By Lyn Jensen, Carson Reporter
On the Nov. 6 ballot, and at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the issue of rent control is being tackled. Voters around the state are considering Proposition 10, titled the “Affordable Housing Act,” which if passed would repeal the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Under Costa-Hawkins, no county or city may implement rent control on single family homes or apartments built after 1995. When passed by the legislature, its sole purpose was to protect the real estate industry from rent control. It did not nullify local rent control laws entirely but municipalities cannot enforce rent control on any buildings built after 1995. The law does not apply to mobile home parks.
At the local level, the board of supervisors is addressing rent control for both mobile homes and apartments. On Sept. 4 they voted 3-1 to adopt an interim ordinance to impose a 180-day (six-month) moratorium on rent increases in excess of three percent for the 86 mobile home parks in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. The 180 days started in early October.
Supervisors Janice Hahn, Hilda Solis, and Sheila Kuehl voted “Yes.” Kathryn Barger voted “No.” Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose district includes Carson, abstained. He said he was waiting for results of a citizens’ panel on tenant protections.
“Mobile home parks are really the last bastion of affordable housing here in LA County,” stated Hahn via a press release. “If the County ever wants to address the homelessness crisis we are going to have to prevent residents from falling into homelessness.” The 86 mobile home parks in unincorporated Los Angeles County provide a total of 8,503 mobile home units.
“Mobile home residents are in a uniquely difficult situation,” Hahn continued. “While they own their home, they rent the land underneath it.” She added that the term “mobile” has become a misnomer since today’s mobile homes are very difficult and expensive to move.
In the incorporated city of Carson, mobile home residents have enjoyed rent control since 1979 but the city doesn’t have any similar protection for apartments. In 2006 some residents of two mobile home parks in Rancho Dominguez, an unincorporated area adjacent to Carson, requested becoming an incorporated part of Carson so they could share in the city’s rent control for mobile homes. Some Carson residents objected vehemently to the possibility that any city money might be spent maintaining the additional territory, and the proposal was dropped.
The county’s interim ordinance is intended to be replaced at its expiration with a long-term ordinance, which is currently being drafted. An October 2017 report, introduced by Hahn and Kuehl, directed the county Department of Regional Planning to research an ordinance “that would protect the owners and residents of mobile homes from unreasonable space rental adjustments while recognizing and providing guidelines to park owners to obtain a just and reasonable return on their property.”
The county’s also considering a separate measure to provide rent control for the estimated 55,000 apartments in unincorporated Los Angeles communities. The proposed temporary ordinance for apartments is likely to come up at the board’s November meeting.
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