Per the new ordinance, a park owner can raise lot rent and fees once every 12 months, with at least 90 days’ notice. Each increase is capped at the most recent annual change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the government’s headline inflation gauge, plus one percentage point, and it can never top 5%, according to The Maine Monitor. The math is all based off the rent of each resident, and any owner who wants more has to petition a new rent stabilization board and show the expense behind it is extraordinary, necessary and reasonable; it can’t just be a result of deferred maintenance. Resident-owned cooperative parks are exempt.
How a $741 ‘area average’ set off a mobile home lot rent fight in Maine
To understand why a five-minute vote drew such a huge crowd in a town of just around 5,000 people, it helps to know how lot rent works. Most people in manufactured home parks own their homes but not the land underneath, so they pay the park owner a monthly fee for the lot. Moving a home is difficult and expensive, The Maine Monitor notes, which leaves residents with little leverage when that fee climbs.
Norway Commons is owned by Sun Communities, a Michigan-based real estate investment trust, or REIT, a company that owns income-producing property and pays out most of its taxable income to shareholders. Residents told WGME the company bought the park back in 2022.
Residents told WGME in March that lot rent had jumped by around $300, from $350 to $632, since the sale. Resident Wayne York said rent for new buyers had jumped more than 50% in three years, which he worried would cut into what he could get for his home if he sold it. Another resident, Lee May, argued the park shouldn’t be priced like Sun’s RV and seasonal sites, since people there are paying for housing rather than using discretionary spending for something like a vacation.
It all kicked off when residents received letters about an April 1 increase. Sun calculated it using what it called the average lot rent for comparable parks “in the area”: $741 a month. Residents countered that local parks were charging $450 to $632, per The Maine Monitor. Longtime resident Sharon LeBlond, who paid $407 a month, was told her rent would rise to $439.50, and the company didn’t share which “area” parks it used to reach its figure, the Sun Journal reported.
That “in the area” language comes from state law. In 2025, Maine lawmakers passed LD 1723, which requires 90 days’ written notice before an increase and gives residents access to mediation when a hike exceeds CPI plus 1%. Notably, the law didn’t cap how much rent could rise. Greg Payne, Gov. Janet Mills’ housing policy adviser, said lawmakers viewed a hard cap as “too blunt of an instrument” and that towns were within their rights to go further on their own.
Norway did just that — and in March, more than 160 voters unanimously approved a 180-day moratorium on lot rent increases to give the town time to write a permanent ordinance. Most Maine towns tackling the issue have worked from a model ordinance drafted by a state working group. Under the new 5% ceiling, a $407 lot rent could rise by no more than about $20 in a year.
