Standish voters will decide on mobile home park rent control ordinance
A group of residents of Pine Tree Estates in Standish collected enough signatures to get a mobile home park rent control ordinance on the November ballot. They say they can no longer afford rent increases by RHP Properties, the company that owns the park. (Madeleine Kaptein/Staff Writer)
Community organizers have collected enough signatures to place a mobile home park rent control ordinance on the November ballot in Standish.
Residents of Pine Tree Estates have said that their rents have soared to unaffordable rates since RHP, the largest private owner of manufactured home communities in the United States, bought the park in 2019. Many of the residents are older than 55, on fixed incomes and struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living in Maine rises.
If approved by voters, the ordinance would restrict mobile home park rent increases in Standish to once a year and limit the amount of the increase while maintaining a reasonable rate of return for owners. Several Maine towns have passed similar measures.
Working with the Maine Labor Climate Council, residents and their supporters at the July 14 Standish Town Council meeting spoke about their struggle to pay rising rents and asked the council to consider the ordinance. They pursued a petition campaign for a ballot item to guarantee residents have a say in the matter.
“I turned around after that meeting, and I said, ‘Guys, we are not waiting for (the council),'” Michele Guilford said.
A group of about 10 in the organized community group, Standish Residents for Fair Mobile Home Lot Rent, met and divided efforts to meet the requirement of 383 signatures — more than 5% of the 7,641 registered voters in Standish — by Aug. 8.
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By Aug. 3, they had collected over 400 names. The town confirmed the following day that the item will appear on the ballot.
Guilford said members drove a golf cart around Pine Tree Estates to knock on doors, visited two other mobile home parks in Standish (which are locally owned and charge lower rents than Pine Tree Estates) and set up a booth at the Standish Summer Spectacular last Saturday to collect signatures. Paul Welch helped gather signatures as he campaigned for the Maine House of Representatives.
“We were pounding the pavement — walking streets, going up and down driveways, and (my neighbor) said to me, ‘Oh yeah, I can’t (collect signatures) next Monday because it’s my birthday,'” Guilford recalled. “She is 86 years old.”
Town Clerk Angela Appleton said 20% or more of the total number of registered Standish voters as of the June election will have to vote “yes” in order for the referendum to pass. The Town Council will order a public hearing at its regular meeting on Aug. 11 to occur at a special meeting on Aug. 25.
The council could pass a temporary moratorium before November to protect residents from rent increases until the measure appears on the ballot.
Residents earlier this year were in mediation negotiations with RHP over rent increases, but did not arrive at a satisfying outcome, said resident Bradford Martin. His rent at Pine Tree Estates started at $385 in 2020 and is now $705.
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Guilford said that many Pine Tree Estates residents she spoke with could not sign the petition despite their support because they were not registered to vote. The park has 224 sites, many of which house multiple residents, but only approximately 135 of the signatures were from its residents. Others did not sign over fear that RHP would retaliate against them through evictions, Guilford added.
Their group will go door-to-door again to help people register to vote and pass the measure on Election Day. Guilford said there was significant interest in the ordinance.
“The fear is imminent,” Guilford said. “People are seeing, ‘If I don’t stand up, I’m going to have no place to live.'”
Residents of mobile home parks face unique vulnerabilities to rent increases because they typically own their homes without owning the land underneath, according to language explaining the proposed ordinance.
If a resident faces eviction due to their inability to pay rent, which for some is as high as $970 at Pine Tree Estates, they continue to accrue charges as long as their mobile home sits in the park.
For Guilford, it would cost $20,000 to move her mobile home, which does not include the price of buying land or preparing a new site. She has lived at Pine Tree Estates for 30 years, and her rent has gradually increased from $450 a month in 2020 to $715 this year.
Under the ordinance, a mobile home park owner would need to petition a five-member rent stabilization board to raise rent if the desired increase would bring the rent up to or above the affordability threshold, which is defined as 40% of the median monthly Social Security income for Cumberland County.
Undergoing a hearing process, the owner would need to prove the increase is necessary for capital improvements or to cover increased operating expenses, or that it is required to provide a reasonable rate of return.
RHP Properties owns 395 manufactured home communities with over 87,608 home sites in the United States. It has acquired 20 communities since July 15.
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Tagged: mobile home park, rent control, Standish town council
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
