Senior mobile home parks will be protected from conversion to all-ages for 10 more months after the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a moratorium extension during its Dec. 10 meeting.
“The issue of senior mobile home park conversion mostly directly impacts my constituents in my district, especially in the Orcutt area—which has more mobile homes in the unincorporated area than anywhere else and is most impacted by the decision we make on this potential urgency ordinance and overlay,” 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson said.
The moratorium came to fruition after Del Cielo Mobile Estates, an Orcutt senior mobile home park in Nelson’s district, was purchased by new ownership and Stockton-based property management company Harmony Communities took over management of the park.
Harmony Communities notified residents that it intended to convert Del Cielo to an all-ages community—which caused senior park residents countywide to pour into Board of Supervisors meetings in August with their concerns about potential rent increases if parks convert and emphasized the importance of preserving limited affordable senior housing stock in Santa Barbara County.
Three months after seniors made their voices heard, the supervisors unanimously approved the temporary moratorium that prevents 55-and-older mobile home parks from being converted until the county can establish an overlay—a countywide ordinance that preserves existing senior parks.
The ordinance was good for 45 days, and planning staff had to come back for an extension, Assistant Planning and Development Director Jeff Wilson told the supervisors during the Dec. 10 meeting. The county can extend it twice, with the first extension for 10 months and 15 days and the second can be issued for 12 months. The first extension will stand until October 2025.
Planning staff is still evaluating the county’s 21 mobile home parks and updating its database “to identify those parks that may be designated as senior parks with an overlay,” Wilson said.
“We are continuing to explore ordinance amendments and those parks that are designated as mobile home parks and determine if a rezone is necessary or not,” he said.
Paul Beard II, an attorney with Pierson Ferdinand representing Del Cielo’s owners, urged the supervisors to reject the ordinance’s extension.
“Your staff recommends an extension of the urgency ordinance enacted last month, which purports to force Del Cielo to convert to a ‘seniors only’ park and purports to force other parks to remain ‘seniors only’ parks,” Beard II wrote in a letter.
Del Cielo’s owners filed a lawsuit against the county in November after the supervisors approved the ordinance, claiming that the decision prevents Del Cielo from complying with federal Fair Housing Act requirements that prohibit discrimination.
“As stated in our recently filed lawsuit against the county (which staff documents for this item perplexingly fail to mention), county efforts to require parks to engage in familial, racial, and ethnic discrimination of housing are unlawful under federal and state laws,” according to the letter.
Steve Wagner, the associate manager for the North Santa Barbara County Golden State Manufactured Homeowners League, told the supervisors that he was impressed by how fast the county moved and continued to press forward despite the legal challenges.
“I owe you folks a huge apology, especially Supervisor Bob Nelson when this thing first came up. I didn’t have any faith that you folks would do what you did or the speed with which you did it,” Wagner said. “I know this may go to court, and no matter what the result, I still just want to say thank you and how proud I am to live in Santa Barbara County where folks actually care about what happens to seniors and other people.”
This article appears in Dec 12-22, 2024.
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