It is certainly true that the landlords - including the "Housing Council" - along with the MV Chamber of Commence - have recruited and help elect city councilmembers against any and all rent control. The 2016 initiative gave to the City Council the authority to appoint Rental Housing Committee (RHC) members to administer the rent control proposed. No surprise that the city council majority has selected some persons against any rent control to serve on the RHC. The 2016 initiative was and remains unclear about whether it extends to mobile home parks. A judge ruled the RHC was not clearly wrong in determining it did NOT extend to mobile home parks. There is an appeal. But don't count on any reversal. So what next for mobile home park residents? Reject the SNEAKY REPEAL of the 2016 initiative and elect city council candidates who actually care about mobile home park residents in November. The City Council could enact rent restrictions at mobile home parks because the limitation in the 2016 initiative on council-enacted restrictions on rent and evictions only applies (as I read it) to rental units otherwise controlled by the initiative. At the same time, the next city council could put mobile home park rent control on a future ballot and advocate statewide rent control for parks. What might be useful here is to post what mobile home park residents are paying for their structures and in rent and other charges. And if a park owner is forcing residents to sell to him or his company, let's hear about that.

The last sentence reads: "It's time to elect a City Council that will appoint a Rental Housing Committee that respects the will of the [MY PET CAUSE]."

Your argument holds no water since you want to have the non-elected, unaccountable RHC to administratively expand the CSFRA to include mobile homes. How is that reflective of a democratic society?

If the voters wanted to include mobile homes, that should have been included in the CSFRA. Rather than righteously claiming to speak for the voters, just put anther measure before the voters and see if they actually agree with you rather than this a backdoor, undemocratic expansion of the law you've been trying to do for years.

At a city council meeting it was brought up how unusual it was if a city had rent control for apartments, to not have similar protections for mobile homes since mobile homes residents are distinctly more vulnerable to exploitation given the residents’ equity is trapped in a space where the landlord controls space rent. The mobile home landlord can increase rent unencumbered by any laws (not even state rent control protects mobile homes) if residents can’t pay, the only buyer left is the landlord (all other buyers scared away by the high space rent). Sad to see the most vulnerable get the least protection. Laws are supposed to protect the most vulnerable first.

There are far more local mobile home park rent control ordinances than ordinances restricting apartment rents. There is also now a statute statute controlling many residential rent increases statewide - but expressly excluding mobile home parks. Whether the 2016 initiative extends to both apartments and mobile home parks is in dispute. Section 1717(a) of the 2016 initiative (now part of the city charter) reads: "This article supersedes any ordinance passed by the city council covering the area of rents or evictions." While this sub-section likely applies to bar later-enacted ordinances "covering rents or evictions," it concerns rents and evictions from covered units. If mobile home parks have no covered units, the city council is free to pass an ordinance concerning rents or evictions at mobile home parks.

Apartment and mobile home park rent ordinances are usually separate. A quick check on Wikipedia reveals 15 cities in CA with local apartment rent control but 83 cities and 9 counties with rent control at mobile home parks.

I'm curious and don't know the answer to this question, so perhaps someone can tell me. Mobile home residents are generally people who own the mobile homes, but rent the space. Correct? If there's rent control on the space they're renting, would that increase the value of their mobile home when they sell? If there's no rent control, the resell value of their mobile home is less. Is that correct?

All these articles about rent control are so frustrating.
The problem is not the need of rent control, the problem is the need for more housing.

Building more housing will benefit everyone.

People fighting against more housing, typically with terrible reasons, are generally people who already own something and are afraid of seeing the value go down.

The city does not allow mobile homes to be placed anywhere outside a mobile home park, the free market has very little impact on mobile homes, thus the need for regulations.

The landlords literally control every factor influencing the mobile home market.
If a resident walks away, they lose the equity of their home.

Mobile home residents cannot even rent out a room in their homes that they bought to help pay the rent. Though the mobile homes the landlord buys (at discounted prices caused by their own rent increases on previous owners), allow roommates.

See this story on the trend for private equity firms and investors buying mobile home parks directly because they know the residents are trapped to pay whatever they ask for. Web Link

Because all of the virtue signalling liberals who live here want to give the APPEARANCE of being kind and caring people while, in truth, they are more interested in artificially driving up the cost of housing to further enrich themselves.
For every 7 new arrivals to the area, only 1 new housing unit is provided.
It is PURE GREED.

