Santa Rosa Mobile Home Park Owners Demand 75% Rent Increase

The owners of the Carriage Court mobile home park in Santa Rosa plan to petition the city to raise rents by 75 percent — more than $400 a month — for the land beneath residents’ homes.

Sonoma County park owners have increasingly resorted to the tactic of raising rents above allowable limits to trigger arbitration since a wave of updates to decades-old mobile home laws tightened rent controls and added other protections.

In arbitration, park owners and their residents face an impartial party who ultimately decides whether the owner is entitled to all or part of the requested rent increase in order to be entitled to a fair refund.

It would be the fourth arbitration in Sonoma County this year, but the first in Santa Rosa since the new rules were introduced in early 2023. The rules inspired neighboring jurisdictions to follow suit in an effort to preserve what is considered a rare remaining source of affordable housing in the state. The city capped rent increases at 70% instead of the previous 100% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of the prices of goods and services paid by consumers in a given area.

“When rent increases are suppressed below the cost of inflation, the company is slowly heading toward bankruptcy,” said Nick Ubaldi, whose family owns Carriage Court. Ubaldi also works for Harmony Communities, the company that manages the park and more than 30 others in California and Oregon. “We are committed to annual arbitration in all jurisdictions that restrict increases below the CPI.”

In a rent petition sent to Carriage Court residents, the owners list the park’s gross income for 2023 at $606,684, or a profit of $223,315 after expenses. The notice compares those numbers to 1997 statistics, when the park made $290,721. Ubaldi said that while it is still profitable, “we are losing $67,000 a year, ignoring 25 years of inflation.”

Santa Rosa city spokeswoman Kristi Buffo said the Department of Housing and Community Services received the owners’ application on Thursday and staff will now verify that all necessary information was provided before the hearing begins.

The same team of owners and managers recently initiated arbitration at another park they manage, Little Woods Mobile Villa, in Petaluma, seeking a rent increase of about 300%. In June, an arbitrator rejected the increase outright, but the owners soon issued another rent increase and notified the city of their intention to permanently close the park. The group currently has another arbitration scheduled later this month over increases initiated after the purchase of nearby Capri Villa in April.

In March, owners of another Petaluma mobile home park, Youngstown, won a $118 increase, less than the additional $900 per month they were seeking, but it was still a major blow to residents who are now appealing the decision. There, too, owners have sent notices of intent to close the park and raise rents again.

The process has taken a heavy emotional toll on residents, who are often older and living on fixed incomes. The inability to keep up with rising costs is what initially led some to support the recently strengthened rent protections.

“They’re constantly stressed and worried about what’s going to happen. People feel like they’re on hold,” said Karym Sanchez, lead organizer at the North Bay Organizing Project, a community group that supports Little Woods residents. And while the arbitration process so far has been beneficial for residents, “it’s costing money, time and resources,” he said. “We don’t have as much money as Harmony, to be honest. They’re using this as a tool to let us know they have money and they’re not going to let up.”

Ubaldi and others involved in the park’s management said residents and officials have rebuffed attempts to find alternative solutions. While new mobile home regulations have been debated, park owners have advocated for targeted rental assistance for struggling residents rather than broad rent control, which they say undermines long-term affordable housing goals by driving up mobile home prices. Since the new regulations took effect, Ubaldi and some owners have instead proposed vacancy decontrol, which would allow the park to return rent to market value when homes are sold. Without it, Ubaldi said, “arbitration is the only option for owners to obtain their constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair return” and would be a last resort, not a preferred approach. “It’s a flawed process that costs all parties involved extraordinary amounts of money,” he said.