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Mobile home park residents concerned about rising rents and dwindling home values are going to have to wait until after the fall election for relief. Mountain View City Council members agreed at a study session Tuesday night to table any efforts to place new regulations on mobile home parks, calling it premature when there are two rent control measures on the November ballot.
Earlier this year, Santiago Villa mobile home park residents voiced growing concerns that the park’s owners had jacked up the space rental cost to record levels, threatening one of the last bastions of affordable housing in Mountain View. What’s more, they claimed the park ownership was on a mission to buy up existing mobile homes in order to rent them out for as much as $4,000 to new residents.
According to Santiago Villa residents, the park owner is charging newcomers a rate of $2,000 a month for a mobile home space, ending a long-standing tradition of new owners inheriting the existing rate. The high cost of rent causes mobile home sale prices to plunge by anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000, according to city staff. Resident allege that the park ownership attempts to sweep in and buy these lower-value homes at a fire-sale price, and have since claimed ownership of between 50 and 60 mobile homes in the park.
No representatives of Santiago Villa spoke up at the meeting to address the accusations, but in March, general manager Maria Ahmad said space rent for current residents will only increase at a gradual rate, and is not intended to uproot long-time residents paying lower rent. Much of the additional rent money coming in, she said, will be reinvested back into the park.
Santiago Villa residents’ concerns were enough for Mountain View City Council members to agree to host a study session on Sept. 13 to see what could be done to resolve these problems, but they ultimately decided to punt on the issue until after the November election. Two rental regulation measures, Measure V and Measure W, are on the ballot and could change the legal landscape for mobile home laws in the city.
“This is certainly an issue that needs to be dealt with in the community, but the solution could be different depending on what happens at the ballot box,” said Mayor Pat Showalter. “I think that this is something we do care about and want to pursue somehow, but it would be more appropriate after the election.”
Mobile home owners, in a sense, are also renters, in that they lease space at the mobile home park that their home sits upon, even though they own the structure itself.
A lengthy city staff report found that both ballot measures could apply restrictions on rent increases upon the roughly 922 mobile home spaces in the city — but those measures are limited by state laws that supersede any local regulations that Mountain View voters impose. California’s Mobilehome Residency Law exempts any spaces that were first rented out after Jan. 1, 1990, and outlines a series of requirements park owners could meet within lease agreements to avoid local rent control. Given that the newest mobile home park was opened in 1982, City Attorney Jannie Quinn said it’s reasonable to assume most of the city’s rental spaces would be subject to rent control.
The city staff report conceded that there is still a lot the city does not know. City staff still do not know know how many mobile home spaces are leased out by the home owners and how many of those homes are rented to a third party — and it is unclear how many mobile home spaces meet the criteria of the Mobilehome Residency Law.
Santiago resident Bee Hanson urged council members to take action to preserve the diversity in Mountain View’s mobile home parks, and said that Santiago Villa has been home to seniors on fixed income and people on disability who have been there for decades.
“When you look at the mobile home parks, we have a humongous number of people in a number of situations,” she said. “We have people who are employed in high tech and we have people who are practically destitute.”
Another resident railed against the park ownership at Santiago Villa, calling the $2,000 monthly cost of space rent “outrageous” compared to other mobile home parks in Mountain View. She said her neighbors are struggling to sell their home, and no one is buying because of the rent hike.
Council member Mike Kasperzak questioned whether Measure V, if passed, could pose a serious legal threat to the city. Quinn said there hasn’t been an assessment of the likelihood that the city could be sued, but noted that the Mobilehome Residency Law still preempts a charter amendment by the city.
Measure V, the citizen-backed rent control measure, is written as a charter amendment, while the council-backed Measure W is not.
Though council members agreed to put off the discussion, council member Lenny Siegel it is important to pick the issue back up as soon as possible after the election. He called the concerns “fairly urgent” and said a lot of longtime residents are struggling to keep up with dramatic increases in rental costs.
“I’m hoping that as soon as the dust settles after the election, we can move forward and try to act on this,” Siegel said. “There are people there that may need to move that will suffer greatly if we don’t.”
