Owners, residents would split the administrative costs of rent control By CRAIG TENBROECK - Staff Writer | Friday, May 1, 2009 7:08 PM PDT
∞OCEANSIDE ---- Mobile home park owners, no fans of Oceanside's rent control law, may soon have to pay more for its administration.
The City Council will decide Wednesday whether to raise the annual rent-control registration fee by 145 percent to $132.34 per space.
Oceanside has charged $54.04 per space since 1991.
The bill is split between park owners and residents in rent-controlled spaces.
The residents' portion of the increase ---- to $5.64 from $2.38 per month ---- would be marginal. Owners would take an even larger hit because they own multiple spaces. Some would have to pay thousands of dollars more.
With 2,250 spaces under rent control, the higher fee would generate nearly $300,000.
City staffers say that would take the burden of administering the ordinance off the city. Like most cities, Oceanside is looking everywhere for savings to offset the effects of a sour economy.
Not surprisingly, park owners don't think much of the proposal. Most already grumble about Oceanside's rent control law, described by an industry representative as "one of the worst for us in the state."
One park owner, John Grant, has decided it isn't worth it to stay in business. He asked the city in 2007 for permission to close the 57-space Catalina Mobile Estates. His request is also on Wednesday's council agenda.
Julie Paule of the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, a trade organization for park owners, said Friday that a higher registration fee would be easier to swallow if it were phased in over several years.
"It's how it's being applied that's really our issue," she said.
Oceanside established rent control in 1984. Mobile home parks continue to provide some of the city's most affordable housing.
Closing a park isn't simple or cheap. The owner has to offer relocation assistance to permanent residents. Ten are left at Catalina, a city staff report states.
The council will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 300 N. Coast Highway.
