Residents of Friendly Village Mobile Home Park in Gorham say they're abandoning their efforts to purchase their community for now, after their cooperative submitted three different offers and all were rejected.
The park's residents were the face of a legislative effort in Augusta this year to change Maine law and tighten protections for mobile home residents around the state.
Earlier this year, Friendly Village residents received notice that the park was being sold to Wyoming-based investor Crown Communities, LLC, as part of a $87.5 million portfolio sale that included seven other parks in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York.
In May, the park's residents submitted an offer to purchase Friendly Village for $22.25 million, just above the price included for the Gorham property in the proposed portfolio sale agreement with Crown.
Dawn Beaulieu, board president of the Friendly Village Cooperative, said the residents learned five weeks later that their initial offer had been rejected.
Beaulieu said the residents submitted a second offer, and then a third.
They recently learned their last offer of $27.5 million — 25% higher than the initial purchase agreement price of $22 million — had also been rejected.
Beaulieu said the residents were informed that the owners would not consider an offer less than $29 million.
"It's ridiculous," she said during an interview Friday. "That's something that we as residents can't afford. $7 million over what they're getting in the portfolio... it boils down to plain greed."
In a written statement through an attorney, Friendly Village owner Maine Mobile Homes, Ltd. said: "At no point during the month’s long negotiations did the owner increase the price they would accept, and only rejected each of the three offers after due consideration of the pros and cons of a sale to the community.
According to the statement, Maine Mobile Homes, Ltd had previously rejected stand-alone offers above the allocated proposed purchase agreement value of $22 million for the Gorham park.
"The statute requires the owner to enter into good faith negotiations, but does not require the owner to accept an offer below the fair market value of the property, or at any price," the owners said.
A new law that would give Maine mobile home residents the right of first refusal to purchase their park doesn't go into effect until later this month, and so it does not apply to the Gorham residents.
Meantime, Beaulieu said the residents are frustrated and feel they were never seriously considered.
"Many residents have lived here, myself included, for 30-plus years," she said. "We've been paying lot rent to these people for 30-plus years."
The residents, Beaulieu added, are also afraid of what may come next.
"We're not done fighting," she said. "Right now we're working with the Gorham Town Council to see if we can at least update the ordinance for mobile home parks in Gorham to protect us from drastic rent increases and to force the ownership to do necessary maintenance on the infrastructure. Those are the two things we're most concerned about if Crown Communities ends up owning this park."
Old Orchard Beach appears to have the only municipal rent control ordinance on the books for mobile home park residents. Voters there approved a referendum last November, which caps annual lot rent increases for residents at 5%, with some exceptions.
Earlier this month, the city of Waterville unanimously passed a temporary moratorium on lot rent increases for mobile home park residents. The city of Sanford is expected to consider a similar ordinance next week.
