Leisure Woods Estates at 519 East River St. in Orange.
STAFF FILE PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ
ORANGE – The Leisure Woods Estates mobile home park is suing the city’s Mobile Rent Control Board, claiming monthly lot fee increases approved last month were inadequate compared to the higher costs.
John Kuzinevich, the attorney representing the Gidley family that owns the park, has filed a lawsuit against the three-member board asking that the Franklin County Superior Court set aside or modify the board’s decision so that the owners can avoid inflation and keep up with inflation. economic climate by charging tenants $588 per month, as originally proposed. After hearing concerns from residents about the proposed 43% interest rate increase, the board, seeking more gradual increases, voted unanimously on September 24 to allow Leisure Woods to increase the $398 monthly lottery fee by $52 for a year from December 1 and an additional amount. $50 from December 1, 2025.
“The decision is not supported by substantial evidence, in that the board ignored actual expenditures, instead relying on a less accurate projected budget, and it ignored the substantial testimony and information provided by [the owners]” Kuzinevich wrote.
The new dues amounts do not include a $12 monthly tax collected by Leisure Woods and paid to the city. The monthly fee covers the right to a modular home on a parcel of land at the 519 East River St. estate. Including taxes, the impact for tenants is $462 per month in the first year and $512 in the second year. Checks are made out to Leisure Woods Estates, but are sent to Salem Manufactured Homes, which the park’s principal owner, Glenn Gidley, operates in Salem, New Hampshire. Residents then pay a mortgage broker separately for their mobile home.
Jane Peirce, chair of the Mobile Rent Control Board, had no comment on the lawsuit when contacted by the Greenfield Recorder. The board is completed by Andrew Smith and Julie Davis, two of Peirce’s fellow Selectboard members.
The city’s Mobile Rent Control Board regulations were adopted at a special city council meeting in 1986 and allow the board to regulate rental rates “to eliminate hardship or correct disparities for both the owner and tenant of such mobile homes.” Additionally, the bylaw states that upward or downward adjustments may be made to levels that “provide the owners with a reasonable net operating income for such units.”
According to Kuzinevich’s filing, Leisure Woods Estates filed a petition on October 19, 2023, requesting a 43% rent increase. The petition requested an increase for the mobile home park’s 2023 fiscal year, which reportedly runs from Dec. 1, 2023 through Nov. 31 of this year. In the private sector, there is flexibility as to when an organization chooses to end its fiscal year.
“A rent increase is largely determined by a formula as laid down in the rent control regulations,” he writes. “Essentially, the regulations allow for an increase [that] provides reasonable operating costs plus a reasonable return on the value of the property [that] functions as a mobile home park.”
In his filing, Kuzinevich alternatively suggests to the court that the case could be sent back to the Mobile Rent Control Board with instructions to grant a rent increase for the 2023 fiscal year that will give the Gidleys the returns the board deemed them were entitled to and which is based on actual expenditure.
“The decision granted no increase for fiscal year 2023, the only year for which [Leisure Woods Estates] petition filed. Thus, the owners would not receive any return and the rents could not even cover the actual operating costs, causing a loss for the owners,” Kuzinevich wrote. “Instead, it granted an increase for fiscal year 2024, which the board admitted would not provide the amount the owners needed to get the returns it had considered and awarded. It was also based on the previous year’s figures and had no supporting evidence.”
Kuzinevich, whose law firm is based in Duxbury, maintains that the hearing on the petition was unreasonably delayed because it did not take place within 60 days of its filing. Hearings took place on June 11, July 16, August 14 and September 24 of this year. He wrote that his client provided additional information to the Mobile Rent Control Board during the hearings. This reportedly included letters from legal advisers explaining matters and the general ledger, which provided information on expenditure incurred over eight months, rather than relying on projected budgets.
Kuzinevich also claims the board made its decision during a non-public meeting with counsel prior to the Sept. 24 hearing, which was open to the public.
“Inexplicably, the board decided to disregard the actual costs incurred and to use a budget for them [Leisure Woods Estates] admittedly it was confusing, but [that] would be clarified by using factual figures,” the lawyer wrote.
Kuzinevich also claims that the board refused to acknowledge that certain expenses were legitimate, such as a park manager, all accounting functions and depreciation.
“It has also impermissibly substituted its own judgment about how the park should be managed by allowing it [Leisure Woods Estates] to make reasonable business decisions,” Kuzinevich wrote. “The board ignored the real figures and simply canceled the budget to keep the rent increase low.”
Residents who attended the Sept. 24 meeting said they felt the rent increases were fair to them and the Gidleys.
“It’s hard to get a raise, but we all deal with it in our lives, all of us, whether it’s your groceries, your gas, whatever,” says Jim McIntosh, who has been working for 12 lived at Leisure Woods Estates for years. “They spread it out over two years, that’s what they do. And we can’t ask for more than that.”
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.
