Potential rent stabilization policies for mobile home parks will be studied now that town officials have OK’d funding for the research.
The Brunswick Town Council voted 8-1 Tuesday night to appropriate $32,000 to fund the study.
The money for the study, which will be completed by Core Market Advisors and LaRochelle Consulting, will come from the town’s affordable housing support fund. The study will take about 16 weeks and will assess the current state of Brunswick’s mobile home market and help guide policy decisions, according to Sally Costello, Brunswick’s economic and community development director.
A Maine Housing grant is supporting the town’s affordable housing fund.
The council held a workshop in June to hear from park residents and explore a possible rent stabilization ordinance, which could curb park owners’ abilities to raise rents at will.
Residents from Bay Bridge Estates — one of Brunswick’s six mobile home parks and the largest park in the state — have spearheaded the effort along with District 1 councilor David Watson.
Mobile homes are unique properties because owners have a responsibility to pay their lot rent in addition to their mortgage, utilities and upkeep. Moving a mobile home can easily cost $8,000, leaving residents stuck if a landlord decides to raise lot rent.
“A great many of these people in these trailer parks, especially Bay Bridge — they’re at their end,” Watson said Tuesday.
In an earlier agenda item Tuesday, council members approved an emergency amendment to the ordinance that established the affordable housing fund in a vote of 8-1, allowing the town to use the fund for studies. Previously, the fund has been used primarily for the development and construction of affordable housing projects.
“We have a continuous need for data,” Costello said.
Costello said dialed-down state bills passed last session intended to protect mobile home park residents from rent gouging do not have the “teeth” that bill sponsors intended. One policy, LD 1723, sponsored by Rep. Cheryl Golek, D-Harpswell, requires owners to provide 90 days’ notice of lot rent or fee increases and establishes a process for mediation, but does not prevent owners from moving forward with rent increases.
Residents at Linnhaven Mobile Home Center in Brunswick purchased their park in October 2024 to prevent it from being sold to an out-of-state buyer, joining a growing number of resident-owned cooperative communities in Maine.
Rent stabilization in Brunswick, if enacted, wouldn’t apply to resident-owned parks, councilors have said.
