Like many of his neighbors, John Sullivan looks at his Apple Tree Park and crosses the Colorado River into the small town of New Castle on the western slope and wonders about the future.
The 290-seat mobile home park where he has lived for 25 years offers one of the most picturesque settings among the fifty such parks, large and small, dotting from Aspen to Parachute.
The streets and yards are covered with mature trees to provide enough shade in the summer, and there’s a good-sized networked park where kids can play and families gather for picnics. Many spaces including the river, although with Interstate 70 and the Union Pacific Railroad. tracks just on the other side.
It’s not paradise, but in a booming real estate market like the one that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, the 63 acres of riverside assets may simply be a developer’s dream.
“This idea is in your mind. You never know, it might happen at some point,” said Sullivan, who recently retired from his long-term maintenance assignment at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs. somewhere else. “
Two of his adult children also live in Apple Tree with their families, grandchildren are nearby. It’s a wonderful position to live, especially for other people of modest means, he said.
“It would be hard to move anywhere else unless you had a lot of cash to pay for and buy something,” Sullivan said. “It’s not an option for most of us here. “
What worries Sullivan and his neighbors — corporate purchases, growing unaffordability, threat of park relocation due to redevelopment — is declining at a rapid pace, in both Roaring Fork Valley and Colorado, which has prompted elected officials to prescribe stricter policies. Network leaders.
In 2020, according to Garfield County Real Estate Transaction Records, Apple Tree Park was sold for $22. 7 million to Park City, Utah-based Investment Property Group (IPG) when the Talbott family, who have owned the park since its inception, wanted to sell.
That same year, IPG also purchased the 68-space Mountain Valley mobile home park on Highway 133 off Carbondale for $9. 5 million, about $4. 3 million more than the assets had sold two years earlier, records show.
IPG first entered the real estate market in January 2019 when it purchased the 79-space Aspen-Basalt mobile home park on Willits Lane in Basalt for $11. 2 million, according to Eagle County real estate transaction records.
The company’s portfolio now includes more than 150 homes in thirteen states, adding 114 cell home parks with more than 19,000 spaces, according to Mobile Home Park Home Owners Allegiance’s online database.
IPG advertises itself on its online page as a residential asset control company with the goal of renovating and maintaining its homes for the long term. Company officials declined to comment on the story.
This is part of a trend toward home ownership away from family caravan parks (as they were once called), built by farming and ranching families to generate additional sources of income through rents and support space staff for large public works projects around the world. mid to late twentieth century, and towards investment interests in real estate outside the state.
“It’s definitely a national trend,” said Jon Fox-Rubin, who works with the Carbondale-based Manaus Philanthropic Fund as a housing innovation allocation manager. “And, ironically, part of the federal affordable housing budget has been available for a lot of those teams of investors to come and buy cell home parks to get incredibly low interest rates on their financing. “
There are attractive long-term players, and IPG and some of the recent new players may simply be part of them, he acknowledged. However, there are rarely clauses requiring landlords to provide affordable rents or preventing them from selling land for eventual redevelopment, he said. saying.
The abandonment of local assets has imposed new regulations on many park tenants, such as restricting the number of sheds and other structures they can own, making sure fences are stained and in good condition, and getting rid of unwanted cars and recreational vehicles. or locate somewhere else to buy them.
The standards are intended for the appearance of the parks. But they can be expensive, not to mention the steep prices for others who are content to survive.
“I try to stick to it and do everything I can,” said Sullivan, who had to remove two of his three sheds in a shed, where he sells firewood for the winter. Now you’ll have to buy something from off-site, for an additional fee.
“That’s how I heat my space during the winter, it’s wood,” he says.
And of course, the new regulations are accompanied by an increase in space rentals.
Sullivan said he saw rent of $80 a month for the first year with the new owner of Apple Tree, and a more modest increase last year. He will now pay $588 a month for the right to park his home, which he owns. (As with most mobile home parks, citizens own their homes but pay rent for the space. )
Through its networking efforts, local advocacy organization Voces Unidas de las Montañas learned that new tenants who bought an existing cell home or moved into a new home under the IPG were charged 50 to 60 percent more rent than long-term renters. Those with acquired rights pay.
“That’s the hard thing that a lot of those citizens are talking about to me,” said Alan Muñoz of Voces Unidas, who has helped Apple Tree citizens mobilize on issues such as compliance issues, rents and current water quality considerations in the park.
