Sans Souci residents buy mobile home park

Jul. 17—In the weeks since Sans Souci Mobile Home Park residents closed on the $3.3 million purchase of their manufactured home community, the newly formed cooperative has learned lessons in the ins and outs of owning a mobile home park.

Owning a property — particularly one where residents own their home and rent the land where it sits — is not without its challenges. Sans Souci homeowners' association president Michael Peirce acknowledged that there have been growing pains as the owners get accustomed to their new role.

But for Peirce, who has lived in the park for nearly three decades, the freedom and stability of owning the park is worth it.

However, while the purchase, which closed June 21, from former owner Strive Communities has been a longtime dream for some residents, others are wary. Some simply do not see the benefit.

"I'm not interested in buying something I don't legally own," said Sans Souci resident Johnny Wright, who did not join the cooperative to buy the park.

Wright and other Sans Souci residents were not required to join the newly formed cooperative that now guides the direction of the community.

However, Tim Townsend, a field operations coordinator with Boulder-based affordable housing nonprofit Thistle that helped the cooperative get started, argued it would be in their best interest.

"They're not required to join," he said. "But if they do, it works out. Because then they can vote. They can have a say whenever there needs to be a change in the bylaws."

Others are worried about making their rent. It's a concern that some of the purchasers share. In September, the rent will jump by about $150 to $750 a month. The following year it will increase to $800, before reaching $856 a month in 2023. After that, it will taper off to 1% annual increases that account for taxes and operating expenses.

Peirce recognized that the increase is a concern for many residents on a fixed income. He said rent prices were set to increase at a slower rate under previous ownership but ultimately would have topped out at a higher amount. The cooperative also is searching for grant funding to help offset some of the cost so the current estimates are a "worst case scenario."

While Boulder manufactured homeowners have for years reported steadily increasing pad rent, manufactured homes are typically the least expensive type of housing available without a government subsidy, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute.

And in Boulder, where Realtor.com reports that the median home sale price is nearly $1 million, manufactured homes are a more affordable option.

That's the case for Peirce, who moved to Sans Souci when housing costs pushed him out of Boulder proper. Sans Souci HOA operations manager Juston Martin also experienced that.

"As a young man in a starter home, this is one of the only things you can afford in Boulder," he said.

Long time in the making

Residents in the mobile home community in southwestern Boulder County, just outside of city limits, have been considering purchasing the community since it was purchased in 2018 for $3.85 million by Colorado-based RV Horizons — the owner before Strive.

RV Horizons came in with new rules and requirements that many worried would force them out of the park.

"We had been operating for 40 years as this very peaceful, live-and-let-live kind of park," Peirce said.

The new ownership inspired some Sans Souci residents to begin organizing. Ultimately, the Colorado Coalition of Manufactured Homeowners in Boulder formed, determined to work on legislative fixes that might give homeowners tools to negotiate differences with park owners and allow homeowners the chance to purchase their park.

"So we got all of this going basically to protect ourselves and set ourselves up so that next time we could buy the park and help out everybody else in the state," Peirce said.

Their work culminated in the new opportunity to purchase bill, spearheaded by Rep. Edie Hooton of Boulder, which gives homeowners in a mobile home park the chance to make an offer to buy the park if the landlord anticipates selling it or changing the use of the land. It requires just more than half of the community to sign off on the purchase.

A rigorous process

Although the bill made the purchase possible, it doesn't provide support aside from that.

"It's been rigorous," Martin said of the process.

That's where Boulder-based affordable housing nonprofit Thistle comes in. Thistle works with ROC USA, a venture that helps scale resident ownership of manufactured home communities, to provide technical assistance.

"Because most residents aren't going to know all that well how to run a business, they're kind of the entity that ensures that the business runs smoothly, that guides the residents through the process, helps them through the hiccups, things like that," Peirce said.

After the purchase was official, Townsend, the Thistle coordinator, said the nonprofit stays on to continue providing assistance for a decade or for the length of the loan.

While the previous owner paid to construct a new water treatment facility, the cooperative must cover the cost of renovations to the wastewater treatment facility and any other necessary maintenance, in addition to the mortgage. Those capital expenses are another area where the co-op will seek grant funding.