ENCINITAS — The City Council rejected comprehensive rent control as an option for maintaining affordability in the city’s mobile home parks during a public workshop April 2. Instead, the council looked at ways of securing residents’ rights and assistance.

The workshop was the third in a series held over the course of a year. The council authorized $45,000 to initiate the study in February 2007 with an eye toward gaining a better sense of the current housing stock that exists within the city’s 11 parks.

Thomas P. Kerr, Inc. was contracted to assist city staff in conducting the study in order to recommend strategies to encourage conservation, rehabilitation and maintain affordability within the parks, according to a staff report.

Councilman Dan Dalager expressed an early interest in keeping existing mobile home and trailer parks viable within the city. He said the council should look at ways to preserve the areas in the face of soaring real estate costs without enforcing rent control. No council member has said they support any form of rent control.

Several mobile home residents expressed concern with the rising rents and lack of affordability. “We are focusing on affordable housing tonight and it is only affordable if it fits into the residents’ income,” said Richard Bentiff, a longtime resident of the Sea Aire mobile home park. Bentiff told the council he lives on a fixed income — as do many of the mobile home park residents according to the survey.

Staff presented several options to the council on ways to preserve the parks, maintain affordability and offer mobile home rehabilitation assistance to residents. The report outlined programs in surrounding cities that limit rent increases, provide zoning restrictions for mobile home parks and provide rental assistance.

Park owners and some residents encouraged the council to consider the

differences between parks in its deliberations. “You probably have our best interests at heart but you’re only here for a few years,” Gordon Bown, a Park Encinitas resident told the council. “So, we think we’re better off with no interference at all at this time from the council.”

Others, especially residents of The Sands mobile home park, disagreed. “There are two things that could take care of the Encinitas mobile home residents,” said Chris Carbonel, a resident of the Sands. “The city could pass an ordinance that says you have to have 51 percent of the residents agree to conversion. Ventura County just passed and ordinance to that effect, or you can have rent control.”

The Sands ownership opted for a conversion into subdivided lots last year. The subdivision would convert the park’s 56 individual spaces of land on North Coast Highway 101 in Leucadia into resident-owned plots. Built in 1947, the park is just two blocks away from the beach. Currently, residents own their homes but not the land beneath them.

The council will take up the issue again at a public workshop after staff has an opportunity to formulate a final report.