Condo Conversion Countered

The Sonoma City Council voted unanimously to adopt at its meeting Wednesday night, a 45-day moratorium prohibiting any permit or approval for the conversion of mobile home parks to resident ownership within the city of Sonoma.
The term “conversions to resident ownership” means that not only the mobile home is owned by the resident, but the land beneath the mobile home is also owned by the resident.
When mayor pro tem Joanne Sanders wanted to know just what was going to happen in this 45-day period, city attorney Thomas Curry said that this time gives the council an opportunity to identify and then fix the general nature of the problem – study the issue of regulating mobile home park conversions at the local level. Curry said that the moratorium could be extended but not indefinitely.
In Sonoma there are 3 mobile home parks containing some 498 mobile home spaces which in turn house an estimated 655 residents – 475 of these spaces are subject to rent control.
Concerned that the affordable housing stock would be greatly diminished, council member Steve Barbose said that it would cause an affordable housing crisis without the moratorium – council member Ken Brown agreed and said that there would also be an abundance of intellect lost.
Draped with signs reading SAS (“Seniors Against Speculation”), mobile home residents overflowed from the council chambers into the hallway and completely out of doors waiting their respective turns to address the council about financial fears for their “golden years.”
Advocating for the conversion to resident ownership on behalf of the new owner, attorney Sue Loftin from Carlsbad, Calif., urged the council not to pass the moratorium – contending that there was no legal basis and noting that residents had been offered lifetime leases at better rates than city rent control would allow.
Although these conversions are advocated as an economic benefit to the community, state courts have previously held that even a single sale of a single lot within a mobile home park may lift rent controls on the whole park.