An effort by city officials to overhaul mobile-home park regulations for the first time since 1965 is strongly opposed by the landlords who own Escondido's 23 parks and a group representing the roughly 7,000 residents living in the parks.
City officials contend the overhaul is badly needed because many of the regulations are antiquated, but the residents group argues that some of the changes could jeopardize the city's rent control policies and allow many landlords to triple rents.
The park owners, however, don't view the changes as a potential windfall.
Similar to the residents, they contend there is no reason to update the regulations, which govern the size of the trailer slots, how residents can join together to buy their park and how landlords can sell slots to individual residents.
A representative for the park owners is lobbying the City Council to either abandon the revision efforts or allow industry attorneys to help write any amendments or new rules.
Meanwhile, members of the City Council say the residents are needlessly worried.
"If there's something in the language changes that jeopardizes rent control, I'll make sure it doesn't get past me," said Councilwoman Olga Diaz. "I just can't imagine the council completely turning their back on mobile-home park residents."
Councilman Sam Abed agreed that rent control is not in jeopardy because it was clearly and firmly established in 1988 when city voters approved Proposition K, a 4,000-page measure that forced mobile-home park owners to increase rents more slowly than the Consumer Price Index.
Abed said the overhaul is simply "an administrative cleanup" aimed at making city law consistent with state law.
"A lot of this is to protect mobile-home park residents from surprises," Abed said.
'Sham' conversions
Leaders of the residents group, the Escondido Mobile/Manufactured Home Positive Action Committee, said the regulation changes could make it easier for landlords to nullify rent control by conducting so-called "sham" conversions.
In a traditional conversion, such as the one conducted last winter at Escondido's Sundance park, residents join together to buy all of the slots in their park and make it similar, in real estate terms, to a condominium complex.
In a "sham" conversion, a park owner sells one or two slots to individual residents in order to "condo-ize" the park. Such a move automatically switches the other residents from city rent control to state rent control, which phases in market-rate rents within four years.
Donna Martin, president of the residents group, said such conversions could increase monthly rents, which typically hover around $500 in Escondido, to somewhere around $1,500, the typical mobile-home park rent in Southern California communities that lack rent control.
Larry Steneck, the group's treasurer, said "sham" conversions are a secret weapon used by park owners.
"The owners are not interested in full resident ownership," he said, contending that they would much rather continue collecting rents. "They are much more concerned about breaking local rent control and placing residents on state rent control."
The state Assembly is considering a bill that would prevent such partial conversions by prohibiting the sale of any slots unless a majority of residents support acquiring the park in a formal survey.
But Julie Paule, a representative of the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, said concern about partial conversions has been overblown by the residents. Paule, who represents thousands of park owners across the state, said no case in California has ever been proven to be a "sham" conversion.
Paule, who urged the City Council to abandon revising its mobile-home park codes earlier this month, said her group is perfectly happy with Escondido's existing policies for park conversions. But if the city forges ahead, Paule wants her group's attorneys involved.
"Of course we want to be involved when the City Council is going to make decisions affecting the properties (our members) own," she said.
Curious timing?
Both Paule and the residents have questioned the timing of the city's planned revisions and why the issue was being addressed when neither side had requested it.
City officials said they decided to make the changes during the process of converting the Sundance park last winter, a process that revealed how out of date the city's mobile-home park regulations are.
Paule said it makes no sense to change city rules when state rules might soon be changing, because city rules must comply with state rules.
The residents suggest city officials are moving forward because park owners have secretly lobbied them to help make "sham" conversions easier.
"Who's behind this?" asked Steneck. "What's the secret here? Something's going on here and I am afraid mobile-home park residents in Escondido will be the big losers if we don't stop it now."
For details on sham conversions, go to http://shamconversions.com.
Call staff writer David Garrick at 760-740-5468.
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