With a little more than two months left to submit an offer on the land underneath their homes, the residents of Aspen-Basalt and Mountain Valley mobile home parks are in the thick of fundraising efforts.
The owner, Park City-based Investment Property Group, is asking $42 million for the properties, $26.5 million for Aspen-Basalt and $15.5 million for Mountain Valley. The parks have 75 and 64 lots respectively, and are located just outside the Basalt and Carbondale municipal boundaries.
Currently, average lot rents at the Aspen-Basalt park are about $1,322 and for Mountain Valley it’s $1,125. Because of the high asking price, residents would need to secure about $20 million in outside funding toward the overall purchase price to keep lot payments at about $1,500 and $1,300, respectively.
The parks will have their own mortgages through a mobile home park-specific lender, but residents are looking to governments, private donors and more to help secure the $20 million — or whatever they can get.
After a series of community meetings following the first notice on March 11, residents from both parks voted to pursue a resident-owned community (ROC) model with assistance from Thistle ROC, a Boulder-based nonprofit that helps mobile home parks achieve ROC status. Thistle ROC has access to ROC USA Capital, the funder for park acquisitions.
“Tonight I’m going to show you the absolute worst of the worst. I’m aiming high in a lot of numbers, because I don’t want to tell you a low number, and then we don’t achieve it in the end, because we’ve taken all the information we can from the current owner and have tried to build out what we’re projecting the financial costs to look like,” Tim Townsend, ROC Program Director for Thistle, told Mountain Valley residents at an April 18 meeting. “And we’re going to aim high in hopes of bringing that down as low as you possibly can.”
An April 9 notice to residents said that owners have an offer from another potential buyer, meaning that to be competitive, the residents will have to make an offer at least close to the purchase price. If the fundraising effort falls short of the $20 million goal, they can still submit an offer, but the lot payments will be higher to pay off the higher mortgage.
Adult residents of the Aspen-Basalt Mobile Home Park frequently gather at the picnic table in the center of their neighborhood while their kids play around them. Jason Charme/Aspen Daily News
The Mobile Home Park Act, which affords park residents the right to make an offer, requires owners to negotiate “in good faith,” though that term has not been explored through the court system.
“I would hope that for this particular seller, that good faith would also, in their minds, factor in the public purpose,” said attorney Tom Snyder, partner with Kutak Rock LLP, who is assisting the Aspen-Basalt residents pro-bono. “It’s in the public interest for these residents to maintain ownership over their parks, because while they will face a large rent increase whether they get it or the [other potential] buyer gets it, there’s going to be a substantial rate increase to cover this high price tag.”
The potential buyer’s identity is redacted on the April 9 notice, so it is not clear who the other possible park owner could be. They could assume ownership of the park and raise the rent, or evict the residents. The Mobile Home Park Act has restrictions on those owner actions, such as one rise in rent annually, but there is no limit on what the amount would be.
The park residents have 120 days from the latest notice, April 9, to submit an offer. After that, there’s a 45-day due diligence period to have financing in place, according to Townsend. Unless they know they have funding committed to support the loan from the lender, they won’t submit the offer, he said.
Affordable housing nonprofit West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition is organizing funding requests to local governments, grant opportunities and other avenues for financing, supported by a $60,000 grant from the Department of Local Affairs.
Townsend and April Long, executive director of the housing coalition, are scheduling presentations to local governments from Aspen to Glenwood Springs, plus the counties (Garfield and Eagle) where the parks are located. On May 27, they gave an informational presentation to the Carbondale Board of Trustees.
Basalt Town Council greenlit a $250,000 contribution to the parks at their meeting on May 27, which they will formalize at an upcoming meeting. Basalt’s council is the first governmental entity to indicate financial support for the parks.
The money will come from the town’s reserves, as the parks are not eligible for Basalt Forward 2030 funds because the parks are not within town limits. Voters approved the Basalt Forward 2030 funding in a bond question in 2021.
The council emphatically supported the allocation, directing town staff to explore ways to highlight residents’ funding needs. Dozens of residents came before council that day and spoke about their quality of life in the parks and in the community and the importance of government support for the ROC model.
“We need to maximize [government and other donors] contributing and leaning in as hard as they can to this. No amount is too small,” Basalt Mayor David Knight said at the meeting. “If we all lean in, we’ll get somewhere.”
Lorena Vargas helps her daughter, Shelby, ride her bike around the Aspen-Basalt Mobile Home Park. Jason Charme/Aspen Daily News
How residents are feeling
Lorena Vargas lives with her husband, Manny Vargas, and their two daughters, Shelby, 7, and Andrea, 5, at the Aspen-Basalt park. They live next door to Manny’s mom, Veronica, who still lives in Manny’s childhood home.
“That’s something that you find throughout the mobile home park. It’s multi-generational. The people we grew up with are now having their kids here, and so our kids are growing up together,” Lorena said. “I love Basalt, and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
The park is home to about 260 people, and by Lorena’s count, 80-90 of those are children. It’s mostly a Latino neighborhood and most residents have lived there for 15 years or more.
