The North County Manufactured Homeowners Team is not backing down from their fight for mobile home rent stabilization in Santa Maria, with several residents pleading their case during City Council public comment period for the last five meetings.
Despite residents' consistent appearances and their submission of a petition this week with over 450 signatures asking for the council to bring back a formal discussion about rent stabilization and the effectiveness of the current model lease, they say their requests have largely been ignored.
"Friends keep asking me, 'How long before the City Council will be acting on our questions of rent control for manufactured homes? You keep going and coming back without an answer,'" La Maria Mobile Home Park resident Esther Jensen said at a Tuesday council meeting. "My answer to them is, 'I don’t know, and I wonder if they even care to address the issue. We just know we’ll keep trying until we get some answers.'"
Adopted in 2019, the city's model lease was originally created as a compromise for residents seeking rent control and park owners seeking a return on their investments.
The model lease can be offered as an alternate to a park's regular lease, and requires the Consumer Price Index used to calculate rent increases to be changed from the Los Angeles CPI to that of cities with a population under 2.5 million.
It also requires annual rental increases to be no lower than 2.5% or higher than 6%; leases must have options for terms of five or 10 years; and rental increases upon the sale of a home are limited to 7.5% every five years.
Only six of the city's 15 mobile home parks have agreed to offer the model lease to their residents, but that does not mean all the residents at these parks have signed or even been offered such a lease.
Gary Hall, NSBMHT president and a leading advocate for mobile home space affordability in the city, said that very few residents in Rancho Buena Vista Mobile Home Park where he resides have signed the model lease. He estimates that less than 10 of the 209 spaces have signed on.
"There's very few people who even bothered, because there's no advantage to it," he said of the model lease.
According to the city municipal code, only the mayor can request that the city manager place items on the agenda. Prior to the creation of council districts in 2017, items could be requested for the agenda if supported by at least three City Council members.
When Mayor Alice Patino was asked whether she has requested a discussion about the model lease or rent control to be placed on the agenda, Patino only said she supports the model lease and believes it to be an adequate answer to rising space rents in mobile home parks.
"I believe this model lease provides needed rental price predictability for mobile home park residents, while also acknowledging the needs of the park owners," she said. "That policy is the result of nearly a year and a half of numerous meetings among our city staff with mobile home park residents through various representatives and park landlords. We heard from people who want rent control and those who did not want rent control. Residents and park owners made concessions during the negotiating process."
She added that the city will continue to listen from feedback from park residents and owners, as well as continue to encourage and enforce the model lease. Rising rents and prices are an issue statewide, she reminded residents.
"Mobile homes are some of the most affordable housing — and I also am well aware of the concerns of those living on fixed incomes," she said.
Despite a perceived lack of urgency from city officials, Hall and other NSBMHT members are hopeful that the expertise of their newly-acquired attorney, whose time is covered by a $4,000 grant from the Fund for Santa Barbara, will lead the council to agendize the item and consider a rent stabilization ordinance more seriously than in 2019.
[Bruce] Stanton, an attorney for the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners' League, addressed the City Council on Tuesday along with several local mobile home residents. He urged city leaders to recognize that the unenforceability of the model lease prevents it from being effective.
"Nine parks have no apparent intention of participating since it's purely voluntary, and some apparently didn't offer the model lease to all spaces or waited until other leases were signed to do so," he said. "In sum, the model lease is not working to protect Santa Maria's mobile home residents."
There are currently 106 cities and counties in California with rent stabilization ordinances in place, according to the league. The city of Santa Barbara could soon be among them after the City Council voted Tuesday to kick-start a temporary rent control ordinance capping annual rent increases at 2% for apartments.
