The following words and phrases, as used in this Chapter, shall have the same definitions and meanings as defined by Sections 798 through 798.12 of the California Civil Code of the State of California: management; mobilehome; mobilehome park; park; tenant; and resident. In addition, for the purposes of this Chapter, the following words are defined as follows:
"Board"
means the Mobilehome Rent Stabilization Board established by this Chapter.
"Rent"
means consideration, including any bonus, benefit or gratuity demanded of or received in connection with the use and occupancy of any habitable building or land, or for the transfer of a lease for occupancy.
"Space"
means a lot upon which a mobilehome is placed for which rent is charged.
"Vacancy"
shall mean a mobilehome pad which is available for rent and unoccupied.
(Prior code § 1901)
This Chapter shall apply, as of the effective date of the ordinance codified in this Chapter, to all mobilehome tenancies in mobilehome parks located in the City of Lompoc except:
A. 
Tenancies which were used primarily for commercial purposes as of January 1, 1983;
B. 
Tenancies in mobilehome parks of four spaces or fewer, where one of the spaces is occupied by the owner;
C. 
Tenancies in mobilehome parks, the construction of which began after the effective date of Ord. No. 1187(83); provided, however, that such exemption shall continue in effect for only five years from the date a certificate of occupancy is issued;
D. 
Tenancies the rental of which is subsidized by any government agency, a Federal or State law or regulations pertaining thereto specifically exempt such spaces from rent regulation.
(Prior code § 1902)
A. 
The City Council shall serve as, and provide the duties and functions of, the Mobilehome Rent Stabilization Board. While carrying out the duties of this Chapter, the City Council will not be considered acting in the capacity of a separate board.
B. 
General Functions. The Mobilehome Rent Stabilization Board shall hear requests for increases, as hereinafter provided, concerning rents in mobilehome parks located in the City. The Board is empowered to set and adjust maximum rents for mobilehome park tenancies in accordance with this Chapter. The Board may adopt such rules and regulations as it may deem necessary to carry out its functions.
C. 
Meetings. The Board shall fulfill its duties pursuant to this Chapter as part of its regular, regular adjourned or special City Council meetings.
D. 
Officers. The officers of the Board shall be the officers of the City Council.
E. 
Secretary/Advisors. The City Manager shall appoint one or more appropriate staff members to serve as secretary and advisors for the City Council when conducting Board business.
(Prior code § 1903; Ord. 1585(12) § 1; Ord. 1644(18) § 2)
Subject to the exception in Subsections B and C of this Section, the base rental rate from which rent increases shall be measured for purposes of this Chapter shall be as follows:
A. 
Said base shall be the rental rate for each space in effect on October 6, 1986. It is the intent of this Section that the base rental rate shall be that in effect at the time that the City received the 1986 vacancy report from the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco for 1986, (i.e., the base rent measured from the November 1, 1983 rents, plus such increases as may have been made since the time that Ordinance No. 1187(83) has been in effect), and that increases after the effective date of the ordinance codified in this Chapter shall be calculated based upon that amount.
B. 
The base rental rate for spaces for which a valid lease existed on November 1, 1983, shall be the final month's rental rate under such lease, plus such increases as may have been made since the time that Ordinance No. 1187(83) has been in effect.
C. 
Notwithstanding the limitation of rent increases to once each 365 days, at the time that a mobilehome changes ownership, the base rent may be increased by an adjustment of up to fifteen percent. Thereafter, any increases shall be subject to the provisions of this Chapter. The adjustment allowed by this Subsection shall not apply to a change in ownership due to the involuntary eviction of a tenant or a change in ownership due to the death of a tenant wherein the deceased tenant's spouse, parents, or children take over the occupancy, and provided further that increases pursuant to this Subsection shall not occur more than once per calendar year, regardless of the number of times ownership changes during the calendar year.
