Buena Vista owner sues Palo Alto over closure conditions

What a mess. Now both the residents and the Jissers are suing the city. How can this get any worse.

Yikes, the Pacific Legal Foundation (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation). They are certainly one adversary that I wouldn’t want to face in court. As Michelle Tanner would say on an episode of Full House: “You’re in big trouble mister!”

Here’s a link to the announcement: http://blog.pacificlegal.org/family-sues-palo-alto-to-stop-mobilehome-park-shakedown/

I have predicted this outcome for several years. Our city council has no sensitivity to the tax payers, and private property owners of this small city.

Here we go, into the legal abyss.

Is it really true that the Jissers will have to pay $8 million to the current residents of the mobile home park in order to sell their property and get out of the rental business? Seems like a big number.

Let’s look hard into the fairness of that. Seems like a big “taking” by the Government. I think this lawsuit is necessary.

What a concept: property owners have rights! BTW, has anybody researched the crime data attributable to the residents of Buena Vista. I’m liberal, but not on this one. Remember that the Barron Park Association represents well less than half of the residents.
Ta Ta For Now

This is really not as simple as renters being evicted, because the majority of residents own their mobile homes and have in some cases paid a significant amount of money for them. Mobile homes are a really unique kind of investment. I sympathize with the Jissers, but I also think they have to take some responsibility for the limitations, not just expect an equivalent circumstance to an empty field or rental apartments. It’s not like they bought the property and then – surprise! – found out there were mobile homes on it.

This is more akin to condos, or houses on rented land, situations with dual ownership. I think people just don’t acknowledge that because of class prejudice. The residents will not only be losing a low-income housing in an expensive area, they will be losing an investment that they will not realistically be able to recover. I do not think it’s unreasonable for the laws to try to balance those interests.

These kinds of situations are not easy, so litigation will probably be precedent setting. That’s probably why PLF got involved. I hope the residents have help equal to the task so that the rules at the end of this are fair for ALL property owners involved (including the residents). The law protects property owners, but just as much, our laws protect the most vulnerable.

My heart goes out to the residents of BV.

Sounds like the city and council got it about right if both sides are unhappy – one saying “too much” and the other “too little”.

Relocation compensation for owners of non-mobile mobile homes is under California state law. Sound like the Pacific Legal Foundation is really challenging the constitutionality of the California law. Hopefully the State will help defend it.

The entire situation is unfortunate and a result of the city’s long-term errors.

The Jisser family has a point: low-income housing is the responsibility of the community, which mainly means the city. The city has failed to do anything to solve this problem, and then took the position that the Jisser family should be held responsible and forced to pay either huge relocation fees or, in the view of the residents and their lawyers, essentially allow their property to be confiscated entirely. The irony is that the person who has done the most to provide low-income housing in this community is now being punished.

It did appear that things were stabilizing. The city backed off of more unreasonable demands, and the Jissers appeared ready to pay what the administrative judge and the city had come up with. More importantly, negotiations were under way for the city and county to buy the land after the city finally accepted some responsibility. The residents were in sight of being able to continue to live there.

Then, the lawyers for the residents filed suit, in a move that was almost certain to destabilize everything. Predictably, the owners stopped negotiating for a sale, and have now filed suit against the city, as much as a defensive tactic as anything else I imagine.

We are likely to now be a very long way from a solution. Unless someone can bring the parties together, this will be a long and expensive set of court cases. Only the lawyers will win.

Well, this was entirely predictable. Thank you governing members of the city of Palo Alto who went out of their way to advance their personal interests, at what will ultimately be a large bill paid for by city tax payers.

Reading the complaint the jisser family is not asking for money from the city. Just relief from a poor decision that the city did not need to get involved in. The jisser family purchased the park in 1986. Then in 2000 did the city adopt their ordinance. That in itself should be a takings law suit. The city passed a law after they purchased the business.

Also how can Molly Stump say “no merit to their claim”. So Pacific Legal Foundation sued the city because the jissers hired them? Have you seen their resume? Please Molly sub this out to real lawyers so the city can do something right

@Kazu,

A great many postings on this topic have enumerated the property rights of the landowner but next to nothing about the property rights of the mobile home owners. That’s just an observation, about which I expressed an opinion, which I am allowed to do. I don’t see a lot of people looking at both sides.

