Controversial mobile home park management company Harmony Communities’ second attempt to raise the rent at a Nipomo mobile home park was knocked down by the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors at its May 5 meeting.
Following rent increase requests for Buena Vista Mobile Home Park and Cambria’s Oak Terrace mobile home park in 2024, which were rejected by the Mobilehome Rent Review Board and the Board of Supervisors in 2025, Harmony again asked the rent review board to approve a rent hike in October 2025.
“Staff’s interpretation forces the owner’s real-dollar profit to shrink by 40 percent of the inflation rate every year, indefinitely,” Buena Vista attorney Jason Dilday wrote to the review board. “This erosion is already evident: Owner’s 2024 net profit is nearly $3,000 less than its 2012 net profit, despite the application of general adjustments.”
Harmony—on behalf of Buena Vista—requested a rent increase of $99.53 per month for each of the 42 month-to-month rental spaces at the Nipomo mobile home park. That’s an average rent increase of 22 percent per rental.
The rent review board shot down the request in January 2026, and the Stockton-based Buena Vista LLP appealed that decision to the Board of Supervisors. The supervisors unanimously upheld the review board’s rejection at the May 5 meeting.
Deputy Auditor-Controller Michael Stevens told supervisors that they must determine whether the review board correctly applied Title 25 when it rejected the rent increase application.
Establishing mobile home rent stabilization for unincorporated parts of the county, Title 25 is the 40-year-old ordinance meant to protect both owners and occupants. Title 25 allows mobile home park owners to increase rents to an annual inflation adjustment up to 60 percent of the consumer price index for that year.
Beyond that, the ordinance also provides park owners with a hardship option. But the hardship process is narrow in scope and limited to justifying extraordinary expenses or unavoidable cost increases that prevent parks from achieving a fair return.
‘Recent global events, including ongoing conflicts and resulting increases in oil prices, have significantly driven up the cost of essential goods and services such as transportation, utilities, and food. These rising costs have placed additional strain on my limited income and were not fully reflected in the evaluation of the hardship application.’
—Jose Vidales, Buena Vista mobile home park tenant
Stevens told supervisors that Buena Vista’s appeal primarily challenges how Title 25 addresses inflation and fair return.
“They are claiming that the [review board] and staff have misrepresented the ordinance issue,” he said. “The applicant claims that the county improperly treats the 60 percent CPI adjustment as the only allowable inflation mechanism, preventing additional inflation adjustments under a hardship.”
The deputy auditor-controller clarified that multiple inflation adjustments aren’t authorized in the ordinance. Adding another inflation-based increase inside the hardship provision could result in two inflation adjustments instead of one. That duplication sidesteps the voter-approved inflation adjustment limit and would fundamentally distort Title 25’s design.
Buena Vista also updated its financial information for the rent increase request from 2023 data to 2024 data.
“That is notable since using the updated 2024 data resulted in a net operating income increase by approximately 3 percent, which seems contradictory when the applicant is claiming continued profit erosion,” Stevens said.
The county staff report said that financial records showed Buena Vista’s net profit remained relatively stable. The park’s original base net profit fell from almost $125,000 in 2012 to a little over $121,000 in 2024—marking a roughly 2.4 percent decrease over 12 years.
“Courts have recognized that rent-setting decisions fall within a broad range of reasonableness, and that small variations in profitability do not render a rent control system unconstitutional,” the staff report said. “Here, the observed change in net income falls within that range and does not demonstrate that the applicant is being denied a fair return.”
Buena Vista and Harmony representatives were absent from the Board of Supervisors meeting.
In a letter to supervisors, Buena Vista tenant Jose Vidales urged the supervisors to uphold the review board’s rejection of the rent increase.
He pointed to income loss, his neighbors’ fixed incomes through retirement and disability benefits that struggle to keep with rising housing costs, and the escalating prices of basic necessities.
“Recent global events, including ongoing conflicts and resulting increases in oil prices, have significantly driven up the cost of essential goods and services such as transportation, utilities, and food,” Vidales wrote. “These rising costs have placed additional strain on my limited income and were not fully reflected in the evaluation of the hardship application.” ∆
This article appears in Best of SLO County 2026.