A controversial Westbrook ordinance protecting residents of trailer parks against rent increases will remain on the books after the Westbrook City Council voted unanimously against repealing it Monday.

The ordinance, the only one of its kind protecting Westbrook renters from rent increases by their landlords, states that if renters in trailer parks feel they’re being treated unfairly, they can appeal their situation to the city. The city would then appoint a three-person panel to arbitrate.

About 40 residents of the 288-home Hamlet trailer park on Saco Street attended the Monday council meeting to ask to keep the ordinance, while a representative of the Virginia-based company that manages the park, Racap, was at the meeting to ask for its repeal.

The ordinance itself was written to prevent grievances between trailer park renters and the owners of their plots from reaching the lawsuit stage, as it did about eight years ago. In that case, a dispute went to litigation, which involved the renters association at the Hamlet, the management company and owners, along with the city of Westbrook itself.

The result of that litigation was a settlement in which the terms included a five-year lease between the renters and the management company, as well as the establishment of the ordinance on the city’s books to protect against unfair rent increases. The renters and the management company have since signed another five-year lease, which is due to expire in May 2009.

According to City Administrator Jerre Bryant, the administration was seeking Monday night to remove the ordinance from the books after eight years had passed and it seemed as though the dispute in the Hamlet would not reappear.

However, residents of the Hamlet came in droves to make sure the city kept the ordinance, assuring the city council that it was necessary.

Dave Peterson, a Hamlet resident since 1986, told the council that it should keep the ordinance because if the city repealed it and troubles resumed, it would cost the city a lot of money in legal fees.

Seventeen-year Hamlet resident Carol Craig agreed. “We need that ordinance,” she said.

Craig said she and her fellow renters would be charged for every major renovation through massive rent increases at the trailer park if the ordinance were removed. As it is, she said, any repair at the park or renovation is transferred to the renters.

“Everything they do, we get charged for,” said Craig. “We can’t afford it.”

Site rentals average $400 and up per month.

Bob Ruais of Racap, a land-lease company that manages the park on behalf of the Virginia-based corporation that owns the park, Ham/Westbrook, LLC., said renovations to the park are naturally transferred to the renters in the form of rent increases.

However, he said he believes Racap, which manages about 5,000 individual mobile home plots nationwide including the 288 at the Hamlet, has acted in good faith for the last eight years and has no plans for any major rent increases in the years to come. Over the last eight years, the lease agreement resulting from the court settlement has kept rent increases to an average of about $15 per year.

Ruais was in favor of repealing the ordinance because the company is looking to do major renovation in the park, including $80,000 for a sewer system update, $150,000 for a new clubhouse and $600,000 to $800,000 in new roads. To do those renovations, rents will have to increase more than residents might want.

Several of the Hamlet residents at the meeting said they have rent increases almost every year and that the rent increases were for management company and owner profit and not to finance renovations.

Mary Reynolds said she had thought the last rent increase was to improve the roads in the Hamlet, although she didn’t think that had happened. She said, as an example, that she had a hole in her driveway that went unfixed for two years.

“The only place they’ve invested any money is the front gate when you come into the park,” she said.

Fellow Hamlet resident Bob Farr agreed with Reynolds, saying a drainage ditch in the park has gone unfixed for two years and has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes in the summer.

“The curb and the roads have been torn up and shredded,” he said.

Charlotte Henkel, who has lived in the Hamlet for 20 years, said she doesn’t feel the rent she’s paying now is justified.

“I don’t feel that the management company is doing all that it can for us,” she said. “The park rent has already, to me, gone too far.”

Ruais disagreed with the residents, saying the roads are in bad shape at the moment because of the many changes in temperature during this past winter, which tends to be hard on pavement. Ruais defended his company and the job it has done managing the park and keeping rent increases to a minimum over the last eight years.

Following the public hearing during which the residents and Ruais spoke, the city council discussed the issue, as well.

City Councilor Ed Symbol agreed with Peterson, saying he didn’t mind the city having to pay for a three-person panel to arbitrate disputes if it meant no major cost to the city in legal fees in a court battle.

City Councilor Drew Gattine said, while he thought the ordinance gave more rights to the tenants of the Hamlet than other renters in the city, he saw no reason to repeal it.

In the end, the city council voted, 7-0, in favor of keeping the ordinance.