The advocates of rent control, including mobile-home rent control, have been leading the fight to build more housing in Mountain View, even though it means profits for the landlords/developers who charge whatever rents the market will bear. But there is a need for rent control, to prevent displacement and limit gentrification, while we are waiting for that housing to be built.

Some may say that the Pandemic and Remote Work have solve the housing crisis, but that's like saying we don't have to address climate change because greenhouse gas emissions went down when major employers told their people to work from home. COVID-19 won't disappear magically, but it won't shut down out tech offices forever. Housing demand will rise again, and sharply.

Meanwhile, the assertion that Measure V (the CSFRA) was designed to require mobile home rent control should not come as a surprise. I was the only Council member who supported Measure V, and I said from the dais - when we put the measure on the ballot - that mobile homes were covered by the definitions in the charter amendment.

'Building more housing' always turns out to be 'building more high end luxury rentals exempt from rental control (due to Costa Hawkins)." These high end coimplexes do not serve anyone exept tech professionals who will stay in the city a few years, then move on to buy homes in a nice residential community. Too late for Mountain View, it has become a city of transients (and I do not mean homeless people). The City has given Prometheus and other developers a green light to build high density very expensive rentals, this does not address the problem, just makes money for developers and reduces home ownership oppoortunities for people who want to make a life here.

"Gary" Wesley ,attorney at law.
You seem to be knowledge about what happens in Mountain View.
Why don't you run for council and apply all the logic you have written about?

"Gary" Wesley You sound like an,attorney
You seem to be knowledge about what happens in Mountain View.
Why don't you run for council and apply all the logic you have written about?

A third of our street has moved or is moving and about ten percent of our neighborhood. Mountain View is getting hollowed out as the work from home tech workers move elsewhere. Housing availability and affordability will have worked itself out by year-end.

Looking at the report of interviews by the Los Altos Town Crier of MV city council candidates, I see two who stated they favor rent control in mobile home parks: Sally Lieber and Lenny Siegel. There are 9 candidates. If any of the other 7 wish to join in that position, post on this article.

Why isn’t anybody discussing the new research that shows even eating outdoors doubles your chances of getting COVID? Found here (Web Link titled “CDC Study: Adults With COVID-19 Twice As Likely To Say They Recently Ate At A Restaurant”

The research used California as a data resource. All restaurants in CA are serving outdoors, correct?

This means there is now scientific proof that this practice is a public danger, and all politicians are doing is trying to cover themselves regarding trying to make it more dangerous, not more safe.

The report stated:

“The study did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining. Researchers relied on interviews in multiple languages with roughly 800 people across 10 states, which did not include New York. Participating states included California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington.”

And:

“Asked about the CDC report, Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said, “It is not surprising that dining at a restaurant was found to be associated with a positive test. This is likely due to the fact that eating and drinking, two activities intrinsic to visiting a restaurant, require removal of face covering."

So are we going to take the proper actions to prevent spread? Or are we going to let more peopled get sick? This data puts the state into another crisis where it is going to likely have to reverse the outdoor dining options now.

What do the candidates think about this?

Steven, No one is biting on either of our new stories. They may be getting overwhelmed by all of the trouble in Donald Trump's world. As to the study you cite, you quote parts that may explain the result differently. The study included indoor and outdoor diners. We know that it is crazy hazardous to eat at an in-door restaurant. And second, many of the people who eat at restaurants despite Covid-19 may well engage in other risky behavior.

Gary,

From what I understand, the following states in the study prohibited indoor dining:

California has had no indoor dining. Colorado appears to have no indoor dining. Massachusetts appears has no indoor dining. Minnesota appears to have no indoor dining. These states had no indoor dining

Maryland has indoor dining with restrictions. North Carolina has indoor dining with restrictions. Tennessee has restricted indoor dining.

Ohio only recently opened indoor dining with restrictions. Utah only recently opened indoor dining. Washington only recently allowed indoor dining with restrictions. During the study they were closed

So out of the 10 states at least 7 had no indoor dining at all during the study, and 3 did with restrictions.

To me that seems pretty clear, the findings are mostly counting infections from outdoor dining as a source. I know I didn’t point this out a clearly as I should. But it really appears that outdoor dining is just not safe given that it increases your infection probability by 100%.

Maybe this makes it more clear to the readers too.

By the way, even though we have seen a reduction in infections in Santa Clara County, it is due to the fact that the air quality is so bad that people are not going to eat outdoors for the last 3 or more weeks. So do not assume that the improved numbers we have now are a good sample or predictors. The reality is that once we allowed outdoor dining as an option our infections increased significantly if you look at the history.