9.28.020 Additional findings and purpose.
A. Based on the aforementioned findings, the County of Sonoma enacted County Ordinance No. 4667. As County Ordinance No. 4667 forms the basis of this chapter, to the extent necessary and appropriate the City Council hereby incorporates the consultant’s study and the County’s findings. In addition, the City Council finds the following:
Statistically, the mobile home park vacancy rate averages under one percent, with shortage of parks, and no new ones being built. The cost of moving a mobile home today is exorbitant and averages over $6,000. Over 50 percent of the residents are over 65, Social Security is the primary source of income for over 70 percent and many residents are either single or widowed. This is true affordable housing and needs to be preserved. There is a great need to prevent excessive space rent increases which could result in threats to health and safety and possible economic eviction.
B. The purpose of this chapter is to stabilize the rate of mobile home park space rental in order to:
1. Prevent exploitation of the shortage of vacant mobile home park spaces;
2. Prevent excessive and unreasonable mobile home park space rent increases;
3. Rectify the disparity of bargaining power which exists between mobile home park residents and mobile home park owners;
4. Provide mobile home park owners with a guaranteed rate of annual space rent increase which accurately reflects the rate of inflation and increases in their expenses; and
5. Provide a process for ensuring mobile home park owners a fair, just, and reasonable rate of return on their parks in cases where the guaranteed annual space rent increase provided by this chapter proves insufficient.
C. Based upon additional insights, it also seeks to:
1. Provide continued rent control through the transfer of a mobile home-on-site (i.e., on the mobile home pad) to a new mobile home owner to prevent exploitative rental increases that took place when vacancy decontrol was tried in earlier versions of this chapter.
2. Provide space rent stabilization protection to tenants of recreational vehicles occupying spaces in mobile home parks for more than nine months in recognition of the special status conferred by the recreational vehicle park occupancy laws to such long-term residences under Civil Code Section 79.45(b) and their similarity to mobile home tenancies.
3. Provide options in the duration of tenancies to prospective mobile home tenants to prevent oppressive adhesion contracts from being imposed upon new park tenants.