Landlords are speaking out against a proposed ordinance change that would redefine disorderly activity in Orono, saying that it isn’t needed.
Chad Bradbury, co-owner of KC Management, has been a landlord in Orono since 2004. He oversees 24 units and six buildings in Orono, with the majority of his tenants being University of Maine students.
His properties previously received 15 to 20 disorderly property notices a year, but that was “years ago” and not close to what he sees now. In the past two years, he got one complaint, but it was from a neighbor and the Orono Police Department wasn’t involved.
With how few complaints his properties have received, he said the changes aren’t needed.
“It’s a little bit much,” Bradbury said.
The proposed changes come from the Town Council’s Good Neighbor Committee. They would add a slew of actions — including excessive noise and obstructing town roads — to the town’s disorderly activity list, and would slap tenants, and in some instances landlords, with fines that range from $300 to $600 depending on the severity of the violation. The fines would double with each subsequent offense.
The committee was created after residents demanded change following an April assault, and it has focused on disorderly activity because crimes across Orono have been linked to large parties. But landlords say the proposed changes target those who provide rental housing, as well as their tenants, for complaints that aren’t an issue in town or are not properly enforced.
The committee includes three council members, seven citizens and two University of Maine participants. Two of the citizen members are landlords.
Bradbury has managed one of his properties in Webster Park for more than five years. Bradbury said that’s the house where the four people who allegedly committed an assault in April came from before they went onto a yard on Crosby Street.
Despite that, Bradbury said he wasn’t contacted by the Orono Police Department after the assault and only received one complaint while the tenants were living there. The complaint was for students entering people’s yards in September 2024.
Fines for disorderly activity wouldn’t stop crimes like the assault and could unfairly target college students and landlords for something that hasn’t been a problem in the past, Bradbury said.
Additionally, the town’s current laws aren’t being properly policed, Bradbury said.
“They create all this stuff, but at the end of the day, they don’t enforce half of what’s already there. I don’t know why we need to create more,” he said.
The Good Neighbor Committee has discussed equal enforcement at its meetings to ensure the ordinance would be fair to all residents of the town.
Orono Police Chief Daniel Merrill said during a June meeting that there would be no problem enforcing the changes because the ordinance is complaint-based. That requires Orono police to have a complaint about a property or activity before acting on the ordinance.
The Orono police act on the complaints they receive equally across student or non-student housing in town, Merrill said.
A part of the committee’s plans is to educate the community on calling the police and avoiding potentially dangerous situations, committee members said. More information on the non-emergency police number and when to call it will be shared to residents.
Telling residents to call the police should have been done before this change was proposed, Bradbury said. Residents need to call the police on disorderly activity for landlords to know what is going on, he said.
Two landlords, Matt Acheson and Dennis Cross, sit on the committee and have given their input to the ordinance. Acheson declined to comment on the effect it would have on his business, Cryptic House. Cross’ business, Cross Properties, did not respond to comment.
Cross and Acheson suggested fining occupants and not just property owners as a way to hold both renters and owners accountable. Cross proposed not enacting a fee for landlords on the first instance of disorderly activity, which made it into the language presented to the council.
Bradbury was not invited to be part of the committee and said he didn’t offer his input at the meeting he attended despite members talking about properties he manages.
Jon Hyatt has overseen 17 buildings in Orono for a decade as owner of SI Associates, a property management company that has buildings in the Bangor area.
The proposed ordinance is not needed because of how responsible Hyatt and other landlords have been in the past, he said.
Hyatt’s houses have not received disorderly activity or other complaints for years, with the last problem occurring eight years ago. He talked to the tenants at the time and hasn’t had a complaint since.
Additionally, the fines are another barrier for landlords to rent in Orono and don’t seem relevant to responding to the alleged assault that happened in April, he said.
“It almost just seems like, you know, another reason for the city to try and find a way to grab money out of landlords,” Hyatt said.
The proposed ordinance would be another addition to an already lengthy process to register and rent houses in Orono, he said.
Orono is already the most difficult place for Hyatt to rent in because of yearly rental registrations and oversight from town officials. His properties in Bangor, Old Town and Milford see less interaction with the towns and have simpler laws, he said.
Hyatt also said that he has never seen any activity coming from a house that he thinks would lead to an assault like the one that occurred in April. Loud parties or activities are the only problems he’s heard any Orono landlord talk about.
“It definitely seems like they’re just trying to put something in place just for the fact of putting it in place and putting more red tape around things,” Hyatt said.
A public hearing will be held at the Town Council meeting on July 28. If voted forward, the Council would be able to vote on the ordinance on Aug. 11.
