City Council approves plan to divide Surf and Sand into privately-owned lots
By John Chown
The Surf and Sand is a 73-space park on 4.35 acres in the Jewel Box Hill neighborhood. At the owner’s request, and with the overwhelming approval of park residents, the park will be divided into 73 individually owned parcels with four common lots, which include three roads and the clubhouse. No permanent structures can be built on the small lots, which range from 1,528 to 2,954 square feet.
The council approved the change on Aug. 8 by a 4-1 vote with Mayor Stephanie Harlan in dissent. Harlan was a member of the City Council in 2011 when the city effectively ended its ordinance on mobile home rent control after the owners of the Surf and Sand sued.
The city had spent more than $1 million defending the rent control ordinance against other complainants, but Surf and Sand owner Ron Reed was seeking $27 million in damages and appeared to have a reasonable chance of winning his case as his mobile home park was annexed by the city after the ordinance was in place.
When the city settled in 2011, it did save rent control for those most needing it in the park, extending 34-year leases of about $400 per month to about a dozen residents who qualified as very low income. Those leases will remain in effect as each resident has the option to buy or continue renting.
Mayor Harlan suggested attaching the individual leases to the agreement to allow the subdivision, but city staff advised against it.
“This not some kind of backdoor way to get out of these leases,” said Robert DeWitt civil engineer. “I don’t know if you want to attach private leases to this public agreement. We are stating for the public record that those are binding leases and they will be honored as they have been honored.”
The City Council had a somewhat slippery issue on their hands. According to city staff and attorney’s advising the council, the mobile home park, a privately owned piece of land, is really more under the jurisdiction of the state and the Department of Real Estate.
“We grant them the ability to subdivide, but it’s still a mobile home park,” said councilman Michael Termini. “You can’t build single-family housing or an apartment complex.”
Termini said the meeting was difficult because it revisited the pain of the rent control battle, but that the change would be a good thing. He said some residents had complained about the park not being kept up, and pointed out that the situation would likely improve now.
“The best way to clean that park up is have private owners own their individual parcels,” he said. “I guarantee the infrastructure will be stellar.”
The owner had planned infrastructure improvements with the change, and once implemented, Termini pointed out, owners of individual properties had more stake in seeing that the improvements were kept up, and more legal rights in insisting that they were made.
“It’s an interesting turn of events,” Termini said.