Owner of Thunderbird Oaks Mobile Home Park in Thousand Oaks Seeks 62% to 100% Rent Increase From Tenants
Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 11:43AM Follow-up: Ultimately resolution was reached between owners and tenants, as discussed in this City of Thousand Oaks TV video:
In a "Rent Adjustment Application" dated May 27, 2010, the owner of the Thunderbird Oaks Mobile Home Park asked the City of Thousand Oaks Rent Adjustment Commission to increase monthly rents charged to 161 tenants by $323.52 per month.
Tenants in this 55 and older mobile home park currently pay monthly rent ranging from $321 to $525 to rent the spaces where their mobile homes reside. This proposed increase would thus raise the rent of these mostly fixed income tenants by 62% to 100%.
Tenants were notified last week that a required hearing to address the proposed rent increase will take place on Tuesday, October 5th RECENTLY CHANGED TO MONDAY, OCTOBER 18TH (NOTE: After owner submitted another revised application, the hearing was rescheduled to Monday, January 10, 2011) at 6 p.m. at the City of Thousand Oaks City Council Chambers (Scherr Forum located on the 2nd floor), Civic Arts Plaza, City Hall, 2100 Thousand Oaks Boulevard.
The Rent Adjustment Commission will render a decision by October 20th. In the notice, tenants are "encouraged to seek legal representation of their interests at the hearing."
Needless to say, tenants are up in arms. Imagine living off of Social Security with a fixed income, opening the mail and discovering your landlord wants to nearly double your rent.
I was shocked to hear about this but even more shocked when I reviewed the application. I thought perhaps the landlord was in dire straights to necessitate such a large increase. But discovered that's not the case.
In the application, the landlord is seeking "Just and Reasonable Return." It indicates 2009 Net Operating Income (NOI) was $443,550, or about $2,570 per tenant. The landlord says it "should" be making $1,006,667 NOI, more than double its current profit. To do so, they propose increasing the monthly rent for each tenant by $322.52 per month.
In addition to the monthly rent, tenants also pay their share of utilities, including electric, gas, sewer, trash, etc. If approved, this increase will significantly impact several hundred seniors living in Thousand Oaks in the middle of some very financially challenging times.
Thunderbird Oaks is located in Thousand Oaks near The Lakes shopping center bordered by Conejo School Road and the 101 Freeway.
Reader Comments (6)
My mother lived in Thunderbird Oaks from 1987 until 2007 at her death. She lived on Social Security. There wasn't a month that went by that she didn't fear that she would receive a rent adjustment in the mail. This potential rent increase would have had catastrophic results on my mother just as I am SURE it is on those still living in Thunderbird Oaks! If you open a "Seniors" Mobil Home Park, you should be prepared that your profit margin will not be the same as if it wasn't a Senior's park. Springing such huge increases on the elderly is cruel. A lot of these seniors don't have any other options. I hope the city of Thousand Oaks will stand behind the residents of Thunderbird Oaks and disallow such a huge rate increase!
I am a resident of Mfg Home Park in Oregon, if those type of rent increases were to occur, most parks here would be left without paying tenates, the Seniors would move into Apts for limited income people, no one would buy the empty units because they could not pay the pymt on their unit and sitll pay $900 or more for their space rent, so, low cost housing and condos would be a better option for anyone on low income, mfg homes would be priced too too high, not worth purchasing them anymore, not sure why the parks want to get rid of all their tenates? it also would be impossible to sell the units, no where to put them.
My Mother-In-Law has a mobile home in the Racho Mobile Home Park in Thousand Oak. We were just notified that the same owner of the Thunderbird Mobile Home Park has applied to the city for a rate increase on those lots of apx. $900/mo.
What is going on? This park is also full of senior citizens on fixed incomes. My Mother-In-Law lives solely on Social Security and barely anything left at the end of the month. This rate increase will displace everyone in this park and where are they supposed to go? They won't be able pay the huge increase and probably won't be able to sell their mobile home because very few people would move into the park with such high lot rentals.
So, what you have are senior citizens that can't afford the rate increase and can't sell their mobile homes, They have lost their home, their independence and most importantly they become homeless!
Kathy, show your support for the tenants of Thunderbird Oaks Mobile Home Park at the hearing scheduled at City of Thousand Oaks City Council Chambers (Civic Arts Plaza Scherr Hall) at 6pm on Monday, October 18th. http://toaks.org/news/displaynews.asp?NewsID=1702&TargetID=1 Hearing was originally scheduled for October 5th but the City recently pushed it back.
To Kathy from the the October 11,2010 post: Are you saying that the Ranch and the Thunderbird Mobile Home Parks are owned by the same CORPORATION?
Jan, yes, that is correct. Ranch and Thunderbird MHPs are both owned by the same owner.