San Jose Municipal Code Part 1 Purpose

The council of the City of San José finds and declares as follows:

A. There is a shortage of and an increasing demand for all types of housing in the City of San José. This circumstance, coupled with the rising cost of developing new housing, the unavailability of land, and other factors, has put substantial upward pressure on residential rents.

B. The City of San José contains a limited number of mobilehome parks that rent mobilehomes or mobilehome lots to a significant number of the city's population. The vacancy rate among these mobilehome parks is very low and there is also a shortage of available mobilehomes and mobilehome lots in neighboring communities.

C. A substantial majority of mobilehome residents in the city own their own mobilehomes and virtually all mobilehome owners have made a substantial financial investment in their mobilehomes.

D. The cost and risk of potential damage in moving mobilehomes is great, as is the cost of preparing a new site and meeting the code requirements for installing a new mobilehome.

E. Recent changes in state law regarding mobilehomes have imposed substantial limitations on the ability of owners of older mobilehomes to relocate such mobilehomes.

F. A significant proportion of mobilehome park residents are senior citizens, many of whom live on limited or fixed incomes.

G. This chapter is a necessary measure to protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of San José.

(Ords. 22020, 22053, 22284.)

The purpose of the city council in enacting this chapter is to prevent excessive and unreasonable rent increases to mobilehome park residents, to prevent an exploitation of the shortage of available mobilehome lots in the city, to permit mobilehome park owners to receive a fair and reasonable return, and to establish a process for rent dispute resolution.

(Ord. 22284.)

No provision of Chapter 17.22 of Title 17 of this Code shall be applied so as to prohibit the administrative hearing officer from granting a rent increase that is demonstrated necessary to provide a mobilehome park owner with a fair return on investment.

(Ord. 25996.)