XPost: alt.mobilehome, co.politics, talk.politics.guns
XPost: sac.politics, talk.politics.misc
For about seven weeks now the residents of the Meadowood Village Mobile
Home Park in Littleton have been in charge of their own destiny after purchasing their park.
"A lot of people did not think we would make it. Us included at many
times," said Sandy Cook, President of the Meadowood Village Cooperative.
"We're now the proud owners. 92 homes. 139 people of Meadowood."
Meadowood Village was faced with the sale of the property a year ago when
a Utah based company offered 18 million for the property. Colorado however
has a law that enables the residents of mobile home parks to make their
own offers. If they can match a buyout, they can buy their own park ahead
of companies seeking the benefit of rising real estate prices in Colorado.
The state has about 900 mobile home parks. Few have been able to put
together winning bids amid buyout offers.
Meadowood Village was different.
Afraid that new owners would likely raise rents for the land where they
place their mobile homes, the park's board gained support from all but two residents to create a purchase offer. One resident forgot about the
meeting and the other was out of town.
"The uncertainty of not being able to know where you're going to live
within twelve months is so scary for people," said Cook.
Once they matched the 18 million dollar offer, the board had to find the
money. Meadowood knew they would have to carry a big mortgage. The
question was, could they get enough grants and low interest loans from
local, county and state government overseeing federal dollars to finance
what they needed?
The final piece turned out to be a $3.475 million low-interest loan from Colorado's Department of Local Affairs.
"DOLA was our last piece. When we got our DOLA award, had it not been for
our DOLA award we would not have made it," Cook explained.
Now the residents are in charge of the over 55 park. The board noted there
are far more hours involved in overseeing the park themselves. It would be harder, they acknowledged, if it were a park with younger residents.
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-mobile-home-park-residents- stop-corporate-purchase-buy-park/?intcid=CNR-02-0623
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