ESCONDIDO — The City Council approved a rent increase for Casa Grande Mobile Estates on the condition that park owners and management meet with city planning staff to discuss the installation of a security gate at the front entrance.
The owners of Casa Grande requested a 5.74% increase in rent for 101 spaces in the senior mobile home community located at 1001 S. Hale Avenue through a short-form application, which would result in an average space increase of $34.58 per month. City staff said this percentage was the maximum amount the park requested per city law.
Mobile home park owners must submit an application to the city requesting a rent increase under Proposition K, a mobile home rent control measure that voters approved in 1988.
A 1997 update to the law allows park owners to submit a short-form application — a less burdensome process for both park owners and city staff — in which the owner can request a rent increase based solely on the change in the San Diego Metropolitan Area’s Consumer Price Index. Under this application, the increase cannot be higher than 90% of the CPI increase since the last rent increase application was granted, or 8% of the current rent, whichever is less, and is subject to a two-year limit.
Park owners can apply for a rent increase one year after the last application was submitted. Casa Grande was previously approved for a rent increase in 2021 based on a 68.5% change in the CPI, resulting in an average monthly increase of $15.16 per space.
Evelyn Langston, a 20-year park resident, requested a compromise of a 50% CPI change or 2.86% rent increase in addition to several improvements that residents had requested, including the installation of a security gate at the park’s front entrance, SDG&E smart meters, new washers and dryers and a resident suggestion box.
“In other words, both owners and residents give and take a little,” Langston said.
The City Council ultimately decided to grant 3% of the requested increase, with the remaining 2.74% contingent upon park representatives meeting with planning staff within 90 days to discuss the security gate.
Park management must give the affected residents a 90-day notice of a rent increase before it can go into effect. According to City Clerk Zack Beck, the earliest the rent increase could be implemented is May 22.
Nicole Henry, regional manager with Newport Pacific real estate company, who represented the park owners at the Feb. 21 council meeting, noted the park already has upcoming projects planned, including new fencing around the RV storage area, replacing mailboxes, pool resurfacing and installing a new double drain.
Additional ongoing maintenance, such as tree and lighting care, regular landscaping and pest management, as well as finished projects such as renovating the clubhouse bathrooms, applying fresh paint and flooring in the laundry room, enhancing fencing and landscaping at the park’s entrance, installing new appliances in the clubhouse, and sealing cracks, collectively amounted to nearly $100,000 for the park.
According to Henry and Park Manager Becky Bonamici, the park has begun looking into quotes for a new gate and the process for installing the gates.
“We have to first draw up plans, we have to go to the planning committee, we have to go to the fire department or utilities to see if we are even able to put some kind of security gate in front of our park, so we’re just in the beginning stages of those discussions,” Bonamici said. “The owner is not opposed to it, we just have to do our homework before we can present that to all the entities that need to know about it.”
Bonamici also mentioned that the park has tested its washers and dryers to ensure they meet operational standards. She said the washers are energy-efficient and only fill up halfway with water, which might be why residents have requested new ones.
Additionally, Bonamici said the park already has a resident suggestion box in the clubhouse underneath the bulletin board with park emergency route maps. There are also complaint forms in the front office.
Before staff recommended approval of the rent increase, the park was inspected for violations that must be corrected before a rent increase goes into effect.
Code enforcement found four lighting violations and three general park violations in the common area of the mobile home park on Jan. 22. Staff later returned on Feb. 8 and found that all of the violations were corrected.
