Mobile-Home Owners Sue City Over Rent Hikes

SANTA PAULA — A group of mobile-home park residents has filed a lawsuit against the city contending that the municipality has violated its own rent control regulations.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by 11 residents of the 195-space Santa Paula West Mobilehome Park, seeks to overturn a $92-a-month rent increase approved last month by the city’s mobile-home rent review commission. That would raise monthly rents for some of the park’s spaces to $422.17 effective Sept. 1.

The lawsuit, which also names the park’s owner as an “interested party,” is an outgrowth of an earlier legal action filed by some of the same residents over rent control. Tenants won that case last year on appeal.

Earlier this week, the City Council discovered that the cost associated with fighting the legal action, which had dragged on for years, exceeded $140,000.

The cost is of particular concern for a city balancing this year’s $8-million budget by tapping some one-time revenues. Santa Paula projects it will have a $1.2-million deficit by the turn of the century, officials said.

“That money could be used to supplement our police force or add recreation programs,” said Julie Hernandez, assistant to the city manager. “So it comes down to a policy choice of where are you going to put your resources. And, in our case, that choice is taken away because we have to defend ourselves in a lawsuit.”

Hernandez said she was unaware of the latest lawsuit, and the city attorney did not return calls seeking comment.

The earlier lawsuit, which outlined when rent increases may be justified, has provided the park’s owners with the legal ammunition they believe justifies the rent increase, said Ventura attorney Richard Weinstock.

Weinstock represents the tenants and helped write the 1992 city initiative that led Santa Paula to tighten its rent control regulations.

The appeals court ruled that rent increases exceeding those permitted by the initiative--a maximum of 75% of the annual increase in the consumer price index--are allowed only in extraordinary cases.

The rent review commission ruled last month that such an exception was warranted because Jim Taylor, the park’s owner, was being deprived of a fair profit because of the high price paid when he spent $2.4 million in 1991 to buy the land upon which the park sits.

But Weinstock and his clients maintain that rent increases since 1991 have more than covered those costs.

Taylor, however, maintains that the specific tenants who brought suit against the city have not experienced a rent hike since he purchased the property.

“Even with the increase they’re looking at, they’re going to be paying significantly less than the other people who voluntarily signed leases at the mobile-home park,” he said, adding that all the plaintiffs rent month to month.

The tenants’ suit also contends that the city’s administrative procedures for conducting rent increase hearings were flawed. It cited a last-minute change of a meeting date without properly informing tenants, which the suit contends made it difficult for residents to adequately argue against the issue.