“Santiago Villa mobile home park residents voiced growing concerns that the park’s owners had jacked up the space rental cost to record levels”
Why do people so often describe these situations as if the park owners created them??
It isn’t owners who raise the market value of things like this offered for rent. That’s beyond their ability (much as they might wish to do it). It is the demand from all the other people wanting to rent them that raises the market value. This is very basic. Absent such demand, owners could ask high prices, but they’d find no takers.
will the city council do as they did with the renters begging for help for well over a year which forced the citizens to put measure V on the ballot – will they dither or will they take action –
depends on who is elected to city council- certainly Mr ramirez and Mr carpenter will be sympathetic to the mobile home park renters issues – but 3 running for reelection – Ms abekoga, Mr clark and Mr mcalister are philosophically opposed to rent control — the latter 2 abandoned their principles to endorse rent control in measure w hoping to derail the measure v effort – and abekoga misrepresented measure V at the recent candidates debate saying it will force the city to choose between police and fire and paying the start up costs of a rent board
mr clark is worried about future unintended consequences — the unintended consequences are already here with thousands forced to flee the city due to rising rents
and remember that Measure V does not apply to any new construction or any complex built after feb 1995!!!!!!! so new construction will continue
Mountain View’s mobile home parks have long been home to senior citizens and working class residents.
Unlike apartments, the residents buy and own the home that is placed on the land they rent. Once a home is placed on the land, it cannot easily be moved, and in some cases, can’t be moved. Residents pays all utilities, taxes, insurance, and maintenance of their space. The rent is just space rent. The park maintains the hookups leaving the space and the roads to the space.
When space rent increases, the value of the home decreases, making it increasingly harder for the resident to sell. Their only options are the pay the increase or sell their home at a depreciated rate, often to the park itself.
Unlike apartments, where rent may go into maintenance or upgrades, mobile home prices go up with no added benefit to the renter. Mobile homes are the city’s most vulnerable housing stock. Ironic to see elderly and working class current residents be displaced from their mobile homes, all the while, reading of the city’s plans to build millions of dollars of future subsidized housing for future residents. In Santiago Villa, the irony is even more striking, given those residents live in the middle of Google traffic and pollution from the new construction, developments that generate public benefits to the city, but those benefits don’t seem to help the residents who suffer directly from the development.
You want to blame someone? Don’t blame the owners – you get what the market will bear.
Instead, blame Google – they’re buying up all of MV and all those freshly minted employees coming from around the world need a place to live, jacking up rents and values.
Mobile park dwellers’ kids make the schools’ scores go down, creating a situation where one pays millions for a house but is stuck with mediocre or worse public schools.
I am sympathetic to the elderly residents who see a lot of sentimental value on living in MV, but honestly, they don’t have to be here as they don’t need to go to work. Or their work is not tied to the city.
I honestly wish the free lunch families would move and stop making the schools bad.
My 2 kids live in Santiago Villa and get all As. My kid goes to Los Altos High School and has a 4.0 gpa. So what you say ia a straight up lie. Same
with the stereotypes about crime. Look at crimereports.org for Mountain View. Hardly none or no crime in the park. Crime everywhere else in Mountain View. I am tired of these lies and stereotypes.
Also I have a Bachelors and Masters in Engineering and Mom has a Bachelors. We probably have more education than your family. These lies and
stereotypes are wrong.
Do the math on how much you pay and how much I pay to live in Mountain View. If you knew the numbers you would see that I’m way smarter than you.
There shouldn’t even be mobile home parks in Silicon Valley. This is earthquake country. Because of extensive rent controls on mobile home parks market prices have been distorted making this the number one study in economics. Go to Yahoo and MSN: The catastrophe in Capitola and the great Santa Cruz Land Swindle. Price fixing land rents (rent control) is costing California billions of dollars a year in damages and putting many lives at risk. Can politicians be honest about this? How can they be when many renters feel “affordable housing” is an entitlement. George Drysdale an economics teacher
My rent can go up to 10% every year. How is that rent control? Mobile
homes can be retrofitted for earthquakes and you can buy earthquake
insurance. Mobile home parks are legal and have been in Silicon Valley
longer than I’ve been alive.
Affordable housing and entitlements are code words for welfare queen and criminal. Trump speak.