A group of residents of mobile home parks in Calgary are calling for stronger protections under provincial laws as they face higher fees that they say could drive people out of the community and make it harder to sell their homes.
Greenwood Village, a 500-unit mobile home park, is located just north of Calgary Farmers’ Market West, just off the Trans-Canada Highway.
Like most mobile home communities, Greenwood Village residents own their homes, but not the land. Instead, they pay monthly fees to rent the pads on which their homes sit. The fees pay for water and sewer services, trash, recycling, green bin collection, park maintenance and road repairs.
Resident and real estate agent Claudette Boniface said lot fees for new residents recently increased to $1,275 per month, up from a previous increase of $1,150 in January.
“A lot of people just can’t afford that,” Boniface said, noting they also have mortgages.
Resident and real estate agent Claudette Boniface is asking the province to revise the mobile home rental law to improve protections for mobile home residents. (Karina Zapata/CBC)
Additionally, she said, lot prices for existing residents are also increasing. This year, many residents’ monthly costs increased by $60, which she said is a major financial blow to the park’s many seniors on fixed incomes.
‘They take money from their food budget and put it in the right direction [fees] and then they don’t eat well,” said Boniface.
As a real estate agent, she said the higher fees for new residents make it difficult to sell homes in the community. She currently has seven listings in the community.
This leaves residents at an impasse, she said. Some can’t afford to stay, but they also can’t afford to leave without selling their house.
That’s why they and other community members are asking the county to revise the mobile home rental law to better protect mobile home residents in Greenwood Village and beyond.
Problems selling houses
Randi Mayan, a real estate agent with CIR Realty, agrees that it is difficult to sell homes in the park.
In the spring, she put a property on the market in Greenwood Village, which she expected to sell by the fall — just in time for her clients’ new home to be built and ready for them to move into.
A view of Calgary’s Greenwood Village mobile home community. (Danielle Nerman/CBC)
But after several months no one bought the house.
That’s why Mayan and her clients decided to end the offer last week. They aim to move back into a home in the spring, but in the meantime, Mayan’s clients will not be able to move into their new homes as planned.
“The No. 1 feedback we get from people who come to view the properties is that the rental price is just too high when you don’t even own the property and you’re paying…basically a mortgage payment, and then you also have to pay your paying mortgage payments,” Mayan said.
Greenwood Village is located in northwest Calgary, near the Calgary Farmers’ Market West and the new community of Greenwich. (Google Maps)
She said the park’s location — near the busy farmers market and the new community of Greenwich — also poses a barrier to selling properties.
‘They think the park is probably going to be sold. So they say: there is no security in us, even if we rent and buy here.’
Pushing for changes in the law
Willi Sperlich, a senior who has lived in the community for four years, worries the park will be sold to developers.
He also fears that rents for existing residents will continue to rise to a rate he can no longer afford. He now pays $940 a month, but he said he would face financial difficulties if that rose to $1,275, like the fee for new residents.
‘Then I’m stuck. I can’t afford it. I can’t sell it because the new people aren’t going to pay for it either. So what should I do?’ Sperlich said.
“It’s a no-win situation. It’s helpless.”
Sperlich was one of 10 Greenwood Village residents who gathered last Thursday to share their concerns for the first time and create a path forward to fight for better protections.
About a dozen Greenwood Village residents met last week to discuss their concerns. (Karina Zapata/CBC)
“Mobile home laws need to change completely,” Sperlich said.
He said he wants to see a cap on rent increases to keep mobile homes affordable.
More broadly, he also wants mobile home owners to qualify for certain government subsidies, including rebates for retrofitting homes with solar panels and energy-efficient windows.
Rental law for mobile home locations
Boniface is urging the Alberta government to consider guidelines from British Columbia, where mobile home rental increases have been capped at 3.5 per cent this year.
Anna Lund, a law professor at the University of Alberta, wrote a research paper on mass mobile home evictions – targeting the Midfield Mobile Home Park in Calgary – that was published in 2021.
She said residential rents and protections for mobile home parks in Alberta tend to be weaker than in other Canadian provinces.
However, she said implementing stricter rent controls is a tough task in Alberta.
“There still has to be a lot of appetite because there is some kind of political opposition to it,” Lund said.
The office of Alberta Service and Bureaucracy Reduction Minister Dale Nally said mobile home landlords in Alberta can increase rent once a year, with no limit on the amount, as long as they give six months’ notice.
“The Mobile Home Rental Act provides a balanced approach to issues between landlords and tenants to promote a healthy rental market and ensure adequate availability of mobile homes,” said Brandon Aboultaif, press officer for Minister Nally, in a statement.
He said tenants who believe their landlord is not following the rules can call on the Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service to resolve disputes.
Despite multiple requests from CBC News, Greenwood Village management declined to comment.
