Residents of the Conejo Mobile Home Park in Newbury Park, which is destined for closure, received more bad news on Friday.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Glen Reiser found Thousand Oaks cannot require owners of mobile home parks that are closing to pay mobile home owners the in-place value of their homes or the value of the homes at their current location.

The state allows the city to require park owners to pay reasonable costs for the relocation of residents when a mobile home park is closed. The city sought the court’s guidance to learn if a city ordinance requiring park owners to pay the mobile homeowners inplace value would be considered as part of the reasonable costs allowed by the state.

Reiser said no. That requirement, he said, would be a violation of state law.

“We brought the action to seek guidance from the court—to see if in-place value was within the confines of state law—and he ruled that it was not,” said City Attorney Amy Albano.

The city has been walking a tightrope to follow state law while protecting mobile home residents and property owners’ rights.

In 2006, mobile home park owner Joseph Bednar was stopped from closing the 70-year-old Conejo Mobile Home Park at 1200 Newbury Road by a city moratorium that has since expired.

In 2008, the city passed Erickson’s Law, an ordinance to protect mobile home owners, but that law has since been challenged in court by mobile home park owners.

The late Richard Erickson was a retired engineer and president of Conejo Mobile Home Park’s homeowners association who fought until he died for the rights of the park’s 102 residents, 76 percent of whom are low or very low income, 19 percent disabled and seven on government assistance.

Thirty-one children live there.

Both Bednar and the owner of Vallecito Mobile Estates, at 1251 Old Conejo Road in Newbury Park, hope to change the affordable housing into something more profitable.

Bednar said he wants to construct medical buildings on the property.

Vedder Community Management, the owner of Vallecito, wants residents to be allowed to purchase the mobile home lots they currently rent.

Reiser was the judge who found that a survey, required by state law, taken at Vallecito about whether residents wanted a conversion, could not be considered grounds to deny a conversion.

The city’s planning commission earlier denied the conversion after determining it wasn’t bona fide because most residents surveyed said they didn’t want the conversion.

Many of the Vallecito residents are senior citizens who live on fixed incomes.

The property is designated Mobile Home Exclusive and is zoned Trailer Park Development. The park comes under the 1980 Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Ordinance that restricts rental increases.

A public hearing had been set in September to discuss Conejo Mobile Home Park, but it was postponed because of the litigation pertaining to it.

Now that the city has its answer from court, discussion of the park will be scheduled again.

“I believe the intent of the city is to move forward with closure,” Albano said after last week’s court decision.