Rent-Control Law Ordered by County : Mobile homes: Board seeks an ordinance to limit the amount park owners can charge when a coach is sold.

In a move designed to help mobile home owners sell their coaches, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors directed county lawyers Tuesday to draft a law that would limit the amount of rent park owners can charge when a mobile home is sold.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that local rent controls apply even when mobile home owners sell their homes and park spaces.

At the request of Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, the board unanimously directed its lawyers to report back next week with several rent-control options.

Lacey said she wanted quick action “so we can restore some order to our mobile home parks.” She said the lack of rent controls has undercut the value of mobile homes in parks and made sales extremely rare.

Meanwhile, the Oxnard City Council delayed action Tuesday on new rent controls after a city lawyer said it was not clear how much power the new high court ruling gives the city.

“Our situation is a little different than other cities,” City Atty. Gary Gillig said. “We have a binding settlement with our park owners. Our relationship is governed by contract.”

Oxnard signed a lawsuit settlement last year that allows park owners to increase rents freely each time a mobile home is sold. Park owners had sued the city for compensation of lost property.

Council members Dorothy Maron and Manuel Lopez, who voted against the settlement in August, said Tuesday they were ready to impose stringent rent controls. But their colleagues said they needed more time to analyze the Supreme Court’s decision.

Oxnard, Ventura, Santa Paula, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks have rent controls on mobile homes in parks. All but Oxnard still limit rent increases upon sale of the homes. But the legality of those restrictions was questionable until last week’s ruling.

Altogether, Ventura County has 106 mobile home parks with about 10,000 mobile home spaces. About two dozen of those parks are in unincorporated county territory outside cities and subject to rent controls by the Board of Supervisors.

Supervisors already limit rent increases to 5% a year if there is no change of ownership. But in 1989 the board rescinded its restriction on rent increases when coaches are sold because a federal appellate court ruled in a Santa Barbara case that such controls were an illegal seizure of property.

All five county supervisors said Tuesday they now favor greater restrictions since they apparently are legal.

Supervisor Maggie Erickson Kildee voted to decontrol rents in 1989. “But,” she said, “I’ve had some real second thoughts as I’ve watched the problems of the coach owners trying to sell their coaches.”

Deputy County Counsel Dennis Slivinski assured the board that the high court ruling allows supervisors to impose reasonable controls on park spaces even when homes are sold. But just how far local governments can go is not clear, he said.

“If the government goes too far then (it) may have to compensate the landowners,” Slivinski said. “We still have a chance of losing in court if we guess wrong on what is going too far.”

If local governments impose a “disproportionate burden” on park owners to provide low-cost housing, then the courts could still rule against government, Slivinski said. He said Ventura allows a 15% increase upon sale and Santa Paula a 25% increase.

In testimony before the supervisors, mobile home owner Bob Russell said lack of rent control had made it impossible for him to sell his mobile home at an Ojai Valley park.

Russell said in an interview that he recently moved his mobile home onto land he bought because he could not sell it at the park. He said rent for his space would have increased from $340 a month to $528 upon sale.

“Nobody would pay that,” he said. “In my park there are 12 homes for sale right now, and they (owners) have all died. Their kids are paying the rent and they can’t sell (the homes).”

Bill Porter, who owns a 40-space park in Casitas Springs, told the board that he would consider a 15% increase to be reasonable.

“I agree with the Supreme Court,” Porter said. “I know that with full-vacancy decontrol there has been abuses.”

Porter said all his spaces rent for less than $300 a month and that he has increased rents an average of $50 each time one was sold, even without rent controls.

At Porter’s mobile home park, resident Eileen Wogan, 64, applauded the high court ruling. Wogan, a park resident for five years, said she had tried selling her single-wide mobile home for a year without success so she can move closer to her daughter on the East Coast.

“I had only about six people look at it in the year,” she said. But she had to tell prospective buyers that her $187-a-month rent could not be passed on to them.

Times staff writers Santiago O’Donnell and Collin Nash contributed to this story.