ARUNDEL – Voters will decide on a new rent stabilization ordinance for mobile home parks at the June 10 Town Meeting. The ordinance, brought forward by the Select Board, seeks to keep low and fixed-income residents in their homes by placing limits on plot rent hikes and creating a Rent Stabilization Board, staffed by municipal employees, to help mediate disputes.
The proposed ordinance was crafted as a result of residents of the Shady Oaks Mobile Home Park, located on the Campground Road, seeking help from town officials to combat a significant raise in their plot rent from park owner Onyx Capital, which was proposed for August 2025.
Jennifer Moreau, a ten-year resident of Shady Oaks, said the park owner was using the housing crisis to take advantage of the people in the park, who are mostly retirees, veterans, and lower-income folks living on fixed incomes in an affordable living situation common to many parts of Maine.
“Now, there is a whole group of our population that is about to be homeless,” said Moreau. “Not possibly – they’re about to be homeless.”
Onyx Capital is a private equity company primarily dealing with mortgages for the manufactured housing market and acquisitions of manufactured housing property like mobile home parks. They are based in El Segundo, California and purchased the park four years ago. As of this writing, Onyx Capital has not responded to multiple requests from The Local News for comment on this matter.
After it was determined that a moratorium on rent hikes by the Selectboard was not lawfully possible, it was thought that perhaps an ordinance should be created to address the rental rates in town mobile home parks.
Last July, the State Legislature passed LD 1723, which sought to prevent excessive rent increases in manufactured housing communities. According to Dan Neumann of the Maine Labor Climate Council, who is assisting Shady Oaks residents through this process, the original law included a statewide cap limiting plot rent increases to 10% over a four year period; however that language was removed after heavy lobbying from real estate interests.
“What passed instead does not include any cap on rent increases,” said Neumann. “ The final law creates a mediation process: if the rent increase exceeds [the rate of increase of the Consumer Price Index by more than one percent], residents can petition for mediation by gathering signatures from 51% of households within 90 days of receiving notice of the increase. If they succeed, the Attorney General’s office provides a mediator, paid for by the park owner. “
That law is how the residents of Shady Oaks have been able to delay the proposed rent hike, Neumann said, but it hasn’t stopped it altogether, which shows the flaws in the recently passed legislation.
“We have already seen how this plays out,” Neumann said. “Residents at Shady Oaks in Arundel were able to use mediation to delay an increase temporarily, but not to secure lasting relief.”
According to Velma Jones Hayes, a member of the Select Board, “After residents of the park approached the board, “We decided to design a rent stabilization ordinance modelled on L.D. 1723. After input from the residents and the park owners, and from a series of public comment sessions, an ordinance was developed. Part of the ordinance will include formation of a Rent Stabilization Board composed of the town manager, code enforcement officer and town assessor. Park owners would submit to the board a petition for any rental increase greater than otherwise allowed under the ordinance due to needs such as utility upgrades or infrastructure improvements.
Town Manager Keith Trefethen said the final draft of the ordinance was approved by the Select Board and will be sent as a warrant to the Town Meeting June 10. There it will be discussed and voted on by the people of the town. Trefethen stressed that this ordinance, if approved, will only affect mobile home parks, not other real estate or property in the town.
