Norway is moving ahead with a proposed moratorium on mobile home lot rent increases at Norway Commons as an April 1 deadline approaches.

The Select Board is holding a public hearing on the proposal March 19 ahead of a special town meeting to vote on it.

The hearing will be held at the Norway Municipal Complex at 19 Danforth St. at 7 p.m., prior to the board’s regular business meeting.

Following the hearing, the special town meeting will be scheduled at least 10 days afterward, as required by state statute.

The required 10-day period preceding the town meeting means that it needs to take place either March 30 or 31, before Sun Communities, the corporation that owns Norway Commons mobile home park at 99 Town and Country Drive, raises rents on April 1.

The moratorium would be retroactive to Jan. 15, the date Norway Commons homeowners originally approached the Select Board requesting the six-month pause on lot rent increases and a town ordinance regulating how increases are calculated going forward.

Norway Commons is a park for those ages 55 years and older. Most of its residents are retired and many live on single-person Social Security incomes.

Residents organized late last year to contest the increase, saying Sun Communities is using a loophole in Maine law meant to stabilize mobile home lot rents to instead steeply inflate them.

The statute language reads that rent increases in mobile home parks are to be based on existing rents “in the area.” 

Sun Communities used an average lot rent of $741 to calculate the new rental fee. But no mobile home resident in Norway or any surrounding town pays close to that.

Sharon LeBlond, a longtime resident of Norway Commons, said her monthly rent is $407, but was informed it will be $439.50 on April 1.

She and her neighbors said fees have steadily increased and previous resident services eliminated since Sun Communities purchased the property three years ago from its local owners. Since the change in ownership, lot rents for newly installed mobile homes have shot to $632 or more a month.

Sun Communities has refused to explain how it calculates average rents in the area at $741 when that figure is 80% higher than what many mobile home owners in Oxford Hills are charged.

If an ordinance adjusting the definition of what can be considered average rents in the area can be created in time to go on Norway’s annual town meeting warrant, it could be adopted then. Traditionally, the annual town meeting is held on the third Monday in June, which is exactly 120 days after the moratorium’s retroactive date.