Fort Collins council to consider issuing $200,000 to help residents buy mobile-home park

FORT COLLINS — The Fort Collins City Council will discuss whether to commit $200,000 in funding to the residents of Hickory Village Mobile Home Park who wish to buy the property, a move that may set a precedent for other citizens in similar positions.

Residents in the park on the far-north side of town are seeking to provide a competing bid after a corporate mobile-home park operator agreed to take on the 205-unit property for $23 million in March. Those residents elected a formal co-op board, which would be in charge of seeking financing for a separate offer alongside an affordable-housing nonprofit in Boulder.

Under a state law signed into effect last summer, residents of mobile-home parks are entitled to 90 days’ advance notice before a sale affecting the properties they live on can close, and allows for residents to make a competing offer to buy the land and operate it as a “resident-owned cooperative” or ROC.

The state law doesn’t compel the seller to take the resident offer but does require the offer to be considered in good faith.

The 90-day period ends on June 1.

The city council directed staff to look into ways to help last April in one of the last meetings before four seats on the seven-seat body were replaced by newly-elected Mayor Jeni Arndt and new council members Tricia Canonico, Shirley Peel and Kelly Ohlson.

If passed, the resolution would also direct city staff to develop a framework for the city to consider similar requests by other mobile-home parks in the area. The framework will be the subject of a standalone work session in July.

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