Santee, mobile homes end longtime feud

SANTEE — Nearly 17 years of litigation over mobile home park rent control has come to an end in Santee.

With defense costs in excess of $2.4 million — and three lawsuits still pending — the city of Santee reached agreement Wednesday with the owners of Meadowbrook Santee Mobile Home Estates and Cameron’s Mobile Estates to resolve long-standing legal challenges to rent control.

Terms of the settlements are expected to be final in the next few days when all parties sign legal documents and the court gives final approval.

The end result will be that rent at Cameron’s will be adjusted under a city ordinance to increase $50 per year each of the upcoming four years beginning Jan. 1. This will bring the average rent-controlled space at Cameron’s to $585 in 2017.

At Meadowbrook, a one-time rent adjustment of 2.5 percent (nearly $18) will be allowed, bringing the average rent-controlled space to $765 in 2014.

“It’s safe to say that there’s enough for all the parties to hate, but that’s what compromise is all about,” City Manager Keith Till said. “The city has a long track record of looking out for Santee mobile park residents and we did the very best we could here. But clearly the path of never ending litigation could not be maintained.”

The agreements will preserve rent control protections and ensure against further lawsuits over the 20- to 25-year term of the agreements.

Meadowbrook sued the city several times in both state and federal courts several for what they felt was Santee’s “illegal ordinance and illegal taking of their property,” Mayor Randy Voepel said.

Special rent adjustments granted under the ordinance as outlined in the settlement agreements will be limited and, in the case of Cameron’s, will be phased in over a four-year span.

Till said a special “hardship protection provision” has been secured from both park owners to ensure that current tenants with extremely low income will not be forced out of their mobile homes for as long as they chose to stay living in them.

Some of the residents are concerned that the higher rents will put them out on the street.

“This is devastation for some people, some of whom will have to get out of the park,” said Cameron’s resident Diane Mead. “This is going to be devastating for many of the people who can’t afford it, who will have to leave and have no place to go.”

Mead said she pays nearly $350 a month, which she said she knows is low, but for others, “some of these people are on fixed incomes and they’re paying already over $500.”

Santee was pressured to end litigation when the state of California last year abolished low-income housing funding, a key provision of mobile home programs in Santee and throughout the state.

Although Santee has been successful in the past defending its rent control ordinance, the cost of continuing fighting lawsuits indefinitely – and with uncertain outcomes in the future – led to the settlements, Till said.

“The City Council believes these settlements to be as fair as possible to all parties and especially sensitive to those residents living on fixed incomes,” Mayor Randy Voepel said. “Rent increases are very difficult for the low income seniors on fixed income. With that burden in mind, (the city) has negotiated a settlement that spreads the rent increases across as many years as possible and also has a hardship program for those residents that cannot afford any rent increase.”

Other provisions of the settlement allow for a full Consumer Price Index adjustment annually for the term of the agreements. This will provide for an additional adjustment of approximately $1-$2 per month more in rent based on the most recent year’s CPI. However, regardless of prevailing rents in area mobile home parks, future rents at Cameron’s and Meadowbrook remain controlled by the CPI.

“Cameron’s Mobile Estates has seen a steady deterioration of its net income since the establishment of rent control to the point that our income was lower in 2010 than it was in 1994,” said Jim Moxham, CEO of Cameron Brothers Corp. “The settlement agreement begins to correct this inequity for one of the nicest parks in Santee, if not the county. Litigation is expensive and we believe the settlement agreement is fair to both parties and to our residents.

“For the benefit of our residents, we elected to phase the rent increase in over four years, waive back rent and establish a program with the city that will insure that none of our residents will be displaced because of the increase. The Camerons were only looking for fair treatment under the rent control ordinance.”

Upon the sale or transfer of residency, mobile home space rent at Cameron’s will be adjusted by 15 percent for a new resident. At Meadowbrook a 10 percent adjustment is allowed.

The agreements note in a binding provision that the Meadowbrook park owners cannot file lawsuits for additional rent increases or seek them through the city for at least 20 years, and that Cameron’s waives its existing claims against the city.

Had the cases not settled and Meadowbrook and Cameron’s prevailed in court, rents could have increased to $1,125 at Meadowbrook. Cameron’s had sought to increase rents by $557, to $914 per month.