[courtesy of California Progress Report]

• Impacts mobile home parks
• 1 million households impacted by rent control
• Registration deadline is May 19 for the June 3 primary election

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I do some web work for No on 98.

The ABC affiliate in SF did a story about one of the mobile home parks in San Rafael tripling rates after San Rafael's rent control ordinance was overturned. You can view the story here. Unsurprisingly, the landowner, Sam Zell's Equity Lifestyle immediately almost tripled the rents at the Contempo mobile home park. The decision itself is probably bad law as other courts have found rent control to be a valid exercise of a city's power, but that doesn't change the consequences for many of Contempo's residents.

If we Prop 98 passes, the advocates say, the old tenants will be grandfathered in. That's true, but only so long as they stay in the house.  In addition to permanent vacancy decontrol, Prop 98 eliminates much of the protections against evictions. So, landlords can just evict long-standing tenants and rent the unit at the higher market rents and poof there goes rent control for those renters. We can see how this traumatizes a community, just for the sake of a few landlords.

As I said Monday, June will be a low turnout election. We need to make sure the progressive voters turnout to save rent control and tenant protections.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Gary A. Patton
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League

Last year, Californians successfully fought off a statewide ballot initiative that used the rhetoric of eminent domain abuse to attempt to undermine a swath of laws protecting our health and environment. Well get ready; it looks like we'll have to fight even harder this year.

Wealthy owners of apartments and mobile home parks are currently collecting signatures to place another initiative on California's June 2008 ballot that they'd like you to believe is about eminent domain. And once again, they're hiding their anti-environment agenda. Tucked into the text of the initiative are provisions that would effectively prohibit laws and regulations that are intended to protect our air, land, water, and coasts from pollution, as well as laws that regulate development and prevent sprawl.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Noreen Evans
Member
California State Assembly

Hundreds of thousands of seniors and working families who rent spaces in mobile home parks across California live in fear they will lose their homes. Fortunately the Governor has the chance to put their fears to rest by signing legislation that I authored, Assembly Bill 1542.

Mobile home parks provide valuable affordable housing. An alternative to conventional home ownership, they are an anomaly because most residents own their mobile home, but rent the space upon which the home is situated. And, although these homes are called “mobile,” in reality they are difficult and costly to move. This helps explain why over 100 communities across the state have adopted rent control ordinances to keep rents affordable.

Recently, however, mobile home park owners have discovered a loophole in state law that allows them to convert one or more of their spaces to condominium ownership and avoid the application of local rent control on the remaining rental spaces. This is a particularly severe problem in communities where land values are high. Conversions maximize profits for park owners, while forcing seniors and working families out of their homes with no other local place to go.