On Dec. 10 the Escondido City Council adopted amendments to the Rent Review Board guidelines that standardize how the consumer price index is used to calculate maximum mobile-home rent increases.

Deputy City Manager Chris McKinney told the council staff found inconsistent CPI methods being used across city rate-setting and applications — some calculations mixed monthly and annual figures. "Rather than mixing monthly and annual figures in the same calculation, we're recommending that we use only annual figures from this point forward," McKinney said, describing an amendment that specifies using the most recent annual CPI figure minus the previous year's annual CPI figure, divided by the previous year's figure, to compute percentage change.

McKinney said staff recommend not applying the new method retroactively to applications already in process. He cited the example of the Carefree Ranch mobile-home park application: under the old methodology the park's change-in-CPI calculation was 4.515% (a maximum rent increase of 4.064%); applying the new annual-only method would reduce the change to 2.132% (a maximum increase of 1.919%), largely because the different endpoints used in annual figures overlap with prior adjustments.

Public commenters raised concerns about clarity and resident protections. Louise Reed of MPAC (Impact) asked for clearer communications on the formula and questioned how market rents are defined when a park owner also owns the mobile homes; resident Victoria Nayak urged the council to consider tenant incomes rather than solely CPI-based increases and described the economic vulnerability of many mobile-home residents.

Councilmembers supported the clarification as a transparency measure and voted 4–0 to adopt the resolution amending the Rent Review Board guidelines (resolution 2025-163). Staff said the amendment takes effect immediately but only applies to future applications; the Carefree Ranch item remains scheduled under the prior methodology.