Overview
RWG has extensive experience in providing our clients with both advisory and litigation defense involving regulation of mobilehome parks and mobilehome park rent control. We have represented numerous cities in the formation and development of their mobilehome park rent control ordinances for almost forty years. We successfully represented the City of Carson in numerous challenges to their mobilehome park rent control ordinance, including the landmark case of Carson Mobilehome Park Owners' Assn. v. City of Carson (1983) 35 Cal.3d 184, where the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Carson’s mobilehome rent control ordinance. Our firm prevailed in both state and federal court challenges to City of Oceanside decisions denying rent increases, including Dunex, Inc. v. City of Oceanside (9th Cir 2012), and in TG Oceanside, L.P. v. City of Oceanside (2007) 156 Cal.App.4th 1355. More recently, the firm prevailed in a superior court case challenging the City of Calimesa’s denial of a large rent increase to residents of a senior mobilehome park.
We currently represent the cities of Yucaipa, Calimesa, Palmdale, and Indio with respect to the administration of their rent control ordinances, including serving as staff counsel before rent control boards, advising rent control boards on rent increase applications, and representing cities in the defense of their decisions on rent increase applications. We provide ongoing assistance updating ordinances and procedures consistent with developments in case law and legislation, and we provide ongoing staff, commission and city council training.
We also have significant expertise in advising and representing cities on land use issues involving mobilehome parks, including the drafting of mobilehome park conversion ordinances and litigating on behalf of cities with respect to those ordinances. In Dunex, Inc. v. City of Oceanside (2013) 218 Cal.App.4th 1158, we successfully defended the City of Oceanside in a state court challenge to its denial of a proposal to convert a rental mobilehome park to a mobilehome park subdivision because the proposed conversion was inconsistent with the city’s local coastal plan. We also successfully defended the City of Yucaipa’s establishment of a senior mobilehome park general plan land use designation to preserve senior mobilehome parks against a challenge that the designation violated fair housing laws. Putnam Family Partnership v. City of Yucaipa (9th Cir. 2012) 673 F.3d 920.