(Prior code § 1904)
At the time that a prospective purchaser of a mobilehome is provided with a proposed lease or rental agreement, or at any time thereafter a mobilehome owner is provided with a proposed lease or rental agreement for any reason, the park owner or manager shall also provide the prospective purchaser/tenant, or owner, with a notice setting out the current space rent being paid by the seller or owner and the date of the next anticipated increase. In addition, the prospective purchaser/tenant or owner shall be provided with a notice in bold type, capital letters or pica type, in substantially the form of the following:
WARNING - Read This Carefully Before Signing Any Lease or Rental Agreement
State law (California Civil Code Section 798.17) provides that rental agreements in excess of 12 months duration are exempt from local rent control. The City of Lompoc has adopted a Mobilehome Rent Control Ordinance and, therefore, if you sign a lease or rental agreement with a term in excess of 12 months, you will not be covered by the City's rent control protections. The City has also adopted a law that a prospective purchaser of a mobilehome may not be required to sign a lease or rental agreement with a term in excess of 12 months and cannot be denied tenancy in the park because the buyer will not sign such a lease or rental agreement.
Before you sign any lease, you should carefully consider whether or not you want to be covered by the City's rent control protections. In making this decision, you may want to review the City's rent control ordinance (a copy may be obtained from the City Clerk's Office), have an attorney review the provisions of the lease that you are being asked to sign, or check with other sources such as representatives of homeowner organizations like the Golden State Manufactured-home Owners' League (GSMOL).
Such notice shall also be provided to the purchaser/tenant, by the person selling the mobilehome, or the agent representing the seller or at any time the mobilehome owner is offered a lease or rental agreement. No park owner or manager shall require that a prospective purchaser/tenant or owner sign any renewal agreement or lease, unless the foregoing notice and notice of current rent have been provided, and the prospective purchaser/tenant or owner has been given an opportunity to review said notices, and has signed a declaration so stating. Any lease or rental agreement entered into in violation of this Section shall be void.
(Prior code § 1904.1; Ord. 1615(15) § 1)
Rental rate adjustments shall not be allowed more frequently than once every 365 days per mobilehome park. For purposes of this Section, in 1987, the 365-day period shall be calculated from the last increase in 1986, and not from the effective date of the ordinance codified in this Chapter. Not later than 60 calendar days before an increase in rent is to become effective, management shall provide written notice thereof to all tenants to be affected by or subject to such increase.
A. 
CPI Adjustments. management may increase rent for a space over the base rent level in an amount equal to 75 percent of the increase in the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, as reported by the U. S. Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the Los Angeles/Long Beach/Anaheim Metropolitan area, for the prior 12-month period for which data is available, provided, however, that in the event the Consumer Price Index increases by more than ten percent in any given year, only 50 percent of the percentage increase in excess of ten percent shall be allowed.
B. 
Other Increases. Notwithstanding Subsection A of this Section, management may request increases in rent in an amount in excess of that allowed in Subsection A above, which increase shall be submitted to the Mobilehome Rent Stabilization Board for its review and approval.
C. 
Within 14 business days of the Board's receipt of a request for an increase in accordance with Subsection B of this Section, and the documentation required by Section 5.60.070(C), the Board shall send to the tenants, who are affected by the proposed increase, written notification of the receipt of the request and the time, date, and location of a hearing to be held before the Board. At the time of submittal of the rent increase request, management shall provide the City with the names and addresses of the tenants, and management shall reimburse the City for all actual costs incurred in providing such notice.
(Prior code § 1905)
A. 
Time For Hearings. The Board shall consider requests for rental increases, as provided herein, within 30 days of giving the notice provided by Section 5.60.060(C), unless a longer time is agreed to by all tenants and management affected. Requests shall be considered and decided in the order filed.
B. 
Open Meetings. All meetings shall be open to the public and notice thereof given as required by law. Meetings shall be held as necessary to hear and decide requests within the allotted time.
C. 
Submissions by Management. At the time of the submittal of its request for an increase, management shall submit to the Board such information, evidence, or other documentation as the Board may require in determining whether the proposed rent increase is just and fair. The information which the management shall submit shall include, but is not limited to the following:
1. 
