After two years of waiting, San Jose mobile home owners say the city has reneged on a promise to provide them with more protection.The San Jose City Council in March 2020 unanimously approved a plan to place all 58 mobile home properties under the same land use designation, but only two sites have received the new layer of protection, officials said last week, leaving the remaining 56 properties in limbo..For the next fiscal year's budget, the city also reduced the original $381,000 budget for land redesignation to less than 8%, or about $30,000.The new land use designation—mobile home park—limits housing density to 25 homes per acre and only allows mobile homes and amenities such as clubhouses, community rooms, pools, and other common areas.The designation also requires the City Council to approve any request to close a park or convert it to alternative uses, making it difficult for developers to get involved with high-density, market-rate housing.Mobile home owners, most of whom are seniors living on fixed incomes and low-income families, said the lack of progress is a betrayal."They promised to do this in 2020," a housing advocate told San José Spotlight."(Mayor) Sam Liccardo sat there and said, 'I'm going to vote yes on this to give you peace of mind,' then we were betrayed."The advocate requested anonymity for fear of retaliation after some city officials claimed residents spread misinformation at a meeting.One mobile home owner who spoke to San José Spotlight after the meeting said others shared the same concerns about retaliation.City officials said the lack of progress on changing the designation was due to insufficient funding and a shortage of workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Liccardo, who rejected pleas from several councilmembers to fully fund the project last week, said the city made no promises, despite voting yes on the plan in 2020. He said prioritizing the initiative would slow progress on other housing projects. affordable.“The City Council knows how to make a promise, whether it's saying they're making a promise or signing a contract.The council did neither of those things on March 10, 2020,” Rachel Davis, a spokeswoman for Liccardo, told San José Spotlight.City officials said changing the land use designation for all parks would not add more protection, noting that San Jose added a host of other protections, such as a program to provide relocation benefits for displaced mobile home owners. and other compensation for their homes in 2016.The remaining 56 parks are already zoned under low-density housing designations that allow up to eight houses per acre, Deputy City Manager Rosalynn Hughey told San José Spotlight.The city can't stop owners from selling their properties, but any plan to convert a park needs City Council approval under current rules.But mobile home park residents still want San Jose to deliver on the commitment it made to them years ago.Dozens of residents from at least six mobile home parks sent letters before last week's meeting urging the City Council to fully fund the initiative.Approximately 100 Pepper Tree Estates Mobile Home Park residents also signed a petition to support the efforts.“We are asking the mayor and all (council members) to finish what they unanimously voted to accomplish two years ago,” the petition says.Mobile home parks are considered one of the last remaining affordable housing options in the heart of wealthy Silicon Valley, a region where the housing crisis continues to rage and the homeless population has skyrocketed in recent years.The issue highlights San Jose's challenge in balancing preserving its existing affordable housing and creating new ones, Councilmember Pam Foley told San José Spotlight.Foley, along with Councilmembers Sergio Jiménez and Raúl Peralez, advocated that the mobile home park land use change be fully funded."I was disappointed and a little bit frustrated," Foley said, referring to the slow progress.“I understand that we are short-staffed, but we made a commitment to our community and we must deliver on our commitment.”San Jose is working to identify the highest-risk mobile home parks, with plans to report back to the city's Community and Economic Development Committee later this year, city officials said.Foley said her goal is to achieve land use designation change for all mobile home parks within the next two years."We'll keep going," Foley said.