JAY — Residents of the Hidden Circle Mobile Home Park bought the park from its out-of-state owner Thursday, following efforts in Jay to limit rent increases and using a new state law that eased the way for renters to buy the land on which their homes sit.
The Hidden Circle Residents Cooperative paid $1 million for the park. Residents have long owned their mobile homes but paid monthly fees to rent the lots for their houses.
Travis White, who lives at Hidden Circle, said, “It hasn’t been an easy process, but we never gave up.”
White is president of the cooperative’s volunteer board, which was established last year with assistance from the Cooperative Development Institute of Northampton, Massachusetts.
“We had to purchase the park because the alternative could be worse,” White said. “Now, people can feel financially safe and safe in their homes.”
Buying the park completes a process that began in December when residents of Hidden Circle and two other parks in Jay asked the Select Board to begin the process of adopting an ordinance to limit the lot rental increases.
In recent years, some of Maine’s 480 mobile home parks have been sold to out-of-state owners, prompting resident complaints over rental hikes as high as 50 percent. They include at least three parks in Jay: Hidden Circle, Lambert Circle and Pine Haven.
Hidden Circle can hold about 37 mobile homes. Lambert Circle has 13 lots, and Pine Haven has 53. All had been sold to New Riverside Farms LLC of Holmes Beach, Florida.
Heather Holland of the Cooperative Development Institute, which helped the cooperative arrange the purchase, said 31 lots at Hidden Circle are occupied by mobile homes. The land encompasses 8 to 10 acres.
The Jay Select Board put a proposed ordinance on the April 28 annual town meeting warrant. Voters approved a freeze on lot rentals retroactive to Dec. 8 while the town works out a permanent rent control ordinance.
The Legislature enacted a law last autumn requiring park owners who want to sell to give residents the first right of refusal. That means an owner cannot sell a park without first offering it to residents and must sell to them if they meet the asking price.
While lot renters in other parks, notably in Brunswick and Gorham, had previously bought their parks, Holland said Thursday’s purchase of Hidden Circle was the first under the 2025 first-right-of-refusal law.
Financing came from the Genesis Community Loan Fund of Brunswick, the Mobile Home Park Preservation Fund administered by the Maine State Housing Authority and donors of the Maine Community Foundation.
The Cooperative Development Institute is a New England nonprofit that supports communities in making transitions to resident ownership.
Attempts last winter to reach New Riverside Farms LLC were unsuccessful after its general partner said he would return a call from Monitor Local. He did not return the call, and subsequent calls from Monitor Local were not answered.
Harold Redman Jr. and his wife, Judy Redman, moved in 2007 to Jay from Canton. They live in Hidden Circle.
On Dec. 8, when the Select Board put the moratorium on the town meeting warrant, Harold Redman Jr. said, “This means if they (the owners of the park) hit us again, we’ll get our money back.”
Now, they and their neighbors at Hidden Circle are the owners.
