INTRODUCTION
Today, Palomar Estates West is a beautiful, well-maintained park that we are happy to call home.  But like all of us, PEW has an interesting history. 

CHAPTER 1
It was in the spring of 1977 when a group of Los Angeles investors saw the value in several acres of vacant land located in the city of San Marcos. The location with ocean views and hilltop vistas yet close to community living and services was perfect. The land was owned by a Trust willing to lease it to a business developer. Thus, Palomar Estates East and West were born. Palomar West’s address was 1930 “Encinitas Road” back then.

Construction began in the summer of that year with completion scheduled for November. The “completion” meant graded lots, paved streets, sewer and utility lines installed, drainage and landscaping at the minimum. There was also to be a completed “Club House” with other promised amenities like the pool, tennis courts, picnic area, putting green, and shuffleboard courts and more to come in the near future.

With this in mind, DEMCO (Douglas, Emmett Management Co) placed an impressive ad in local newspapers for the “BEST OF MOBILE HOME LIVING IN NORTH SAN DIEGO COUNTY at PALOMAR ESTATES WEST.” The ad promised all the amenities of a 5 Star resort. Potential residents flocked to the rental office to reserve their little piece of heaven and were told by the management company they could go buy their home and have it placed on their chosen lot without delay.

But alas, and it’s now 1978, over 100 homes are now in the park, but no one can actually move in because they can’t hook up water, sewer and electricity. The County officials said the homes were placed there illegally, and as far as they were concerned, the homes were simply being “stored” there. Some would-be residents actually became” homeless” having to live under very stressful situations for more than a year because the developers had not performed as promised.

CHAPTER 2
Although the first residents of Palomar Estates West had been promised occupancy of their homes by July of 1978, final permits were not issued until March of 1979.  Unfortunately, even as residents finally moved into their new homes, the problems in the park were far from solved. The first Residents Association was formed in May of 1979 to represent the residents in their continuing struggle with the park owners and management.  The completion of the park had come to a standstill, and all attempts to communicate with the owners were ignored or rejected.  The only response ever given was from Jack Ryan, the park manager, stating “it is the policy of DEMCO (Douglas, Emmett Management, Co.), and I as manager of Palomar Estates West, to not recognize any Resident’s Assn, other than our present Recreational Assn, which represents all residents of the park.”  Many of the promised amenities were either non existent or not being maintained.  For example,  grading was not up to code, streets were broken and not repaired, lighting was inadequate and faulty, there were constant breaks in the sewer and water line, sometimes leaving residents without water for 4 days or more, landscaping was not completed, no tennis court was built, the pool was not being maintained and the Jacuzzi remained empty.  Not exactly a five star park as had been advertised.

After two letters in June of 1979 requesting a meeting with owners and management went unanswered, the Board engaged an attorney for assistance and advice.  Two letters from the retained attorney requesting a meeting were also ignored.  Feeling there were no further options, in April of 1980, the Residents of Palomar Estates West filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the Douglas, Emmett Co. (the owners) requesting punitive damages of $11,000,000.00.

 The first Resident’s Association Board of Palomar Estates West was a brave and tenacious group…..Ray Mahony-R.C. Swenson-R.E. Blair-James Kerns-Milton Weiss-Norb Reichel-L.J. Mulligan.  Their hard work began the path to the beautiful park we enjoy today!

CHAPTER 3
So here we are and it’s now April of 1980, 2 years since the promised 5-Star Park was to be completed. There were 312 unhappy mobile home owners in a planned 329 lot community. Their patience now at an end with management and the empty promises, an attorney was hired by the residents and suit filed against the park owners and management. The list of complaints is far too long to print here. According to the COMPLAINT filed by 170 of the residents, they had performed all conditions of their rental agreements but the owners had breached their representations, and had made promises they knew to be false so as to induce lessees to purchase mobile homes, move into the park, improve their lots and pay rent.

