Mobile Home Park News Briefing

Thank heaven for America’s dysfunctional legal system in which citizens sue each other more than any other country in the world. Apparently, it even has the Chico city hall spooked:

The city's Internal Affairs Commission decided not to move forward with a recommendation to the city council on an ordinance. Councilmember Addison Winslow was the only city official on the three-person council who backed some form of a rent stabilization ordinance, but he couldn't garner the support of his other two colleagues. Vice Mayor Kasey Reynolds cited concerns with legal liability from a potential ordinance.

But then again, maybe the residents used a bit too much gaslighting in their crazy narratives such as this one and scared the sane adults in the room:

"When rent goes up and when PG&E goes up, we’re gonna have more homeless people. I just felt a lack of compassion," said resident Jean Marquardt.

It’s possible that the two other folks on the Internal Affairs Commission were more focused on the damage that rent control does to the supply of affordable housing (causing rents to actually increase) rather than the DEI-focus on “compassion”.

I don’t know how anyone does business in California, but I know I won’t be one of them.

Can there be any other mobile home park story with more hypocrisy than Palo Alto and their lone trailer park. Having gone to Stanford and having driven by this eyesore myself while heading to Taco Bell to stay up all night to cram for exams the fake commitment of the city to “save” the property from redevelopment is finally exposed with the announcement that they are going to tear it down and redevelop the land into nice, new, upscale things:

With the city and the county each kicking in $14.5 million for the purchase and Santa Clara County Housing Authority contributing another $24 million through federal funding to pay for necessary repairs, residents who had been bracing for eviction since 2012 could now breathe a sigh of relief. The council, for its part, could take solace for having preserved 117 units of affordable housing and having prevented displacement of more than 300 residents. Now, Buena Vista is preparing for its next phase. Its new operator, Housing Authority, submitted last month a formal application for redeveloping the park at 3980 El Camino Real. The plan calls for splitting the park into two sections and constructing a three-story, 61-unit apartment building in one section. The other would remain a mobile home park, with 44 spots for new coaches, which could be either mobile homes or recreational vehicles.

What makes this story even more ridiculous is that the non-profits cobbled together around $40 million to outbid the group that initially wanted to buy and redevelop the land. And now they are doing exactly the same thing that the developer proposed back in 2012.

So what was the actual point of all this? Clearly the politicians behind the purchase, at that time, were trying to win votes from lower-income Palo Alto residents (which are few in number) and wealthy residents who want to virtue-signal (which are large in number) and now the politicians and their supporters have moved on to new things and could care less what happens to the residents.

Let’s cut through the B.S. and admit that nobody wants a mobile home to be placed next to their stick-built home. Even my small town of 4,500 people bans mobile homes on residential lots. However, my town recently passed an ordinance allowing tiny homes on those same lots. So the problem is not people living in smaller dwellings. The real problem is simply the “looks” of a mobile home and the stigma that goes with it. It’s 99% an aesthetics issue, and we all know that mobile homes exteriors are not as attractive as they could be. You are never going to be able to get cities and towns to allow mobile homes on residential lots until you get them off those stilts and down on the ground. Skirts are only a plus if you own a clothing store or are located in Scotland.

Ouch, that’s probably not what the writer wanted to include in a woke “residents need to own their own parks” article:

Off Lakeway Drive, however, a deal simply couldn’t get done, O’Banion said. In a Feb. 13 letter to Lakeway residents, O’Banion gave ROC Northwest’s “professional estimate” of the value of the park property as “a minimum $35 million.” Even with the benefit of a grant and a very low-interest loan for part of the sale, the total loan package “would be unaffordable for many people in the community and would create an unacceptable risk of nonpayment for lenders,” the letter said. ROC Northwest estimated that the loan repayments, coupled with the cost of day-to-day maintenance and operation of the park, would result in a rent increase of “well over 100 percent,” O’Banion said.

So what they’re saying is the rents would have to double for the park to continue in operation at the current value. What an admission. I hope the residents remember this lesson learned when the next private-industry buyer takes over and doubles the rent to make the numbers work. They can’t complain as they have already scientifically proven the necessity for that increase.

Well, this is a description I have never seen before:

We ironically find in many trailer parks a kind of traditional urban design more common in European and Japanese cities.

I think what they are driving at is that mobile home parks are so high in density for detached structures.

Just as the caterpillar turns into the butterfly, the trailer park turns into the apartment complex. The only thing holding that metamorphosis back is higher lot rents.

This is what many mobile home parks will look like in 50 years. But you better get ready for $1,000+ per month lot rents to make it happen and justify the capital cost to make this conversion.

A shockingly intelligent article:

Controlling prices is the wrong way to get affordable housing. Supporters of rent control want to make it easier for low-income families to afford rent. The best way to achieve that goal is through competitive markets. Markets, not state rules, are what allow people get better products at lower prices.

Bob's Trailer Court's owner plans to create a different type of housing park along Marion Road after the trailer park closed amid a variety of struggles. Common Sense Translation: How happy do you think Bob is to ditch the dilapidated trailer court and convert it into apartments? He’s the happiest guy in town.

