ORANGE — The Leisure Woods Estates mobile home park is suing the town’s Mobile Rent Control Board, claiming the monthly lot fee increases approved last month were inadequate in relation to heightened expenses.

John Kuzinevich, the attorney representing the Gidley family that owns the park, has filed a lawsuit against the three-member board and requested that Franklin County Superior Court set aside the board’s decision or modify it to allow the owners to keep up with inflation and the economic climate by charging tenants $588 per month as was originally proposed. After hearing concerns from residents about the proposed 43% rate hike, the board, seeking more gradual increases, voted unanimously on Sept. 24 to allow Leisure Woods to increase its $398 monthly lot fees by $52 for one year starting Dec. 1 and an extra $50 beginning Dec. 1, 2025.

“The decision is unsupported by substantial evidence in that the board ignored actual expenses, instead relying on a less accurate projected budget, and it ignored the substantial testimony and information provided by [the owners],” Kuzinevich wrote.

The new fee amounts do not include a $12 monthly tax collected by Leisure Woods and paid to the town. The monthly fees cover the right to have a modular home on a plot of land at the 519 East River St. property. With the tax included, the impact on tenants is $462 per month in the first year and $512 in the second year. Checks are made out to Leisure Woods Estates but sent to Salem Manufactured Homes, which the park’s principal owner, Glenn Gidley, runs in Salem, New Hampshire. Residents then separately pay a mortgage broker for their mobile home.

Jane Peirce, who chairs the Mobile Rent Control Board, had no comment on the lawsuit when contacted by the Greenfield Recorder. The board is rounded out by Andrew Smith and Julie Davis, two of Peirce’s fellow Selectboard members.

The town’s Mobile Rent Control Board bylaw was adopted at a 1986 Special Town Meeting and allows the board to regulate rents “so as to remove hardships or correct inequities for both the owner and tenant of such mobile home accommodations.” Additionally, the bylaw states upward or downward adjustments may be made to levels that “yield to owners a fair net operating income for such units.”

According to Kuzinevich’s filing, Leisure Woods Estates filed a petition on Oct. 19, 2023, seeking a 43% rent increase. The petition sought an increase for the mobile home park’s fiscal year 2023, 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 set out in the rent control regulations,” he wrote. “Essentially, the regulations allow an increase [that] provides for reasonable operating expenses plus a fair rate of return on the value of the property [that] serves as the mobile home park.”

In his filing, Kuzinevich alternatively suggests to the court that the matter could be returned to the Mobile Rent Control Board with directions to award a fiscal year 2023 rent increase that gives the Gidleys the return the board determined they were entitled to and is based on actual expenses.

“The decision awarded no increase for fiscal year 2023, which was the single year for which [Leisure Woods Estates] petitioned. Thus, the owners would not get any return and the rents could not even meet actual operating expenses, causing a loss to the owners,” Kuzinevich wrote. “Instead, it awarded an increase in fiscal year 2024, which the board admitted would not provide the amount needed for the owners to get the rate of return it considered and awarded. It also was based on the prior year’s numbers and had no evidentiary support.”

Kuzinevich, whose law office is based in Duxbury, insists the hearing on the petition was unreasonably delayed, as it did not occur within 60 days of the filing. Hearings were held on June 11, July 16, Aug. 14, and Sept. 24 of this year. He wrote that throughout the course of hearings, his client provided supplemental information to the Mobile Rent Control Board. This reportedly included letters from legal counsel explaining matters and the general ledger, which provided information on expenses incurred for eight months, instead of relying on projected budgets.

Kuzinevich also argues that the board crafted its decision in a non-public meeting with counsel in advance of the Sept. 24 hearing, which was open to the public.

“Inexplicably, the board decided to ignore the actual expenses incurred and use a budget that [Leisure Woods Estates] admitted was confusing but [that] would be clarified by using actual numbers,” the attorney wrote.

Kuzinevich also argues that the board refused to recognize that certain expenses were legitimate, such as a park manager, all accounting functions and depreciation.

“It also impermissibly substituted its own judgment as to how to run the park instead of allowing [Leisure Woods Estates] to make reasonable business decisions,” Kuzinevich wrote. “The board ignored real numbers and eviscerated the budget simply 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 tough to have an increase, but we’re all dealing with it in our lives, all of us, whether it’s your groceries, your gas, whatever,” said Jim McIntosh, who has lived at Leisure Woods Estates for 12 years. “They’re stretching it over two years, is what they’re doing. And we can’t ask for more than that.”

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.