Aiming to foster better relations between the owners of
Escondido's 23 mobile-home parks and the roughly 7,000 residents
living in those parks, the City Council adopted a new policy
Wednesday that strongly urges park owners to meet with residents
before raising rents.
The new policy comes after a series of long and contentious
rent-increase hearings during which the council has been forced to
sort out disputes between residents and owners regarding minor
issues such as pool hours, fencing and tree maintenance.
Council members said part of the problem might be that owners
and residents sometimes fail to meet before they come to the
council, and that such interaction might shorten rent-increase
hearings and make them more civil.
"The message is clear from this council that the park owners and
park residents need to at least make contact with each other and
try to resolve their conflicts before they come to the council,"
said Councilwoman Olga Diaz, who initiated the new policy.
The change was supported by a group representing the city's
mobile-home park residents, but leaders of the group were
disappointed that the council adopted language that could allow the
resident meetings to be conducted by park managers, who handle
day-to-day operations, instead of the actual park owners.
"Park managers are powerless to negotiate anything and would
represent a huge waste of time in this process," said Larry
Steneck, treasurer of the Escondido Mobile/Manufactured Home
Positive Action Committee.
But councilmen Sam Abed and Dick Daniels said it would be
impractical to require attendance from park owners, many of whom
live out of town.
However, Abed said the owners would still be under scrutiny.
"They are going to be accountable whether they attend the
meeting or not," he said.
City Attorney Jeff Epp, who crafted language for the new policy,
said he chose "park owner or owner's representative" in order to
give city employees flexibility in setting up such meetings.
The new policy is an administrative guideline instead of an
actual amendment to the city's "short-form" rent increase
rules.
The council and the residents said they chose that approach
because of concerns that making one change to the popular
short-form rules could create an opportunity for other unwanted
changes that park owners might seek.
The short-form policy was adopted in 1997 to simplify and
streamline the long-form policy enacted in 1988 as part of
Proposition K, the city's voter-approved rent control initiative
for mobile-home parks.
The short-form approach, which originated with former
Councilwoman June Rady, is popular with owners because some fees
are waived and the rent increase hearings are shorter and less
controversial. The one drawback for owners is that they can only
seek rent increases equivalent to 75 percent of the increase in the
consumer price index.
The short-form is popular with residents because it makes the
increases smaller and more predictable than the long-form, which
can delay rent increases for years and then force residents to pay
much more quite suddenly.
City officials also prefer the short-form because it allows them
to skip time-consuming financial analysis that costs roughly
$10,000 worth of staff time.
In other business, the council was told that crews have
completed $1.2 million worth of utility work next to City Hall on
the site earmarked for a seven-story Marriott hotel.
The work cost about $300,000 more than expected because of
unspecified "underground" problems and because fiber optics were
added connecting City Hall to the new fire station on Quince
Street, according to community services director Jerry Van
Leeuwen.
Call staff writer David Garrick at 760-740-5468.
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