Several residents of a Hazel Dell senior mobile home park gambled that rent stabilization legislation would pass — and lost. Their landlord at Meadow Verde had asked them to sign a lease agreement that included a discounted rent increase if they signed by Sunday. Some of the residents weren’t due to sign a new lease for almost a year. The discount tempted many of the residents who live on fixed incomes. But they believed the early rental agreement was an effort to lock them in at rent increases higher than the 7 percent cap in a rent stabilization bill before the Legislature. So they didn’t sign, putting their future in the hands of lawmakers.Then, on Monday, that legislation — House Bill 2114 — effectively died when the Senate Ways and Means Committee refused to vote on it. “We really had a lot of faith in our elected officials on both sides to do what’s right. They failed the people that needed them most,” Bart said. Common Sense Translation: Ronald Reagan summed it up when he said that the nine most dangerous words are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Rent control is such a bad idea – with plenty of economic stats to prove it – that even crazy, woke Washington couldn’t bring itself to pass it and the residents bet on the wrong horse when they believed the hollow promises of today’s bureaucrats.

Pam has lived at the Dakota Valley Mobile Home Park for three years. She said, "I don't want to go to the homeless shelter. I've been there before." When she moved in, the lot rent cost $395. On March 1st, it will increase to $675 a month. "The first time he raised it, I had to change my life. I was doing senior companions, and I had to quit that job because it didn't pay enough to accommodate his raise," Kifer said. Common Sense Translation: $675 per month is not excessive lot rent at all, in most markets. But if you were in a homeless shelter three years ago it makes sense that you should probably not be in the mainstream housing market and need to get on Section 8 or a similar government program because you really can’t afford to live in the modern world without assistance. It’s also a pretty safe bet that you don’t actually reflect the opinions or financial status of the rest of the mobile home park residents.

Represented by attorney Jeffrey T. Scrimo, the owners of Lake Onota Village have laid out a plan to hike monthly lot rents by $210 over the next three years. This adjustment would catapult rents from their current range of $330-$380 to $540-$590, marking a significant financial strain on the community's residents. The justification behind this steep increase is attributed to a significant rise in operational expenses since the last rate adjustment in 2012, with the owners aiming to achieve a 'fair rate of return'. The proposed hikes are not just numbers on a page; they represent a looming affordability crisis for the residents of these communities. Manufactured homes, often praised for their affordability and accessibility, are becoming less so as rental costs for the land they occupy skyrockets. Common Sense Translation: The rents have not been increased in twelve years. Going from $330 per month to $590 per month over twelve years equates to around a $22 increase annually. That’s ridiculously low. Stop whining about this more-than-reasonable increase and be thankful that you have found the lowest cost housing in the city.

Hewitt said the owner of the park must fix the water and sewer, so one option is to repair that and “leave the trailer park like it is, and that is the primary option right now.” Another possibility is to close the park, replace the water and sewer and build new apartments and townhouses, though Hewitt added “this option is becoming very expensive”. The final option would be to sell the trailer park to a new owner and the new owner would decide what to do.  Common Sense Translation: There is zero probability that the park owner is not going to tear the park down and build apartments and townhouses.

“They have not presented any plans to the county for approval, and they won’t do that for at least another six months,” Hewitt stressed. “Once they do that, the process to approve whatever plan will be 6 to 12 months. So if they intend to do this it will be at least 18 months to 24 months until anybody is impacted.” Common Sense Translation: You better start packing because this thing is coming down in 18 to 24 months – and the zoning department will fast-track the plans for the redevelopment faster than a hypersonic missile.

“St. Mary’s County does not want to have people homeless, so we have land that the county owns,” Hewitt said, referring to parcels on Pegg Road and on FDR Boulevard near Route 4. “These two pieces of property we intend to build townhouses and apartments.” Common Sense Translation: We are going to charge $2,000 per month for these apartments and townhouses so don’t bother to apply.

Hewitt said residents can show property owners that “you are committed to your community and committed to keeping the neighborhood nice.” Common Sense Translation: If you were dumb enough to believe the earlier statements then we thought you might even buy this one.

“The fact that the owner decided to purchase a park that was in such poor condition is not the problem of the residents of the park,” Kerswell said. “The cost of fixing the utilities is not on the residents, it’s on the owner. Because the park was in failure—the septic and the water and all these systems are in failure—he cannot pass that cost along to the tenants.” Common Sense Translation: Well, if that’s the attitude of the tenants then they better not be shocked when the new owner shuts the park down and turns it into a different use (probably apartments). There are two ways to go through life namely 1) win/win and 2) win/lose. If the residents think there’s a win/lose option (in which they hold all the cards and the property owner holds none) then the tenants are going to probably soon learn an important life lesson when the eviction notices go out. They should instead be sending “thank you” cards to the new owner and happily paying a higher rent that fends off redevelopment.

Manufactured home residents have testified for more than a year to city leaders and staff that rent and/or leases continue to go up and that many of them are on fixed incomes and increases are making it difficult to buy necessities. They’ve also feared that, as manufactured home parks are being sold, they could be redeveloped. Judy Hatch, a manufactured home resident, spoke at the city’s Feb. 6 planning commission meeting, saying her park has seen an increase of $125 more a month and that, for some people, that equals their monthly food costs. She’s also been concerned about her park’s owner potentially selling and losing her home to redevelopment without anywhere to go. Common Sense Translation: You can’t have it both ways. You either like living in the mobile home park at the new rent or you need to move out. You can’t say you hate the park but also that you hate having to leave. There’s no way that the rents are NOT going to go up and still have the property remain as a mobile home park. This is no different that the grifter that goes to McDonald’s, orders the burger, eats most of it, places a cigarette butt under the bun, and then demands a refund from the manager for selling a dangerous hamburger. The residents are not going to get something for nothing – only the federal government engages in that misguided behavior. You can use the same argument on any U.S. product or service that inflated costs are taking away from food or other expense line-items. It’s an absolute fact that America is completely out of control with inflation and all Americans face tough choices. But is the park owner going to let the residents live in the park and lose money doing it? Absolutely not, so give up on that argument.