The investment most people at BV made in their homes as a percentage of their income is substantial. BV had been operated as a mobile home park for many decades through many booms and busts. Mobile home park law has evolved over time. I think it’s more incumbent on the wealthy property owner (who can clearly afford whatever legal advice he needs), who bought the park as an investment after it operated as a mobile home park for decades, to be responsible for the limitations of the investment vehicle he chose with eyes wide open. Again, it’s not like he bought something and only then realized there were mobile homes on it. The mobile home owners, by contrast, in many cases were living in their homes when the property changed hands, or could not have anticipated such significant changes in the development environment in Palo Alto and the desires of the Jissers.

I think it is naive to suggest the residents blew any deal by filing the lawsuit. There was a statute that would have expired. Had they not filed, there is zero evidence that Jisser wouldn’t have then used the residents’ complete lack of recourse as leverage, and every reason to believe he would have. It’s not an easy situation on all sides. As I said, I have sympathy for the Jissers.

But I also take issue with the perspective that keeps getting pushed on these threads that somehow the situation is anything like apartment rentals. It’s not. It’s more like condos or owned houses on rented land. There are property ownership rights and unique circumstances on both sides. The residents of BV are human beings, residents of our city, which is another reason the city has an interest in being involved to help.

@Crescent Park Dad,

Perhaps. But if so, wouldn’t Jisser have had a time window, like everyone else, to protest or counter what he saw as an unfair ordinance? He may not have any cause to protest now, because any statute on filing may have long run. That may be why Molly Stump said the case had no basis. Did he file any legal action when the ordinance was made? The law usually takes a dim view of people trying to go back and change things to suit their purposes when circumstances change.

@ Robert Smith >> “My reading of the situation was that $8M could well be within the range of $8M that the Jissers would have to pay. I thought more like $6M based on the administrative judge’s ruling. “

It isn’t a fixed dollar amount. It is a formula that includes (among other things)…
– the Full appraised value of the in place units (valued as if the park was staying open). These final appraisals have not been completed yet and likely will see ongoing appreciation with the rest of the Palo Alto real estate market.
– Relocation expenses including storage of property and overnight(s) lodging
– On full year rental offset (diff between current rent and cost of apartment) where the apartment is sized to the number of people and unit bedrooms (permitted or not).
– assistance for special needs residents
– etc.
The residents have an individual appeal process for appraisals and relocation costs.

The $6M estimated (not sure who created that number – J. Simitian ?) total cost a year ago inflates with local real estate and rental costs and a more realistic modeling of the process and overhead costs (appraisers, relocation specialists, movers, etc). I wouldn’t be surprised to see it exceed $10M when done, and even that being the subject of multiple lawsuits by the residents – so even more costs.

The residents and city have relied upon this as a “poison Pill” for the owner. Expecting that the owner would just sell for some compromised fair market value (what is a trailer park worth?) less this $xM cost and some valuation for his headache.

So glad to see the owner standing up to this bullying and extortion!

Are there actually laws about non-mobile mobile homes? Can you provide a link? I didn’t even know that was “a thing”.

Look at this case that PFL is working on: http://www.pacificlegal.org/cases/levin-4-1528

It’s very close to Jissers’ situation. So far PFL has won.

“The U.S. District Court noted that the San Francisco Ordinance violated private property rights guaranteed by the Constitution and unfairly punished landlords for market conditions over which they had no control. “

Just what we expected.

@m2grs,
It’s not a comparable situation to speak of landlord and rent control. This is more like condo owners and someone wanting to sell the building out from under them and the condo owners losing their homes and investments. And yes, in answer to someone else above, CA mobile home precedent and statutes do recognize that mobile homes aren’t very mobile once in place. (I’m no lawyer, you can read same as I did.)

Again, since the owner clearly has no problem filing legal action, the question remains as to whether there is now cause of action because he did not try to overturn the ordinance when it was made, through the administrative measures available. He may have had to bring up the issue against the ordinance through the administrative channels first. There is a strong principle of exhaustion if administrative remedies at the federal level these days, so that even if the plaintiff has a case, if they did not exhaust administrative remedies, the courts may not even take the case, the plaintiff may have no cause of action.

