New mobile park court date

About 30 mobile-home owners from Huntington Beach turned up for a case management conference at the Superior Court of California in Santa Ana this week, prompting a comment about the number of attendees from the judge.

“Usually we don’t see so many people,” said Judge David T. McEachen, filling in for Judge Michael Brenner. The mobile-home conversion lawsuit came up for a case management hearing Monday and was postponed until Jan. 16.

Three local mobile-home parks and an industry representative are suing the city so park owners can convert the mobile-home parks for business or other land uses without the restrictions placed by a city code. The suit specifically names former and current council members who voted in favor of the code as defendants.

“It’s improper to be attacking council members who simply voted for an ordinance,” said Assistant City Attorney Scott Field describing the motion. “Just the act of voting cannot give rise to any kind of liability.”

The 2004 city code signed during Connie Boardman’s mayoral term has protected about 6,000 people living in Huntington Beach’s 18 mobile-home parks.

The ordinance provides relocation costs for mobile-homeowners — within a 20-mile radius — for tenants if a park is converted to other uses. That help includes moving and transportation costs, and living expenses of displaced residents during the move.

The city has responded to the lawsuit with two motions that the judge will hear in November. Both motions relate to naming council members who voted in favor of the ordinance in 2004. The former and current council members were exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out, Field said, adding that the case does not lend itself to witnesses or testimony.

“The court will rule based on the legal arguments,” he said.

Huntington Shorecliffs Mobile Home Park, Pacific Mobile Home Park, Rancho Del Rey Mobile Home Estates and Manufactured Housing Educational Trust filed the lawsuit.

The park owners are represented by San Bernardino-based law firm Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith and Irvine law firm Palmieri Tyler.

Portions of the ordinance are “constitutionally offensive,” Michael Leifer , attorney with Palmieri Tyler, said in an earlier interview.

Making park owners buy the mobile home of a tenant who doesn’t want to relocate for the price of a new home was characterized as being “arbitrary and discriminatory” in the petition filed by park owners’ lawyers. City Attorney Jennifer McGrath has assured council members that the ordinance can be defended, Mayor Dave Sullivan said.

“It’s legal and defensible, and we are proceeding on that basis,” Sullivan said.

The lawsuit is being followed statewide and could become a role model for other cities looking into mobile-home conversion codes.

“It’s fun to be on the cutting edge as long as you don’t get cut too much,” Sullivan said about the interest in Huntington Beach’s efforts to protect its mobile-home city code. There are more than 5,000 mobile-home parks in the state.