Gilroy
 – A controversial plan to convert the city’s largest mobile
home park into for-sale
”
condos
”
will inch forward tonight, as it goes before planning
commissioners for the first round of regulatory review.
Gilroy – A controversial plan to convert the city’s largest mobile home park into for-sale “condos” will inch forward tonight, as it goes before planning commissioners for the first round of regulatory review.
The proposed conversion of 178 units at Pacific Mobile Estates does not involve any physical changes to the park at 500 W. 10th St. But it does mean residents accustomed to paying rock-bottom rents for the dirt beneath their homes may soon have to buy the land outright, or face spiraling housing costs.
State laws prevent hefty rent hikes on low-income residents who choose not to buy their land, but such laws will not protect Richard Janisch, a 75-year-old resident who pays $600 a month in rent and utilities.
“I’ll just as soon (the conversion) didn’t happen, because I’m not in the low-income bracket, and so if I choose not to buy and keep on renting, over a period of four years, my rent can go up comparable to a condominium,” he said. “It could be $1,500 a month, $2,000 a month … We don’t know where it’s going to go … Until I get some numbers and crunch them, I don’t know if I want to buy or not.”
And getting numbers has proven difficult so far. Janisch said that legal representatives of owner Don Jurow have so far refused to conduct costly appraisals of each lot.
Under state rules, appraisals are distributed to residents when the project is filed with the California Department of Real Estate, said Richard Close, an attorney representing Jurow. And that step, he said, does not occur until the city approves the plan.
“We’d be announcing pricing about a month after city approval,” he added. “People will have about six to seven months to make a decision, and we’ll work with residents for them to obtain financing, for those who want to buy.”
For those who don’t, there is little the city can do to stop the project. State laws relegate city officials to little more than a rubber stamp when it comes to mobile park conversions. The tightly controlled process begins tonight with a “tentative map” review, the phase in which city leaders scrutinize new property lines.
“The state really regulates what can be used to deny a tentative map,” said City Planner Gregg Polubinsky. “We have to review a tentative map under certain criteria and we really can’t vary from that. And then when it comes to a mobile home conversion, it’s even more limited, because the state regulates that. We have to make sure the process is done correctly. The city council can’t arbitrarily deny it.”
Conflicts between the project and the city’s general plan, zoning laws or certain other regulation are among the rare instances in which officials could block a mobile park conversion.
Once planning commissioners review the project, it will go before city council. The latter body is scheduled to review it March 19. Next, the conversion plan must undergo state screening before returning to “Gilroy for a final round of review.
To learn more about the conversion process, contact City Housing Planner Regina Brisco at 846-0242 or Susy Forbath, a paralegal for the property owner, at 310-393-4000.
