Tehama County supervisors voted unanimously to approve a mobile home park rent stabilization ordinance, capping more than a year of debate sparked by residents who watched their monthly space rents jump by hundreds of dollars after a new ownership group took over local parks. The measure covers mobile home parks in unincorporated areas of the county.
The vote, reported by Action News Now, came after the board waived the ordinance's first reading and accepted its introduction, with Supervisor Greg Jones making the motion and Supervisor Steve Zane seconding it. The outlet reports the revised ordinance simplified the original proposal while maintaining its key protections for residents.
Jones said the mobile home park industry opposed the broader measure but supported retaining this particular version, according to the station's report. Supervisor Tom Walker said the ordinance contained the protections officials wanted without excessive complexity, describing it as a compromise between taking no action at all and a measure that park owners could actually accept.
A Year-Plus Fight Over Steep Rent Hikes
The push for protections traces back to a request the county received on July 22, 2025, after which a mobile home park rent stabilization ad hoc committee worked with county counsel to develop the proposed rules, per the same account. Those protections were meant to respond to community concerns over mobile home housing affordability and tenant stability, the outlet notes.
Supervisors had actually been wrestling with the issue even longer. KRCR reported that supervisors first discussed rent control for mobile home parks back in June 2024 and asked staff to return with more information before moving forward.
The urgency grew from real numbers. Residents at River Bluff RV & Mobile Home Park in Red Bluff reported rent increases of hundreds of dollars per month after Park Nation bought the park, Action News Now reported in earlier coverage. At Bend Mobile Home and RV Park, KRCR reported that residents were hit with increases exceeding 50% after Park Nation took over management, with the company announcing rent hikes ranging from 40% to 60% of previous rental agreements. One resident told the station his rent went from $494 to $850 in just three months.
Earlier Draft Called For 5% Cap, Just-Cause Evictions
Before the simplified version passed, earlier county proposals would have capped annual rent increases at mobile home parks at 5% and extended just-cause eviction protections to residents, Action News Now reported in its initial coverage of the proposal.
Not everyone welcomed the earlier drafts. The Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association opposed an earlier Tehama County draft and pushed the county to mirror state law as closely as possible, according to a report from Yahoo News. Gabriel Hydrick said staff were directed to align the ordinance more closely with state intent, and the board reviewed a draft version on September 15, 2026, before staff incorporated requested revisions ahead of this week's approval.
How Tehama Compares to Other California Counties
Tehama County now joins a growing list of California jurisdictions with some form of mobile home rent protection. As of May 2024, roughly 90 cities and 10 counties statewide had mobile home space-rent stabilization ordinances in effect, according to a profile from the Association of Bay Area Governments.
Those local approaches vary widely. Humboldt County's ordinance, dated January 2017, ties rent increases to 100% of the Consumer Price Index and covers 42 parks with 1,095 spaces, according to a survey from the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League. Modesto's program, in place since October 2007, similarly uses a 100% CPI formula across nine parks with 1,400 spaces. San Luis Obispo County takes a narrower approach, applying its rent-control ordinance only to residents with month-to-month space-rent agreements rather than long-term leases, according to the San Luis Obispo County planning department.
State law also shapes how far local ordinances can reach. The California Attorney General's office notes that many cities and counties maintain separate ordinances providing rent-increase or eviction protections for mobile home owners who rent lots in mobile home parks. Under Assembly Bill 1035, state rent-cap provisions do not apply where a local government had already adopted an ordinance, rule, regulation or initiative measure setting a maximum rent before January 1, 2024, according to the bill's text on file with the California Legislative Information website.
Tehama County's new ordinance is meant to balance tenant protections with mobile home park owners' concerns, per Action News Now's report, though the exact rent cap, effective date, and enforcement details of the final adopted version were not laid out in the available coverage of the vote.
