Capitol City Mobile Home Park is located at 4501 W. Kentucky Ave. in Denver. (Google Street View)
Denver’s shift in attitude toward mobile home parks will be evident in the coming weeks.
One of the five such properties in the city is poised to sell to its residents, with a local nonprofit and the city itself playing a role in the deal. The first phase of the deal will close in the coming weeks.
And the city’s moratorium on redevelopment of mobile home parks — currently set to expire next month — will be extended in order to make a zoning change, per a City Council member.
“I do believe municipalities are looking at mobile home parks differently than they used to,” said Chérie Talbert, calling them “naturally occurring affordable housing.”
Talbert is executive director of the Denver nonprofit Sharing Connexion, which expects to close later this month on the $11.5 million purchase of the Capitol City Mobile Home Park at 4501 W. Kentucky Ave. in the Westwood neighborhood. The park dates to 1947 and has 78 lots.
The organization, which was formed in 2015, will act as an “interim owner” of the property, which is set to be renamed Monte Vista. Sharing Connexion will control the asset until it can be purchased by the Monte Vista Housing Cooperative, which is made up of the park’s residents. That could take three or more years.
“This particular project is a preservation project, and it really appealed to us because of our affordable housing background,” Talbert said.
The purchase will be financed in part with $2.6 million from the city’s Department of Housing Stability, according to city documents. While technically a loan, no interest will be charged and the sum will be forgiven in 60 years if the property’s owners always rent 60 lots to those making up to 80 percent of the area median income.
Talbert said the deal is “one of the first, definitely in the Front Range” to take advantage of changes to the state’s Mobile Home Park Act that went into effect in 2020, which included requiring mobile home park owners to alert the state and residents if they intend to sell or redevelop. That was intended to allow residents to possibly mobilize.
The purchase of Capitol City from current owner Chad Graves has been in the works for about two years. Talbert said the city reached out to see if the organization could get involved. Denver Councilwoman Jamie Torres, who represents the area, noted that different nonprofits — Thistle Community Housing and Resident Owned Communities USA — were previously supposed to serve as middle man, and “losing them was a real punch to the gut.”
“I could not be more excited for the residents there,” Torres said.
Torres said the deal will remove an element of uncertainty that mobile home park residents often live with.
“There was always a chance that the land could sell to someone else who didn’t want to maintain a mobile home park,” she said.
In late 2022, Torres helped implement a moratorium on redevelopment of the city’s five remaining mobile home parks, which she said Thursday have “become more critical as our housing situation becomes more critical.”
That moratorium is set to expire April 1. But Torres said it will be extended until the end of the year, as the city creates a new zoning district specific to mobile home parks.
Currently, she said, parks sit in industrial, mixed-use and duplex zoning, meaning they’re not in compliance. That has meant homeowners — who typically own their units but lease the land beneath them — have sometimes been unable to replace their units.
The existing zoning revolved around “wanting them to disappear,” Torres said.
“I do think there’s been a shift,” she said.
Torres said the inability to replace units was fixed with a change last year. The extension of the moratorium will allow the broader zoning change, which Torres said will fix multiple challenges.
Banks are often reluctant to lend on a property that doesn’t conform with zoning, Torres said, which could hinder future resident purchases if the new district isn’t created.
The new zone district would mean that anyone wanting to redevelop a mobile home park would need to get the council to rezone the property. Torres said there are no plans to implement further restrictions beyond that, although she said she believes only one current owner has any interest in redevelopment, and that’s the owner of the city’s smallest park.
“The mobile home parks right now would like to stay mobile home parks,” she said.
Torres said Capitol City, which sits on 3.6 acres, is dense, with “not a lot of room between units.”
“Over time, it’s probably going to thin out, although there’s no pressure to do that,” she said.
According to a 2022 presentation to the City Council, Denver’s four other mobile home parks are:
- • Longview Park at 5220 N. Steele St. and 5201 N. Adams St.: 55 units on 2.1 acres.
- • Aspen Terrace at 960-990 S. Jason St.: 75 units on 4.6 acres.
- • 2825 W. Evans Ave.: 90 units on 6.7 acres.
