The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 on a temporary emergency ordinance placing a moratorium on senior mobile home parks, effectively preventing the conversion of senior-only homes into all-ages.
A month ago, the board directed staff to come up with an interim ordinance that would protect the county’s senior-only homes, sparked in part by the recent acquisition of Del Cielo Mobile Estates in Orcutt by Harmony Communities — a company with a history of buying and converting senior mobile homes to all ages.
Mobile parks represent one of the few unsubsidized affordable housing options left for people over the age of 55. The emergency ordinance would give county staff time to establish the more permanent measures.
One of the owners of Del Cielo, and Paul Beard, an attorney representing the new ownership, argued that preventing all-ages housing was non-inclusive, and that there would be no other choice but to litigate should this go through.
Supervisor Bob Nelson said that the new owner was well aware that conversion was infeasible. “He bought a property understanding that it could not be converted, yet he’s now trying to find a legal pathway to do that — he admitted that to me in an email,” Nelson said.
Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said that the comments were an “eye-opening” insight into the new ownership’s point of view.
“If you’re going to come to the Board of Supervisors and basically threaten us and call us racist,” Lavagnino said, “I can only imagine what you’re going to be doing when you’re dealing with … people that are on fixed incomes, or elderly that might not have all the resources that we do.”
The board is scheduled to come back on December 10 to approve an extension for the moratorium to continue through October 25, 2025.
