Featured Case

San Rafael’s Mobile Home Rent Control, Without Vacancy Decontrol, Is Unconstitutional

MHC Financing Ltd. Partnership v. City of San Rafael

Contact:      R. S. Radford

Status:      Amicus brief to the Ninth Circuit in preparation.

Summary:
In a lawsuit brought by MHC Financing Ltd. Partnership, a mobile home park owner in San Rafael, the federal district court found that the vacancy control provision of the city’s mobile home park rent control law violated the park owner’s constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause.

The city has appealed.

As amicus in support of MHC on appeal, PLF argues:

1) Jurisdiction in federal district court was and is proper because California state courts do not offer a reasonable, certain, and adequate procedure for obtaining just compensation for a regulatory taking effected by rent control.

2) The trial court properly found that San Rafael’s vacancy-control provisions serve merely to transfer the value of the owner’s property to existing tenants of the mobile home park, imposing a significant economic burden and interfering with the owner’s distinct, investment-backed expectations, thereby comprising a taking under the Penn Central test.

3) San Rafael violated MHC’s substantive due process rights by adopting a rent control law that fails to substantially advance legitimate state interests. The trial court erred in evaluating the owner’s substantive due process claim under the deferential, “rational basis” standard of review. PLF argues that this claim should have been reviewed under the elevated scrutiny of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, in which case the court should have found a violation of the owner’s due process rights.