Berkshire Village Residents Demand More Communication, Action
Residents have repeatedly said they have been enduring the mobile home park's unsafe and deteriorating conditions for nearly 10 years because of neglect by the previous owners.
New owner Crown Communities LLC, which contracts with M. Shapiro Real Estate to manage the property, said its spending millions to upgrade the park right now.
According to the town's property card, Crown Communities purchased the park in December 2022.
Justin Damore, the general contractor, Zoomed in during a rent control hearing at the end of November to provide an update on the park's improvements.
The update mostly focused on the septic system, which had been flagged by the state Department of Environmental for nonconformance. Damore claimed that there will be an inspection with the state DEP on Dec. 16. Additionally, the company is in the process of scheduling Title 5 inspections to ensure the septic systems comply with state regulations.
The discussion provided an update on the scheduled inspections with the town and MassDEP, clarifying the types of inspections to ensure compliance with MassDEP regulations and manufactured housing community laws.
A lot of the Title 5 inspections are tank only, Health Agent Valerie Bird said.
William Moreau, the secretary of the Berkshire Village Tenants Association, questioned whether there will be an inspection on what is running on the old system.
"There's four full systems on Fifth Avenue that have leach fields that will be inspected, but at that point, it will be completely up to date with the state and the county and the town as far as Title 5s need to be," Damore said
"They all fall in a five-year realm. So, to this day, we will be compliant with every [Title] 5 due."
Residents have described ongoing issues with the septic systems, electrical services, water, and roads and say the owners are not moving fast enough.
"There's a whole lot more going on in that community than just septic, and we have, over the last six months, seen everyone slowly focused on just septic and because of that, a whole lot of issues that we had mentioned earlier when we first started this thing have gotten out of control and out of proportion," Moreau said.
"We are going into the winter with the potential of losing water, that includes drinking, cleaning and flushing a toilet just because they have delayed the installation of the backup generator for the full septic system application."
During a meeting last May, Moreau recommended the property owners assess the aging water line infrastructure before finalizing the road repairs, saying there was evidence of leaks.
Since then, Moreau told iBerkshires that the water issues have increased dramatically, including there being "some kind of sediment" in the water resulting in personal hygiene issues and premature failure of appliances that use water. He also said that no or poorly done maintenance to the well system causes water pressure issues.
The owner representatives and residents occasionally clashed because of conflicting information regarding scheduled inspections and what improvements need to be done.
Damore claimed that work on electrical upgrades had been underway, with Second Avenue being connected and new utility poles being swapped over, and will continue to move down Fourth Avenue until they are complete
In a follow-up, Moreau contradicted Damore's claims, saying that although there are new poles, the power lines have not been swapped over from the old poles.
According to images and documents provided by the tenants association, Berkshire Village has two styles of electrical installations: the older versions with service entrances mounted on utility poles and newer styles on separate pedestals. The older style no longer meets electrical code and is prohibited by power companies, they said.
Complicating the situation is that there are also pedestals that supply power to the septic pump stations.
There are two main pedestals, on Second Avenue and Fourth Avenue, and several substations or pedestals.
Moreau said the service entrance needed for the septic is installed and functional. However, that has nothing to do with the service entrances for the individual homes, which he said are still old style -- and service entrances cannot be mounted on poles. He said no work on the service entrances have occurred in the past year.
During the meeting, he presented a letter to the Select Board, which also serves as the Rent Control Board.
In the letter, several measures were recommended to address residents' concerns including creating a committee to improve communication, placing a portion of the rent into escrow each month, and imposing fines if work is not completed by the agreed-upon deadline.
"We have been patient when one promise after another was broken. We have been patient when what few communications we did get were often accompanied by even more pleas for patience, more un-kept promises, repeated distorted or inaccurate facts, and in some cases even rude and/or outright threatening comments," the letter states.
Tags: mobile home park, rent control,
