San Lazaro residents get $11.2M boost as deadline nears to buy Boulder County mobile home park

Hundreds of residents at Boulder's San Lazaro mobile home park are racing to raise millions of dollars to keep their community from being sold to an outside investor.

The park was listed earlier this year for $42.5 million, and an investor has reportedly offered the full asking price. Now, Boulder County commissioners have committed $11.2 million to help residents buy the land themselves.

Under Colorado law, mobile home park residents get the first opportunity to purchase their community when it goes up for sale. Residents say they're working under a December deadline to secure the rest of the money needed to buy San Lazaro or another buyer could take control of the park.

For families who have spent years building their lives there, the fight to keep their homes has become a race against the clock.

For 38 years, Julie Heins has called San Lazaro Park home. Inside her house, decades of memories fill nearly every corner, from family heirlooms lining the walls to a cabinet passed down through generations.

Now, Heins and hundreds of other residents are fighting to buy the San Lazaro community themselves, worried an outside buyer could raise lot rents.

"My husband and I are on fixed income," Heins said. "If it goes up, there is no doubt in my mind that we'll have to find somewhere else to live."

For Heins, leaving would mean more than finding another place to live.

"Saying goodbye to that, it's like saying goodbye to your family."

San Lazaro Park was listed for $42.5 million, leaving residents with the daunting goal of raising enough money to buy the entire park themselves. When the price was announced, some residents worried they would never get there, but the community has now raised more than $300,000 in donations and expects to secure a $15 million loan.

And on Tuesday, Boulder County commissioners approved an $11.2 million contribution toward the effort.

The commitment came during a meeting with Boulder County Commissioners on Tuesday, where residents gathered to hear the vote. When the letter of intent to support the residents' purchase was announced, neighbors cheered in the room.

"This is a huge amount of money for our budget in an already very tight, fiscally constrained time," Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann said. "But it's really important, and it's about making sure that community members know they have support."

The county is now calling on the City of Boulder, the state and additional donors to help close the remaining gap.

Boulder County's funds will come from an affordable housing tax as residents are working toward the $42.5 million purchase price by December.

"I started out a little bit skeptical," Heins said. "And the support that we've now gotten from the county, we're feeling a lot more hopeful. And personally, I am feeling a lot more hopeful."