“I am committed to doing the work we need to do to put peace of mind back in the minds of mobile home owners.”A years-long fight for protectionSan Jose, one of the most expensive places to live in the country, has more than 11,000 mobile homes and 35,000 people living in its parks, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.Many fear that mobile home parks have become easy targets for redevelopment in recent years, as residents own their homes but not the land they sit on, leaving few options if homeowners decide to sell the land.Efforts to protect these homes in San Jose began nearly a decade ago, when residents of the Winchester Ranch Mobile Home Park faced displacement.The Cali-Arioto family, which owns the land, wanted to sell the 15.7-acre site to housing developer PulteGroup.The developer wanted to build luxury homes, Nadia Aziz, directing housing attorney at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, told San José Spotlight.The foundation worked with the owners throughout their years of struggle.As more than 100 older Winchester Ranch park residents protested the closure, San Jose put a temporary moratorium on mobile home park closures from 2015 to 2017.After seven years of mourning, the developer agreed in 2020 to allow Winchester Ranch owners to stay on the property in upgraded condominiums at the same rates, a victory for both developer and residents.Months before the pandemic began, the city's largest site—the Westwinds mobile home park on Nicholson Lane in north San Jose—was under threat of closure, reportedly displacing more than 1,600 residents at the site. .The threat prompted the City Council to unanimously approve the creation of a new land use designation to bolster protection for all mobile home parks, including Westwinds and Mountain Springs because they were considered high risk for redevelopment.They were previously zoned as "urban residential," allowing a developer to build up to 95 high-density homes per acre, city officials said.Over 100 mobile home owners flooded City Hall in 2020 to advocate for change.“It adds another layer of protection because it adds an extra step,” Aziz said, referring to the land designation."It's also important because the City Council is signaling that they value mobile home parks and they value low-income families and seniors staying in San Jose."Mari Jo Pokriots, who fought for residents at Winchester Ranch Park, said San Jose should do everything it can to protect mobile home residents."These are people who clean houses, work in supermarkets, or in our case, are elderly people," Pokriots told San José Spotlight."I feel absolutely sad that they did not stick to their own words."Contact Tran Nguyen at [protected email] or follow @nguyenntrann on Twitter.Our journalism is made possible by donations from readers.If you value what we do, please contribute and help keep this vital resource accessible to all.Make your donation now.Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.We're changing the face of journalism by providing an innovative model for delivering independent news to the 10 largest city in the country.Mobile home parks are obsolete.Give the current owners some money and replace them with single-family homes.Instead, density freaks want to shove or shove more people, as many as possible, into the dirt, and sing "Build, Don't Get Out."(A portion of these are also skyscraper fanatics, neither knowing nor caring about the additional cost of building these structures any more than they are aware of the height limits imposed by the presence of the airport.)In practice, they are useful “fools” for developers and eager-to-please politicians, most of the time, especially when they also often support or even insist that off-street parking be inadequate or non-existent.So Councilwoman Pam Foley says the City Council "made a compromise" that remains unfulfilled.Meanwhile, the mayor's spokesman Sam Liccardo says no "promise" was made.What gives?Also, why would land redesignation funding be cut by more than 90 percent from $381k to $30k if the city's fiscal situation is excellent, as Mayor Liccardo recently boasted?The City Council must be serious about preserving existing affordable housing in the form of mobile home parks.Mayor Liccardo is a liar."Selfish dishonesty" is what I think he might call it.More virtue signaling.The problem is that RVs, like the comically wasteful little house idea that Sam supports, take up too much space.He can build 4 or more houses on the square footage occupied by a single mobile home.Do you see why that is not sustainable in the Bay Area?It's time for the rich and privileged to pay their fair share and help those less fortunate.Vote for those who are willing to make this happiness, after all the privilege and the rich can afford to pay more taxes, so this doesn't cost less privileged people a dime.Isn't that normal for the course?It is ALWAYS the little ones who are deceived by the LYING GOVERNMENT AT ALL LEVELS.Look at the National Level right now, SO MANY UNKEEPED PROMISES!This kind of “goings one” is never going to end.THE REALLY SAD PART IS THEY LIE TO YOUR FACE AND THINK IT'S OKAY!!!And when he calls them GOOD, it must be done incognito because of the backlash, AND THERE IS BACKBACK, for going against crooked "EASY POWERS".Mobile home parks are an outdated and inefficient form of housing and land use in the midst of an increasingly dense urban environment.They need to be phased out and properly replaced by apartments, transit, etc.Efforts like this are overdue and another cause of homelessness and the oppressive cost of living in California.If you argue that mobile homes are an “inefficient and outdated form of housing and land use,” then you must simultaneously argue that single-family homes are too.In fact, single-family homes are a FAR more outdated and inefficient form of housing than mobile homes.Single family homes are less dense than mobile homes.Single-family