Santa Barbara County Supervisors working to protect senior-only mobile home parks from potential conversion to include all-ages

ORCUTT, Calif. - Santa Barbara County Supervisors are working to help protect seniors-only mobile home parks located within the county jurisdiction from being able to convert into places that have no age restrictions.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors met in Santa Maria to discuss a potential ordinance that would keep seniors-only mobile home parks as they are.

"The Board took a look at it yesterday," said Santa Barbara County Fourth District Supervisor Bob
Nelson. "We took two actions. The first action was to put a moratorium and that essentially freezes from allowing any current mobile home park from converting over the next few months. The second action was we directed staff to take a look at developing what we call a senior overlay, where we'd be able to create a zoning level that would, assure that senior parks stay senior."

The matter was brought to the Board's attention earlier this year when a handful of residents that live in seniors-only mobile home parks expressed concern about having their parks change to a facility that would allow people of all-ages.

In Orcutt, Del Cielo Mobile Estates, located along Santa Maria Way on the Santa Maria border, has been a seniors-only community for those aged 55-years-old and over since it opened more than 60 years ago.

Earlier this year, the park's new owner, Harmony Communities, informed residents it intends to convert the park into a place with no age requirements.

According to residents, the idea was met with resounding resistance.

"We actually had a survey done," said resident Pamela Barilone. "There's about 180 units here, and I think we had at least 120 to 130 responses. Residents voted, do we care if it changes to all ages or do you want people to see your community, and the results showed that only one person voted that they didn't care if it changed. Everyone else wanted this to remain a senior-only mobile home community."

Barilone pointed out there are many reasons why current residents are against seeing people of all ages move in.

"When we chose to move here, we moved here with the intention that this is a senior community," said Barilone. "Senior communities are special in the fact that older people have special needs. Everybody here is close to each other. We get to know each other. If this were to become an all age community, we would lose that camaraderie. It would happen slowly over time, but as people move in, the community would fall apart."

She added the mobile home park was not created to handle children living there and does not currently have the proper infrastructure.

"It was built as such with no playground," saId Barilone. "There's no sidewalks. There's no place for children to ride bicycles. Older people do have special needs. Our vision isn't quite as good as it used to be, and when we back out of our driveways, we don't want to hurt a child backing up. We're very concerned about that. We're very concerned about where they would play and how they would get to school. It's extremely hazardous to try to cross the Santa Maria Way is as extremely busy in the mornings at school time, and in the evenings, people are getting off the freeway. It's very, very congested traffic, so we would be very, very concerned about, about children trying to cross that path."

Nelson said he has spoken with many Del Cielo residents and is working towards providing them protection from possible conversion.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to give staff direction to continue looking into the ordinance that would include a senior overlay, providing seniors with their desired protections.

In the meantime, an emergency moratorium is planned, which will give county staff the required time to further study the matter.

"The moratorium is going to probably come back to the Board of Supervisors next week or early November," said Nelson. "At that time, it will be a freeze on the conversion of a mobile home park from a senior park to an all age park that's intended to give staff time to come up with ordinance and do our due diligence. As we look at this, we don't want to rush to make a rule that might have some unintended consequences that we didn't anticipate previously, so this gives us a little bit of a pause and take a break. At the end of the day, we might determine that it's not necessary. Maybe the ownership group in Del Cielo may be able to work with the residents and there may no longer be the demand for them, but it is a countywide ordinance that we're looking at, so this problem might be existing in other communities."

Stockton-based Harmony Communities provided News Channel 3-12 with a written statement in response to the recent Board of Supervisors developments.

The Harmony Communities statement read in full:

"Del Cielo is well-positioned to support families, and this change will broaden housing opportunities for all in an inclusive and equitable way. We believe that a single mother with two children should have the same access to affordable housing as individuals over 55. While Santa Maria’s population is 75% Hispanic, Del Cielo remains 75% wealthier Caucasians. Senior overlays perpetuate systemic racism. We are committed to providing housing without discrimination based on race, gender, religion, or age."