NORWAY — Residents of Norway Commons, the mobile home park previously known as Town & Country Village, have asked the Norway Select Board to issue an immediate and retroactive six-month moratorium on lot fee increases and develop an ordinance to regulate future increases.

Issuing a moratorium retroactive to Jan. 15 of this year would protect homeowners from a rent increase due to go into effect April 1, which the residents say is based on inaccurate data.

A workshop has been scheduled for Feb. 19 at 5 p.m. at the Norway Town Office to discuss the issue.

On Feb. 5, the residents held a news conference at Christ Episcopal Church in Norway and later attended the Select Board’s regular business meeting to make their plea. 

At the Town Office, they provided selectmen with a copy of Jay’s recently enacted moratorium to use for reference.

The board told attendees it needs more information before determining any actions and suggested the group engage with a lawyer to determine their rights or call for mediation and negotiate directly with owner Sun Communities LLC. 

Residents argued legal counsel is not a solution, because Sun Communities is not breaking any laws but exploiting a loophole in them. They also pointed out that mediation would be nonbinding and the company would have no obligation to adjust its fees.

Lorri Nandrea of the Maine Labor Climate Council addressed the board during its public comment period, saying a moratorium would give Norway time to develop a lot rent stabilization ordinance.

It has become a national trend in recent years for billion-dollar limited liability corporations to purchase independently owned mobile home parks. Consolidated ownership has led to rapid rent hikes for mobile home owners.

Sun Communities purchased Town & Country Village in December 2022. Since then, rents have risen significantly. 

New buyers of park homes pay $632 monthly, an almost 100% increase from $350 under previous ownership.

Rates are up but residential services previously provided have been largely discontinued. The roads in the park are poorly maintained and grounds work like summer mowing or removal of downed limbs and storm debris are no longer provided, according to residents who spoke.

“We’ve lost services provided by previous park owners,” said Sharon LeBlond, a park resident for 13 years and spokesperson for the tenant group, during both meetings. “In fall, the maintenance people would come around to make sure our heat tape was hooked up and correctly installed. Now, 70- and 80-year-old women are expected to go out, take the siding from their homes and do it themselves.”

Sun Communities does not provide trash or recycling removal, and water and sewer service are not included in lot rents.

Without a moratorium, LeBlond’s lot rent will increase April 1 from $407 to $439.50.

“Over four years, we’ve gone from being an affordable mobile home park to a place where many seniors on a fixed income just can’t afford to live anymore.”

LeBlond and other residents point to a loophole in a 2025 state law meant to regulate park rents but allows owners to raise them using inaccurate socioeconomic data. 

The law, passed last June, provides for fee increases to be based on “average lot rent for a manufactured housing community with equivalent services and amenities in the area,” which Sun Communities said was $741.

“The lot rent should be raised according to what we are paying,” LeBlond said during the news conference and at the Select Board hearing. “Sun Communities took the state-allowed percentage but based the average fee on $741.”

She studied lot rents for parks throughout Maine and found just one, in an affluent, coastal, southern Maine community, that approaches $741. 

The company then applied an increase equal to 1% above the consumer price index, or CPI, bringing the new rate to an additional $32.01 per month. If the town takes no action toward lot rent stabilization, LeBlond’s cost will be close to $5,300 for the next year.

Sun Communities would not share the rationale and “area” locations it used in factoring its figures with Norway Commons lot renters.

Maine Labor Climate Council is assisting park residents from several towns organize to rein in fees threatening to make mobile home ownership too expensive for people with lower incomes. 

It helped guide a moratorium on fee increases in Jay, then helped residents of Hidden Circle Park form a cooperative to purchase the property when its corporate owner New Riverside Homes LLC placed it on the market. Last month, Maine Labor Climate Council assisted park residents in Auburn to lobby for a lot rent moratorium.