By Brooklynn Wong
The Rancho La Paz saga continues in Anaheim.
At last Tuesday’s City Council Meeting, a Rancho La Paz-related item was again on the agenda. Recent happenings at the mobile home park that straddles Anaheim and Fullerton have sparked much conversation about rising rent costs in Anaheim and just what the role of elected officials is in such a situation.
When a new company purchased the park and issued a notice saying rents would increase significantly, residents, many of whom are elderly and/or live on a fixed income, turned out en masse to put faces and voices to the issue before the City Council and ask that something be done.
The Anaheim Council has been somewhat divided over the solution. But an ad hoc committee was formed immediately, and they met in a very timely manner with residents and the park owner, and a temporary moratorium was put in place. The proposed rent increase was rescinded, and no such increase will be put in place between now and September.
The owner and residents will work together to gradually and reasonably increase rents if that is necessary. And the owner has said that no longtime resident will be forced out due to an inability to pay.
But residents are nervous over what comes after September.
Council Member Jose Moreno requested that something more permanent be looked into. And thus the agenda item to pass an “interim ordinance…imposing a temporary restriction on mobile home space rental rate increases that exceed 3% annually, or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater” was on the agenda for the April 16 City Council agenda.
Anaheim’s City Attorney gave the presentation, and much discussion ensued.
Moreno said extending the moratorium past September would give everyone more time to discuss longer-term solutions.
Most of the other Councilmembers objected, calling this rent control, and describing its downfalls.
Mayor Pro Tem Lucille Kring said lots of other jurisdictions have tried this and it has either just not worked, or has backfired. She also raised the point that this would only affect the Rancho La Paz mobile homes that are in Anaheim city limits. What would happen to those in Fullerton, she asked.
Council Member Trevor O’Neil acknowledged that while the Rancho La Paz increases do look like a case of price gouging because they would have been so vast so quickly, the rents there “have been kept artificially low,” and that they are in fact far below the city-wide average.
Residents at Del Este, another mobile home park just half a mile away from Rancho La Paz, have to pay almost double what Rancho La Paz residents do.
O’Neil led the charge in forming the ad hoc committee when the increases were first proposed, and meeting with the owner and residents, but says rent controls are not the only option.
“Yes, we all want to pay less rent,” he said, but the owner’s needs must be taken into consideration as well.
With less money coming in, the owner will have a disincentive for park upkeep, he said.
He cited many cities that have passed rent controls historically and then repealed them because they did not have the desired effect, including Westminster relatively recently, in 1985.
And just last year, he said, there was a city ballot measure regarding rent controls, and the voters expressed handily that they would not be in favor. Though there has been a vocal minority in favor of rent controls, O’Neil said, “the voters have spoken.”
Earlier that night, the Council had a lengthy discussion about a neighborhood improvement initiative called Anaheim First, and voted to invest $250,000 to that end.
Moreno asked how the Council could reconcile authorizing $250,000 for that but turn down something like this.
However he admitted there is common ground between him and his dissenting Councilmembers, saying he was intrigued by some of O’Neil’s ideas and was not sold on rent control being the solution.
Councilmember Stephen Faessel said he was in favor of letting the Rancho La Paz owner and residents figure this out amongst themselves. An informal HOA has formed there, and Faessel expressed that this was a hopeful step in the two parties coming to a mutually agreeable solution amongst themselves. He said if this does not lead to anything, the Council could always circle back and decide to do something in the future. Fullerton’s City Council has decided to put off discussing this until July, the Council said.
Councilmember Jordan Brandman also said that he is not in favor of rent control, saying, “I feel the issue is under control.”
The item did not pass, and was postponed indefinitely.