People work in hospitality, construction, in the public sector for local government or courts. There also are entrepreneurs with their own businesses. Vargas said about 80% of working residents are employed upvalley.
When the school bus comes at the end of the day, kids spill out into the playground and park situated in the middle of the neighborhood. They ride bikes, kick soccer balls, lob volleyballs, play on the slides or hang around the basketball court.
Lorena was raised in Basalt and now works for the city of Aspen as a development services analyst in the engineering department. She and her family attend mass at St. Vincent Catholic Church and her kids love the bilingual program at Basalt Elementary.
Growing up, Lorena’s family lost their apartment housing after the building was sold. Then they relocated to Pan and Fork Trailer Park, which ended in another relocation after the town of Basalt pursued redevelopment of the land. When they got their first notice, that all came rushing back.
“All of us can share the feeling of this paralyzing fear, and for me, it was flashbacks. You immediately start to think [of] worst-case scenarios,” she said. “‘I’m going to lose my house. I’m going to have to relocate my children,’ and then you start thinking of all the seniors that live there.”
But this potential transition would not be like the others, Vargas said, because of the high housing prices. If her family had to move, they would likely need to move west of Glenwood Springs to be able to afford housing.
Relocating a trailer is not an economically sound option, Vargas said, because of the cost and the sheer number of households that would be looking to relocate. Snyder estimated that relocation costs between $10,000 and $20,000 — if they can find an empty lot.
“[Mobile home parks are] a fabulous opportunity for affordable housing that doesn’t usually put many public dollars at risk, but they’re a dinosaur,” he said. “Unfortunately, nobody’s opening any new mobile home parks and places where it would be convenient.”
Fran Page, director of nonprofit Aspen Dance Connection, has lived in the Aspen-Basalt park since 1997 and in the Roaring Fork Valley since 1977. She said she’s not afraid of moving if she has to, but is trying to keep a positive attitude because now is the right time for the residents to buy, she said.
“The neighborhood is already geared toward employee housing. It would be out of context to have a high-rise three-story, four-story building here,” she said. “There’s no parking for stores and stuff. It’s not that kind of a neighborhood.”
She’s semi-retired and works out of her home for Aspen Dance Connection, planning programming in schools and other venues throughout the region. She sees herself staying in the park for as long as she can, having become even more close-knit with the community through the last few months.
“It’s been fun to watch the babies grow up and play, and then all of a sudden they’re graduating and moving on and getting married,” she said. “It’s a nice family place, and I feel very safe here, and I think everybody’s very respectful of each other.”
Neighborhood kids lob a volleyball around after school at the Aspen-Basalt Mobile Home Park. Jason Charme/Aspen Daily News
Regional consequences
At this sale price, the per-lot price eclipses regional trends in mobile home park sales. The nearby 40-unit park Mountain Mobile Home Park received notice on Dec. 4 that its owner intended to sell for $4.5 million. Residents there also organized with Thistle and are set to close later this summer, according to resident and Glen Valley Cooperative president Sam Philben, with a $1.5 million contribution from the city of Glenwood Springs.
That’s an average of $112,500 per lot. For Aspen-Basalt, the per-lot price would be about $353,000 and for Mountain Valley it would be about $242,000.
“I do think that the price here is going to set a dangerous precedent, and that’s going to happen regardless whoever buys it,” Snyder said. “Not only is the high price tag for these parks dangerous from a precedent in terms of what people have to pay going forward, but it’s just dangerous in terms of whether or not we’re going to lose another avenue of affordable housing.”
The residents have until Aug. 7 to submit an offer. Snyder expects it to take “until day 119” to submit; after that, the owner will begin the “good faith” negotiations.
Vargas called the situation a “necessary evil” to call even greater attention to the valley’s affordable housing crisis — and that ideal affordable housing is not always high-density apartments.
“We are at a good point to make history, to correct the wrongs and to stand up for a community that doesn’t always get a voice, doesn’t always have a seat at the table or representation,” she said. “It’s important to take this very seriously, and to those of you that are in a seat of power, to consider that these residents could be your colleagues, your employer, your employees, school staff, service staff. It’s going to affect the entire valley if we don’t listen to this call to action.”
Maria Romero, a resident of the Mountain Valley park, said two yard sales have been held already. Residents have seen strong community support within and outside of the park.
“It’s been really great seeing how we’ve become close because of what we’re going through,” she said. “We’re still looking for funding. We want to stay here to own our homes and have them stay affordable.”
Public-facing fundraising tools are still in the works, but anyone who would like to donate can reach out to the WMRHC’s Long at april@wmrhousing.org.
Aspen-Basalt residents will host a community block party on Sunday (June 8) from 3-6 p.m. All are welcome, and there will be food and drinks alongside raffles and games. Thistle will attend to answer any questions from the community about the ROC model and next steps for the park.
The Mountain Valley park is planning a fundraising event at Imperio Mexican Restaurant in Rifle. The date is to be determined, but once scheduled it will be posted on the website imperio970.com.
