This was certainly a challenging year for the manufactured
housing communities industry.
With remote lobbying, COVID-19 and a legislature that was
generally not sympathetic to those who invest their own private
capital into creating affordable housing for hundreds of
thousands of Californians, WMA’s team worked hard to defend the
ability of parkowners to continue providing safe and reliable
homes for residents across the state.
While the last day of session saw the passage of several bad
bills (AB 2782 and AB 3088 to name a couple), we were able to
keep the vote margins relatively thin.
Andrew Govenar and I held scores of meetings with staff and
legislators about these bills over the past several months and
our entire team – including our Executive Director Sheila Dey,
our regional representatives (Doug Johnson, Julie Paule and
Jarryd Gonzales) and our volunteer legal advisors, Terry Dowdall
and Paul Jensen to name a few – worked to educate members with
accurate and factual information.
And while the results of the last night of session were
disappointing, they were not necessarily surprising given the
political dynamics of California.
AB 2782 (Stone, D-Santa Cruz) passed with 42
votes in the Assembly, this is the bill that was amended with the
SB 999 (Umberg, D-Orange County) language, which was defeated in
the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee.
This “Jail Break” bill set a precedent in the Assembly by
allowing a bill killed in policy committee to be inserted into
another bill that bypassed the committee process to be passed on
the Floor with a bare minimum of votes. WMA and our allies
(CMPA, the California Association of Realtors, and the Security
Investment Company) worked this bill tirelessly, and that is a
large reason the bill passed with a bare majority instead of a
supermajority. The park closure portion of this bill, while
largely watered down, still has problems including requiring
in-place value and other changes.
AB 2782 has already been signed by the Governor, Chapter 35, but
it should face significant legal challenges in the Courts due to
Constitutional issues involving the interference of private
contracts along with other issues.
AB 3088 (Chiu, D-San Francisco) passed the
Assembly with 56 votes, this is the bill that prevents evictions
for non-payment of rent until 2021. This measure was
supported and co crafted by Governor Newsom.
AB 3088 has also been signed by the Governor and we will be
reviewing the language and providing updates to our membership as
we continue to work on figuring out how to comply with the
legislation.
While the end of session was a difficult one, we need to remember
that we were able to accomplish victories along the way.
SB 915 (Leyva, D-Chino) passed the Assembly with
41 votes, this is the bill that would have given renters up to 12
months to pay back rent and avoid evictions even if health and
safety violations are the reason for evictions. We were able to
hold it on call, by the time they secured the votes, it delayed
enough time for the Senate not to be able to act in
time.This measure failed because it was not acted on
by the Senate before midnight
yesterday.
This measure would have substantially conflicted with AB 3088,
but it is irrelevant now, since the bill was not acted upon in
time under the Constitutional deadline.
Additionally, the work of our members helped defeat
AB 2845 (Limon, D-Santa Barbara) that
would have prevented attorney fees from being awarded to
parkowners involved in frivolous lawsuits against them.
Our members engaged on AB 2895 (Quirk-Silva, D-Orange
County) that would have imposed a statewide rent
control cap on mobilehome parks, and we were able to defeat this
measure.
With the help of our members, we were able to defeat
AB 2690 (Low, D-San Jose) that would
have repealed the exemption on rent control for new construction.
This has been an unprecedented year for WMA as we faced numerous
battles targeting our industry that provides affordable housing
opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people in California.
While the last night of session was rough, our fight is not yet
done. In the coming year, we will continue to advocate for
the interests of our members and work to preserve an industry
that provides housing opportunities for hundreds of thousands of
families in California.
Instead of reading of this information in the newspapers or on
the Internet, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know
the results of the end of session mayhem. The good news in
all of this is that the Legislature is now gone for the year.
Thank you for your support, and please feel free to contact me at
(916) 448-7002 with any questions or e-mail me at chris@wma.org.
