Post by crudo on Feb 5, 2006 6:21:17 GMT -5
Ceres mobile-home owners nix deal over proposed rent increase
By ADAM ASHTON
BEE STAFF WRITER
Last Updated: February 4, 2006, 05:13:51 AM PST
CERES — Mobile-home owners fighting sharp rent hikes by their Chicago landlord this week rejected a compromise brokered by Mayor Anthony Cannella.
Cannella helped cut a proposed increase from $85 to $35, which would bring rent to $545 a month in Colony Park Estates.
The new offer would have limited rent hikes until 2012, but a resident group said the deal wasn't good enough because it would have allowed Equity LifeStyles Properties to adjust rents to market rates on individual lots whenever someone moved out of the park.
Sharon Burch, a resident leading daily pickets outside the park, said the arrangement would make it more difficult for homeowners to sell their houses because Colony Park rents would be too expensive for newcomers.
People living in mobile home communities own their houses but rent the space on which they sit.
Council rejects rent control
Colony Park's rent would be the second-highest in the county if Equity LifeStyles enacts its previously proposed hike to $595. The most expensive mobile home rent in the county is $750 at Modesto's Coralwood, which is owned by the same company.
Colony Park residents have asked the City Council for rent control, but the council declined in favor of helping out with the negotiations. Coralwood residents asked the Modesto City Council for rent control in August 2004, but the council did not take that course.
It's not clear what will happen March 1, the date the Colony Park rent increases were supposed to take effect, now that the residents have asked for another deal.
"We're staying," Burch, 56, said. "Even if they raise our rent, we're staying until we get something done."
Peter Underhill, the Equity LifeStyles regional vice president who bargained with Cannella, did not return calls for comment.
Cannella said he'd continue working with the residents.
"At this point, there's not much else I can do," he said. "I thought it was a fair offer."
The offer would have raised rent by $35 annually until 2009, by 4 percent annually from 2009 to 2011, and then bring rents to a "market rate" in 2012.
In November, the company, which owns 284 mobile-home communities in 26 states, said the $85 increase was warranted because of the rising cost of California real estate and the threat of rent control statewide.
Colony Park's rent was a little more than $300 a month when Equity LifeStyles bought it in 1998, residents' records show. They argue continued increases will force out people on fixed incomes.
"I'm a senior citizen, and in a couple of years, I'm going to have to go live in the river," said Harold Cambra, 67, who moved to Colony Park after retiring from a Tracy warehouse job in 2003.
Bee staff writer Adam Ashton can be reached at 578-2366 or aashton@modbee.com.
Here's a map of where the park is, anybody gets a chance, we should swing over there to talk to the people:
www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=address&country=US&addtohistory=&searchtab=home&formtype=address&popflag=0&latitude=&longitude=&name=&phone=&level=&cat=&address=3939+CENTRAL+AVE&city=Ceres&state=CA&zipcode=
By ADAM ASHTON
BEE STAFF WRITER
Last Updated: February 4, 2006, 05:13:51 AM PST
CERES — Mobile-home owners fighting sharp rent hikes by their Chicago landlord this week rejected a compromise brokered by Mayor Anthony Cannella.
Cannella helped cut a proposed increase from $85 to $35, which would bring rent to $545 a month in Colony Park Estates.
The new offer would have limited rent hikes until 2012, but a resident group said the deal wasn't good enough because it would have allowed Equity LifeStyles Properties to adjust rents to market rates on individual lots whenever someone moved out of the park.
Sharon Burch, a resident leading daily pickets outside the park, said the arrangement would make it more difficult for homeowners to sell their houses because Colony Park rents would be too expensive for newcomers.
People living in mobile home communities own their houses but rent the space on which they sit.
Council rejects rent control
Colony Park's rent would be the second-highest in the county if Equity LifeStyles enacts its previously proposed hike to $595. The most expensive mobile home rent in the county is $750 at Modesto's Coralwood, which is owned by the same company.
Colony Park residents have asked the City Council for rent control, but the council declined in favor of helping out with the negotiations. Coralwood residents asked the Modesto City Council for rent control in August 2004, but the council did not take that course.
It's not clear what will happen March 1, the date the Colony Park rent increases were supposed to take effect, now that the residents have asked for another deal.
"We're staying," Burch, 56, said. "Even if they raise our rent, we're staying until we get something done."
Peter Underhill, the Equity LifeStyles regional vice president who bargained with Cannella, did not return calls for comment.
Cannella said he'd continue working with the residents.
"At this point, there's not much else I can do," he said. "I thought it was a fair offer."
The offer would have raised rent by $35 annually until 2009, by 4 percent annually from 2009 to 2011, and then bring rents to a "market rate" in 2012.
In November, the company, which owns 284 mobile-home communities in 26 states, said the $85 increase was warranted because of the rising cost of California real estate and the threat of rent control statewide.
Colony Park's rent was a little more than $300 a month when Equity LifeStyles bought it in 1998, residents' records show. They argue continued increases will force out people on fixed incomes.
"I'm a senior citizen, and in a couple of years, I'm going to have to go live in the river," said Harold Cambra, 67, who moved to Colony Park after retiring from a Tracy warehouse job in 2003.
Bee staff writer Adam Ashton can be reached at 578-2366 or aashton@modbee.com.
Here's a map of where the park is, anybody gets a chance, we should swing over there to talk to the people:
www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=address&country=US&addtohistory=&searchtab=home&formtype=address&popflag=0&latitude=&longitude=&name=&phone=&level=&cat=&address=3939+CENTRAL+AVE&city=Ceres&state=CA&zipcode=