homes have front and back yards, while mobile homes do not.Single family homes have sidewalks in front of their homes to walk on, mobile homes do not.Single-family home neighborhoods allow for street parking in front of their homes, while mobile homes do not have on-street parking in front of their homes.Single family homes are completely outdated if your standard is density.But you will choose mobile homes because it somehow feels very convenient.Would you mind applying your rule to single-family homes and telling us who you are?Single family homes take up between 68% and 93% of all land in San Jose (the percentage depends on who argues what argument, it's ridiculous), and mobile home parks take up less than 1% of the land in all of San Jose .!LESS THAN 1%!Is it really too much to ask;live in a mobile home when the city of San Jose has made it impossible to buy a home any other way?Try to make that mental connection the next time you want the less wealthy among us to be kicked out.It's always the poor who move in first before the big single-family landowner who gobbles up a ton of space.If you're willing to see single-family homes torn down in favor of more units, fine, fine.At least you're consistent.But don't think for a moment that those of us who live in a mobile home are willing to live on the fifth floor of a box.We are here for a reason.We want a slice of what most people want.A small patch of land to grow something.The ability to own property.Paint our walls.I have a dog.Having relatives finally visiting because you now have room for a table of six.I get it, these dreams are for those who can shell out $1.2 million for a house with the land.The 1% of land that mobile homes occupy is simply causing San Jose to have nowhere to build!THEY NEED THAT 1%!It's always so easy to go after the underdog, isn't it?The red line was very easy for the landlords and the banks too.I'm pretty sure they were also saying they were just being "efficient".How about we first demolish all the single family homes that take up MUCH MORE SPACE and then pursue the most affordable and dense form of home ownership that we currently have in San Jose?How about that Mr. San Jose Resident too cowardly to say who you are?Is space your greatest asset?I suggest that San Jose get out of its overall agile plan and create HOMEOWNERSHIP opportunities for families instead of thinking we all want to live in a box and rent forever!Where are our three and four bedroom homes for families where they can own them and stay stable?They do not exist!So we find a way and buy a mobile home and become the target of self-righteous know-it-alls who claim that "efficiency" is the most important value.You want to extract more units from LESS THAN 1% of the land in San Jose housing that currently houses seniors and less wealthy families.Pick the single-family homes that currently take up 94% of all our land (that's the city's favorite percentage to use).Keep that percentage in mind the next time you argue.94% vs. less than 1%.Go mess with the 94%ers (single family homes).San Jose has done a horrible job of creating homes that can be OWNED and the mobile home parks created a path that the city seems unable to handle.Please take your "efficient" land use argument to the single-family home crowd and leave us alone.My God, no yards or land and we just want to have a little bit of the American dream.Just a small part of the dream, please.One can be born here in San José but it means NOTHING.Get in your one bedroom box!If you can afford that.Get in your box!12 to a room!No mobile homes!We could have more boxes where people PAY RENT and never have a shred of it!Yes please, more rental boxes for everyone!Just keep in mind LESS THAN 1%, choose large single-family home lots first.I tried as much as I could to defend the anti-SB9ers, but now?The gloves are off.Won't you protect us?We do not protect you.All we want is a place we can call our own, other than a rent box, and stay in the city we were born in.How about comparing the inefficient use of precious resources like water?Take a look at Google maps and count how many pools there are in single-family neighborhoods.ONE pool for ONE family in single-family home neighborhoods.Here in a mobile park?ONE swimming pool for 179 families.Every day there are one or two families in the pool.On the weekend there are between four and five families.We share ONE pool among 179 families.That's a much better use of resources than single-family homes with a pool just for that family.Let's talk about obsolete and inefficient!So let's compare.Mobile home parks to single family homes.If it were up to me, which it isn't, I'd be letting the mobile home park owners go out of business after buying out the current residents.Kind of crazy to own the structure but not the land under it.You do not own the land in a mobile home park.That's the problem.Mobile homes are not mobile.If the owner wants to do something else, he can't just pack up and move his mobile home.Mobile home parks are a BIG SCAM.The only winner is the park owner who gets away with renting the lot.Sure there is rent control on the lot rent, but that is not a guarantee if at some point