Standish enacts emergency mobile home park rent control ordinance
The Standish Town Council passed an emergency mobile home park rent control moratorium ahead of the November election, when voters will decide on whether or not to pass it permanently. The measure is intended to protect residents of Pine Tree Estates, who say their rents have become unaffordable and are threatening to their livelihoods. (Madeleine Kaptein/Staff Writer)
STANDISH — The room filled with applause Tuesday after Standish Town Council passed an emergency 90-day mobile home park rent control ordinance, effective immediately.
The temporary moratorium is intended to protect mobile home park residents in Standish from rent increases before the November election, when voters will decide whether to pass the measure permanently. Advocates collected enough signatures earlier this month to place rent control on the ballot.
The emergency ordinance states that mobile home parks have long served as affordable housing for lower-income residents and seniors on fixed incomes in Standish, and that many of those residents are now under severe economic pressures caused by investment companies that have bought parks and significantly increased lot rents.
That language refers to the situation at Pine Tree Estates, a 223-site mobile home park in Standish whose residents say they are in that exact position.
RHP Properties, the largest private owner of manufactured home communities in the United States, bought Pine Tree Estates in 2019 and has raised rents to rates that the residents say are unaffordable. Many of the residents are on Social Security and struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living in Maine rises. Some went into mediation with RHP Properties earlier this year but said they were not satisfied with the outcome.
About 10 Pine Tree Estates residents spoke in favor of the ordinance Tuesday. Several Maine towns have passed similar measures.
Advertisement
“We’re one choice away from, or one choice by RHP, away from being homeless,” said Ivy Ferrelli, who spoke beside her brother, Josh Ferrelli. Josh has a disability and Ivy is his caretaker.
Residents say they are essentially stuck in place because they own their mobile homes without owning the land underneath, and relocating the home would be cost prohibitive.
Joel Brown, president of RHP Properties, initially said when prompted before the vote that he did not anticipate raising rent in the next 90 days, but his answer became less clear when pressed by Councilor Jeff Lowe.
“Given the fact that everything is very fluid, I don’t want to make a commitment to something that I’m not able to do because of that,” Brown said.
Mobile home park owners across Maine raised rents last year over worries that an impending state law would limit the amount of increases in the future, but that law did not materialize. There is a law that limits increases to once per year, meaning RHP Properties could not legally raise rent at Pine Tree Estates again this year after it did so in February, regardless of the local ordinance.
Brown spoke against the ordinance. He argued that his company’s rent increases have remained tamer than cost increases on other housing options in the region, meaning Pine Tree Estates is still affordable housing.
Advertisement
The company’s reported average 5.3% annual lot rent increase at Pine Tree Estates does not include data on lots occupied by renters who moved to the park after 2020, some of whom pay as much as $982 for rent, according a fact sheet Brown provided at the meeting. It also does not include mandatory storage and oil tank fees residents report paying.
Brown wrote in a letter to the Town Council before the public hearing that the town should consider its current lack of administrative capacity to enact the rent oversight required by the ordinance, which he said differentiates Standish from larger towns like Sanford and Lewiston. The ordinance requires a five-member rent stabilization board to review financial statements and hold hearings. “The council may wish to consider whether the town has the resources to administer this program effectively before enacting it for a single community,” he wrote.
He also said that the cost to his company of routinely gathering the required records and data under the ordinance would add to Pine Tree Estates’ operating expenses and therefore over time be passed on to residents through rent increases.
Park owners under the ordinance would need to prove that any increase above a certain affordability threshold is necessary for a reasonable rate of return, or that it is necessary to cover operating expenses or improvements that directly benefit tenants.
Clifton Marean, the local owner of the mobile home park Northeastern Estates in Standish, told the Town Council that he feels disrespected by the ordinance and that it would add significant challenges to running his business.
Residents David and Karen McNutt, who own Westside Sebago Mobile Home Park, previously said in an interview that they reluctantly planned to raise rent from $400 to $450 for their 19 lots to get ahead of the ordinance. Because that is more than a 3% increase, they will now be barred from doing so without regulations for at least 90 days under the emergency moratorium, and will be subject to the review process permanently if voters pass the measure in November.
Councilor Lisa Struebing reminded Pine Tree Estates residents and rent control advocates that they should make sure enough people in Standish know about the ordinance before Election Day on Nov. 3.
“You guys still need to rally,” she told them.
If passed by a majority of voters, the ordinance would take effect on Nov. 13.
Copy the Story Link
Tagged: affordable housing, mobile home park, rent control
Madeleine is a community reporter for Gorham, Buxton and Standish. She started her journalism career in Vermont, where she reported for Seven Days and served as the editor-in-chief of Middlebury College's. More by Madeleine Kaptein
