Santa Clarita City Council members are expected to approve an amended mobile home park ordinance at their meeting tonight, after a February hearing that saw dozens ask the city not to implement minimum rent increases.

City officials unanimously passed the ordinance on a first hearing with a few revisions, officials said Tuesday.

“There are basically three changes,” said Erin Lay, housing program administrator for Santa Clarita. “One was to reduce the standard increase minimum from 3 percent to 2.6 percent. (If approved it would) also decrease maximum standard rent increase from 6 percent to 5 percent.”

Sand Canyon mobile home park resident Ray Henry said the city is changing the ordinance, “So the park owners would be more profitable, and to diminish the power that park residents have to appeal any rent increases.”

The city is looking to reduce appeals, which are costly for city staff and park owners, Henry said, by making additional hoops for residents to jump through to file their appeals. The appeals generally result in a significant decrease to the amount of rent requested by park owners, according to city officials.

There are two types of rent increases for mobile home park residents and the park owners: standard and nonstandard increases. Standard increases are not subject to appeals.

“We do know that, historically, nonstandard increases are significantly more expenses to park owners,” Lay said. “They are almost always appealed.”

Santa Clarita City Council members are expected to approve an amended mobile home park ordinance at their meeting tonight, after a February hearing that saw dozens ask the city not to implement minimum rent increases.

All appeals regarding nonstandard rent increases are subject to review by the manufactured home park rental adjustment panel. The panel is made up of two elected mobile home park residents, two elected mobile home park owners, and a fifth member chosen by the four.

The third change calls for city staff to develop the form for an appeal process to be approved by the manufactured home park rental adjustment panel. This is one of the biggest issues Henry has with the ordinance.

While city officials worked to tout the advantages of both sides, mobile home park residents — many of whom are on fixed incomes — registered their disapproval to changes at the last meeting, when the council adjusted the ordinance in response to residents’ concerns.

“If it’s not broken, then there’s no need to try and fix it,” said Henry, a mobile home park advocate whose spoken at at least a dozen City Council meetings on issues for residents like himself. He said the issues have been ongoing since 2006 for park residents.

He felt the changes made it harder for residents to appeal the nonstandard rent increases, adding forms that amounted to additional hoops for residents to jump through, while making it easier for the park owners to raise rates.

The city’s ordinance is limiting the grounds of appeal for which a rent hike can be challenged, he said, noting that while the city’s law calls for a form to be created with specific grounds on the form by which park residents can appeal rent increases — yet residents are not being informed of the grounds they’re going to be limited to ahead of time. Those decisions are expected to be made by the rent adjustment panel.

The ordinance’s goal is to “tighten up” the language, Lay said, “so it was clear on what was allowable and what wasn’t.”

But Henry is also unhappy park owners are able to claim two years’ worth of improvements in the notices they send out justifying standard rent increases, when the prior ordinance allowed 12 months, and now park owners will able to raise rents regardless of whether residents are notified ahead of time, he said.

The previous ordinance caused confusion and required city staff to spend hundreds of hours addressing public records request acts and issues over jurisdictions and appeals, officials countered.

The last four appeals over nonstandard rent increases cost the city about $164,000, Lay said.

Ultimately, the updates are “protecting the owners and residents of manufactured homes from unreasonable rent adjustments,” Lay said, “while at the same time recognizing the need of park owners to receive a fair return on their investment.”