Preview:
On Thursday, the Fresno City Council will hear a request from Harmony Communities to shut down its La Hacienda Mobile Home Park.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit from a Petaluma mobile home park owner seeks to undo a law preventing the owner from selling a park there.
More than 100 cities throughout California have special rules for mobile home parks.
Many require park owners to conduct studies on how closing would affect residents. The owners then have to report how they would compensate residents for their lost homes. And, a closure impact report has to be approved by local officials before a park closes.
Officials look at mobile home parks...
Read MoreOur thoughts on this story:

You’ve got to love California. If you own a mobile home park there and simply want to sell it as land for redevelopment, here’s what the state says you have to do:
Many require park owners to conduct studies on how closing would affect residents. The owners then have to report how they would compensate residents for their lost homes. And, a closure impact report has to be approved by local officials before a park closes.
Wait – you might say – do they require this of any other landlord? And the answer, of course, is “no” and here’s why:
Officials look at mobile home parks differently than other forms of housing because people living there often own the homes but not the land. But because moving a mobile home can be expensive, residents often leave the trailers behind if the park closes.
Now here’s where I see this argument falling apart. When someone buys a mobile home it comes with the condition that it is on rented land and there’s no assurance that the land will always be a mobile home park. That’s the basics of the agreement. It’s a ground lease. Just like parking your car at the airport. And mobile homes are very cheap as a result (think $1,000 to $5,000 for used homes in many markets).
If park owners are forced to go through all of these insane requirements, then they will need to adjust their rents accordingly, right? If you have to basically act as the guardian of every tenant in perpetuity then that’s a service that’s pretty expensive. Kind of like if the parking lot has to offer 24/7 roadside assistance and free auto repair as part of the parking fee.
But even though park owners have this additional burden in California now, they can’t raise their rent to accommodate this insane request due to rent control.
Which is just one more reason that you may have to be insane to buy a park (or anything) in that state.