The actual operating expenses by category for the mobilehome park for a two year period ending no more than four months before the proposed effective date of the increase;
2. 
The anticipated expenses for the mobilehome park for the 12-month period of the proposed increase, including details of changes in any cost elements;
3. 
The current and proposed rent schedules for each space in the mobilehome park;
4. 
A schedule of other fees and income from the mobilehome park;
5. 
The vacancy rates in the mobilehome park during the proceeding two-year period;
6. 
A list of current leases for spaces unaffected by the proposed increase extending beyond the effective date of the increase, showing the dates that each lease expires and the amount and date of change in rental rates for such lease;
7. 
Details of any other factors affecting the need for the proposed rent increase as may be reasonably required by the Board. Failure to include information sufficient to provide the Board with such information as the Board deems necessary to render an informed decision when requested by the Board shall be at the risk of the management.
D. 
Representation. Any party to a hearing may be assisted by attorneys or other persons of the party's choice.
E. 
Hearing Procedure. The Board shall proceed in the manner required by law, including this Chapter, and shall render findings which support its decision and which are supported by the evidence. The hearings shall not be conducted according to technical rules of evidence and witnesses. Any relevant evidence shall be considered if it is of the sort of evidence upon which reasonable persons are accustomed to rely in the conduct of business affairs, regardless of the existence of any common law or statutory rule which might make improper the admission of such evidence over objection in civil actions. Unduly repetitious or irrelevant evidence shall be excluded upon order of the Board. Although the hearing need not be conducted pursuant to the rules of evidence, the Board shall afford the parties a fair hearing including, but not limited to, refraining from taking of any expert evidence. The Board shall keep minutes of its meetings and make an official record of the hearing, which record shall constitute the exclusive record for decision of the issues at the hearing. The record shall be obtainable for the cost of copying and shall include; all exhibits, papers and documents required to be filed or accepted into evidence during the proceedings; a list of participants present; a summary of all testimony accepted in the proceeding; a statement of all materials officially noticed; all findings of fact; the ruling on each exception or objection, if any are presented; all recommendations, decisions, orders or rulings; all final decisions and orders; and the reasons for each recommended in each final decision, order or ruling.
F. 
Time for Decision. The Board shall make its final decision no later than ten days after the conclusion of its hearing on any request for rental increase.
G. 
Notice of Decision. The management and the tenants shall be sent a notice of the Board's findings and decision within seven days after the rendering of the decision.
H. 
Judicial Review. Review of the final decision of the Board shall be by a court of competent jurisdiction and venue. Such review shall be conducted in accordance with the Code of Civil Procedures, Section 1094.5 et seq., and shall not involve a reweighing of the evidence, but rather a review of the record to determine if the findings are supported by substantial evidence.
(Prior code § 1906)
A. 
Purpose. The purpose of this procedure is to provide a mechanism for the review and approval of requested rental increases in excess of 75 percent of the CPI by the Mobilehome Rent Stabilization Board and to allow a mobilehome park owner to request rental increases when the owner believes that a rent adjustment pursuant to Section 5.60.060(A) does not allow a just and reasonable return on the owner's property. The standards to be utilized by the Board in determining whether a proposed increase allows for a just and reasonable return shall be based upon the following.
B. 
Terminology and Concepts. For the purposes of rent adjustment review hearings, the following concepts shall apply:
1. 
Net operating income equals gross income less operating expenses.
2. 
Gross income equals the following:
a. 
Gross rents computed as gross rental income at 100 percent paid occupancy; plus
b. 
Interest from rental deposits, unless directly paid by the owner to residents (interest shall be imputed at the rate of five and one-half percent of all deposits, but if such deposits in fact earned greater interest then actual interest earned shall be used); plus
c. 
Income from utilities, laundry facilities, cleaning fees or services, garage, storage and parking fees;
d. 
