After emotional testimony from residents on August 18, 2026, the Council unanimously approved a TEFRA resolution allowing tax-exempt bonds to finance the acquisition of Magnolia Ridge Mobile Home Park by the nonprofit Augusta Communities.

Staff explained that TEFRA — the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act — requires a public hearing before tax-exempt private activity bonds can be issued. The Council was not approving the bonds themselves; the action is the required local consideration in a federal process. The bonds would be issued through the California Municipal Finance Authority, a joint powers authority acting as conduit issuer. The developer, not the city, is responsible for repayment, and the action creates no financial obligation for Fullerton.

The transaction would convert the park from market rate to income-restricted housing, with 10 units at or below 50% of area median income and 22 units at or below 80%.

Staff addressed a point of confusion directly: TEFRA approval does not itself create a property tax exemption or change assessed value. If the owner later seeks a welfare exemption — which staff said they will — that determination rests with the Orange County Assessor. The city currently receives about $7,800 per year in property tax from the park; with the welfare exemption, the city’s share would be roughly $5,400, a reduction of about $2,500 annually. Staff also said no alternative financing is available and that a denial would send Magnolia Ridge back to the open market.

Suzanne Taylor, CEO of Augusta Communities, told the Council the nonprofit has owned and operated manufactured housing communities since 1998 and serves 3,800 residents across five California counties, including two publicly owned communities operated on behalf of the City of La Habra. Magnolia Ridge is the ninth and final community in a group of pending acquisitions that would double the organization’s size. She noted there were no other Council meetings scheduled in August and not enough time to seek county approval before the seller’s deadline.

Erica Taylor of Augusta Communities presented a resident letter and petition signed by nearly 50 households. Residents have lived there an average of about 16 years; more than a third for at least 10 years; 17 households for 20 years or more; the longest, 29 years. She described the particular fragility of owning a home but renting the land beneath it, and the practical impossibility of relocating an older mobile home.

Elena, a nurse whose family has lived at Magnolia Ridge for 25 of her more than 40 years in Fullerton, described extreme anxiety over where her family — including her father, a retired critical care nurse — would live. Resident homeowner Joe McAdam, a Fullerton resident since 1981, described neighbors who brought food daily while he recovered from a lengthy hospitalization. Advocate Curtis Gamble said the project was exactly the kind of housing preservation he has pushed the city toward for years.