It was expected the case might take up to a year before it would go to trial. In the meantime, management announced that an additional 162 spaces were to be added even though the owners hadn’t fulfilled their promises for completion of Park amenities or the needs of the original 329 lots. There were still 38 of the original lots that were not suitable for mobile home installation.

As it turned out, a tentative agreement was reached between the residents and owners on December 15th, 1980. But if it sounds like this adventure is over, think again. The “Agreement” set forth 17 provisions requiring the owners to complete promised improvements and/or amenities by dates certain. All required work was to commence by Feb. 1981 and be completed by Dec 31st, 1981. Some of the work would require County permits and a completion date could not be immediately anticipated.  However, improvements were happily anticipated and the residents were looking forward to Happy Holidays and a fresh start early in 1981.

Once again the residents became frustrated with non-compliance by the owners to many provisions of the agreement. By June of 1983, too many things had not been completed and new areas of contention were added.  But that’s another story.

CHAPTER 4
The agreement reached between management and residents in 1981 had, unfortunately, by 1983 fallen by the wayside with many of the promised improvements uncompleted, and new problems had arisen.  As of June of 1983, over 25 ongoing unaddressed complaints over the condition of the park existed.    A few examples:  lack of ground cover and maintenance of public areas;  several empty spaces and a gully behind the RV park were being used as junk yards, full of broken concrete, rocks, old metal, piles of dirt and other debris;   empty spaces were rampant with weeds;  lack of maintenance on banks behind homes, with no sprinklers, no planting and no weeding;  streets were filthy with dirt and debris due to frequent washouts;  roads were breaking up and being haphazardly  patched;  lighting throughout the park was inadequate….quite a list, and remember this is only a partial list!   But, perhaps the most problematic and distressing irritant was the frequent broken water pipes and water outages.  A very inadequately designed water system had originally been installed in the park with the water pipes running under the mobile home spaces rather than under the streets.  The water pipes had also been run right above the sewer lines in most areas complicating repairs.  The pipes also had many 45 and 90 degree angles leading to frequent broken lines.  Every time there was a break, the entire park was affected because at this time there was only one shut off valve serving the whole park.  The worst break occurred in 1986 leading to a two week period with all water turned off to the entire park.  This created great concern over fear of inability to fight fires, and health and sanitation issues.  Water trucks were brought into the park for residents to fill containers with water to be used for drinking, cooking, bathing and flushing toilets.  For those unable to collect water due to age or disability, management delivered water to them.  Television channels 8 & 10 were on site to report the situation.

The 15 day water outage, the longest of over 40 water interruptions, finally forced management to commission an engineering study to determine what steps needed to be taken to prevent another episode of this magnitude. 

Another issue creating problems for the park was the fact that there was no on site resident manager.  At this time, the manager lived in Palomar Estates West, but was responsible for both parks.  This situation sometimes caused delays in response to problems in the west park.  The California Mobilehome Residency Law states a manager must reside on the property of any mobile home park of 50 spaces or more, but management was claiming that the same corporation owned both parks, so only one manager was needed.  The Resident’s Board directed this matter to the state department of Housing and Community for further investigation.

CHAPTER 5
So, where were we? –

In 1983 life at Palomar Estates West was still lacking but the brave residents seemed determined to continue the struggle to perfection of the retirement home they had been promised. Filing a lawsuit against the owners and managers for their failure to perform, and exploring the possibility of annexing the Park to the City of San Marcos to take advantage of the City’s rent control ordinance, were two of the actions underway. Little did the residents know that the current owner/management, Douglas, Emmett & CO.  was also in the process of turning the Parks over to ALP Associates of Los Angeles, Arnold Porath, as “sub-lessee” and new Park operator of both Palomar East and West. Of course, being a small, close-knit community, there was scuttlebutt of the parks being SOLD and this caused additional fear and concern from the residents.

