Wheel Estates To Raise Rent After Lawsuit
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Wheel Estates Mobile Home Park is in "deplorable" condition but the Mobile Home Rent Control Board begrudgingly approved another $33 rate increase for the park after Housing Court ordered it to take a second look.That brings the total rent to $287 a month for lots in the park. But the board outright rejected the company's argument that it should be compensated with a rent hike for fixing the park roads.
Morgan Management sued after a 2010 decision allowed the park to increase rent by only a third of its request. The company alleging the board overstepped its bounds. With a Berkshire Superior Court ruling that the board should reconsider two aspects of the decision — road repairs and undercharging tenants from earlier capital repairs — company officials returned to the board on Wednesday.
Morgan's request for $141 increase was chopped down to $49 by the board in 2010 after rejecting the company's argument that it performed $24,000 worth of road repairs outside of $90,000 worth of past court-ordered work. That $24,000 could be made up for with rent, the company said. The board members weren't buying it, saying they didn't believe any road work was completed.
Board members claimed that even the court-ordered $90,000 in repairs was never completed, let alone an additional $24,000.
"I've been up there and you might have spent $90,000 somewhere but I don't know where," Chairman Wayne Wilkinson said on Wednesday. "I can't see where you spent that kind of money."
Board member Joseph Gniadek said the best road there was built 20 years ago and board members questioned who determined that the work was completed. Morgan Management's attorney Joseph Kelleher said the work was done in 2010 and it was on the city to go back to court and file a complaint saying it wasn't done.
While the city never filed a complaint, the court agreement mandated that the company fix potholes in the future. As far as board was concerned, that officially shut the door on the rent request.
However, on the undercharging issues, the unhappy board admitted it was wrong. When a capital agreement with previous owners drafted nearly 15 years ago had expired the rent never dropped.
In 2010, the board took that $88,000 in capital costs away from Morgan and put it toward rent reduction. But It failed to set a timeline, so tenants got back more in rent than they should have. The board agreed, by virtue of the state formula, that $33 more a month is the proper rent amount.
"The park up there is deplorable. These tenants deserve better," Wilkinson said. "It's horrendous that we have to give it to you."
Wilkinson said tenants are not getting what they are paying for, citing rotting wood in the recreation center and poor road conditions. But it was up to the board, he said, to balance the interests of both residents and business and determine a fair rate.