Growing up and living in Cottonwood Springs Mobile Home Park near Rifle, Muñoz said he used to hire raises, but no more than $10 or $15 a year.
“So you go from $410 to $425 a year, while some of those corporate-owned parks go from $400 to $500 or $600 in a single year,” he said. “And we don’t have any kind of law prohibiting that. “
With increasing pressure on mobile home park citizens across Colorado, efforts are underway, both locally and within the state legislature, to try and keep mobile home parks as one of the last bastions of affordable housing for low-income people.
In 2021, Mountain Voices Project, a network advocacy organization introduced through Manaus, partnered with the Partners in Evaluation and Research Center (PiER) at the Kaiser Permanente Health Research Institute of Colorado to conduct a statewide assessment of the cell home park and a local case. study.
According to the final report released by PiER last summer, more than 100,000 people live in about 900 manufactured home or mobile home park communities in Colorado.
“While many citizens own their cell homes, the ability to maintain stable and affordable housing is threatened by several factors, including lack of tenant protection, overbilling, inventory maintenance, and unjustified evictions,” a summary of the report says.
Focusing on housing insecurity, they tested some of the solutions, adding the impact, if any, of the law enacted in 2019 and 2020 on park residents.
These invoices included:
The measures tasked the Colorado Department of Local Affairs’ Housing Division with implementing and enforcing new regulations for cell home parks, created the Mobile Home Parks Act’s enforcement and dispute resolution program, and gave cities the authority to enact ordinances supporting the equitable operation of cell homes. Parks.
The Buyability Act requires property owners to give 12 months before a replacement of use can occur on the property. Residents then have 120 days (the original 90-day provision of the law amended in 2022) to make an offer to acquire the property. property.
However, one of the main findings of the study is that policy implementation takes time and that language is confusing and deficient.
He also notes that citizens of mobile home parks fear retaliation if they complain about rent, regulations or conditions, making it difficult for them to organize so they can defend themselves.
While the law has signaled progress for mobile home park advocates in terms of racial justice and housing safety, there is still work to be done, the report says.
“Overall, we have observed a delay in the deployment and implementation of policies in the two years following the enactment (of laws),” the study concludes. “Despite the new protections introduced through the policies, concern about retaliation among citizens from the cell home inventory was a significant barrier that limited the effectiveness of the policies. “
Locally, with asset values and interest rates emerging, there are few teams for citizens to protect themselves against rent increases or withdraw to take ownership of their parks, Fox-Rubin and others note.
There are about 3,000 cell homes in Garfield County alone, housing between 15,000 and 20,000 people, depending on the local case included in the state assessment. Inventories through Manaus and Voces Unidas recommend that approximately one-portion of Garfield County park citizens are Latino.
The local study looked at three mobile housing parks in Garfield County: Apple Tree, Cottonwood Springs (290 spaces) and Cavern Springs (97 spaces), between Glenwood Springs and Carbondale, near the intersection of Highway 82 and Highway 154 in Garfield County.
Cottonwood Springs, which has been owned by local owners since its inception in 1969, is now registered with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office as Cottonwood Springs Holdings LLC. The price of its assets in 2023 is $14. 2 million, according to Garfield County Appraiser’s Office records. The registered agent indexed for this entity, retired Glenwood Springs attorney John Schenk, may be contacted for comment.
Cavern Springs, formerly known as H Lazy F Mobile Home Park, is now owned by Maryland-based Horizon Land Management, with an existing valuation of just $10 million, according to Garfield County Appraiser’s Office records.
In early 2021, Colorado-based Thistle ROC (Resident-Owned Communities) was concerned about trying to get citizens to buy Cavern Springs. Thistle ROC is a nonprofit organization that funds low-income resident businesses so they can acquire and improve their parks and build equity.
Cavern Springs is part of a timeshare portfolio owned by the now-defunct Strive Communities, said Andy Kadlec, who worked for Thistle ROC at the time and then chaired the Roaring Fork Community Development Corporation (RFCDC) when it was resurrected through Manaus. He is now Executive Director of the Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority.
Thistle effectively got rid of two of those portfolio homes and sold them to residents.
“But the value in Cavern Springs is astronomical — about twice that of most other parks in the portfolio,” Kadlec said.
