O’side mobile home owners applaud fee increase

OCEANSIDE — A 5-0 vote by City Council to increase mobile home registration fees May 6 was applauded by mobile home owners. While it might seem unusual for homeowners to support a fee increase, the yes vote will help fund the Mobile Home Rent Control Program and rent control is something mobile home owners strongly support.
“We’re a strong community that has been there for 50 years,” Patti Hedderly, a Miramar Mobile Home Park resident said. “We’d like to keep the rent control ordinance in place.”
“I’m 70, living on a fixed income in a recession and asking you to increase my fees,” Norman Kelley, a Miramar Mobile Home Park resident said. “Rent control is essential to us.”
Registration fees for 2,250 regulated mobile home spaces will be raised from $54.04 to $132.34 per year and be paid 50/50 by mobile home park owners and mobile home owners.
The steep 145 percent increase will allow the Mobile Home Rent Control Program to be self-supporting.
Currently the cost to run the Mobile Home Rent Control Program exceeds its budget, Margery Pierce, Neighborhood Services director, said. The collective costs of staff salaries, consultant fees, building inspections and other program expenses, are presently supplemented by city funding. The fee has not been raised in 17 years.
Due to the steep fee increase after a 17-year plateau, the mobile home registration fee increase will be phased in over a three-year period with recommendations that the fee is thereafter increased 8 percent annually. The first bump up in fees will be effective Nov. 12.