Residents of Sonoma Grove, a trailer park where steep rent increases are set to go into effect next month, say they are encouraged by the Rohnert Park City Council's willingness to help out.
Council members want to explore the possibility of facilitating the sale of Sonoma Grove to a nonprofit group to help keep rents affordable.
Council members also want to initiate a dialogue with the new owner of the Grove to see whether pending rent increases can be phased in gradually.
"It's more encouraging than I thought it would be," longtime resident James Kline said of the City Council's response to the plight of the low-income residents. "I think the City Council is behind us and will do what it can do."
Sonoma Grove dates to 1972, when it became a housing alternative for nearby Sonoma State University students.
The hippie vans, converted buses, tents and ramshackle structures were replaced over the years by travel trailers that housed a diverse community of students, children, the working poor, the disabled and the elderly.
Residents say it is a verdant, tranquil place where people look out for each other.
It is the cheapest place to live in Rohnert Park, but a new owner who bought Sonoma Grove last year is planning rent increases as much as 83 percent.
For example, residents of the smallest trailer spaces, who pay $215 a month now, are facing a rent increase to $395.
City Council members said they want to help stabilize the rents, but cautioned they cannot subsidize unsafe housing, which may exist at Sonoma Grove.
"If the city pumps money in the Grove, it won't have people live in substandard housing," said Mayor Tim Smith.
Council members agreed Tuesday that one solution may be to help nonprofit Millennium Housing of Newport Beach, which has expressed an interest in buying the Grove, purchase the trailer park.
Millennium Housing already owns two of the city's five mobile home parks, Las Casitas and Rancho Feliz. Another nonprofit owns a third park, an arrangement that along with city subsidies is designed to keep the parks affordable for decades to come.
But whether the new owner of Sonoma Grove, Teresa Thurman, would be willing to sell is uncertain. She has not returned calls from The Press Democrat.
Smith said the city might consider eminent domain proceedings to force a sale.
One issue in dispute is whether rent control can be instituted at Sonoma Grove. Assistant City Attorney Gabrielle Whelan said the city's mobile home rent control ordinance, approved by voters in 1987, does not apply.
Attorneys working with Sonoma Grove residents disagree.
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