AB 682: Mobilehome park: electric and gas service: master-meter customers.

Existing law authorizes the transfer of the ownership and operational responsibility for the provision of electric or gas service from an owner of a master-metered mobilehome park or manufactured housing community that provides electric or gas service to residents to the electric or gas corporation providing service in the area in which the mobilehome park or manufactured housing community is located. Existing law requires the Public Utilities Commission to adopt a standard form of agreement for transfer of gas and electric distribution facilities in these parks and communities that is required to be the basis for expedited approval of the transfers.

The Manufactured Housing Act of 1980 requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to enforce various laws pertaining to manufactured housing, mobilehomes, park trailers, commercial coaches, special purpose commercial coaches, and recreational vehicles. The act makes it unlawful for a person to alter or convert, or cause to be altered or converted, the plumbing, heat-producing, or electrical systems and installations or equipment of a manufactured home, mobilehome, or multifamily manufactured home that bears a department insignia of approval or federal label when these structures are used, occupied, sold, or offered for sale within the state, unless its performance is altered or converted in compliance with specified provisions of the act and applicable regulations adopted by the department.

Existing law authorizes the department to establish a schedule of fees to pay the costs related to the administration and enforcement of the act that are deposited in the Mobilehome-Manufactured Home Revolving Fund, which is continuously appropriated to the department for carrying out the provisions of the act.

This bill would authorize a person, without filing an application for an alteration or conversion with the department, to alter or convert, or cause to be altered or converted, the structural, fire safety, plumbing, heat-producing, or electrical systems and installations or equipment of a manufactured home or mobilehome in order to extend a gas line or electrical feeder line, or both, from a utility-owned service line to the electrical subpanel or gas inlet of the manufactured home or mobilehome only for the purpose of a natural gas or electric service utility upgrade, or both, within a mobilehome park that is subject to or consistent with a specified decision of the Public Utilities Commission.

The bill would also authorize a defect in the manufactured home or mobilehome relating to the heat-producing or electrical systems or installations or equipment to be repaired or replaced without filing an application for an alteration or conversion with the department if specified conditions are met.

The bill would require the department to inspect such an alteration or conversion to ensure that specified health and safety standards that are consistent with the mission set out in a specified decision of the Public Utilities Commission are met.

By increasing the duties of the department for which the department may charge fees that are deposited into a continuously appropriated fund and increasing the amounts deposited into that fund, this bill would make an appropriation.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.