The case is very simple: What are the “reasonable cost of relocation”? The state law doesn’t define them. This is likely going to be the landmark case that will.

@GreenAcres, the lawsuits in San Francisco is not about rent control at all. They are about excessive cost to evict tenants. Jissers’ case will be even more obvious, even to a legally illiterate like me, because the City of Palo Alto imposed the punitive cost *specifically* for them alone, hence even more unfair than San Fran Ordinances, which applies to all landlords.

I commend what the City of Palo Alto has tried to do. I did watch the video linked from one of the responses…..even if Palo Alto built up housing, its costs would still be prohibitive to most of us anyway, even more so to the residents of BV (look at all the dense housing complexes being built….rents or to buy is still much too high even in San Jose).

Not sure why the BV residents files a lawsuit against PA (I don’t even know kind of lawsuit). at this point I feel it is too demanding to have the Jisser family subsizde rents for 1 yr should have have to move.

I am sure there must have been some chatter way prior to this about selling the park….the park resuidents should have been starting to seek alternatives long before that. Let’s face it…they are living in Palo Alto…they knew a time like this would come sooner or a later….

I don’t feel sorry for anyone in this case…..

@ Really? – The part of the California State Law that covers mobile home parks is referred to as the Mobilehome Residency Law (MRL) and can be found at http://www.hcd.ca.gov…beginning with Section 798.

GREED.

Plenty of money has been raised to buy out that property. This is disgusting.

Here’s a copy of the lawsuit: http://www.pacificlegal.org/document.doc?id=2100

As Joe said, it’s pretty simple: Does the law require the owner to pay more than $8 million to the residents when he closes the park? The City ordinance says “yes”, but the state law doesn’t define “reasonable cost of relocation.” What are the constitutional limits of this phrase? We’ll find out.

If the City’s ordinance overstepped constitutional limits, the resident’s lawsuit filed in August saying the compensation was inadequate just disappears. The residents of Buena Vista will likely get only a fraction of compensation awarded by the City, as will other mobile home residents across the state.

Wait until the blowtorch of conservative media gets all over this. Until now, the residents have had sympathetic international coverage supporting them. That’s certainly going to change. Will our local politicians stick by the residents?

Bring in the PLF was a brilliant move. Well played, Mr Jisser, very well played.

The record strongly suggests that the Jissers were willing to pay the relocation expenses awarded by the adminstrative judge.

The city council mishandled it starting at that point.

1. The council accepted the residents’ appeal. They could have simply stated that they concurred with the judge.
2. The council then set up the appeal to look more like a political rally than a judicial proceeding.
3. Before the judicial proceeding even began, the city manager stated that he was budgeting money to buy the park. I read this as a conflict of interest, with the city acting to reduce the value of the park while also wanting to buy it.
4. Council members made numerous statements of sympathy with the residents, pointedly avoiding any positive remarks about the Jissers. If you didn’t attend the meeting, take a look at the recordings.
5. The council tried many ideas to increase the payments, including asking for another assessment on a different basis that would include the value of the schools. At the next meeting, the assessor refused to do this, and the city attorney steered the council back to the ordinance.
6. At the end, the result was not markedly different than after the administrative hearing, but the damage was done. My guess is that the Jisser family was furious with the city.

Even then, I think the Jissers would not have sued. They were considering the offers from the city/county and it seemed like they would have settled.

However, the residents and their attorneys then filed suit against the city. I think that was the moment that the Jissers’ patience ended. They saw their land being “permanently occupied” and no way to assert their rights.

All of this is unfortunate. I think the city misplayed this and failed to realize that they had to come up with “relocation expenses” and be done with it rather than trying to open the process up to arbitrary damages and excessive delays.

@Caroline,

You say “ The Jissers need to show some compassion, this seems to be lacking in the world today.” If you had said “the COMMUNITY need(s) to show some compassion”, I would have agreed with you.

Why is this issue UNIQUELY the responsibility of the Jissers? Why do we expect them to sacrifice their property while all of the rest of us continue to enjoy our property without these constraints?

It is especially hard to understand this when the Jissers have, by anyone’s accounting, provided more low-income housing than any other family in the community, and have done so for decades. We are punishing them for their previous good deeds.

