For years, San Jose native Jill Borders bounced between apartments with her husband and young daughter as they found it impossible to buy a single-family home in one of the country’s most expensive housing markets.
That nomadic lifestyle changed in 2013 when the family discovered Imperial Estates, a mobile home park in South San Jose that finally brought the stability Borders had been desperately searching for. The couple’s 10-year-old daughter got to pick the paint color in her room. They got a second dog.
But in the decade since, there’s been a worry constantly in the back of Borders’ mind: What if a developer just simply purchased the park to build apartments — like what happened to a community near the Winchester Mystery House — leaving her family back where they started?
That worry is now fading, she said. On Tuesday, the San Jose City Council is set to add a layer of protection to 13 of these mobile home communities, with the goal of eventually preserving nearly 60 of these communities — the last strongholds of affordable housing in the entire region. Borders sees it as a major victory for her and everyone else who just wants a little place of their own in San Jose.
“That added layer of protection is sending a values signal,” said Borders, 56. “All homes, including non-subsidized affordable housing, is critical to preserve.”
San Jose — home to the most mobile home communities in California — has sought to beef up its affordable housing stock for years. The city estimates a whopping 35,000 of its roughly 1 million residents live in these homes, which number about 11,000.
Residents in the parks say their style of housing offers an excellent middle-of-the-road option on the spectrum of renting and owning a single-family home, the latter of which has become so out of reach for so many. Mark Thorne, a 69-year-old resident of Chateau La Salle located near Oak Hill cemetery, paid about $90,000 for his mobile home in 2001.
“We couldn’t afford to buy a single-family home,” said Thorne. “We were living in a duplex. A friend of mine found this place and said we should try to get in here.”
He estimates his 2,000-square-foot home is now worth about $300,000 — and some can fetch up to $400,000 — offering residents a nice chunk of equity.
However, ownership can have a major downside in these communities. While park residents own the home’s structure, they rent the land underneath. Many mobile home parks have property owners that lease the land, though some are overseen by homeowners’ associations.
That dynamic sparked outrage in 2013 among Winchester Ranch Senior Mobile Home Park residents.
The Arioto family had owned the West San Jose property for nearly 90 years and saw its value explode, like many other landowners in the area. The owners agreed to sell it to Pulte Homes so the developer could convert the 111 mobile homes into hundreds of apartments.
The deal riled park residents for years until an agreement was brokered in 2020 where the roughly 150 mobile homeowners were assured they would get a spot in the new development. It wasn’t the last time a mobile home park in San Jose would face redevelopment threats: Silicon Valley Village Mobile Home Park, formerly known as Westwinds, got a new operator and property manager in 2022 in a deal that appeared to ward off a developer taking interest in the land.
“It was very stressful,” said San Jose’s Deputy Director of Planning Michael Brilliot about redevelopment concerns over the past decade. “It created a wave of fear across the city.”
In response, the City Council in 2016 and 2017 made themselves the sole decision-maker on when a mobile home park can be converted.
On Tuesday, the council will vote on placing 13 mobile home parks into a new land-use category. While such a move wouldn’t outright ban developers from converting the site to high-density housing, a general plan amendment must now be submitted. And the plan would still need council approval. But Brilliot wagered that the hot political climate around this type of housing — combined with the new changes — will create a solid firewall preventing redevelopment. He said he hasn’t heard of any mobile home parks currently facing conversion into large housing developments, like what happened at Winchester.
“This is sending a message to the property owners of the mobile home parks (that) San Jose is serious about preserving this,” he said. “I think it is more the messaging.”
But not all mobile home park residents are ready to set aside their fears. Eighty-five-year-old Marge Lundberg has lived in the Mountain Springs community since 2005. At the end of the day, Lundberg said, the land underneath a mobile home park is extraordinarily valuable. In the case of the Winchester site, developers paid $50 million for 15.7 acres.
“Money speaks,” said Lundberg. “Unfortunately, (the city’s protections are) not something that is in cement.” She added that the city should seek other, more permanent options, to preserve the mobile park communities.
For Martha O’Connell, regional manager for the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League, the change is a culmination of years of work. And she’s ready for some respite.
“I’ve been working on this issue since 2015,” said O’Connell. “Quite frankly, I’m exhausted. I’m glad we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”