Mobile Home Ordinance Overdue, Residents Say

Avalon Mobile Home Park at 3970 Castro Valley Blvd. in Castro Valley is one of the mobile home parksin unincorporated Alameda County that would be affected by a proposed new county ordinance.

Mobile home residents in Castro Valley and elsewhere in Alameda County are continuing to push forward against potential closings of mobile home parks, but a draft ordinance to do that left the Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) a bit puzzled at its September 23 meeting.

That puzzlement was helped by a long-awaited draft of a mobile home conversion ordinance from the county Planning Department only a few days before the meeting.

“They had to read it first and digest it before even starting to ask questions about it, just like we did,” said Tara Clancy, an Avalon Mobile Home Park resident on Castro Valley Boulevard. “We’re hoping to get it considered by the [Alameda County] Board of Supervisors by the end of the year.” 

Avalon’s owners spoke out at the meeting against limitations on closing a park and turning it to some other use, saying it infringed on property rights. However, they said they had no intention of closing the park or getting out of the business.

The mobile home residents want the county to pass the mobile home conversion ordinance and create a mobile home “overlay” for unincorporated areas included in the Housing Element the county is preparing to submit to the state.

The conversion ordinance would add to the approvals a park owner must get to close a park entirely and give some relocation assistance to the residents. The overlay would consider mobile home parks a housing asset that would have to be replaced with a number of units of similar affordability if they were to be closed or sold. 

Residents at Avalon had initially protested large pending rent increases on their own. Still, they soon teamed up with mobile home residents at other parks throughout the county to press for further protections. The rent increases were rescinded.

Protection efforts got a little more impetus when it was announced the very last person renting a unit at Avalon had left the park, with neighbors alleging pressure. Others had left earlier. 

Most of the residents there own their units and pay park owners rent for the land they occupy. A few, however, had rented their units as well as the land, and the park owners had previously announced they would stop renting those units out.

CV’s MAC will seek answers to its questions and discuss the conversion ordinance at a future meeting, Clancy said. The mobile home park residents will do the same. 

Meanwhile, the Eden Area MAC was to have discussed the ordinance at its meeting last night after we went to press. It will also be considered by the Board of Supervisors’ Unincorporated Areas Committee on October 23. There, the My Eden Voices group has been pushing for increased protections for mobile homeowners and tenants in the unincorporated areas, according to organizer Kristen Hackett. 

Coincidentally, earlier that same day, the San Leandro City Council’s Rules Committee will receive a long-awaited staff report on what protections are needed for that city’s renters and mobile home residents. Mobile home park residents there would like their existing protections under a city ordinance strengthened and for San Leandro to institute more protections for tenants as part of the same ordinance.`

Avalon resident Judy Espinosa told the CV MAC at its September 23 meeting that seniors who have lived in mobile homes for decades deserve to have their housing safeguarded.

“Mobile homes are the last truly affordable housing,” she said. “Our equity needs to be protected. Starting over at our age is impossible.”