Mobile home rent at Fort Meade park could double with new owner

FORT MEADE, Fla. - The 23-acre city-owned mobile home park off of East Broadway Street may be under new ownership by September, and that means rent could double for residents.

The city has owned the mobile home park since the mid-1950’s, and residents are paying well under market value, according to the city.

Residents are paying about $150 per month in rent, which includes water and sewer.

"When you put in taxes, the fire assessment, the water, the sewer, the maintenance, you add all of that together, and it shows the city was subsidizing roughly about $70,000 per year and that’s just for this year, and that increases over the next several years," said Jan Bagnall, Fort Meade’s city manager.

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He says market value in the city for a mobile home starts at roughly $325 per month.

Market value for mobile home rent in Fort Meade is $325, but renters are only paying $150.

Back in April, the Fort Meade City Commission voted to approve selling the park to a prospective buyer, New York-based Wildflower Communities, who owns and runs a few other mobile home parks throughout the state.

A finalized deal is still in progress, but if it comes to fruition, that $150 dollar per month rent will likely double to meet fair market value.

"I don’t want to go anywhere else; I’d like to stay here," said Dot Lastinger, who has lived at the mobile home park for over 14 years. "If rent goes up, I’d have to move. That is scary."

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Some residents say they’ve been expecting this to happen, and even though rent increases are never welcome, it would mean the needed infrastructure improvements would happen.

"With the way the economy is with the world now, I think we’re in pretty good shape even if they put it up several times, we already were informed that it would go up every year for five years," said Deanna Ridgeway, who has lived at the mobile home park for a decade.

Wildflower Communities’ plan to buy the mobile home park is still in the works and should be final within the next two weeks. If it’s approved, Bagnall says it’ll be about one month until the new owner comes in, which is when residents could expect to start paying more per month.