Colorado Law's Sustainable Community Development Clinic (SCDC) has played a vital role in听a major victory for the residents of Parklane Mobile Home Park. The SCDC听helped community supporters of the听residents of Ft. Collins听mobile home park form听a new non-profit to purchase the park when it went up for sale. The听purchase will preserve a critical source of affordable housing in Fort Collins and provide a pathway towards resident ownership.
Parklane is one of only six mobile home parks in Colorado that has been successfully purchased under a 2020 update to , known as 鈥渙pportunity to purchase,鈥� or 鈥淥2P.鈥� Colorado is only one of seventeen states that have O2P, which says that if a mobile home park owner wants to sell a park, it first has to offer mobile homeowner residents the opportunity to purchase the park. Since the amendment came into effect, 69 mobile home parks have sold throughout Colorado. Because mobile home parks are considered lucrative commercial real estate properties, homeowner听residents are rarely able to successfully outbid large, for-profit commercial buyers.
The SDCD鈥檚 first step in supporting the purchase of the Parklane Mobile Home Park was to form a new nonprofit, known as United Neighbors/Vecinos Unidos.听However, the Clinic鈥檚 role began much earlier when it provided technical advice听and guidance on the O2P statute听in 2020.听
Under the expert guidance of Professor Deborah Cantrell, SCDC students听handled initial research and drafting of a model bill. Now, over two years later,听residents in Parklane were able to celebrate their great achievement and announce that the community will be renaming itself 鈥淣ueva Vida Mobile Home Park.鈥�
"We are thrilled for the residents of Nueva Vida Mobile Home Park," remarked Professor Cantrell. "Affordable housing has never been harder to come by in our region. It is extraordinary that students at Colorado Law are able to help facilitate such significant change while in law school, and in doing so, experience the game changing power of the practice of law."
Learn more about the purchase of the Nueva Vida Mobile Home Park here.听