It was news to Jeff Steiman that there was a deal on the table that would pay Imperial Avalon Mobile Home Park Estates residents like him up to $86,000 plus relocation fees and the right to live in the developments once built. Carson Mayor Lula Davis Holmes said as much in an interview with Random Lengths News days after she was sworn into office this past January.
But perhaps the biggest problem is the planning commission’s acceptance of the Relocation Impact Report submitted by Faring Capital, which states the soonest residents can be made to move out is January 2022. Despite resident protests, the Carson City Council refused to — or rather, couldn’t consider delaying the Relocation Impact Report hearing until after the COVID restrictions were lifted. Lack of high speed internet for Zoom meetings and translators were just the tip of the iceberg in Carson.
Steiman is a 50-something-year-old resident at the Imperial Avalon Mobile Home Estates Park and network administrator. He noted that without an environmental impact report, which can take years depending on toxins yet to be cleaned from the soil, Faring Capital couldn’t begin developing the property. According to his reasoning, why the rush?
“A lot of it is because the environmental report they can’t get passed because Carson sits on a landfill,” Steiman said.
Mayor Pro Tem Jim Dear had the same thought. In mid-2019, Faring Capital, a developer, purchased the property. Imperial Avalon Mobile Home Parks Estates has been operated as a mobile home park since the early 1970s. Faring Capital notified residents of its intention to close the park via a letter dated Sept. 20, 2019 and conducted an initial outreach meeting on Oct. 9, 2019.
“When the original letter went out it said 18 to 24 months,” Mayor Pro Tem Jim Dear said. “I went to the new owner and I suggested to them, ‘Why don’t you make it a time frame of 5 years to 10 years instead’ and they agreed to it because of other circumstances. I guess they agreed to extend it an additional one year because the 2-year period would have been over in January of 2021, but I was able to succeed in getting it to January 2022.
Councilman Cedrick Hicks urged the process to be pushed to 2024 because of the pandemic.
“Now, I would like to have it extended longer. As you know, the developer is looking at other factors like getting a development agreement, getting funding from [other] sources … for their project and so forth,” Dear said.“But I’m saying it, ‘Let’s give the senior citizens more time to make that major, major adjustment in their life.’”
City Attorney Sunny Soltani hosted a meeting with the residents to discuss park closure
issues and answer questions on Nov. 4, 2019. Mobile home park residents acquired legal counsel for representation. Faring Capital, thereafter, only conducted individual meetings and responded to inquiries through 2020.
Around April 4, 2020, amid COVID-19 restrictions, Faring Capital sent a letter updating residents on the status of the park closure process. On April 8, 2020 Faring Capital completed its Relocation Impact Report application. By April 10, park residents received a public hearing notice before the planning commission along with a copy of the RIR and relevant appraisal information. The planning commission meeting hearing was scheduled for July 7, 2020.
The Iceberg
The City Attorney’s office sent a letter to the park residents’ legal counsel around May 5, 2020, informing them of the opportunities park residents would have to participate in the public hearing in real-time on May 13, 2020.
In addition to the means of participation specified in the public hearing notice, the letter stated that all residents who wished to submit public comments during the hearing in real-time, as well as the residents’ legal counsel and homeowners’ association president, would be invited to join the Zoom meeting to do so. Residents wishing to simply observe the hearing in real-time without offering public comment could watch it on the city’s PEG channel or streamed live on the city’s website.
However, the problem is that many of the park’s residents are seniors and are not tech savvy. Also, since the start of the pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom has relaxed and/or amended Brown Act rules for public meetings to make them compliant with COVID-19 restrictions. This also has meant less access to city officials, public documents and public meetings for concerned citizens.
At least three Imperial Park residents complained about this in lengthy letters blasting the appraisal process and the accommodations made for less tech savvy residents who are seniors and individuals with physical challenges.
Nowhere was this more apparent than when residents began requesting that the public meetings on the Relocation Impact Report and other public hearings take place after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted — some in handwritten letters on lined paper.
Imperial Avalon resident and HOA president, Peggy Anderson, strongly objected to the online hearing format, noting that a large number of residents didn’t have access to a computer let alone the internet.
