Guggenheim

Opinion by Judge KLEINFELD; Dissent by Judge BEA.

OPINION

We address the viability of a takings claim arising out of a rent control ordinance affecting mobile home parks.

I. Facts

In 1979, Santa Barbara County, California adopted a rent control ordinance for mobile homes. Mobile homes have the peculiar characteristic of separating ownership of homes that are, as a practical matter, affixed to the land, from the land itself. Because the owner of the mobile home cannot readily move it to get a lower rent, the owner of the land has the owner of the mobile home over a barrel. The Santa Barbara County rent control ordinance for mobile homes had as its stated purpose relieving “exorbitant rents exploiting” a shortage of housing and the high cost of moving mobile homes. The rent control ordinance was amended in 1987. The ordinance has a complex scheme for setting rents, limiting how fast they rise, and affording landlords a mechanism for the limits.

Eighteen years after the original rent control ordinance went into effect, and ten years after the amendment, the plaintiffs Daniel and Susan Guggenheim and Maureen H. Pierce (the Guggenheims) bought a mobile home park, “Ranch Mobile…