Board members resign over tensions at Briarcrest Estates

By RICK GREEN, LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — Phone call threats. Character assassination. Even a report of an assault in the mail room.

Some residents of Briarcrest Estates say it's neighbor against neighbor at the bucolic, 230-acre manufactured housing park as one faction wants to sell it to a corporation while another wants to continue to run it as a residents' cooperative.

“It's just been ridiculous,” said Carrie McCarthy, whose husband, Joe McCarthy, and two others resigned from the six-member cooperative board a week ago after the trio came under fire over a proposal to sell the park to Hometown America Corporation.

The other board members who resigned were Don Vachon and John Drouin. A special meeting has been called for April 24 to fill the vacancies. Another meeting has been set for May 20 to consider selling the park.

Carrie McCarthy said Monday that the three came in for undue criticism for merely suggesting cooperative members consider an unsolicited purchase offer.

“There are a small number of people in this park who are so toxic,” she said. “All they are trying to do is stop the vote. “It's not all wonderful here in the co-op. People fight and argue. It's like something you'd see on TV.”

McCarthy said some have resorted to lies and threats. Two people on either side of the issue apparently had words recently in the mail room and someone may have been jostled. An assault report was filed with the Laconia Police Department, which said it couldn't release the document because the case is still under investigation.

In favor of the status quo is Louise Rosand, who said there are good reasons for residents to own and run the park through the cooperative.

In most manufactured housing parks, residents own their homes but rent the land under their homes. In those situations, the residents can be more likely to face rent hikes and don't have adequate say over rules, plans and improvements for the park, Rosand said.

The cooperative purchased Briarcrest in 2014.

Rosand said some residents feel the co-op board began negotiating with Hometown America Corporation without adequate notice to the membership and without permission.

“They went behind our backs,” Rosand said. “There is no financial reason to sell. We are in good standing. We have extra money to put away. The bank loves us. The park has been running smoothly.”

Opinion about whether or not to sell the tidy park can differ from block to block.

“It's kind of like a group against group,” Rosand said. “Your neighbor could be for or against. I live in a little section where there are four of us who are not for the sale, but if you go down the street you may find somebody who is for the sale. But you don't go in your backyard and yell. You wave at everybody who goes by.”

Many of the people who live at the park are retired and don't want to volunteer or participate in self-governing. They would prefer that a professional organization run the community, said Brenda Baer, a Laconia City Council member who lives in Briarcrest.

“You have a $12 million business, with 241 homes, operated by a bunch of volunteers, none of whom have any experience running a park or anything else,” she said.

There is one full-time employee and the cooperative depends on volunteers, she said.

“People will say they will volunteer, but after two-and-a-half years, you are sick and tired of cleaning out someone else's toilet,” she said. “There's turnover in volunteers, and constant turnover in board members.”

She said the idea that rents would go up under corporate ownership is overblown.

Hometown America Corporation has offered to retire the outstanding balances on an $8 million loan from TD Bank and a $2 million loan from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund as well as pay the prepayment penalty for the loan, closing costs and real estate transfer taxes.

It has also pledged to limit annual rent increases to the rise in property taxes and inflation rate, together with any special assessment levied to fund improvements. The company has also offered to invest $350,000 in improvements to the park in the first year of its ownership. Its offer also includes a commitment to restrict the park to residents 55 and older, which residents have rejected previously.

Mark and Ruth Mooney opened Briarcrest Estates in 1988. Its land covers an area in Laconia and Belmont.

The cooperative matched an offer from Hometown America to purchase the park from the Mooneys for $10 million in 2014. Since the New Hampshire Legislature granted residents of manufactured housing parks the opportunity to acquire their parks in 1987, 121 parks have passed into cooperative ownership and none have reverted to private ownership.

Tara Reardon, director of ROC-NW, a program of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, said many cooperatives have challenges in early years that they are able to eventually overcome.

“It's typical for cooperatives of this size to take a few years to settle into how they will run things,” she said. “After five years they find their system and their norms.”

Tidy manufactured homes dot the street in bucolic Briarcrest Estates, where there has been turmoil over a proposal to sell the community to a corporation. (Rick Green/Laconia Daily Sun)