Low-income housing is the responsibility of the community. Palo Alto has an enormous budget, which has grown by leaps and bounds. The city can well afford to do more for low income housing. The Jissers should be taxed along with the rest of us to help pay for this.

” I’m OK with expenditure of city funds on legal resources to mount the strongest possible defense of the City of Palo Alto’s ability to pass ordinances that embody community values and have them enforced by the courts.”

Form your own legal defense committee and use your own private money. I don’t want my city funds to be used for this craziness. We need a new police station, very badly, yet we piddle away our tax dollars on this nonsense? Get real.

Stealers Wheel, that is, 1972, but perhaps best known for the Bob’s Burgers episode “Moody Foodie” I stand by my obscure pop reference red herring not quite ad hominem or self mocking spite check of a name check

The City should repeal the BV law, offer Jisser an apology and reimburse his relevant legal costs. Maybe the lawsuit would be dropped. Justice would be served and the taxpayers would be saved money.

Caroline,
Most of these people want lower paying jobs. Earning below the “poverty” threshold allows the deadbeats to qualify for Food Stamps, welfare, Medical medial care, subsidized section 8 housing, free telephones and phone time to call their pushers, subsidized utilities, etc. A family of three qualified for ~31,000$ in non taxable welfare program benefits. Why work harder, or in many cases, work at all.
In fact, since some businesses incresed hourly wages workers are asking their employers to cut back their hours so they can continue to get all the welfare programs give them.

i wonder why the Jissers don’t give tenants a 90 day notice of rent increase? They can dramatically raise the rent and force out the tenants.

As I recall the owner of BVP wants to petition the council to get the land rezoned from mobile home park to R1 or R2 to build on it. Good luck with getting the land rezoned after suing the city.

@jane

It IS RM-15 occupied at RM-26 equivalent.
Developer want RM-30 to 60
Where did you hear RM-1 ???

There is no such thing as RM-“Mobile Home Park”

@pamom “Is there a specific law restricting rent increases just for MH Parks?”

Just Buena Vista.
PA CC enacted it in 2001.

i just read the 12 page ordinance that PA CC enacted. WOW – all those pages just to restrict one business. Just doesn’t seem right that the dire need for affordable housing is thrust upon one business. if we really value affordable housing, this should be a public responsibility. I guess it’s easier for people to be “compassionate” when the burden gets dumped on one family instead of all of us. Several people commented that the Jissers should have reacted when the ordinance was passed years ago. If it is unconstitutional, as plaintiffs allege, time will make no difference to their case. You don’t lose your constitutional rights by sitting on them.

@m.Weiss: “ the ordinance predates the the current ownership group by more than a decade that is to say it does not target the J family rather they bought the property subject to the laws we the people in our wisdom and enacted. “

No. That’s not correct.

1986: Jisser bought the Park with a partner
1999: The partner asked to be bought out, Jisser agreed and became sole owner
2001: The City Mobile Home Park Ordinance ordinance was enacted

ref: http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/34253 page 6

@Ellen “We got the ordinance because he enacted a huge rent increase to pay for his buy out”

So your saying, counter to M. Weiss, that the city’s ordinance specifically targeted Jisser ?

@ B Lerner. Yes and no. The Jissers are not suing over the State required compensation – otherwise they would also need to sue California. The issue is the constitutional legality of the additional processes and compensation requirements imposed by the CPA ordinance and the subsequent PACC rulings.

The reasons why CPA and SCC wants to keep BV go beyond BMR and/or ABAG requirements. It is a political, emotional and socio-economical grandstanding platform. Liberal vs Conservative. Housing rights vs private property rights. Diversity world vs free market world. Guilt trippers vs Capitalism. Etc.

@Ben Lerner, PACC should not have interfered at all. It is a business transaction between two private parties. Let them sort it out through normal legal process. Lawyers of BV residents dragged PACC into this. PACC fell for the trap due to its liberal guilt. Now it is a huge mess. We the tax payers will suffer. And not much public good will be created after all is done.

@Lerner : “To those of you who are very critical of the City Council over this, what would you have done differently?”

I would have thrown out the Ordinance and invalid and impossible to comply. It is so poorly written that this situation was inevitable.

