A little rain and cold didn't deter more than 100 people, including Gov. Janet Mills, from convening Tuesday night outside the office of the Linnhaven Mobile Home Center in Brunswick.
"This is not a member meeting. This is not a board meeting. This is a celebration," Janet Fournier, board president of the Blueberry Fields Cooperative, said to applause.
Over the summer, the residents learned that their bid to purchase the park had been accepted. They appear to be the first residents to successfully use a new Maine law requiring that mobile home residents be given advance notice of a park sale. The "opportunity to purchase" law also allows them a chance to bid on and try to purchase the property themselves.
Last week, the residents closed on the property.
Tuesday's celebration was a tribute to the "village," as Fournier described it, of non-profit groups, lenders, state and local officials and others who helped the residents purchase their community for more than $27 million.
But Fournier said it all started because one person said yes.
"How many $27 million deals were put together by a buyer and a seller working hand in hand?" she said. "It just doesn't happen, and we wouldn't be here if the Scarponi family didn't support us in this. So thank you, wherever you are, I hope you're here."
Kurt Scarponi and his family have owned the mobile home park for the last 70 years. Scarponi grew up working on the property. But he was ready to retire and wanted to sell.
Scarponi said he looked on as the Linnhaven residents organized, formed a cooperative and made their own bid to purchase the park. And he chose their offer.
"I really felt like that was the right thing to do at the time," Scarponi said.
It helped that the residents' bid came in just above that of an anonymous buyer, he said. But Scarponi said he believed that his family's legacy would be best served with the tenants as owners.
"I kind of wanted to have the Linnhaven legacy live on," he said.
More than a dozen mobile home parks in Maine have come up for sale over the last year. The vast majority have been small parks with just a handful of units. But there have been larger deals. Residents at a few large communities in Old Orchard Beach and Lewiston organized in an effort to purchase but lost to large, out-of-state buyers.
Scarponi said once he chose the residents' offer the rest of the process went smoothly.
"They've been pulled together as a family now. I see all the tenants grouping together. Everybody's so friendly," he said. "It's a win-win for both sides."
The deal came together for the residents with a more than $20.6 million loan from Maine Housing, a $3.5 million loan from the Genesis Community Loan Fund, $3 million from the governor's recently-created Mobile Home Preservation Fund, and a $800,000 grant from the town of Brunswick.
Together, the financing will help keep 277 Maine homes more affordable for the long-term, said MaineHousing Director Dan Brennan.
"We spend a lot of time talking about the supply problem in the state, and how we need to produce more units," he said. "And we do. But we can't lose sight of the fact that we have to preserve what we currently have. And that's what this is all about."
State officials say they hope that the Linnhaven sale will serve as a precedent for other mobile home park owners in Maine who may be tempted to sell.
The Blueberry Fields Cooperative is the largest resident-owned community in Maine and is the 11th (ROC) in the state. The other 10 ROCs formed before the passage of Maine's opportunity to purchase law last year.
The Genesis Fund and Maine Housing have also set aside some funds for the residents cooperative to update their water and septic infrastructure. And Brunswick officials have committed additional funds to help residents weather future property tax increases.
Starting next month, the lot rent for residents will go up by $100 to account for the $27 million purchase price.
But Nora Gosselin, a market development and acquisition specialist with the non-profit Cooperative Development Institute, said the increase is relatively low compared to what some other recently-formed ROCs have set — and what investment companies typically set for monthly lot rent when they take over a new property.
CDI helped the Brunswick residents organize and purchase their park. Gosselin said there's often a misconception among people who don't live in manufactured housing communities that mobile home residents could be credible, bonified buyers.
But she said the Brunswick residents proved to themselves they can manage a property for themselves.
"As we see with every group we work with, there are people who are builders, who are accountants with financial backgrounds, business owners," she said. "There is the skillset there to do just this, the same way any Wall Street company would do it. And actually [the residents] are more motivated, because they have everything to lose here."
The entire process seemed daunting at first, said resident Melissa McCarthy, who also serves on the co-op board. Like others, she worried about rent increases under a new owner that she couldn't afford.
"We really have become a village," she said. "We are stronger together now that we are aware of each other. We used to just live in our homes and know a few people, and now we know a lot of us."
Fournier agreed, and she said she believes most residents now understand that their neighbors have their best interests at heart.
"I really strongly believe that these connections that we're making as a result of this process are going to help us take care of one another better," she said.
Eventually, the rain stops, and the residents and their community partners raise small paper cups in a toast.
"Congratulations, you've done something that few people can say they've done, which is buy this place," Gosselin said. "You own it, and 'ROC' on! To the Blueberry Fields Cooperative!"