All other income or consideration received or receivable for or in connection with use or occupancy of mobilehomes/mobilehome spaces and related services; minus
3. 
Operating Expenses.
a. 
Operating expenses shall include the following:
i. 
Real property taxes;
ii. 
Utility costs;
iii. 
Management expenses contracted or owner performed, including necessary and reasonable advertising, accounting, insurance and other managerial expenses, and allowable legal expenses. Management expenses are presumed to be five percent of gross income, unless established otherwise;
iv. 
Normal repair and maintenance expenses, including painting, normal cleaning, fumigation, landscaping, and repair of all standard services, including electrical, plumbing, carpentry, furnished appliances, drapes, carpets, and furniture;
v. 
Owner-performed labor which shall be compensated at the average hourly rates charged for such work upon documentation provided showing the date, time and nature of the work performed;
Notwithstanding the foregoing, an owner may receive greater or lesser compensation for self-labor if it can be shown that the amounts set forth are substantially unfair in a given case. There shall be a maximum allowable expense for this paragraph of five percent of gross income, unless the owner shows greater services for the benefit of residents;
vi. 
License and registration fees required by law to the extent same are not otherwise paid by residents; and
vii. 
Capital expenses with a total cost of less than $100.00 per year per benefitted unit.
viii. 
Capital improvements and major repairs, provided that the cost of such expenses, if they exceed $100.00 per space shall be amortized over their useful life. When said expenses have a useful life of four years or more an interest cost of 12 percent a year on the unamortized balance of the cost of improvement shall be allowed as an expense. Amortization of the cost shall be on a straight line basis over the life of the improvement.
b. 
Operating expenses shall not include:
i. 
Avoidable and unnecessary expense increases since the base year;
ii. 
Mortgage principal, interest payments and payments by the owner under any underlying ground lease;
iii. 
Any penalties, fees or interest assessed or awarded for violation of this or any other law;
iv. 
Legal fees except as provided below;
v. 
Depreciation of the property;
vi. 
Any expense for which the owner has been reimbursed by any security deposit, insurance settlement, judgment for damages, settlement, or any other method.
4. 
Allowable legal expenses shall include attorney fees and costs incurred in connection with successful good faith attempts to recover rents owing and successful good faith unlawful detainer actions not in derogation of applicable law, to the extent such expenses are not recovered from residents. Attorney's fees and costs incurred related to proceedings under this Chapter are not allowable as operating expenses. No other attorney fees are allowable. The park owner shall bear the burden of production and proof of the amount and purpose of such fees including reasonable rate per hour and hours spent and, should he or she fail to produce such evidence, all such fees shall be disallowed.
5. 
Base year operating expenses and gross income for purposes of these rent adjustment provisions shall mean operating expenses and gross income in the 1982 calendar year.
C. 
Determination of Base Year Net Operating Income.
1. 
To determine the net operating income during the base year, there shall be deducted from the "base year gross income" a sum equal to the actual "base year operating expenses" unless the owner demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Board that some other 12 consecutive month period is justified by exceptional reasons independent of the purpose of this Chapter provided that in all cases, July 1982 shall fall within the 12-month period utilized herein except as provided in Subsection (C)(2) of this Section.
2. 
In the event that the owner did not own the subject property in 1982, the operating expenses for 1982 shall be determined in one of the following manners, whichever the Board determines to be more reliable in the particular case:
a. 
The previous owner's actual operating expenses as defined above, or where unavailable;
b. 
Actual operating expenses for the first calendar year of ownership discounted to 1982 by the schedule in Subsection E of this Section.
D. 
Special Base Year Operating Income Adjustment. It may be determined by the Board that the base year net operating income yielded other than a just and reasonable return on property, in which case, the base year net operating income may be adjusted accordingly. In order to make such determination, the Board must make at least one of the following determinations in making this decision:
1. 
The owner's operating and maintenance expenses in the base year were unusually high or low in comparison to other years. In such instances adjustments may be made in calculating such expenses so the base year of operating expenses reflect average expenses for the property over a reasonable period of time. The Board shall consider the following factors in making this decision:
a. 
