Meeting for the first time in five years, Malibu’s Mobile Home park commission hears 25 speakers protest automatic rent increase.
By Vicky Shere / Special to the Malibu Times
Malibu’s Mobile Home Park Rent Stabilization Commission got an earful last Thursday as residents of the Paradise Cove mobile home park expressed outrage over an annual formula rent increase claimed by park owner Kissel Company, Inc.
Amidst outbursts of applause, commissioners heard 25 speakers (about a third of the audience in City Council chambers) accuse Kissel of wrongdoing ranging from refusing to place trash cans in the beachfront park to years of septic system overflows.
Some speakers also lambasted the city for imposing on residents its settlement of a lawsuit over Malibu’s rent control ordinance.
“People are frustrated, they haven’t had a forum in five years,” Lon Porter, a 49-year resident, explained about the impassioned testimony.
[Steve] Dahlberg [president of Kissel] has also created “a climate of fear” by threatening retaliation against people who complain or by threatening to sell the 72-acre park, Porter said.
The commission hasn’t met in five years because, under the terms of the 2001 agreement settling rent control ordinance lawsuits, Kissel received a 65 percent rent increase through 2007, Becky Christensen, a 10-year resident, said.
As it became apparent how many speakers wanted to be heard, commission Chair Les Moss asked City Attorney Christi Hogin to explain to commissioners, City Manager Jim Thorsen and residents the commission’s role in relations between park residents and owners.
After the first speaker, Mikke Pierson, a 17-year resident, complained about trees falling on homes in the park, Hogin intervened between Moss and Commissioner Samuel Hall Kaplan.
When Kaplan “took exception” to Moss’s claim that tree maintenance was not under the commission’s jurisdiction, saying that tree maintenance is part of the park owners’ responsibility for the health, safety and welfare of park residents, Hogin said, “That’s a popular view but not legally correct.”
Hogin noted that the California Mobilehome Ombudsman receives and processes complaints regarding operation of mobile home parks related to health and safety matters, including maintenance of park grounds.
By contrast, the Malibu commission’s sole concern is rent stabilization, Hogin said. The commission decides on applications by the park owner for rent increases to achieve a fair return or on applications by mobile home owners for rent decreases when housing services have been eliminated, Hogin said.
The commission heard a number of complaints about defects in “housing services,” which include water and sewer, refuse removal, laundry facilities, parking and security services.
Pointing to photographs of raw sewage included in a thick briefing packet she presented to commissioners, Becky Christensen, an attorney, exclaimed, “Six years [after the settlement agreement] raw sewage flows past the playground. That is human material, not mud, you are seeing. Dahlberg is threatening a rent increase and making us pay $4 million for a septic system that doesn’t work.”
Trash cans near the beach were removed because Dahlberg feels it is inconvenient to clean them, said 13-year-old Dane Sartorious.
The rails on stairs to the laundry room have rotted away, causing her to fall, said KG Dahlquist, who is handicapped and walks with a cane. Also, park management has refused to mark some parking space numbers because it favors certain tenants, Dahlquist said.
Diane Johnston said both gated entrances to the park do not work. Surfboards, bicycles and a motorcycle in a separate security area have been stolen, she said.
Eddie Daffin, a park resident since 1973, claimed the rent increase allowed by the park owners’ settlement agreement with the city has caused rent to be “exorbitant.”
“Residents were told they were not a party to the agreement,” Daffin said. “Whether it’s a [capital improvement] assessment or a rent increase, my rent has doubled in seven years for a [sewage clean-up] job that should have been done 10 years ago.”
At the end of public comment, Hogin and Thorsen offered the following remedies: park residents or their governing board should apply for a rent reduction as explained in Malibu’s Municipal Code; park residents or their governing board should contact city Department of Building and Safety manager Craig George with sewage and water system complaints. The City Manager will then advocate their case with the state’s Regional Water Quality Control Board and Department of Housing and Community Development.
“We’re on your side,” Thorsen said. “If someone calls, we’ll send staff to document the spill and send it to the proper authority.”