Yucaipa council largely retains mobile-home rent rules after biennial review; directs study of nonprofit ownership issues

Yucaipa — The Yucaipa City Council Monday kept most provisions of the city's mobile-home rent stabilization ordinance unchanged after a multi-hour biennial review and public comment session, voting on a series of staff-recommended options to preserve existing protections for current residents.

The council voted to retain the current annual-adjustment formula (option 4), to amend vacancy-based increases as staff proposed (option 3), and to keep existing rules treating property taxes and insurance as operating expenses rather than allowing automatic pass-throughs. Council also approved staff-recommended wording cleanups and procedural clarifications and left in place the current meet-and-confer and health-and-safety standards. Council directed staff to study whether nonprofit park ownership warrants separate treatment and report back before the next biennial review.

Why this matters: Yucaipa has more than 5,000 mobile-home residents across roughly 41 parks, many of them seniors on fixed incomes. The biennial review decides how annual rent adjustments are calculated, how parks may raise rent after a vacancy, and what capital and operating costs can be passed to residents. Advocates and owners offered competing proposals during public comment and in written filings; the council's votes preserve the status quo for current tenants while adopting a staff change to how vacancy adjustments are calculated.

Key council actions and context

- Annual adjustments (Item 1): Staff described the current annual adjustment as 100% of CPI with a 4% cap (the cap was changed to 4% in the 2017 review; earlier the formula was 80% of CPI with a 4% cap). Stakeholders proposed several options: retain the current language (option 4); remove the cap; increase the cap to 6% and add a minimum floor; or adopt a 5% cap with a 2% floor (staff recommended option 3, the 5% cap with a 2% floor). After public comment from residents urging protection of seniors and from owner representatives arguing rising operating costs and insurance, the council voted to retain the existing language (option 4). The motion to adopt option 4 was made and seconded on the record and approved by voice vote (outcome: approved; motion and second recorded in the official minutes). Suzanne Taylor, executive director of Augusta Communities, urged a floor and cap approach; Benjamin Kelly of the Manufactured Housing Educational Trust (MET) argued for a floor and a higher cap; multiple residents asked the council to keep the ordinance unchanged. Don Lincoln, special legal counsel for mobile-home park matters, clarified that "there is no, as far as I know, there is no law in California that sets a minimum rent increase."

- Vacancy rent adjustments (Item 2): The existing ordinance allows a park owner to set a new base rent for a pad when a space becomes vacant under certain conditions by applying a percentage above the combined average of rent-controlled spaces in that park (currently 10%). Staff proposed increasing that percentage from 10% to 20% for qualifying vacancies (staff's option 3) to help parks capture additional revenue without targeting existing residents; some stakeholders supported full vacancy decontrol or other approaches. After public comment and clarification from staff that the calculation is park-specific and applies only to enumerated vacancy conditions, the council adopted staff-recommended option 3 (motion passed by voice vote).

- Capital improvement preapproval / pass-through (Item 3): Stakeholders asked for preapproval or an automatic pass-through for capital improvements. Staff said the current process requires resident input: a proposed capital improvement can be approved administratively if 51% of affected regulated spaces agree; if residents do not approve, a park owner may pursue a special rent-adjustment application based on health and safety. Council voted to accept staff's recommendation to retain the current approach and to remove ambiguous language that could be read to let owners begin work before seeking resident input (motion approved by voice vote).

- Resident representative threshold and process (Item 4): Staff recommended changing the rule for resident representatives so elections can produce a winner when multiple candidates stand and to reduce the number needed where parks lack volunteer representatives. The council adopted staff option 2 to adjust the representative threshold/process (motion passed by voice vote).

- Property tax and insurance pass-throughs (Items 5 and 6): Park-owner stakeholders asked to phase in or directly pass through property-tax increases and insurance premium increases without going through an MNOI (maintenance of net operating income) application. Staff recommended retaining the ordinance language that treats property taxes and insurance as operating expenses (requiring their inclusion in the park's MNOI calculation for any adjustment). After public comment from nonprofit owners and investor/owner representatives — and residents who said owners should absorb these costs — the council kept the existing approach (motions to retain existing language approved by voice vote). During public comment staff and stakeholders noted that pursuing an MNOI increase can be expensive: staff's exhibits show prior special rent-adjustment outcomes and associated application or administrative costs that have been recovered in some cases (an example cited in the record: a 2019 Valley View adjustment with a $60.21 monthly increase and an additional assessable cost line item of $15.66 for other fees).

