Mountain View considers tightening rent control on mobile homes

It has been three years since Mountain View approved a rent control ordinance for its mobile home parks. Now it is looking to update the ordinance to offer more protections for tenants who are struggling to keep up with annual rent increases.

In a 2-1 vote, the Rental Housing Committee (RHC) recommended at their Dec. 12 meeting that the city cap rent increases for mobile homes below the rate of inflation.

Committee members Kevin Ma and Edie Keating voted in favor of limiting rent increases to 60% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), with no floor and a 5% ceiling. This went a step further than what the city had proposed, which was to limit rent increases to 75% CPI, with a 2% floor and 5% ceiling.

Committee member Robert Cox voted against the recommendation. Committee members Alex Brown and Guadalupe Rosas were recused from the proceedings.

Mountain View’s rent stabilization ordinance covers all six of its mobile home parks, with the goal of protecting tenants from unreasonable rent increases and ensure that park owners and landlords receive a fair rate of return, according to the staff report.

At the meeting, mobile home park owners expressed satisfaction with the current ordinance, which is set at the rate of inflation with a 2% floor and 5% ceiling. It balances the needs of residents and park owners, they said.

But mobile home tenants pushed back, stating that a 5% annual rent increase compounded over time is unsustainable.

“My space rent is $2,271.64, and if I receive year-after-year increases of 5%, I’ll lose my home,” said Santiago Villa resident Barbara Davis. “I want to stay in my home, but I’m not going to be able to if there are so many increases year after year.”

The mobile home ordinance went into effect in 2022, just as the rate of inflation soared, triggering the 5% ceiling for two consecutive years. The situation is particularly difficult for senior citizens, who make up nearly half of Mountain View’s mobile home residents, as a large number are living on limited or fixed incomes, according to the staff report.

Christopher Saleh, a senior citizen and long-time Sahara Mobile Village resident, urged the committee to put in more protections to prevent housing displacement.

“The simple fact is, the current mobile home ordinance is not working, and staff’s recommendation on fixing it falls woefully short. Rents remain too high,” he said.

Saleh, and several others, proposed for the city to implement changes that would limit annual rent increases to 60% CPI with a 3% ceiling and no floor. Saleh justified the proposal, based on data from the staff report, which shows that nearly one in three mobile homes in comparable jurisdictions have annual rent increases of 60% CPI or less.

Saleh also noted that 86% of the comparable jurisdictions presented in the staff report did not have a floor as part of their rent stabilization ordinances. “I ask each member of the RHC and staff to identify an industry, any industry in the country that is guaranteed a 2% increase in revenues irrespective of market conditions,” Saleh said.

But park owners say the revenue is necessary to maintain the properties and to keep up with ballooning costs.

“The current ordinance, as it’s written, is working well in achieving the primary goals of protecting residents while still allowing community owners and managers to sustain the rising costs of maintaining and operating these parks,” said Saulo Londono, a representative for the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association.

Frank Kalcic, managing partner of Sunset Estates, made similar points, noting that the ordinance has capped rent increases below the rate of inflation twice, leaving it to park owners to underwrite the remaining expenses. “I’d like to continue to believe that mobile home residents do value their community’s environment and understand that it takes money to keep it that way,” he said.

However, mobile home residents contend that they are investing in their communities. The majority are home owners who pay mortgages and insurance as well as for maintenance and repairs, in addition to utilities and space rents. But they are at risk of displacement if rents continue to increase at the same rate, they say.

Tilting in favor of the tenants, the RHC committee recommended lowering the threshold of allowable rent increases.

Committee member Edie Keating noted that park owners could petition the city if they were not receiving a fair rate of return, although doubted this would happen immediately or occur in large numbers. “I think that landlords may be making a significant profit, and may choose to not lay all of that information out and just accept a slightly lower rate of growth in their profit,” she said.

The City Council will consider the recommendation at a public hearing on Jan. 28, according to the staff report.

This story originally appeared in the Mountain View Voice. Emily Margaretten joined the Mountain View Voice in 2023 as a reporter covering City Hall.