{"id":13698,"date":"2026-01-31T00:10:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T07:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mobile-home-residents-north-of-durango-vote-yes-to-purchase-property\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:40:00","slug":"mobile-home-residents-north-of-durango-vote-yes-to-purchase-property","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mobile-home-residents-north-of-durango-vote-yes-to-purchase-property\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile home residents north of Durango vote \u2018yes\u2019 to purchase property"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=c1f0385e-9534-5349-b24e-27ebf3ee06a2&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1405\" alt=\"Hermosa Village residents gathered Thursday at the Animas Grange and voted yes to purchase the property on which their park sits and officially form a resident-owned community north of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Hermosa Village residents gathered Thursday at the Animas Grange and voted yes to purchase the property on which their park sits and officially form a resident-owned community north of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Residents of Hermosa Mobile Home Village, north of Durango, voted \u201cyes\u201d on Thursday to purchase the property on which their park sits and officially form a resident-owned community.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a major step toward ensuring long-term housing stability for the community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust the fact that we control our destiny is really the best thing about it,\u201d said Brian Franks, who has lived in the park for six years. \u201cAn investment group is not going to come in and just start increasing our rent to where it\u2019s crazy now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Residents mobilized this summer after learning the property owner planned to sell the park. Concerned about rent hikes and displacement, they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/articles\/mobile-home-residents-nearing-deal-to-purchase-property-north-of-durango\/\" id=\"link-e0949a5e746cc137861675db3eb72f1e\" target=\"_blank\">moved quickly to form a cooperative<\/a> and pursue a resident-owned community, or ROC \u2013 a model in which residents collectively own and manage the land beneath their homes.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZmtaoWo5XnY\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Thursdays vote finalized that decision, with 97.5% of residents voting in favor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was basically our last out,\u201d Franks said.<\/p>\n<p>The vote formally approved financing packages and loan terms, along with an engineering report outlining capital improvement needs and how those projects will be funded over the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>The final step is completing legal documents and closing on the sale, which Franks said is scheduled for March 3.<\/p>\n<p>Resident-owned communities allow manufactured housing residents to control rent increases and park management, rather than leaving those decisions to for-profit owners.<\/p>\n<p>The model \u2013 one solution to the affordable housing crisis \u2013 has gained more momentum in Colorado over the past several years, particularly in high-cost areas such as La Plata County, where housing prices have far outpaced wage growth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no place to live in Durango that anybody can afford,\u201d said Olivia Burkhart, who has lived at Hermosa Village for all three decades she has lived in Durango.<\/p>\n<p>The process to form an ROC is complex and lengthy. Even with the help of Thistle ROC, the Colorado-based nonprofit that helps guide residents through the purchase and management of community-owned mobile home parks, there were still many parts to wrangle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m pretty happy about it all and I\u2019m glad it\u2019s almost over,\u201d Franks said.<\/p>\n<p>Securing financing was one of the biggest challenges, as residents worked to piece together multiple funding sources while keeping rents affordable.<\/p>\n<p>What worked in favor for Hermosa Village was the unusually supportive owner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe previous owners\u2019 willingness to sell it to us was really one of the more helpful things,\u201d he said. \u201cShe turned down a higher bid, pretty much to make this happen for us. And I\u2019m not sure a lot of people in America would do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While the purchase will stabilize rents long-term, it does require rent increases.<\/p>\n<p>Under the cooperative model, monthly rent will be set at $868, Franks said. That represents an increase for some longtime residents who were paying closer to $450 per month, while newer residents were already paying $700 or more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be hard to handle. Obviously, I won\u2019t be able to retire for a while,\u201d Burkhart said. \u201cBut if I want to stay in Durango and La Plata County, that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to have to pay \u2013 because there\u2019s no place cheaper.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Initial rent projections were higher, driven in part by a remaining $800,000 loan balance carrying a 6.75% interest rate.<\/p>\n<p>In December, the cooperative\u2019s five-member, resident-led board sought philanthropic assistance to reduce costs \u2013 and received support from several local organizations and lenders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe got some really great local community support from HomesFund, Region 9 and First Southwest Bank,\u201d Franks said. \u201cWe\u2019re really happy about all that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-70f3a1c17f19ad45bd11c0e770ad12a8\"><a href=\"mailto:jbowman@durangoherald.com\">jbowman@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>97.5% in approval of purchasing the mobile home property north of Durango <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,453,1413,994],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-housing-and-urban-planning","tag-mobile-home","tag-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13698"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19448,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698\/revisions\/19448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13698"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}