The owner made substantial capital improvements during 1982 which were not reflected in the rent levels;
b. 
Substantial repairs were made due to damage caused by natural disaster or vandalism;
c. 
Other expenses were unreasonably high or low, notwithstanding the following prudent business practice.
2. 
The gross income during the base year was significantly lower than normal because of destruction of the premises and/or temporary eviction for construction or repairs.
E. 
Schedule of Increases in Operating Expenses. Where the schedule of rent increases, or other calculations require projections of a prior year's income and expenses, it shall be presumed that operating expenses, exclusive of property taxes and management expenses, increases at the C.P.I. all items increase, that property taxes increased at two percent per year, and that management expenses are five percent of gross income.
F. 
Board Authorized Adjustments. The Board may grant an increase to an owner, in excess of that allowed by Section 5.60.060(A), if it finds and determines that it is necessary to provide the owner with a net operating income, after adjustment for inflation, comparable to the net operating income realized for the park during the base year. The percentage rent increase needed to cover increases in operating expenses can be calculated in the following manner:
Minimum Percentage Income Required
=
Base Year Net Operating Income
(adjusted for inflation)
minus
Current Year Net Operating Income
Current Year Gross Rents
(Prior code § 1907)
Notwithstanding any of the foregoing, no provision of this Chapter shall be applied so as to prohibit the Board from granting an individual rent adjustment that is demonstrated necessary by mobilehome park owner to provide the owner with a fair return on investment.
(Prior code § 1908)
On April 1st of each year, each mobilehome park within the City of Lompoc coming under the terms of this Chapter, shall file a registration statement setting forth the number of spaces in their park regulated by this ordinance. The City Council may, by resolution, establish an administrative fee to offset the costs to the City of the regulatory activities provided pursuant to this Chapter.
(Prior code § 1909)
In the event the Board determines special analytical expertise is necessary to obtain and evaluate data necessary to make a determination, both parties shall agree on retention of such services and costs of such services shall be shared equally by the parties.
(Prior code § 1910)
Nothing in this Chapter shall operate to restrict the right of a tenant and management to enter into an agreement in accordance with California Civil Code 798.17. Pursuant to Civil Code Section 798.17(c), the tenant shall have the option to reject the offered rental agreement and accept a rental agreement for a term of 12 months or less, including a month-to-month agreement. No owner may require, directly or indirectly, that any tenant or prospective tenant sign a lease or rental agreement with a term in excess of 12 months or that provides that it shall be exempt from local rent control as a condition of tenancy in the park, and no owner may deny a tenancy to a prospective purchaser of a mobilehome in the park on the ground that the prospective purchaser will not sign such a lease or rental agreement.
(Prior code § 1911)
If management reduces or eliminates any service to a tenant in effect on the date the ordinance codified in this Chapter becomes effective, management shall reduce each tenant's rent by his or her proportionate share of the cost savings due to such reduction or elimination.
(Prior code § 1912)
This Chapter may be repealed in the event the vacancy factor in mobilehome parks in the City of Lompoc rises to three and three-quarters percent or more. Vacancy rates shall be determined based upon data submitted on April 1st of each year by management. For purposes of this Section, mobilehomes that are for sale shall not be considered vacant. At such time that the vacancy rate reaches three and three-quarters percent or more, that fact shall be immediately reported to the City Council so that repeal of this Chapter may be considered.
(Prior code § 1913)
A. 
The City Attorney or any resident may at any time bring an action in the courts of this State alleging a violation by an owner of any of the terms of this Chapter, including but not limited to the existence of a level of rents in excess of that allowed and may seek a court order requiring compliance with the provisions of this Chapter.
B. 
An owner may, at any time, file an action in the courts of this State alleging a violation by resident of the provisions of this Chapter, and may seek a court order directing compliance with the provisions hereof.
(Prior code § 1914)