Sonoma council studies tighter rules for mobile home park closures amid resident alarm

SONOMA, Calif. — The Sonoma City Council spent most of its April 15 meeting on a study session to revise Chapter 9.82 of the municipal code, the city's rules for mobile home park closures and conversions. Staff said the update is intended to comply with state law (AB 2782 and SB 610) and to add local policy choices about how to protect residents who would be displaced.

City staff summarized the state requirements: applicants must provide a relocation impact report, the city must arrange a certified appraiser to establish in-place market value when a home cannot be relocated, and affected residents must receive the relocation impact report at least 60 days before any public hearing. SB 610 requires a technical inspection by the California Department of Housing and Community Development after a declared disaster; in those cases the owner is not automatically required to pay the in-place market value of destroyed homes, staff said.

"The city of Sonoma has three mobile home parks with over 450 units," the Community Development Director told the council, noting the parks supply a significant share of local affordable housing and that the ordinance aims to mitigate adverse impacts on residents.

Tenant advocates, park residents and nonprofit legal services urged stronger local protections. Several speakers asked the council to add language that would prevent owners from pursuing closure as a tactic to pressure residents into accepting rent increases or to remove homes and sit on the land. The Tri-Park Committee and Legal Aid asked the council to require a certification and evidence when an owner files a closure application without a proposed new use, to prevent bad-faith closures.

"Proactive approaches are always less costly than defending the intent of cities in the first place," said Jod Johnson of GSMOL, stressing that cities that left gaps in their local ordinances later faced mass litigation and displacement. Residents pressed for objective standards for "comparable" relocation parks, with repeated suggestions to consider CalEnviroScreen and countywide options so displaced residents would not be forced into areas with poorer environmental or health conditions.

Park owners and their attorneys countered that the draft could make rebuilding after fires or other catastrophes financially impossible, and they urged a narrow disaster exemption that would allow reconstruction when standard relocation obligations would be unreasonable. "Without this exemption, rebuilding a park after a natural disaster becomes practically out of the question," one park-owner representative told the council.

Council members asked detailed legal and policy questions about the definition of "disaster" (staff and the city attorney said it references declared state or federal emergencies under Civil Code 798.56), the mechanics and timing for consultant selection and relocation-planning, and standards that would govern any financial-hardship exemption for owners. Staff described a proposed process in which the applicant pays for an independent consultant and subconsultants (appraiser, relocation housing specialist) to prepare the relocation impact report and a relocation plan; council would then make specific written findings before permitting any closure or conversion.

City Attorney David (present online) recommended a practical step to address concerns that owners could hide plans for future use: require a sworn declaration indicating whether a contemporaneous plan exists and, if not, a certification under penalty of perjury that no plan is being withheld. He said such an affidavit would give tenants and staff a clearer record without requiring owners to present fully engineered development plans at the time of a closure application.

Council members also asked staff to compare Sonoma's draft with other local ordinances (San Jose, Sonoma County) and to return with a concise matrix of differences, the pros and cons of an affidavit requirement, and options for the geographic reach of "comparable" parks (keep it to Sonoma County or expand, e.g., to Napa County). Several council members supported including the "decent, safe and sanitary" standard drawn from housing law and the Uniform Housing Code into the local definition of "comparable housing" so displaced residents are offered genuinely equivalent options.

Many residents asked that required notices, impact reports and questionnaire materials be provided in Spanish as well as English. The council directed staff to prepare a focused packet for a third study session covering the requested comparative analysis, the affidavit option, disaster-exemption language, the hardship-exemption standard (including bankruptcy scenarios), and the implications of using CalEnviroScreen in relocation comparisons.

No vote was taken. Council members said they want to "get it right" and avoid unintended legal vulnerability while closing identified loopholes that tenant advocates say have been exploited elsewhere. Staff will return with the requested materials and a recommended next step for the council.