By By Maryjane Williams,The Berkshire Eagle

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PITTSFIELD – Kevin Squires has called Onota Lake Village home since he was a child, when his mother scraped together enough to move their family out of their dangerous neighborhood and into what felt, to young Kevin, “like a castle.”

Decades later, Squires inherited that home and hoped to pass it on to his niece, who needs an affordable place to live with her handicapped child. But if Crown Communities’ purchase offer had gone through, Squires said he would have sold the home.

“A big corporation is coming in to buy the park. They’re not coming in to make a beautiful home for us; they’re coming in to make money,” Squires said, adding that he believes the rent would have gone up substantially. “I don’t want to be 75 to 80 years old paying $800 a month for a mobile home.”

So, on Sunday, Squires joined the eruption of cheers at Saint Charles Church as members of the Lake Onota Village Association voted overwhelmingly to purchase their manufactured home park, blocking Crown Communities’ $5.5 million cash bid.

“We did it, and everyone’s excited,” said Renee Marcantel, president of the Lake Onota Village Association. “We are a community, and we are going to act as such, and that’s how we’re going to run it. Every member is going to have a say, and they’re pretty excited about that.”

In April, MH Communities, the park’s owner, announced plans to sell to Crown Communities, a Wyoming-based private equity firm. But under Massachusetts law, manufactured home residents have the right of first refusal: if at least 51 percent of households agree and can match the price, they get first dibs on purchasing their park.

Now, the association has 30 days to wrap up all loose ends — including signing the mortgage and other ownership documents — and finalize the deal.

Once the sale closes, the association will dismiss property manager George Bliss and bring in North Adams-based Moresi & Associates to oversee daily operations.

Under the terms of the financing the association secured from Resident Owned Communities USA Capital, the association’s first order of business is to fix the park’s aging water and electrical systems, which Marcantel said was estimated to cost $800,000.

“All summer long, pipes have been bursting, one after another after another,” she said. “People were left without water for days.”

Squires said a burst water main once flooded his driveway and left his truck encased in ice, on top of dealing with brown water from his shower and unplowed snow. He said he’s eager for the residents association to prioritize regular maintenance.

“The place has just really [gone] to hell over the past few years … It’s just no repairs being made; nothing. It’s just Band-Aid fix, Band-Aid fix,” he said. “Now that we’re going to purchase it, we borrowed enough money to fix the infrastructure. We’re going to fix it.”

The new ownership will also bring changes to the park’s rent structure. Under MH Communities, residents’ rents varied from $380 to $400 per month, depending on the size of the trailer. But after the sale is finalized, the monthly rent will increase to $522 for all residents, Marcantel said.

“Once we start cutting away our debt, then we’ll probably readjust it to a lower price,” she said. “But for now, we have a lot of repairs to make.”

Addressing concerns about back rent, the association has informed residents that outstanding balances — now totaling $52,000 — will need to be repaid, regardless of ownership. However, leaders are working to connect residents with local assistance programs, such as the RAP program in Berkshire County, which can provide up to $7,000 a year to help pay back rent.

“We want to work with people. We don’t want to just throw people out who are good people that don’t cause problems,” Marcantel said. “We want to help them; we want to see them thrive here.”

After the essential repairs are made and paid off, Marcantel said the rent money not spent on bills or other necessities will be put into an account to go toward “improvements and the beautification of our park.”

“I’ve talked to a lot of residents, they would love to have a community building … where we can have dinners with our families, where we can have our meetings,” she said. “We’ll start coming together and finding out what more we can do to make our park beautiful again, and we’re all so excited.”

In light of recent criminal activity, the association plans to bring back the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) check requirement for people moving into the neighborhood.

In June, Mikey Bliss, son of the current property manager, George Bliss, was arrested for allegedly entering his neighbors’ home at the park and assaulting him.

“My goal is to make it a safer environment here, where people don’t have to live in fear because of drive-by shootings,” Marcantel said. “We’re going to create a whole new membership packet to enter into the park and purchase with different things in it that have not been followed through [before].”

For Squires, owning the park comes down to one thing: security.

“The main thing is just knowing that the rent is not going to go through the roof, and that I get to vote on it. … It’s not so much for my generation but the next generation. This place is going to be affordable for years to come,” Squires said. “The park’s not going to be sold. We have to worry about that anymore.”

Mobile home parks like Lake Onota Village are one of the few affordable housing options left in the Berkshires. Many residents are first-time homebuyers, seniors or people with disabilities living on fixed incomes.

“My concerns are with my elderly population here on fixed incomes and the disabled that are vulnerable, I want to make sure that they’re going to be OK,” Marcantel said. “We want our community to flourish, and we want it to be the great community it used to be in the 1980s.”