The key Ordinance para-phrase is
The Owner is responsible for REASONABLE costs needed to MITIGATE the IMPACT of the residents relocation to a COMPARABLE community. The Ordinance does not spell out any objective/quantifiable criteria or formula, so it is wide open to subjective interpretations of the words: reasonable, mitigate, impact, and comparable.

The CC (acting as a judicial body) spent most of the hearing time debating what their own Ordinances wording meant. At several points, they actually asked the opposing lawyers “If we interpret it this way, will you sue us?”. The Jissers Lawyer told them that they were re-writing the ordinance, exceeding their role, and this would lead to a likely court challenge. They were warned.

The worst part was when the CC added Palo Alto schools to the comparability list (“Schools” do not appear in the comparabile community attribute list in the Ordinance). Since there are no other Trailer Parks in Palo Alto, there are no comparable communities.

I also agree that the CC having gone on record as a party to a purchase offer for the property, and then sitting in judgement with ability to increase the owners mitigation costs created an unacceptable conflict of interest.

@GoneOnTooLong, people don’t call up Congress asking “Hey what do you guys mean when you say this word/sentence in this law?” Congress does not interpret the law. Its interpretation is the job of judges. The dispute of the meaning of the word “state” in Obamacare went all the way to Supreme Court, not to Congress.

Similarly PACC should never even bothered to interpret the Ordinance for disputing parties. It was set up years ago by a different group of people under certain circumstances. It should be up to the court and judges to interpret and decide.

I’m starting to suspect that most posters have not even read the Ordinance, and any of the City documents relating to this issue, and did not attend or watch the RIR hearings.

To be clear, the PACC sat as a Judiucial body to determine whether the Owners Relocation Impact Report (RIR- which details how the owner would execute the park closure) complied with the City’s Mobile Home Park Closure Ordinance. The PACC wrote the Mobile Home Park Closure Ordinance as a legislative body in 2001.

The City’s documents can be found here…http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/news/displaynews.asp?NewsID=2235&targetid=319

@ GoneOnTooLong,

You are right about what the process was supposed to be. The PACC was SUPPOSED to act as a judicial body.

I did attend the meetings, and read all of the documents, and I felt the meetings had a carnival, political rally atmosphere. Council members all pledged their support to the residents, and never said anything the least bit positive about the owners.

It was one-sided in both tone and substance.

The park has been run as basically a slum without facilities found in other area mobile home parks with the occupants fearful of complaining. For too long the state turned a blind eye (they are responsible for enforcing mobile home parks standards). The owners benefited from a no maintenance cash stream for a long time, fully aware of all ordinances they were operating under. As someone mentioned, it seems likely that all of there legal time limits to appeal have expired, the owners signed the councils final ruling. So their only out now is to find the state law and Palo Altos implementation of it unconstitutional under the U.S. Constututuon.

You need to stand up to a bully. I hope the state helps and we as a community stand up to the bully.

I was at the council appeal meetings and was shocked with the atmosphere. The Jissers really had no support from the CC or the audience. Further the discussion among the CC was really geared toward how they could increase the mitigation assistants. As a practicing attorney I have been asked why Mr Jisser even went to these meetings. He really had no chance in that environment. The only answer is that they needed to get the CC to make their final decision. There would be no way for them to take this to federal court with exhausting their administrative remedies set by PA ordinance. This has probably been planned since the city rejected the impact report a half a dozen times. They most likely just offered the maximum allowed to get the final ok just to get this case in front of a new court. One were the law actually matters.

@GoneOnTooLong, the ordinance states that a Hearing Officer is to be assigned to approve the application for closure. Mr. Craig Larbadie, was assigned to do the work, and approved the closure plan. PACC tried to, I think probably illegally, pressure Mr. Larbadie to raise the cost to Mr. Jisser and he refused.

When BV residents appealed PACC could have just stick to what Mr. Larbadie approved and be done with it. BV residents can then choose whatever legal course they would like to take. PACC would not have put itself, and our tax dollars, into this mess.

It’s interesting to note that the judge who struck down the San Fran Ordinance is judge Charles Breyer, the younger brother of Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, who is as we all know one of the most liberal judge on Supreme Court.

While we can’t be certain judge Charles Breyer is also a liberal judge, raised in San Fran, received JD from Berkeley in the late sixties, and appointed by Bill Clinton, he certainly does not seem to be someone with a Republican ideology.

