Trial date set for mobile-home park lawsuit

A Nov. 5 trial date has been set to hear a lawsuit against Huntington Beach by local mobile-home park owners and an industry representative over a city code that provides relocation costs for park tenants if the land is converted to another use.

The 2004 city code, signed during Connie Boardman’s mayoral term, has offered the relocation-cost benefit to about 6,000 people living in Huntington Beach’s 18 mobile-home parks.

The ordinance provides relocation costs for mobile-homeowners — within a 20-mile radius — for tenants if a park is converted to other uses. That help includes moving and transportation costs, and living expenses of displaced residents during the move.

The suit, which specifically named former and current council members who voted in favor of the code as defendants, now names only the city.

“We filed a motion to dismiss council members as litigants, and it was agreed that they should be dismissed,” said City Atty. Jennifer McGrath. “Now just the city is being sued, which is as it should be.”

The city will be paid $2,000 by the two sets of attorneys for dismissing the motion, Field said.

“It’s improper to be attacking council members who simply voted for an ordinance,” Assistant City Atty. Scott Field said at the November case management conference in Santa Ana.