- Annual registration fees (Item 7): The council retained the current formula requiring a registration fee set annually by council and split 50/50 between resident and park owner spaces. Staff explained the fee covers program costs (staff time, legal/expert reviews) and is calculated on a three-year rolling average. Some stakeholders recommended excluding park owners who prevail in MNOI proceedings from the fee calculation; staff recommended keeping the existing method. Council adopted staff's recommendation (motion approved by voice vote).

- Conforming ordinance and rule amendments (Item 8): Council approved staff's cleanup and technical amendments — including clarifications about which CPI series to apply historically in MNOI calculations and changes related to the hearing officer process (motion passed by voice vote). Several speakers supported using the Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario metro CPI for the regional index where needed.

- Nonprofit owner treatment (Item 9): Augusta Communities (a nonprofit owner) asked the council to develop a separate rental-adjustment policy for nonprofit-owned parks, citing compliance costs, income-affordability covenants, reserve requirements and oversight obligations that differ from for-profit owners. Speakers asked for more time to study the issue and for staff to examine other jurisdictions' practices. The council did not adopt a separate policy at this meeting; instead, members asked staff to research the "unique expenses and financial arrangements" claimed by nonprofit owners and report back for future consideration. Staff noted this is not a new topic in prior biennial reviews and that no clear precedent was identified during the meeting.

- Health-and-safety language for capital improvements (Item 10): A stakeholder proposed replacing the phrase "become dangerous" with a standard that an amenity has "reached the end of its useful life and needs to be repaired." Staff recommended retaining the existing "dangerous" / health-and-safety language to preserve an objective standard for when the city may authorize a capital improvement over resident opposition. The council adopted staff's recommendation (motion approved by voice vote).

- Meet-and-confer procedures (Item 11): Stakeholders proposed expanded informational sessions, audited financial statements, mediation and other changes to the meet-and-confer process. Staff recommended retaining current procedures. The council adopted staff's recommendation (motion approved by voice vote). Suzanne Taylor and others asked the city to consider requiring audited financial statements earlier in the meet-and-confer process to improve transparency in advance of costly MNOI applications.

Voices at the meeting

Speakers on record included: Don Lincoln (special legal counsel on mobile-home park law), Jennifer Crawford (city staff leading the biennial review presentation), Kim Metzler (city staff), Suzanne Taylor (executive director, Augusta Communities), Benjamin Kelly (representing the Manufactured Housing Educational Trust), Mark Westwood (chair, Yucaipa Mobile Home Residents Association, YMRA), Julie Polly (WMA), John Warren (Onyx Capital Corporation), David Devon (YMRA board member), Joe Sutt (resident), Lana Marano (resident), Patrice Huntington (resident), Ed Timmons (YMRA treasurer) and council members including Councilman Chris Miller, Councilmember Woolsey and Mayor Thorpe (Mayor Pro Tem Venable rejoined during the meeting). The meeting included more than a dozen resident speakers and representatives of owner/industry groups.

What the council did not change

Council majority rejected stakeholder proposals that would have permitted automatic pass-throughs to residents for property-tax or insurance increases and rejected creating a minimum guaranteed annual adjustment floor in the ordinance. The city retained the 4% cap/100% CPI language in place for existing regulated spaces and preserved the requirement that capital improvements done over resident opposition meet the city's health-and-safety standard.

Next steps

The council approved staff's technical ordinance amendments and directed staff to research the nonprofit-owner proposals and report with examples and analysis before the next biennial review. The council also scheduled additional ordinance-reading steps required to finalize the technical amendments.

Quotations (verbatim)

"I am in favor of option 4 that everything stays the same," said a resident, Suzanne Taylor, during public comment on Item 1.

"We support a modification to include a minimum of 2 or 3%, floor and a maximum of 6% to eliminate the unanticipated volatile peaks and valleys," said Benjamin Kelly of the Manufactured Housing Educational Trust, arguing for a floor and higher cap.

"There is a statement earlier that, California does require a minimum rent increase of 2%, that is not correct," said Don Lincoln, special legal counsel.

Ending

The council's votes maintain the existing protections for current mobile-home residents while adopting a staff-proposed vacancy adjustment change and several procedural clarifications. Council members asked staff for follow-up research on nonprofit ownership questions and signaled they will continue to weigh technical changes during the ordinance-reading process required before adopting final rule amendments.