Don’t Let “Eminent Domain Reform” Slash Your Equity!

Last month, I told you about the initiative petition for the “California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act (CPOFPA),” a misleading, dishonest attempt to abolish rent control and other laws that protect renters. Like last year’s narrowly defeated Proposition 90, this initiative, also known as “Son of Prop 90,” again claims to provide eminent domain protections against the government seizing private property for another private developer, in light of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. City of New London (545 U.S. 469).

However, rather than being the eminent domain reform measure the landlords claim it is, the CPOFPA is, in fact, an attack on mobile home rent control and mobile homeowners’ rights to the equity in their homes.

In response to this deceptive scheme, the League of California Cities is promoting the “Homeowners and Private Property Protection Act,” offering true eminent domain reform, including protections for mobilehome owners. We have just a couple weeks to collect signatures to place this initiative on the ballot. Your signature is urgently needed! I have petitions; please contact me if you wish to sign this petition or are able to help collect signatures.

Unless we successfully defeat the “Son of Prop 90,” this dangerous new law would:

• Eliminate rent control and other renter protection laws. The landlords’ scheme would phase out rent control in California by prohibiting future rent control laws and would abolish rent control for spaces once the existing mobile homeowners move. As a result, this measure would jeopardize affordable housing for thousands of seniors and widows on fixed incomes, single mothers and working families.
• Attack protections for mobile homeowners. Under this new law, park owners could not be prevented from pursuing “condo conversions” where park owners can force mobile homeowners to buy the space under their homes. Many mobile homeowners would be stuck in a lose/lose situation – forced to pay hundreds of thousands for the land underneath their coaches, or tens of thousands to relocate. Unable to pay either of these costs, many seniors and low-income mobile homeowners could be forced out of their homes altogether.
• Destroy value of mobile homes. Because this dangerous measure would eliminate rent control as soon as the current tenant vacates the property, mobile homeowners will face extreme difficulty trying to sell their units. Potential buyers will be discouraged from purchasing the mobile home because rent control protections on the space will be lost when units are sold – destroying the equity and life-long investment for many seniors.
• Gut laws that protect renters, including jeopardizing the fair return of rental deposits and mandatory 30-day notice before forcing renters out of their homes, and outlawing local affordable housing and “inclusionary zoning” requirements.

YES ON REAL EMINENT DOMAIN REFORM – THE HOMEOWNERS PROTECTION ACT
Our measure, the Homeowners’ and Property Owners’ Protection Act, is an eminent domain measure that will truly protect homeowners, without the deceptive and far-reaching provisions of the CPOFPA. The Homeowners Protection Act will prohibit the government from using eminent domain to take a home to transfer to a private developer, which is exactly the concern raised by the controversial Kelo court decision, and what the landlords deceptively claim the CPOFPA is designed to do.

The Homeowners Protection Act also contains a “poison pill” provision, so that if both eminent domain measures are passed on the June 2008 ballot, our measure will prevail if it receives more “yes” votes. It is absolutely critical that we get this initiative on the ballot. I am circulating petitions. Please email me to sign the petition and to protect your rights and your equity.

For more information, visit www.eminentdomainreform.com.