Township hopes to help park residents slapped by hefty rent increase

MONROE TWP. — You can put a price tag on fear, just ask residents of Colonial Estates mobile home park about their 2024 rent increase notices.

The annual base rent for a home there went up $40 as of January, setting it at $755 per month now for each of the 658 home sites.

Residents own their homes, and the rent is for the land on which it sits. They feel $9,000 a year to rent a lot is a lot higher than it should be. And, they say, you pay extra for water and sewer.

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Last fall, after continuing lobbying by residents, the Monroe Township Council passed a “rent leveling” ordinance imposing limits and conditions on annual park rent increases as well as setting up a board to administer the ordinance. The ordinance took effect Oct. 18, 2023.

For its part, the park owner says it has no choice with rent increases due to steady and significant inflation hurting its bottom line.

Betty Flynn, 71, is in her eighth year at the North Black Horse Pike community. Retired with a small state pension, to help ends meet, she is behind the wheel of a school van five days a week carrying students.

Flynn said jolting annual rent increases started during the COVID pandemic. There was a recent previous $40 increase, too.

“We’re scared; I’m scared at my age, you know?” Flynn said. “How much longer can we keep paying for food? And everything, everything is going up.”

Monroe Township votes to cap yearly park rent hikes

Monroe has four mobile parks, all off or near the Black Horse Pike.

Colonial Estates came up with what it thinks is a way around the ordinance, at least for 2024. In early October, the park notified residents rents would go up $40 per month starting January 2024. Residents say rent notices never have come that early, and Monroe Township is protesting the move in court.

On Oct. 19, 2023, Colonial Estates sued in state court to overturn the ordinance and to collect any damages that accrue. Another company, with two properties here, has a separate lawsuit on the same issue. Together, the three communities are home to thousands of people.

Mayor Gregory Wolfe said Colonial Estates has given the strongest pushback, but the township is not backing off.

Colonial Park residents: Like paying to live in a prison

Jeanette Swanson, who gets assistance from the federal Supplemental Security Income program, has lived at Colonial Estates for more than eight years. Rent increases have happened before, although almost always less than $40 a month.

Swanson helped start an online residents group with about 100 members over a crime issue. Now, the group has shifted focus onto rent control. The lease language is another complaint.

“We got hit with a 22-page lease (in January),” Swanson said. “I’ve never, in my rental history, had a 22-page lease. And now they added a pet clause, where they’re trying to make us get rid of our pets. You can only have two pets. I have an emotional support animal.”

Swanson said the owner “cannot and must do” list infuriates residents.

“We made a joke the other night,” Swanson said. “I had said we were ‘Colonial Estates Community Prison.’ That we’re all going to wear inmate shirts.”

“Can’t paint your house, unless you go through them,” neighbor James Kay, 47, said. “I mean, when did we move to Russia?”

Kay, an outdoorsman and hunter, says the lease also bans keeping firearms, even a pellet rifle.

“You’re not allowed to have bows and arrows,” Kay said. “You can have none of it. None of it. Like, you can’t have a boat. Well, we have hobbies. We’re living. We’re not prisoners.”

“This is ridiculousness now,” longtime resident Neil Nickerson said. His parents moved here from Pine Hill, and his late uncle was the longtime maintenance supervisor.

“I’d like to leave,” Nickerson said. “If I’m going to pay less money in taxes (than rent), I might as well go to a house. I hate re-mortgaging. I’m going to be 47. Do I want to take on another mortgage? But what do you do?”

Wolfe says park rents have been an issue for years. “In 2023, there were some residents that came in and questioned me on, ‘Hey. Can you help us with rent control?’” he said.

Wolfe said one woman had gotten a rent increase letter from Colonial Estates shortly after her Social Security check was boosted to adjust for inflation. The rent increase wiped out the Social Security raise, he said.

“You start thinking about that and saying, ‘Well, everything else is gone up with inflation,’” Wolfe said. “You know, your fuel prices and your food prices, and your medical costs and things like that. Where’s this woman, who is on Social Security, supposed to get the extra money to pay for all those increases, too, if it was just eaten up in the rent?”

Colonial Estates is part of Nationwide MHC LLC, a large national operator based in Illinois. Its lawsuit anticipates that, between damages and legal expenses, it will ask Monroe to pay it more than $57 million.

The Temple Companies, based in California, is the other business suing Monroe. It owns Summerfields West LLC and Friendly Village LLC. Wolfe said both those communities issued 2 percent rent increases as of January.

Additionally, Summerfields's property value rose due to construction and a portion of that increase was eligible to be passed on to residents.

Colonial Estates blames inflationary pressures and states it unsuccessfully sought a negotiated compromise with Monroe.

New Jersey has no law on rent leveling, although State Assemblyman Dan Hutchinson just introduced legislation.

Monroe believes there are about 112 other rent leveling boards like its own in New Jersey.

Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.

Have a tip? Reach out at jsmith@thedailyjournal.com. Support local journalism with a subscription.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Monroe, mobile home parks fight over soaring rents for tenants