If it wasn't paradise, it was close enough. Tucked into 15 1/2 acres in west Huntington Beach, within hailing distance of Huntington Harbour and the Pacific Ocean, and graced by Southern California weather, the mobile home park residents generally considered themselves lucky to be where they were.
But there was something even better than geography and weather for the senior citizens who lived in Huntington Harbour Mobile Estates: a 1971 lease with a 55-year life span that became a financial security blanket.
Under the lease, rents could be raised only at five-year intervals and the land under them was zoned for mobile homes, greatly mitigating potential rent increases that would have resulted if it were zoned for other purposes.
A sweet deal for the residents? You bet.
At least, it was.
Now the 180 residents are finding that even the cost of paradise is negotiable.
Last December, Burnham USA, a commercial real estate investment firm in Newport Beach, bought the land for $19 million.
And in the year since, residents say, the company has made their lives miserable.
After hiring inspectors, it has cited the residents for more than 400 violations of state code, according to Howard Cook, a board member of the residents' corporation that essentially manages the property.
Most of them were frivolous, Cook says, but some came with threats to cancel the lease if there was noncompliance.
But even the frivolous ones, he says, sometimes require money to fix.
But those were mere sidelights, Cook says.
Burnham's most serious challenge is to the lease itself. The company contends it shouldn't be interpreted to mean that appraisals should be based on mobile home zoning.
Rather, its attorneys say in an Orange County Superior Court suit against the residents, the lease language specifies for "fair market value" appraisals of the premises "based on their highest and best use exclusive of buildings and improvements. . . ."
The sentence concludes, however, with these words: ". . . and consistent with the zoning classification existing or obtainable" when the appraisal is made.
To the layman, the sentence seems to say conflicting things. Is the land to be appraised as vacant land and at its highest possible use or on its current status as a mobile home park?
That's why it's going to court.
If the residents lose, Cook says, many won't be able to afford the potential rent increases.
