Correspondence - #33 - Laserfiche WebLink

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DOWDALL LAW OFFICES A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION ATTO R N EYS AT LAW City Council of the City of Santa Ana City of Santa Ana September 16, 2021 Page 34 A "shortage of housing" is the single most critical "constitutional fact" to justify rent controls. The seminal case in California striking down local rent controls is Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley. The Supreme Court set forth essential factual requirements ("constitutional facts") which must exist to establish a legitimate rational connection for rent control under the police powers' clause of the California Constitution (Article XI, Section 7). Due to the extraordinary interference with property owners' rights, rent controls must pass muster with several constitutional requisites established by California precedent. Mobilehome parks are intended to operate at full capacity. They are intended to operate without vacancies. However, the bargaining power allocations in mobile home parks has led to the unsubstantiated, indeed delusional belief that the tenants have had no bargaining power with regard to the establishment of their tenancy relationships with park owners. To the contrary, it is farcical to proffer the notion that park owners have superior bargaining power. ---Contrary to the Assumed and Oft -Repeated Dogmatic Belief, Tenants Have Had Superior Bargaining Power. Mobilehome tenants could have demanded any rental agreement they wanted before installing a home in an orange County mobile home park. The parks are empty. No one was living there. The tenants did not have to move in; they could easily refuse and they did. No one moved into a mobile home park until they were totally happy with the terms. The tenant said more than equal bargaining power. There bargaining power was absolute and unconditional. It still is. Tenants today can require the park owners to agree to a long secure lease or they can pick up and take their home elsewhere. It is also a false assertion that it is costly to move to a new and different mobile home park. Tenants have had complete and absolute bargaining power at the time mobilehome parks were opening and accepting new tenants. There is no compulsion, no coercion, no possible pressure that could be applied upon any tenant to bring in a expense of mobilehome inside it on someone else's land. The tenants are in a position to demand, and they did, all of the protections that the market would allow in which were personally acceptable to them. The tenants had all of the bargaining power. Based upon the changes in the Mobilehome Residency Law, the tenants also maintain majority control and power. The life tenancy of a mobilehome residency exceeds the tenants life and continues on with heirs, assignees, and new buyers for so long as the park remains in existence. It is virtually a tenancy in perpetuity. And the bargaining rights stay with the tenant. Buyers could have just walked away. Many did. What happened? Many bargained until they reached the terms and conditions that they desired and found acceptable. Only then did they venture into a transaction to put a mobilehome in a mobile home park in Orange County. The buyers were under no obligation to do so. Only then did the Tenants chose to assume risks of the market by standing firm for the terms they desired. Many tenants chose leases that have served them well. Some leases or a mere 1% for twenty years. A secure and stable lifestyle. This does not occur with the annual year-to-year conflagration called rent control. -34-