Mr. Porath did take possession in 1984 and things started to take on yet another dimension. Notices went out to residents regarding the probability of rent increases after some re-evaluation of operating and management costs. The Resident Board stepped up the annexation application with the City into high gear. It was approved in 1986, and according to the City, this action would be a benefit for the City as well as an added level of protection for the park residents. Mr. Porath was, of course, opposed to this as he didn’t like the idea of another entity having any say-so over the rents he wanted to impose. The fact that the residents realized they had some power over their existence as renters in a Mobile Home Park worked to their benefit. The response from management, however, was an effort to coerce the residents who didn’t already have a “Lifetime” lease into signing an undesirable lease agreement. The proposed new lease would be for 5 years with the promise of a fairly stable rent. But somewhere in the small print the proposed lease could raise the rents nearly $200.00. This effort by management was rejected. Mr. Porath did, however, promise to honor those lifetime leases.

In 1988 the Residents, with legal help, investigated the possibility of purchasing the park from the City to become owners, which would include the land. After many months of negotiation, appraisals, consultations, meetings and discussion between all entities involved, the process was dropped in 1993. But in the meantime, in 1989 Mr. Porath requested another rent adjustment from the City. According to the City commissioners the need for the requested increase couldn’t be substantiated. The City said “NO” so Mr. Porath filed a $40 million lawsuit against the City for its rent control ordinance. The suit was dismissed. To look at our beautiful Park now, who could have quessed it and its residents had been through all the fire and brimstone of its past..

CHAPTER 6 
The previous chapter left us at around 1993. Palomar Estates West would have been about 15 years old then and had, in the meantime changed the Parks address from Encinitas Ave. to San Marcos Blvd. The historical information used to write these articles ended about there. It is NOW 2016. In the last 23 years our Park has continued to grow in beauty and stature. Periods of adjustment and change have, and will, always be part of being a great community.

Some examples are:

• Since 1994 we have had 11 new PEWRA Boards watching over us.

• From 1994 to 2015 our Rules & Regulations have been revised 5 times

• In 2002 Mr. Porath, the previous owner, was making noises of change and some residents began investigating resident ownership once again.

• In 2003, a majority vote by PEW residents accepted Millennium Housing Corporation to take over and operate the Park as a non-profit housing project. Haven Management would be the new management company.

• In 2010 the Park changed from whole community water service to installing individual water meters on each home site. This change had been attempted by Mr. Porath (1994-2003) but failed. Millennium accomplished it though there were many resident objections. Concerns about future cost increases, also some water lines for individual homes were connected to community hillsides or neighboring home sites. Revisions were made.

• Around 2011, Management initiated an annual exterior home maintenance inspection process plus a mandatory list of required work that must be completed by a homeowner before a sale. The mandatory list for sale of homes was not received well, but requiring regular upkeep and maintenance of our home sites certainly helps to enhance the desirability and value of the Park and the individual homes.

• In 2015 Millennium refinanced the Authority Bonds which caused unfounded resident concerns regarding the contractual agreement with the City of San Marcos, the life of the land lease and of course, rent control. This action was actually a benefit to the Park and residents as it created more money for upgrades and improvements over and above the regular maintenance. Things that the residents would like to see happen could be considered.

• Also in 2015 a Hilltopper committee was formed to investigate publication alternatives and a way to bring the community newsletter more into the 21st century. The Hilltopper format hadn’t changed in over 26 years.

• The Park continues to experience water line breaks. Seems this is its destiny.

Today many believe they have found their desired retirement destination in the “BEST MOBILE HOME LIVING IN NORTH SAN DIEGO COUNTY AT PALOMAR ESTATES WEST”. (As was advertised by the original developers back in 1978) Because of the persistence of those that came before us and the ones that care today, we can enjoy the many amenities, clubs, activities and privileges available to all of us. Management works with our Resident Board and residents to make the Park one of the, if not the best, in North County. Hopefully everyone feels a sense of pride and confidence that their choice of Palomar Estates West was one of the best decisions they made for their retirement years.