“Due to COVID-19 restrictions we have been unable to meet as a group to discuss anything and we can’t meet with our legal council [sic],” Anderson wrote. “Our attorneys asked everyone in power for a postponement and heard nothing back as of this writing. On Oct. 1, 2019, Mayor Robles promised the park residents ‘due process.’ Where is the due process when half of those affected can’t participate.”
Imperial Avalon resident Brian Lee echoed the same points but was specifically pointed about the lack of high speed internet at the park to even participate in a Zoom call as well as lack of services to accommodate various language barriers at the park.
“Imperial Avalon Mobile Estates lack high-speed internet operations, as AT&T DSL is the only option for the park,” Lee wrote. “Currently, AT&T DSL fails to provide adequate speed and reliability for basic streaming services. This will also result in low attendance not by choice of the residents, but by the situation they are forced into.”
“The mobile home park population has a diverse range of ethnicities,” Lee said. “For many of the residents, English is not their first language. Interpreter support has previously been provided for other meetings related to this issue and must continue to be provided including this meeting. The minimum request for transportation services are but not limited to: Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, and assisted-hearing devices.”
The same complaints were lodged ahead of the Oct. 28, 2020 meeting. Mobile home owner Linda Harding was one of those complainants who asked the city for more time.
“The City of Carson should clearly think about putting a moratorium on closing this park until the pandemic is at the very least in The Minimal Stage,” Harding said.
Carson City Council hosted a special meeting on Oct. 28, 2020 at Dignity Health Sports Park to allow mobile home residents of Imperial Avalon to express their concerns about the park closure.
Julie Lopez, the homeowners association attorney, was present in the workshop on Oct. 28, 2020 that was set up after the mobile home owners protested in front of city hall. She argued about the timing of the process and the risk of her clients being at the highest risk of contracting the virus.
“We objected vehemently and repeatedly to the city council hearing going forward in the middle
of a pandemic,” Lopez said. “The courts were shut down for months, we had no jury trials. Everything was on hold. If there was ever a time when a local government could postpone a hearing like this, it was during this pandemic.”
The proposed Imperial Avalon Park development is not the only controversial development to get rushed through this era of COVID-19 restrictions. In San Pedro, residents recently learned that the Red Car line along the waterfront was a casualty of the new One San Pedro Development that’s set to replace the Rancho San Pedro public housing. In Watts, a huge swath of the Watts Cultural Crescent, a key part of the 55-year-old neighborhood dream for green space, was sold to a private developer with no public notice or meeting.
Appraisals Sticking Point
The way the coach appraisals were conducted continue to be a sore point for residents. Residents were told that they would “be made whole in 2019.”
“The City Attorney [Sunny Soltani] promised to do it when she met with us back in 2019,” Steiman said. “The expression they were using, and I’m talking about seniors now, ‘We will make you whole.’ They’re far from whole, and they know it.”
Steiman said the city didn’t require an appraisal comparison, noting that it isn’t required by law. At the July 7 hearing on Imperial Avalon’s Relocation Impact Report, Soltani discussed a study conducted by relocation specialists showing that there were no comparable mobile home parks in 50 miles of Imperial Avalon Mobile Home Estates.
“They skirted [Carson Municipal code] by saying, ‘well we can just do a peer review with the guy we choose. Let the owners’ appraiser do the actual appraisal,’” Steiman said. “They skirted that so I can show you what the difference looks like, plus we’re in the process of getting an appraiser where you can actually see what fair market value is compared to what this is.”
Carson City Council wanted to create a more equitable situation despite the circumstances.
“Well, [Robles] had a council majority on his side apparently so because of that and the staff pushing it at the time,” Dear said. “His staff [the Planning Commission and City Attorney were] listening to the mayor instead of the people. The consequence was that the staff and also the [mayor appointed] planning commission were cooperating [with Faring Capital].”
The first on-site appraisals were conducted by Faring Capital’s certified appraiser, James Netzer. Netzer concluded that the park’s overall appraisal was $13 million. Netzer actually went from coach to coach and evaluated all 200 lots. When divided by the 200 lots that comprises Imperial Avalon Estates, it works out to an average of $65,000 per coach. James Brabant, hired by the city, peer reviewed Netzer’s work.
