Calgary mobile home park residents push for stronger protections amid fee increases

A group of mobile home park residents in Calgary is pushing for stronger protections under provincial laws, as they face increasing fees they say could drive people out of the community and make it harder to sell their homes.

Greenwood Village, a 500-unit mobile home park, is just north of Calgary Farmers' Market West, off the Trans-Canada Highway.

Like most mobile home communities, Greenwood Village residents own their homes but not the land. Instead, they pay monthly fees to rent the pads their homes sit on. The fees pay for water and sewer utilities, waste, recycling, green bin collection, park maintenance and road repairs.

Resident and real estate agent Claudette Boniface said lot fees for new residents recently jumped to $1,275 a month from a previous increase of $1,150 in January.

"A lot of people just cannot afford that," said Boniface, noting they also have mortgages.

Additionally, she said, lot fees for existing residents are also climbing. This year, many residents' monthly fees went up by $60, which she said is a big financial hit for the park's many senior citizens on fixed incomes.

"They're taking from their food budget and they're putting it toward [fees] and then they're not eating properly," said Boniface.

As a real estate agent, she said the increased fees for new residents are making it difficult to sell homes in the community. She currently has seven listings in the community.

It's leaving residents at an impasse, she said — some can't afford to stay, but they also can't afford to leave without selling their home.

It's why she and other community members are asking the province to review its Mobile Home Sites Tenancies Act to better protect mobile home residents at Greenwood Village and beyond.

Randi Mayan, a real estate agent with CIR Realty, agrees it's been tough to sell homes in the park.

She listed a Greenwood Village property in the spring, which she expected to be sold by the fall — just in time for her clients' new home to be built and ready to be moved into.

But after several months, no one purchased the home.

So last week, Mayan and her clients decided to terminate the listing. They aim to relist in the spring, but in the meantime Mayan's clients can't move into their new home as planned.