The park overlay
Keep park land as parks.
Our third ask is a manufactured home park overlay. Here is what it is, and why it matters to every Encinitas neighbor, not only the people who live in the parks.
What an overlay is
An overlay is a layer on the City’s zoning map. It sits on top of the regular zoning for specific properties and adds rules of its own.
A manufactured home park overlay would cover the land under Encinitas’s manufactured home parks and say, in plain terms: this land is for manufactured homes. Turning a park into something else, such as condos or apartments, would need the City’s approval through a full public process, with notice to residents and neighbors and an honest look at what would be lost.
We are asking for an overlay that does not change who owns a park, does not set space fees, and does not stop an owner from running, improving or selling a park as a park.
Why it matters to all of Encinitas
- No towers on park land. Our parks are low-rise neighborhoods. An overlay keeps them from quietly becoming dense new development, with the traffic and lost ocean views that come with it.
- Housing that can’t be replaced. 734 homes in 11 parks are some of the last naturally affordable homes on the Encinitas coast. Once a park is gone, the City could not replace that housing at any price.
- The risk is real. In 2020, Riviera’s ownership told residents it would consider selling the park to a developer.
- The City already counts on these homes. Its own Housing Element calls them “an affordable housing option for low and moderate income households” and commits to “encourage retention of all existing mobile home parks.”
- State law slows a closure but doesn’t stop it. Before a park closes or changes use, the owner must report on the impact on residents, but the land can still be redeveloped. An overlay is how a city decides, ahead of time, that park land stays park land.
How it fits with the other two asks
The moratorium stops the November 1 increases. The permanent fairness ordinance keeps space fees fair from then on. The overlay keeps the parks themselves from disappearing.
Fair space fees mean little if the land under the homes can be sold out from under them, and an overlay means little if families are priced out first. That is why we are asking for all three.
The overlay is a zoning change, so it follows its own path through the City’s planning process. It can move forward at the same time as the permanent ordinance and does not slow down the moratorium. Protections for residents if a park ever does close belong here too.
Tell the Council: keep park land as parks.
One short email from an Encinitas resident, in your own words, makes a difference. We have a sample to start from.