibit or revise local rentcontrol ordinances except to
allow for rent increases when homes are sold.
Assemblyman
Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, the bill's author, argued that his
measure is intended to correct what he said is an imbalance that favors
mobile homeowners over park owners in how increased value is
apportioned among the two groups when homes are sold under rent control.
"There's equity on both sides" with his bill, he said.
While he argued that the amendments should make the bill more palatable to mobile homeowners, one Visalia resident disagreed.
"We
are very disappointed," said James Burr, representing Visalia mobile
homeowners and the state treasurer of the Golden State
Manufactured-Home Owners League. "Those [amendments] were absolutely
nothing to us. They only prolong the agony."
He also argued that this isn't a state issue.
"We plead with you to leave this at the local level," Burr told the committee.
There are 700,000 Californians living in 4,822 mobile home parks in California, with the majority owning their homes but renting space for them, according to the legislative analysis of the bill.
About
100 California jurisdictions have some sort of rent control on mobile
home parks, but it wasn't clear how many renters might be affected by
the bill.
AB 761 next goes to the full Assembly.
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