City council sends back draft mobile home conversion ordinance for refining

The draft mobile home ordinance scheduled to be approved at the June 16 Sonoma City Council meeting has been sent back, once more, for refinement. At issue is the definition of the term “bona fide conversion” and the desire by Councilmember Steve Barbose to avoid possible legal action by having the definition in the city’s ordinance reflect accurately that which was intended by the state.
“There are two aspects in this draft ordinance as to how the city council would evaluate whether or not an application for conversion is bona fide,” explained city planner David Goodison after the meeting. “One aspect is the definition itself.” He said the definition written in the current draft ordinance is that a bona fide conversion “is a conversion to resident ownership that is likely to result in the conveyance of the mobile home lots to the current homeowners of the mobile home park within a reasonable period of time.”
Goodison explained that Barbose was concerned that that definition might place the city on thin ice, legally, “that it may not be exactly consistent with the intention of the legislature when they adopted the laws we’re working under.”
He said Barbose proposed that maybe the legislators didn’t mean the conveyance of the lots to the current homeowners in the mobile home park, and he suggested the council take a broader definition. This broader definition would have two elements. One is that a bona fide conversion is a) one that is not intended as a subterfuge for evading local rent control and b) is intended to result in the sale of lots to individual mobile home owners.
Another part of the discussion has to do with the survey, which would or would not indicate resident support. “If the resident survey shows that more than 50 percent of the residents support the application,” said Goodison, “then it’s presumed the application is bona fide. But it still relates back to a definition as to what ‘bona fide’ means and whether the application is consistent with that.” Goodison said the council agreed with that direction and the city attorney is now proceeding to rewrite the ordinance to reflect that definition.