Michelle Wright’s monthly space rent at Running Springs Mobile Home Park was $370, Wright told Lake County supervisors on Oct. 27. A letter from the park would raise it to $490, Wright said. That’s $120 more, or about 32%.
Mobile home residents commonly own their homes but rent the space under them, the county’s draft freeze ordinance says. A 2025 county draft puts the cost of moving one at $5,000 to $15,000 or more.
Residents have been asking supervisors for a county limit on those rents, called a rent stabilization ordinance. The board took up the idea on Aug. 19, 2025, nearly 15 months ago.
On Oct. 6, a supervisor asked at the board’s meeting when it would return. “When is the rent stabilization ordinance coming back to us?” the supervisor said. “Because it’s been over a year.”
The reply: “We just have to do a final review of that and be done.” The speaker added, “So I’m looking at, well, we don’t have a meeting next week, but the week after.” Asked, “So this month?” the speaker said, “Yeah.” WCG’s transcript of the meeting recording doesn’t show who answered.
That would have been Oct. 20. A search of the county’s agenda system found no item on a rent ordinance or mobile home rents on any board agenda since Aug. 11. That includes Tuesday’s agenda.
A resident of Sterling Shores mobile home park came back to the board Nov. 3. “A month ago like I just said I was here and it was supposed to be two weeks away,” the resident said. “Can you please give us an update as soon as possible.”
The freeze that fell short
The August 2025 discussion ended with direction to create an ad hoc committee, a temporary working group of supervisors, to look into affordable housing. Its members are Supervisors Bruno Sabatier and Eddie Crandell, the Record-Bee reported.
The 2025 draft would’ve let rents rise each year by 75% of the increase in the federal consumer price index for the Bay Area, up to 5%. For tenants 62 and older, the limit was 3%. The board was told Aug. 11 that the version now in the works is “still not in a final, final draft mode.”
That day, Sabatier and Crandell brought a 60-day freeze on rent increases in the county’s unincorporated areas, those outside city limits, through Oct. 10. An urgency ordinance needs four of the five supervisors, County Counsel Lloyd Guintivano told the board.
It got three. Supervisors Helen Owen, Sabatier and Crandell voted yes. Supervisors Jessica Pyska and Brad Rasmussen voted no.
Pyska said she couldn’t see how the freeze met the legal test for urgency. “We need findings that show data,” Pyska said. “I’ve never once seen the numbers.” Rasmussen said he had hoped to see the full ordinance first. “I’m not comfortable passing this today,” he said.
Sabatier answered speakers who called a freeze radical. “If it’s radical to want to ensure that we have people that can afford to continue to live in the place they call home, I just don’t see how that’s radical,” Sabatier said.
What park owners say
A representative of the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association told the board that day that no emergency existed. “There are no high rent increases happening in Lake County right now or cases of residents receiving notices of high rent increases,” the representative said.
Andy Carey, president of Monolith Properties, which Carey said operates three parks in the county, told supervisors the law already protects residents. Carey pointed to a state legal help program for mobile home residents and to the district attorney’s power to act on unfair business practices.
State law requires 90 days’ written notice of a rent increase. The county’s draft freeze ordinance says “current state laws do not limit the rent increases to mobilehomes in the same way that other homes are regulated.”
Advocate says increases can start in 90 days
Hilary Mosher, a regional manager for the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League, told the board Nov. 3 that the owner of Running Springs has tried three times to raise rents by more than 30%. Mosher said the owner’s latest notices meet state rules, so the owner can raise rents without a cap in 90 days.
Mosher urged supervisors to pass an ordinance and said Petaluma’s city attorney would share that city’s. Mosher said 106 other communities have rent limits. The county’s 2025 draft says about 90 California jurisdictions have some type of rent control for mobile home spaces.
The board meets Tuesday at 9 a.m. in Lakeport. Public comment is set for 9:02 a.m.
On Oct. 6, the same Sterling Shores resident asked supervisors a question. “Is it that you have no intention of passing one?”
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