- • 4765 N. York St.: 12 units on 0.8 acres
Capitol City Mobile Home Park is located at 4501 W. Kentucky Ave. in Denver. (Google Street View)
Denver’s shift in attitude toward mobile home parks will be evident in the coming weeks.
One of the five such properties in the city is poised to sell to its residents, with a local nonprofit and the city itself playing a role in the deal. The first phase of the deal will close in the coming weeks.
And the city’s moratorium on redevelopment of mobile home parks — currently set to expire next month — will be extended in order to make a zoning change, per a City Council member.
“I do believe municipalities are looking at mobile home parks differently than they used to,” said Chérie Talbert, calling them “naturally occurring affordable housing.”
Talbert is executive director of the Denver nonprofit Sharing Connexion, which expects to close later this month on the $11.5 million purchase of the Capitol City Mobile Home Park at 4501 W. Kentucky Ave. in the Westwood neighborhood. The park dates to 1947 and has 78 lots.
The organization, which was formed in 2015, will act as an “interim owner” of the property, which is set to be renamed Monte Vista. Sharing Connexion will control the asset until it can be purchased by the Monte Vista Housing Cooperative, which is made up of the park’s residents. That could take three or more years.
“This particular project is a preservation project, and it really appealed to us because of our affordable housing background,” Talbert said.
The purchase will be financed in part with $2.6 million from the city’s Department of Housing Stability, according to city documents. While technically a loan, no interest will be charged and the sum will be forgiven in 60 years if the property’s owners always rent 60 lots to those making up to 80 percent of the area median income.
Talbert said the deal is “one of the first, definitely in the Front Range” to take advantage of changes to the state’s Mobile Home Park Act that went into effect in 2020, which included requiring mobile home park owners to alert the state and residents if they intend to sell or redevelop. That was intended to allow residents to possibly mobilize.
The purchase of Capitol City from current owner Chad Graves has been in the works for about two years. Talbert said the city reached out to see if the organization could get involved. Denver Councilwoman Jamie Torres, who represents the area, noted that different nonprofits — Thistle Community Housing and Resident Owned Communities USA — were previously supposed to serve as middle man, and “losing them was a real punch to the gut.”
“I could not be more excited for the residents there,” Torres said.
Torres said the deal will remove an element of uncertainty that mobile home park residents often live with.
“There was always a chance that the land could sell to someone else who didn’t want to maintain a mobile home park,” she said.
In late 2022, Torres helped implement a moratorium on redevelopment of the city’s five remaining mobile home parks, which she said Thursday have “become more critical as our housing situation becomes more critical.”
That moratorium is set to expire April 1. But Torres said it will be extended until the end of the year, as the city creates a new zoning district specific to mobile home parks.
Currently, she said, parks sit in industrial, mixed-use and duplex zoning, meaning they’re not in compliance. That has meant homeowners — who typically own their units but lease the land beneath them — have sometimes been unable to replace their units.
The existing zoning revolved around “wanting them to disappear,” Torres said.
“I do think there’s been a shift,” she said.
Torres said the inability to replace units was fixed with a change last year. The extension of the moratorium will allow the broader zoning change, which Torres said will fix multiple challenges.
Banks are often reluctant to lend on a property that doesn’t conform with zoning, Torres said, which could hinder future resident purchases if the new district isn’t created.
The new zone district would mean that anyone wanting to redevelop a mobile home park would need to get the council to rezone the property. Torres said there are no plans to implement further restrictions beyond that, although she said she believes only one current owner has any interest in redevelopment, and that’s the owner of the city’s smallest park.
“The mobile home parks right now would like to stay mobile home parks,” she said.
Torres said Capitol City, which sits on 3.6 acres, is dense, with “not a lot of room between units.”
“Over time, it’s probably going to thin out, although there’s no pressure to do that,” she said.
According to a 2022 presentation to the City Council, Denver’s four other mobile home parks are:
- • Longview Park at 5220 N. Steele St. and 5201 N. Adams St.: 55 units on 2.1 acres.
- • Aspen Terrace at 960-990 S. Jason St.: 75 units on 4.6 acres.
- • 2825 W. Evans Ave.: 90 units on 6.7 acres.
- • 4765 N. York St.: 12 units on 0.8 acres
