Basalt residents seek support to purchase mobile home parks 

Basalt Town Council discussed a potential financial contribution to help purchase two, downvalley mobile home parks to help residents retain their housing. 

The Aspen Basalt Mobile Home Park in Basalt and Carbondale’s Mountain Valley Mobile Home Park gave notice to their tenants in late March they were starting the process of either selling the parks to a private buyer or giving residents the opportunity to buy it themselves. 

Residents on Tuesday filled council chambers to discuss purchasing the parks, with the goal of garnering support from local municipalities, as well as Colorado and national nonprofits.

Elizabeth Rivas, an Aspen Basalt Mobile Home Park resident of 14 years, came to speak about how important the park is for her and her family. 

“This is our life that we have been working hard on, like everyone else, and we just want to ask for your help,” said Rivas. 

If it agrees, Basalt could join other local governments to raise $20 million to assist with the purchase of both mobile home parks. This would allow the Basalt park to charge about $1,500 and the Carbondale park $1,300 for monthly rent.

Basalt Town Manager Ryan Mahoney and Basalt Town Council members discussed a contribution of $250,000 toward the purchase. 

The $20 million goal, however, might be difficult for local municipalities to reach on their own. 

“It’s looking at this time that the $20 million ask is probably a little tall for the governments, if I had to read the tea leaves,” said Mahoney. 

He and Basalt Town Council members, however, expect that support can come from other funding sources.

“Is there any way that we could use one or more of those events (like the summer concert series) to draw attention to and ask our unusually well-resourced community to contribute from their own accounts?” said Basalt Town Council member Angela Anderson. “Is that something that we could do to put it on people’s radars?”

After a brief discussion on the idea, Mahoney confirmed that it might be possible and that they would look into the idea. In addition, he mentioned that they could also seek support from local businesses.

Mahoney said that Basalt Town Council will put forward a formal letter signing off on the $250,000 contribution in the near future, likely at the June 10 meeting. The letter would be a written record to show a lender that Basalt is willing to commit the money, but the money would still have to be appropriated via an ordinance. 

“There’s a real, sincere desire to try to have this resolved,” he said. “To get the folks that are living there, that have been living there a long time to hold their own futures in their hands.”