Charil Robertson sat in her living room before last week’s city council meeting, hoping some progress would be made on her senior mobile home park’s fight for rent stabilization.
Robertson lives at Pleasant Valley Mobile Estates where residents have seen multiple rent increases. Last year, many who live there started attending Chico City Council meetings to voice their concerns.
Like Robertson, most residents living at the mobile home park are on a fixed income. She’s worried the park won’t be affordable if rent keeps increasing.
“When I moved in in 2019, it was only $430 [per month] and now it's $630,” Robertson said. “So $200 [more]. And it keeps going up, and I'm on disability … That's not going up with this raise of the rent.”
The council ultimately voted unanimously for city staff to gather more information about what a possible rent stabilization ordinance (RSO) could look like. But it was not the council’s first discussion regarding rent stabilization for senior mobile home parks.
No decision made by Internal Affairs Committee
In January, the council directed its Internal Affairs Committee to consider the topic of rent stabilization.
The committee includes Vice Mayor Kasey Reynolds and council members Addison Winslow and Tom van Overbeek. The committee failed to take any action in favor of the seniors’ requests.
Winslow said most council members seemed sympathetic to the idea in previous council meetings, so he made an effort to delve into specifics during the meeting. But others on the committee pushed back.
“I show up to the meeting thinking that, because a majority of the city council had clearly illustrated an interest in developing an ordinance, that we were in internal affairs to work out the fine details on it,” Winslow said.
Winslow made a motion to send the full council a recommendation for an ordinance but neither of his colleagues seconded it.
Committee and council member Tom van Overbeek said implementing rent stabilization could be worse in the long term and worried it could deter developers from creating housing.
“If you really look at rent control where it's been used, a lot of cities have rescinded it because it has destructive effects long-term,” he said.
The park’s owner, Legacy Communities, has increased rent by 10% each year since 2022. Last year, the company announced plans to raise it 30%, but instead reduced that raise to 10% shortly after.
“[Rent stabilization is] only something you want to do if you have an extreme situation which we thought existed when it was 30%, but not when it was 10%,” van Overbeek said.
He said inflation won’t be fixed by something like an RSO, and park owners have a right to cover rising expenses.
“I feel terrible about the people in the park,” he said, “but we're in an environment where everything is going up.”
Park residents persist
Some seniors living at Pleasant Valley said they were saddened and upset after the Internal Affairs Committee made no progress toward rent stabilization.
“Addison was the only one that spoke up for us. And the other two just turned their faces and said, ‘Oh, this is really hard for us to do, but we're going to do it anyway,’” resident Allen Johnson said.
Johnson has lived in his home with his partner since the mid-2000s. He said he expects his monthly rent to go up hundreds of dollars in the near future.
“To work a lifetime to be treated like this … I could never think of even doing something like this to somebody,” Johnson said. “And now this corporation is doing it to me and I'm hurt.”
Though the matter was only briefly mentioned on the council’s meeting agenda last week, Johnson and several other residents of the park showed up to speak during the public comment portion.
“We need rent stabilization,” Johnson told the council. “It is time for the council to do something for the senior citizens of Chico.”
Council member Dale Bennett, who represents the district where Pleasant Valley Mobile Estates is located, was in favor of seeking more information. He spoke directly to the park’s residents from the council table.
“I want to be able to assist you but I need to be able to make a decision that is right for the city of Chico and for all the citizens as well as you,” Bennett said.
After the council’s decision to have city staff look into rent stabilization, park residents like Robert Jones said they were cautiously optimistic.
“We are fighting this one day at a time,” Jones said, noting that the council meeting felt like a little bit of a victory. “They didn’t kick us out the door. So we’re going to pursue this. Whatever it takes.”
No specific date was set for staff to return with the requested information.
