Copyright Hartford Courant
The Windham Fair Rent Commission last week significantly reduced rents for dozens of manufactured housing residents and limited increases for the next five years. The ruling marks a significant victory for people who have advocated for years for lower rents and more rights for residents of mobile and manufactured home parks. The fair rent commission heard complaints from 27 residents of Stonegate Manor, a manufactured housing park with about 375 lots. The park has an older and a newer section. The commission lowered rents from $746 to $550 for those in the older section of the park and from $853 to $650 for those in the newer section. Members also ruled that the park owner can’t increase rents by more than three-quarters of a percent above the consumer price index for the next five years. In mobile and manufactured home parks, residents own their buildings but rent the land they are on. They’re often occupied by seniors and seen as a low-cost way to own a home. But in recent years, residents have said that land rents are increasing too fast, especially for older people who are on fixed incomes. “I think it will be good for our community, for sure,” said Dan Billings, president of the Stonegate Manor Homeowners’ Cooperative, of the ruling. “We have quite a large number of senior citizens here. It’s tough” to pay increased rent. During the last legislative session, manufactured home advocates lobbied for passage of a bill that would have required safer conditions and limited rent increases at parks. That bill failed and faced opposition because of the rent cap section. Since then, more mobile home parks have been organizing and taking their complaints to fair rent commissions. “We’re elated by the decision” in Windham and “looking forward to the next step,” said Dave Delohery, president of the Connecticut Manufactured Homeowner’s Alliance. “It’s a good first step, and we hope it sends a message to other operators in the state that they need to slow down on these increases.” This was the first case for the Windham Fair Rent Commission, chair Michael Westerfield said. “It was the first case that our fair rent commission had to deal with after being constituted. We had never done another case before, and suddenly we are faced with a huge one over 300 residents at the trailer park, and we’re feeling our way along the process,” Westerfield said. “I don’t think there’s many fair rent commissions that start their tenure off with a case this big.” Westerfield said he anticipates the commission will hear possibly more than 100 more complaints from the park as more residents hear of the decision. In order for their homes to be included in the ruling, they need to go through the fair rent commission process. Fair rent commissions are town bodies empowered to hear complaints about rent and housing conditions and can make legally binding rulings based on those complaints. Billings said rent costs started increasing notably after Equity Lifestyle Properties, a national company, purchased the property in 2011. Billings has also had problems getting long-term leases with the new company, he said in a letter to the Department of Consumer Protection. The company did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Billings had a hearing on his fair rent complaint in September, but the commission delayed making a decision until they heard the October cases. During his hearing, an attorney representing the park owner argued that the rent increases were fair to the current market, as proven by new owners who had recently purchased in the park and agreed to pay the costs, according to meeting minutes. The commission found that “rents were significantly higher [at Stonegate] than other comparable properties in the area,” according to a social media post from the commission chair. Billings said the increases far outpaced the rate of inflation. Equity Lifestyle Properties is one of three major Connecticut manufactured housing park owners that’s facing a class-action lawsuit alleging they conspired with other owners to fix land rent costs. The company has the opportunity to appeal the Windham commission’s decision in court, but Billings said his group is ready if they do. “Hopefully more parks will try and do similar things,” Billings said. “I think that if the cap survives, that would be a major help to a lot of places.”
