Thursday night’s Planning Board meeting in Warren generated strong opposition to a proposed 22-lot mobile home park off of Route 1.
The Planning Board unanimously decided to delay the vote on approving the park to allow the developer time to make changes, including adding in plans to visually block the park from abutters.
While Maine has a number of mobile home parks, few new ones have been proposed in recent years even as the state — and particularly communities along the coast — have taken broader steps to address a critical housing shortage that has made living unaffordable for many residents.
When mobile home parks have gotten recent public attention, it has more often been because their residents are trying to buy out their existing communities or out-of-state landlords have hiked their rents.
But there is a growing movement to develop more mobile and modular housing in Maine. Despite the negative perception some people have of them, advocates say they can help alleviate the housing crisis while providing better living standards and cheaper rates than similar stick-built developments. Modular homes can cost 20 percent less than a similar stick-built house.
If the new mobile home park in Warren is approved, the local developer Falcon Lane Co. will rent out the lots on the 35-acre property.
But the meeting was heated, with one abutter even storming out after an argument with several other residents and the Planning Board chair, Jason Tuorila. The abutter, Matt Robinson, continually asked the board who was going to take care of the trash pickup, who would stop mobile home residents from trespassing on his property and how the development of the park would benefit him.
“How are the people that live around this and own property that pay taxes, how are we benefiting from this? Because I pay taxes on waterfront property. And I want to know, like, how am I benefiting from this? What am I benefiting from this? Is this going to lower my taxes, or is this going to drive it up?” Robinson said.
The developer said at the meeting that he would be in charge of trash pickup. Tuorila said trespassing is a civil matter, and the board cannot comment on how a development may adjust neighboring property values. Robinson clarified that he does not live in Warren, but owns property in the town.
No residents spoke in favor of the park.
Several other residents expressed their discontent with having to see the mobile home park from their houses and the additional traffic the park would generate. One resident, Richard Miller, asked for pine trees between his property and the park so he wouldn’t have to look at the mobile homes.
“Maybe it could be worked out to where they put up just a few pine trees, zig-zaggy or something, between my property and the start of this big, wonderful new development,” Miller said.
The board asked the developer to include this screening, and asked him to come to the next Planning Board meeting on March 13 with updated plans.