For judge Charles Breyer to strike down the San Fran Ordinance it just shows that such measures by local governments have gone too far. What PACC did is IMHO even further on left of the San Fran Ordinance. It’s hard to see how this can survive the legal scrutiny.

CRASH . . . Now there is no value to the trailers. Government has acted in a criminal fashion. You don’t know how weird California is in regards to property rights unless go to other states. On Google and climbing: The end of rent control: The battle of the Buena Vista trailer park, the Waterloo of rent control in California. In order to get the crash firmly emplaced I am declaring the: Palo Alto Property Rights Initiative Rent control on mobile parks already is the number one lesson plan in basic economics. On the internet: the end of rent control. All students of economics are also initiators as well. It won’t stop either. If there is one honest member of Palo Alto’s city council he will be the official initiator of the Palo Alto Property Rights Initiative. And he will win future elections in the banana republic of California. Times are changing.

George Drysdale a social studies teacher

@Let’s get this over with! wrote (with 129 likes):

“More power to the Jissers. City Council effed up. I am so tired of reading the sob stories of the BV residents. We owe them NOTHING.”

@Barron park 25 years wrote:

“What a concept: property owners have rights! [Portion removed.] I’m liberal, but not on this one.”

@Jerry Underdal wrote:

“No, they would be happy if the City of Palo Alto, supposed bastion of old-line liberal values…”

??

How did the city and Santa Clara county jointly decide to put 29M into this? Where do I vote to have a say on how my taxpayer money is spent? This is just irresponsible and has to be stopped.

@Jerry Underdal, BV residents are not booted to the curb. They would have been properly compensated as approved by the hearing officer. What happened to Mr. Jisser is IMO the abuse by the Tyranny of the Majority. Fortunately the Founding Fathers have devised a framework to counter this phenomenon. Hopefully Mr. Jisser and PLF can prevail.

The lesson of both Maybell and BV is very similar:

_____
Public housing projects should be funded by the broad-based public through tax dollars or private philanthropy, and not by forcing a tiny group of people to bear the costs and inconveniences.
_____

I remain in support of public housing. The city and county should use our tax dollars to pay for these things.

For eleven years in a row California has been regarded as the worse state to do business in. Palo Alto hugely differs from a rational mind set. In Washington state for instance the state buys the mobile homes when the owner wants to develop his park into a higher and better use. 5k for a single wide and 7.5k for a double wide. The owner is not a welfare office. Most all mobile home parks along the coast of California should have been developed out years ago. However, politicians declared this land to be “affordable housing” and fixed prices on the rents to make them “affordable.” The financial wreckage is enormous. Rent control in general has a devastating effect on the production of apartment houses and has cost the state billions of dollars a year as well as flunking the politicians out of high school economics a required course in high school, let alone economics 101 in college. Mr. Jisser should be voted in as the citizen of the year in Palo Alto for defending property rights and fighting the soviet era land use policies of Simitian and the city council. On top of that the city council should have their high school diplomas revolked

Geroge Drysdale a social studies teacher

Letters from BV residents to the cc for the 4/15/15 meeting can be found here:
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/46888
All except that from Ellen Gold are handwritten and indicate a lack of familiarity with the legal issues at stake. They say that they don’t want to leave BV because it is safe and affordable, their friends are there, schools are good and nearby, and healthcare is accessible. The focus of the CC meeting should have been on whether the compensation offered by the Jissers was or was not sufficient, not on whether or not BV should close, which had already been decided in the affirmative. Based on their letters (many of which were in Spanish) I would suggest that the majority of BV residents are being manipulated by outsiders who, in their crusade for “justice,” will likely leave the current BV residents without the generous relocation package they could have had if they had accepted the Jisser’s offer in spring. Perhaps residents will, one by one, accept the offer and move on.

“For eleven years in a row California has been regarded as the worse state to do business in.”

Yeah. I guess that’s why HP, Apple, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Tesla, SpaceX, Sand Hill Road, etc., etc., are in California.

Not to take this thread off topic, but don’t confuse a company’s HQ location with its taxable income locations. It is no secret to anyone that these companies run a large portion of their income into off-shore locations to avoid huge federal and state tax liabilities.