The result of the appraisal and the city’s peer-review process, where the following three options residents could choose from:
Option A, residents would be given relocation assistance and fees to move to another park. Very few residents would be able to move due the declining number of parks in the first place and very few spots in the parks that remain. Additionally, most parks won’t allow mobile homes older than five years old. Only 10 of the 203 mobile homes were eligible to be relocated within 50 miles.
Option B, residents would be given a lump sum payment that would include the appraised on-site value of the mobile home exchange for the mobile home title without any liens attached. If a resident still has a mortgage, Faring Capital would use that lump sum to pay off that mortgage or lien and the resident would get whatever is left, plus relocation costs.
Option C would apply to residents whose households qualify as extremely low income, very low income, or low income households and want to relocate to an available rental unit owned by an affiliate of Faring Capital. The resident would receive 30% of the appraised on-site value of the mobile home in exchange for the mobile home title, lien free. In addition, the resident would receive a guaranteed right to tenancy at a Faring Capital-affiliated development for 10 years at Affordable Housing rent levels, consistent with the resident’s income qualifications based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The approval of the Relocation Impact Report on July 7, 2020 guaranteed that the earliest residents could be asked to leave was January 2022.
“The eviction date is a factor determined by the owner of the property, not the city, because it’s private property and they own it, and they can close it,” Dear said. “But if you want to do the right thing then they’ll be more equitable in the evaluation of the property.”
At the July 7 Relocation Impact Report Hearing, Tim Tatro of Tatro and Lopez LLP, the Homeowners Association attorney, seeming to assuage fears that residents were trying to nix the deal no matter what, told the council and former Mayor Albert Robles that they were solely trying “to make the pie a little bit bigger for the residents so that none of these nearly 400 people end up homeless.”
Dear suggested that getting the full appraised value of each coach was not the goal, but softening the blow of what was coming was.
“Let me say this, they told me that they will do the right thing … that they would be fair and equitable,” said Dear. “So, I just hope that they keep to their word. They seem like reasonable honest people, but you know the proof is in the pudding.”
The city council result was adjusted to add Brabant’s values, have the coach owners receive the purchase price and what they have paid for rent control. Dear motioned a proposal to Fairing Capital to adjust Option C. Imperial Avalon Community Development Director Darren Embry agreed to increase the offer of 10 to 20 years in the new development and 45% of the appraised value to residents who choose Option C.
“Certainly anything that’s better than what the residents had before I would support and recommend to the residents and HOA board,” Tatro said.
Councilmember Jawane Hilton requested a continued dialogue for fair market value and Option C to contain 100% of the coach value. Steiman still doesn’t think residents got the best deal possible. He argued that what the city offered in appraisals of onsite coaches was according to the valuations by the National Automobile Dealerships Association, which Steiman describes as a Blue Book for mobile homes.
“They are not giving these people fair market value [for their mobile homes], which means that a lot or most of the coaches which, let’s say, were built in the 70s and 80s, which on their own are worth pretty much nothing…” Steiman explained. “So instead of giving them $100,000 in the fair market they’re giving them $35,000.”
A few of the residents had had their coaches privately appraised, with some generating values that were twice what was reflected by Netzer’s appraisal. This and other layman’s price comparisons conducted by the residents themselves have contributed to their sense of being hoodwinked.
Hands Tied By State Law
But perhaps the biggest issue of all is that residents feel unheard and that both the developer and the city used COVID restrictions and resulting adjustment of public meeting rules to dodge scrutiny.
In all of this, the city’s ability to mitigate the potential harms mobile home residents were tied by state law. During the Oct. 28 hearing on Imperial Avalon park, City Attorney Soltani explained the city poured resources into lobbying for a change in the law to give cities more control over mitigation efforts. The law that was passed and enacted January 2021 stopped short of the city’s goal with the clause, “The steps required to be taken to mitigate shall not exceed the reasonable cost of relocation.”
The City also failed to get the new law to apply retroactively, leaving Imperial Avalon residents out in the cold nevertheless. Soltani explained that this left the city to mitigate as much as possible under existing law as possible. In other words, the city was left saying, “we did our best under the circumstances.”
This answer was little consolation to Imperial Avalon residents. As for Steiman, he says he wasn’t so worried about himself.
“I just didn’t want this being done as ‘oh poor seniors’ and see them kind of sitting on the corner,” Steiman said. “I want their stories to be heard and seen as people.”
Editorial Intern Iracema Navarro contributed to this story.