the park owner wants to close and sell the land.New mobile homes are $350K with lot rent over $1K per month, so it is not affordable housing.If mobile home parks are a "big scam," why are they legal?Why don't the state and federal government crack down on these scams?Park owners have been allowed to create entire neighborhoods and call them businesses.That's why.The landowner is always seen as a kind of king and businessman.If it's a scam, let's take them to court and shut them all down!What is the crime?I charge rent to live on a piece of land.Hmmm.Maybe that's a scam!!!In the US, these businesses have been the only way we've had housing stability compared to the crazy rental market.In my opinion, the real scam is RENT shelter!!!San Jose wants more "affordable housing" and that means only homeowners and renters.There is something missing hoapres.If everyone who rents moves out to buy a property and only the owners remain, that would be great!You and I agree that everyone should own and no one should rent.We just don't agree on how to get there.The land must be owned by the community.Period.Everyone should pay land rent to the community and everyone should have stability rights.It is quite naive to believe that legal scams do not exist.Considering that mobile homes are a scam.You can't move a mobile home as the costs are too prohibitive.YOU DO NOT OWN THE LAND UNDER THE HOUSE.Here is another problem.Mobile homes older than the 1990s are at the end of their useful life.If the mobile home owner does not allow NEW mobile homes in vacant lots, YOU, as the current mobile home owner, ARE OUT OF LUCK.NO ONE is going to buy an end-of-life mobile home knowing the park is going to level out.You do not have any equity since YOU do not own the property.You paid for something for maybe 20 years with nothing to show for it.Yes... my 94 year old mother, my 14 year old special needs son and I were wrongfully evicted after living in the same place for over 30 years with no complaints or anything against us.The manager is STILL working there after she made our lives hell and we'd rather move than stay somewhere where we get bullied every day...so we're homeless and they just laughed.Now my mother died being "homeless" and I am disgusted and disgusted by these people.Who feel they have the power to crush people's lives whenever they want.I'm talking about the current manager and assistant manager of SOUTH BAY MOBILE HOME PARK AT 1350 Oakland Rd San Jose, CA 95112. They really need to be stopped from bullying all the seniors there.It makes me sick to my stomach.Mobile homes give people a chance to live in something other than being stacked like ropes of wood surrounded by nothing but asphalt and concrete.If we want everyone to live like warehouse chickens, we should put them in cages that have enough space to use their iPhones.DO NOT BUY A MOBILE HOMEI understand why people want to buy one because that is the only way some can get something similar to a single family home.MOVE out of the area and buy a single family home somewhere else.It's crazy.People are spending over $300K on a mobile home with space rentals over $1K a month.The San Jose Property Rights Initiative has, in effect, ended rent control in San Jose.The initiator first explains to the city council where his decision-making is wrong.In detail this was explained.Read online: George Drysdale on rent control.All the candidates for the upcoming San Jose elections will be totally against rent control, there is no other option.All social studies teachers in high school and college are against rent (price) controls.This announcement after another plague will crash the mobile home resale market.Owners of rent controlled units will blithely wait and not transact knowing that things will get much better for rental unit production and their bottom line.Also, I think, because of the San Jose Spotlight open forum, future funding for this open forum shouldn't be an issue.Rent control is the number one topic in Economics.Your email address will not be published.Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.We're changing the face of journalism by providing an innovative model for delivering independent news to the 10 largest city in the country.Now on the App Store and Google PlaySan Jose residents deserve a trusted source for unbiased and independent political news.And we are here to provide it.San José Spotlight is the city's first community-supported, nonprofit digital news organization.We're changing the face of journalism by providing an innovative model for delivering trusted, truthful news to the 10 largest city in the nation.We're partnering with you, the readers, to make this happen.This is your newsroom.Submit a news tipSan José Spotlight is a project of the San José News Bureau, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization |CIF: 82-5355128.|All donations are tax deductable.Your gift to San José Spotlight today WILL be TRIPLED!Your support allows us to have incredible reporters like Tran Nguyen, who work tirelessly to bring you detailed stories that directly affect your life.No thanks, i do not care!Thanks, I'm not interested or I'm already a subscriber