Fox-Rubin and Kadlec stated that a smart rule of thumb regarding the cost of market position of cell home parks is approximately $100,000 per unit. In the case of Cavern Springs, this would place the cost of market position more or less at the assessed cost of the proconsistent: about $9. 7 million. But the requested value was about twice the unit cost at the time of the investigation, they said.
“I met several times with citizens, but the debt needed to buy was for offloading and would have almost tripled rents,” Kadlec said.
Garfield County asset records show that assets of approximately 14 acres were transferred from MHCO H Lazy F to Cavern Springs MHC LLC, a subsidiary of Horizon, in late March 2021. However, no document payments were recorded, which would mean a cost of sale. . The company representative who filed the application requested a statutory exemption from the payment record, said Bev Eberle, registrar of the county clerk’s office and recorder.
According to industry documents from the Colorado secretary of state, MHC’s registered agent from Cavern Springs is Maryland attorney Rikki Drykerman, who, according to her LinkedIn page, is Horizon’s general counsel. The company’s online page lists an asset portfolio of dozens of homes in several states, totaling five in the West Slope: Grand Junction, Montrose, Craig, Hayden and Glenwood Springs.
Horizon representatives declined a request for comment on the story and Drykerman may be reached for comment.
“We excel at creating and maintaining rented neighborhoods at affordable, empty and sought after prices; sometimes situated in spaces where life is high,” says the Horizon company website. “Our rented neighborhoods are manufactured home communities (MHCs) similar to classic single-family residential neighborhoods, unless the owner, and not the owner, owns the land on which the resident’s home is located.
The Cavern Springs, Apple Tree and Cottonwood case study included a survey of citizens to gauge their perceptions of the park’s status, control practices and safety, as well as their willingness to organize to protect their interests.
Most respondents said they live in their cell home park because it’s the only home they can in the domain and because the parks are sometimes quiet and close to where they want to go.
But there’s also a factor, given the strength dynamics of living in a cell home park. Also captured in the investigation:
“This high percentage of ‘uncertain’ responses highlights a theme heard by resident leaders that other people were afraid to respond truthfully for fear that the landlord would find out and affect their living situation,” the study said.
When asked if they would be interested in owning the park in cooperation with their neighbors, 68% of respondents said yes. In addition, 71% said a residents’ agreement would be helpful in addressing considerations and initiating the ownership procedure through residents.
“These percentages were highest in Apple Tree and Cavern Springs parks recently sold (89% and above),” the study concludes. “This may simply be due to the negative reports citizens have had with new park owners and with citizens who have a higher understanding of how owning a mobile home stock can help them in some of their current challenges. “
Water quality has been a primary factor at Apple Tree Park, where the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment intervened this year, a network assembly with citizens and IPG representatives to seek solutions.
Although water quality tests conducted through CDPHE revealed that the water does not violate sanitary standards, it is discolored due to the superior iron content of the underground source. Residents say they don’t drink it and can’t wash their clothes or use them for cooking. And iron deposits also shorten the life of fixtures and appliances, resulting in costly replacements.
Cavern Springs citizens expressed similar considerations about water quality in the survey. 39% of respondents said they were unhappy with access to clean water, and 42% cited water and sewer issues, fair billing for apps and rents as their most sensible desires in the park.
Another law, the Mobile Home Parks Water Quality Act (HB 23-1257), passed this year and sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, who represents Garfield County and the Roaring Fork Valley. Create a water testing program for cell homes. grants for parks and sanitation supplies.
It includes provisions under which a park will be a public nuisance if it does not meet verification requirements or create a water quality remediation plan when disturbances in verification results are known. In excessive cases of non-compliance, parks may even go unnoticed. to local government.
The lobby of mobile home park owners in Colorado and elsewhere in the country has opposed provisions to protect park tenants, adding eligibility criteria and attempts to control hiring. It remains to be determined whether these measures, if challenged, will be maintained in court.
John Stroud is a freelancer founded in Carbondale and a veteran journalist from the Roaring Fork Valley for 35 years. Aspen Journalism covers social justice, water, the environment and more. Visit http://aspenjournaism. org.
Editor’s Note: Rob Pew, chairman of the Manaus board of directors, is a non-public funder of Aspen Journalism. Aspen Journalism is only for its editorial content.