Judge: Boulder can’t immediately force CU students to vacate Ash House

BOULDER — A day after Boulder officials informed the owners, management and residents of Ash House, a privately owned, off-campus apartment building for University of Colorado Students, that the building would be immediately shuttered for code violations, a Boulder County judge has ordered the city to pause its efforts. 

In response to a lawsuit filed Monday by Ash House owners 891 12th St LLC, Boulder County District Court Judge Michael Spear issued an emergency temporary restraining order on Tuesday that allows Ash House residents to remain in their apartments pending a hearing set for Sept. 26.

The decision to close the building at 891 12th St. was made “after discovering that the property owner created additional bedrooms per unit without city approval,” the city said Monday in a news release. “The result is that the units do not meet code and life-safety requirements.”

Ash House was originally built in 1923 to serve as the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house and was taken over in 1973 and converted into the Marpa House, which provided housing for members of the Shambhala community. 

“We can confirm we have received the temporary order and that we will be complying with it. This means the city will do no additional enforcement until the court has an opportunity to consider the facts more closely,” a Boulder spokesperson told BizWest in an email Tuesday afternoon. “A hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 26. Beyond that, we now consider this litigation and will provide any details requested from us through the court process.”

If not for the restraining order, about 60 students would have been forced to vacate.

“We’re shocked that the City of Boulder forced dozens of University students out of their homes with hours’ notice last night, when there was no imminent or demonstrable risk to life or safety,” Rob O’Dea, spokesman for the property owners, said in a prepared statement. “For the sake of all our residents and concerned parents, we hope the City will choose to keep students in their homes as we work with the City toward a resolution.”

Developer John Kirkland, along with a group of investors who purchased the Marpa House in 2019 for $5 million, won approval from Boulder City Council in May 2021 to transform the property into apartments for CU students despite vocal opposition from neighborhood residents. The redevelopment project finished during last school year.

Neighbors were concerned about noise and disruptive behavior from student residents. As a result, Boulder officials included a series of conditions to their 2021 approval that included strict quiet hours, limits to the number of cars renters are permitted, 24-7 onsite management, occupancy limits of one person per bedroom and a good-neighbor agreement with surrounding property owners. Violations could have resulted in the city revoking Ash House’s rental license.

“We’re extremely empathetic and receptive to the range of very emotional pleas from neighbors who have shared their views on this from the beginning,” project consultant O’Dea said during a 2021 hearing on the redevelopment proposal, adding that the developer “get[s] where they’re coming from.” 

However, he said, “It will be hands down the nicest, highest-quality and best-managed property in this area.”

The plans Boulder officials approved three years ago allow for 48 residents spread across 16 three-bedroom units to live at the property at any one time. But when code officers with Boulder’s Planning & Development Service Department, responding to a tenant complaint, inspected Ash House last week, they discovered that units had been illegally subdivided to create new bedrooms and cram in additional renters, the city claims. 

“Specifically, 15 new bedrooms were constructed without building permits, land use approval or life-safety inspections, evidently in the days immediately after city building inspectors had conducted inspections on the previously allowed and permitted construction,” Boulder officials said in a new release. “Thirteen of those 15 bedrooms were occupied.”

The release continued: “There is no scenario, based on the size of the units, under which the city could have approved a fourth bedroom for the units under current code or zoning. In addition, the owners did not have permits for the electrical work that was conducted when the new bedrooms were added.”

City officials hope to keep residents out of Ash House until the allegedly improper additions are removed and the property meets the specifications spelled out by the previously approved conditions, the city said. 

Ash House owners, in their lawsuit filed Monday, said that this summer they made “improvements to thirteen units within the Property, such as extending four-foot ‘pony’ walls up to the ceiling, and adding doors to the newly partitioned area.”

The newly extended “walls were purely to partition the structure and were not load-bearing or otherwise structural,” the lawsuit said.

Because the work performed in the units was of a “limited nature,” Ash House’s owners “did not believe that it required City authorization or permitting and did not consult the City.”

Further, the property owner is not “aware of any immediate dangers to its tenants or property manager and does not believe that any such dangers exist.”