The 2011 Oregon Legislative Session has now reached the halfway point. MHCO has been successful in defeating a number of particularly bad pieces of legislation. We need to stay engaged and vigiliant as the Legislative Session moves to adjournment in late June.
MHCO Defeated:
HB 2172 - Rent Control with mandatory mediation and the establishment of a regulatory enforcement regime that would all the Oregon Attorney General enforcement landlord- tenant law in Oregon manufactured home communities. For those of you who are familiar with Washington State this is a similar program with rent control. This bill had strong support from many legislators who are in powerful positions, including Representative Buckley who is the House Ways and Means Co-Chair. Peter Ferris was heavily involved in this bill - many of MHCO's members from southern Oregon have probably heard about his bill over the last year. Many of the concepts will resurface again in future Legislatures.
HB 2885 - This bill originally applied to all residential properties that had Department of Education employees who where evicted - required landlord to inventory their belongs and return appropriate property to the Department of Education. This bill has been amended to exclude residential property.
HB 3073 - This bill expanded upon HB 2383 from 2009 that established a 14 day right of first refusal. This bill was designed to increase the 14 days to an undetermined amount. I will have more about this issue in a subsequent update on the landlord tenant coalition bill. Representative Nathanson was hoping to increase the 14 days to a higher number.
HB 3183 - This bill lift the ban on local governments from passing rent control ordinances. It will still have a hearing later this session, but since it the public hearing did not occur before today the bill cannot move forward to a work session. It can only have a hearing - nothing more. That being said, please do not be complacent when a hearing is scheduled - we need as many people to show up to oppose this bill as possible. We will be dealing with this issue for the next session or two - we need to be vigilant.
Two additional issues that MHCO has been focused - mandatory water sub-metering and mandatory escrow when a community owner sells a manufactured home in their community have been significantly altered. MHCO was able to perserve the exemption from mandatory water sub-metering for communities with 199 or less spaces. MHCO also successfully changed SB 85 to eliminate the mandatory escrow requirement for community owners who sell a manufactured home in their community. Two big wins for community owners in Oregon.
