Residents Speak Out Against Removing Rent Control

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Residents of Cavalier Mobile Home Park In Oceanside Say They Need Rent Control

POSTED: 9:15 pm PDT May 24, 2010 UPDATED: 9:35 pm PDT May 24, 2010

SAN DIEGO — For more than two decades, the residents of 19 mobile home parks in Oceanside have relied on rent control, but the owner of the Cavalier Mobile Home Park is challenging the city ordinance, calling it unconstitutional.

Pat Sherwood has lived in her mobile home for 22 years and pays a fixed monthly rent.

“I’m on Social Security,” she said. “It would hurt me.”

A few spaces down, Callie Boreski moved in two years ago but she shares the same fear.

 “I don’t know what we would do,” she said.

 Both live at 44-acre Cavalier Mobile Estates, which has 347 spaces.

 Most of the residents pay about $300 to $350 per month in rent, which the owner wants to increase.

 “If rent control is taken away it’s going to be $600 to $750 a month and a lot of people won’t be able to afford that and I’m one of them,” said Sherwood.

 Though the initial rent increase proposal was turned down, the owner is looking to sub-divide the lots and sell the spaces to those who now rent, like a condo conversion.

 “He’s never told us how much our lots would go for,” said Boreski. “I’m in a doublewide, my sister-in-law is in a doublewide but my friend is in a singlewide.”

 Other mobile home park residents worry that if Cavalier removes rent control, other parks will follow. Most believe that the conversion would be unnecessary.

 “As long as we live underneath a rent control status, it’s beneficial for both the park owner and the home owner,” said Jimmy Knott, who lives at the Lasalina Mobile Home Park.

 The conversion idea is scheduled to go before the Oceanside Planning Department on Monday night in the Oceanside City Council meeting.

 However, the city planner has said the conversion idea is an attempt to bypass the law and will likely end up in the courts.