Cascade Acres is seen here on Monday morning. (Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)

LAKE PLACID — Residents of the Cascade Acres mobile home park have secured funding from the state and village in a last-minute attempt to stop the sale of the land that their 124 manufactured homes sit on by matching an offer from a private equity firm, allowing the residents to exercise their right of first refusal.

The residents’ purchase offer had not been accepted by deadline on Thursday evening and was still being debated by lawyers. But Cascade Acres resident and homeowners association co-founder Ryan Preston was hopeful it will work.

The village board held a special meeting on Tuesday to unanimously approve a loan of up to $420,000 to an LLC set up by the recently-formed HOA’s representative. The discussion was in executive session, so the details of what was said then are not publicly available. But Mayor Art Devlin said they wanted to give the park residents a chance.

“Basically, to save the affordable housing we have,” he said.

Brandon Montag, who owns the Birch Park Community mobile home park in Lake Clear, is the representative for the HOA.

Montag created LPMHC, LLC. This LLC is the entity the village’s loan will go to. The loan is from the village’s revolving loan fund.

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The process

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Cascade Acres is currently owned by M.H. Communities Ltd., a mobile home park owner based in Nashua, New Hampshire. In March, residents learned of plans to sell the park to the private equity firm Crown Communities LLC for $6.5 million. Crown is buying a number of M.H. Communities’ parks around the northeast in a package deal totaling $87.5 million.

State law gives mobile home park residents the right of first refusal when the park is sold.

Preston and other Cascade Acres residents organized an HOA and got more than 50% of residents to agree to be members. More than half of them qualify for free legal aid through the state, so they are represented by the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York. They got the property appraised and did environmental studies.

They were banking on the state providing the financial backing. New York has an interest in preserving mobile home parks.

But, one week ago, they learned the state cannot buy the property. The appraisal for the 52-acre property came back $1.1 million below the $6.5 million offer from Crown, Preston said. By law, the state cannot pay more than the appraised value, unless there are special circumstances. Montag said, with the village loan, the state agreed to pitch in a bit more to its loan, after much “begging and pleading.”

Preston said the HOA put an offer in on the park matching Crown’s on Wednesday, shortly before the deadline on Thursday.

M.H. Communities didn’t accept it, though. Preston said M.H. Communities’ lawyer says the HOA didn’t legally have the right to assign Montag as a third-party in this case.

Montag said they modified the agreement to clarify that the HOA is executing their right of first refusal, signing the purchase agreement and then assigning it to Montag, essentially making him a property manager and financier for the park.

The HOA has a legal right to first refusal of the purchase. If it is not given the opportunity, litigation may follow, which is costly and doesn’t help the residents, Montag said.

He said it’s frustrating how difficult this process is.

“They’ve jumped through hoop after hoop after hoop and overcame all these miracles to get to this point, and here we are at the 11th hour and they just are wildly uncooperative,” Montag said.

From the beginning he thought the plan was a “pipe dream,” but he decided to get involved because he sees the region’s severe housing need every day.

Their goal is to have the park owned locally and guarantee its future as affordable housing. Preston believes local ownership is likely to have better maintenance than out-of-state ownership.

A rumor had sprung up that the buyer plans to replace the mobile homes with condos. This is not substantiated, though, and owners of the company say they have no such plans.

Preston alleged that Crown “has zero intentions of keeping Cascade Acres a manufactured home park” and is planning “multi-million dollar condos in its place” in a social media post.

“We have never had any plans to redevelop the property,” Crown co-owner Alex Cabot said in an email to the Enterprise.

In the announcement of the contract, Cabot signs that he has “no intention of changing the use” of the park within 60 months of the sale. This is a requirement from the state every time a mobile home park is sold.

“Crown … intends to continue to use the land … for manufactured home lot rentals,” the announcement says.

Preston said the idea of condos replacing the mobile homes is speculation, but it may be possible after the five years are up. Also, “intentions” are not the same as guarantees, he added.

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Rent and expansion

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State law says manufactured home park owners cannot raise lot rents more than 3% a year, unless they can prove they have valid and required operating expense increases — mostly related to tax increases or infrastructure improvements. The maximum cap is at 6%.

There aren’t any restrictions on how much rent can be raised when a lot is rented by a new, non-preexisting customer, though.

Montag said, with operating costs rising faster than 3%, the way to keep manufactured home parks profitable for owners is by adding more units. He said, if this plan works, he hopes to fill in empty lots and expand the housing stock. He feels there are 20 to 30 more lots that can be added.

Preston said the Cascade Acres neighborhood is home to — by his estimate — 200 employees, 30 seniors and veterans and 5-to-7% of the school district’s students.

Lake Placid has an affordable housing shortage. Preston said Cascade Acres is one of the only properties with the ability to increase affordable housing in the village. He said there are 10 vacant lots and five trailers that need to be pulled out.

Montag has a background in manufactured home communities. He bought Birch Park Community five years ago. It was in a similar position as Cascade Acres. Since then, he’s added 22 new homes, has 100% occupancy and a long waitlist.

He also said the HOA will have more power to enforce property maintenance by residents.