Anaheim Council takes quick action to stop Rancho La Paz rent increases

Councilmembers quarrel over how to proceed, residents are grateful but wonder if the increases will happen again in a few months

By Brooklynn Wong

The proposed rent increases at the Rancho La Paz mobile home park on the border of Anaheim and Fullerton that recently elicited a notable reaction from residents and sympathetic others, have been rescinded for now.

Residents had received a notice from the park’s owners, led by John Saunders, which stated significant rent increases were coming in the near future to residents, most of whom are elderly and/or on a fixed income. At the last City Council meeting, on March 19, several of the residents showed up to make an emotional appeal to the Council to do something to stop it, many telling stories of their neighbors’ already-fragile health being impacted by the news, many losing hope with the fear that they would no longer be able to afford rent, and might be faced with the prospect of homelessness.

At that meeting, Council Member Trevor O’Neil created an ad hoc committee on housing, composed of himself, and Council Member Stephen Faessel and Mayor Pro Tem Lucille Kring.

And just one week later, O’Neil, Faessel and Mayor Harry Sidhu met with the property owner and residents, and, as O’Neil put it, “the result of that meeting was the property owner has rescinded the proposed rent increases and imposed a voluntary moratorium on any rent increases until at least Sept. 1.”

Residents are cautiously optimistic. The Council took quick action, but now what will happen come September?

Many residents again showed up at the next Council Meeting, April 2, expressing gratitude, but asking that the bigger issue of rising rent all across the city be worked on, and that something more permanent be put in place.

Several in the crowd were holding up signs, a couple of which read, “No Homeless Seniors” and “Support Your Residents.”

There was one speaker who was against rent control at the mobile home park, Peter Herzog, who gave a measured opinion backed up with statistics, and was met with disrespectful feedback from the audience.

There was an agenda item regarding this: “an urgency ordinance of the city…imposing a temporary restriction on mobile home space rental rate increases within the city…that exceed three percent annually, or the change in the consumer price index, whichever is greater.”

When that item came up on the agenda, Councilman O’Neil said the property owners of Rancho La Paz are now working with residents to find a “mutually agreeable gradual and predictable schedule to bring space rents from their current below-market rates closer to the market rate.” They are also working to extend their assistance services to ensure that no long-term resident will be forced out due to an inability to pay rent.

O’Neil said this was action enough to alleviate the immediate problem, and therefore asked that this agenda item be “tabled,” saying the current problem is solved for now, and as for the bigger problem of rising rents in the city, he and his ad hoc committee will continue looking into it and bring suggestions back to the Council. 

But that was not good enough for Council Member Jose Moreno, who has been a loud proponent of putting rent controls in place, and takes issue with most everything O’Neil proposes at City Council Meetings. He did just about everything he could to interrupt the tabling, first trying to turn it into an item that could be debated, and then challenging Mayor Sidhu’s attempts to ask him to hold his comments until the end and proceed with the vote.

He felt that more still needed to be done, and was concerned that there were still no permanent protections in place, and that the owner could still decide at any time to make changes.

However, when the vote came, tabling the item and effectively saying the Council had solved the immediate problem placed before it, passed 4-3, with Moreno, and Councilmembers Denise Barnes and Jordan Brandman voting against it.

At the April 2 City Council Meeting, the Council also heard:

-Mayor Sidhu say, “This is outrageous,” on the ongoing issue of residents being disrespectful and making pointed, explicit, insulting comments during Oral Communication at City Council Meetings. Before the Oral Communications period begins, the City Clerk always clearly states the expectations, saying speakers must be respectful, yet there continue to be residents who disregard this and make startlingly personal accusations toward the dais. Mayor Sidhu shut the microphone off on one such repeat offender when he began a diatribe.

-Heard a resident named Peter Warner request that the employees and amenities at the city’s homeless shelters be looked into. He in particular raised concerns about the drivers, saying transport workers need to have their licenses checked to ensure they don’t have a history of recklessness, and food containers, saying sometimes they are insufficient to keep sanitary the kind of food they’re carrying, saying some have gotten sick.

The Anaheim City Council will next meet on April 16.