San Dimas : Mobile Home Ordinance

City officials are drawing up a rent-control ordinance in an effort to settle a dispute between mobile home park owners and their tenants.

For more than a year the tenants have complained that rents are increasing more than inflation and that they have been charged for capital improvements at the parks that the owners should pay for. About 1,500 residents live in the city’s five mobile home parks.

The City Council last week asked the city attorney to draw up an ordinance after tenants and park owners failed after a year of negotiating to draw up lease agreements that would resolve their differences. Azusa and La Verne already have mobile home park rent-control ordinances.

Mayor Terry L. Dipple said he and Mayor Pro Tem Curt Morris will continue their efforts to mediate between park owners and tenants in hopes of resolving the disagreements without the city forcing rent control. However, Dipple said he will begin asking tenants and owners which issues they would want to be addressed in the ordinance.

Meanwhile, Michelle Brooks, regional representative of the Western Mobile Home Assn., said her group has worked with San Dimas mobile home park owners to formulate a proposed 10-year lease for tenants of each of the parks. She said the lease calls for a vote of tenants whenever an owner wants to make major improvements to a park. However, she said, as now drafted the lease would require tenants to pay for installation of new electrical systems that accommodate modern air conditioners for mobile homes.

Dipple said he will review that proposed lease and work with the mobile home park owners as long as they are willing to negotiate key issues with tenants.