Housing Court judge denies landlord’s request to stay a rent reduction at Ludlow mobile home park
SPRINGFIELD — The rents at a mobile home community in Ludlow will return to previous, lower rates until the town's Rent Control Board follows procedure, a judge has ruled.
Judge Jonathan J. Kane ordered on July 10 that monthly rents — which residents pay to live on their lots at the West Street Village Mobile Home Community — will return to $207, a rate that they were paying in 2023.
A 2023 decision by the board approved the landlord's request to increase the rent by 143%, jumping from $207 to $503.
"With respect to the plaintiffs, should the court order the requested stay, they would be obligated to pay a rent increase that was never lawfully approved," the judge said.
The West Street Mobile Home Community in Ludlow, as seen in May. (Douglas Hook / The Republican, File)Douglas Hook
Last summer, the board submitted an 111-page document, claiming it was the "full and accurate record of the proceedings" leading up to the decision to approve the rent increase, the board's attorney, Brian Winner, said at the time.
A few months later, after tenants of the mobile home park pointed out that not all of the information was included in the record, the town then submitted a 313-page document — again claiming it was the "full and accurate record of the proceedings," Winner said at a court hearing in August last year.
Tom Lennon, owner of the West Street Village Mobile Home Community in Ludlow, appears in Springfield Housing Court where residents of the community are suing him and the town of Ludlow. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 8/28/2024The Republican
Kane denied the landlord's emergency request to stay the rent reduction. The landlord, Tom Lennon, is an intervenor — or a third-party member — on the appeal in Western Housing Court.
Robert Kraus, Lennon's attorney, did not respond to a phone call or email request for comment. Joel Feldman, the Springfield housing attorney representing the plaintiffs, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A view through a window of the West Street Mobile Home Community in Ludlow. (Douglas Hook / The Republican, File)Douglas Hook
To successfully win the emergency request, Kraus had to prove the likelihood of irreparable harm if the court denied the stay request, the absence of substantial harm to the other parties if the stay is issued, and the absence of harm to public interest from granting the stay, Kane said.
"The harm to the intervenor if the stay is not granted is purely financial, and there is insufficient evidence that the harm would be irreparable," the judge said.
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