Update: This story was updated Sept. 17 to include a comment from a CU-Boulder spokesperson and a clarification about the building’s name, previously known as the historic Marpa House.
On Monday, Sept. 16, the City of Boulder ordered approximately 60 CU Boulder students to vacate their apartments at the Ash House, formerly known as Marpa House, an apartment complex on University Hill. City officials cited code violations that raised safety concerns after the property owner added bedrooms to the building without proper city permits.
Several students said they received notices around 3 p.m. Some said they were instructed to clear out their belongings by 6 p.m. the same day, with no clear guidance on where to go or whether they would be allowed to return. A city official said tenants were notified that another inspection would be conducted Tuesday afternoon.
“Everyone is just scrambling, finding friends to stay with. They haven’t given us anywhere to go,” Paulina, a junior at CU Boulder, told Boulder Reporting Lab as she was packing up a vehicle with her boyfriend.
Family and friends helped students pack their belongings into cars before the deadline, in many cases carrying clothes still on hangers or stuffed in trash bags. Several students who spoke with Boulder Reporting Lab declined to provide their names.
“I’ve got two exams tomorrow and have to figure out a place to sleep,” one student told Boulder Reporting Lab.
According to city officials, the property owner, 891 12th St LLC, added 15 new bedrooms to the building without obtaining the required building permits from the city. Most of these bedrooms were occupied, creating safety risks, the city said.
“This is an incredibly unfortunate situation, and we truly regret the inconvenience and disruption for renters,” Brad Mueller, director of Planning and Development Services, said in a statement sent on Monday evening. “However, safety is always first, and the conditions discovered represent an immediate risk. The building code exists to ensure minimum safety, health and quality of life standards exist for all rental housing. The city determined swift action was needed given the egregious nature of the violations.”
The city’s decision has led to the temporary displacement of about 60 students, with around 13 requiring permanent new housing, according to officials.
The city has not provided a timeline for when some students may be able to move back in. Officials said they anticipate “significant de-construction disturbance” within the apartment building to address “the dangerous situation as expeditiously as possible.”
The city is also considering “legal remedies” to hold the property owner accountable for the violations, according to the news release. Several students said they are planning to consult lawyers.
The Ash House provides market-rate, off-campus housing to students. The property owner could not be immediately reached for comment.
“CU Boulder’s Division of Student Affairs is working to support students and provide resources through Off-Campus Housing and Neighborhood Relations, the Basic Needs Center and other support services to help them navigate this abrupt and significant disruption,” a CU Boulder spokesperson told Boulder Reporting Lab in an email.
The number of students allowed to live in a single building has long been a point of tension on University Hill. In the 1960s, cities across the country adopted occupancy limits that restricted the number of unrelated people who could live together, partially in response to nuisance concerns in college neighborhoods.
In August 2023, the Boulder City Council raised the city’s occupancy limits from as few as three unrelated people allowed to live together to five across much of the city, as part of a broader effort to drive down housing costs. The state legislature later passed a law prohibiting cities like Boulder from imposing occupancy limits based on family status.
Students said the property owner increased the number of bedrooms in many of the units from three to four. City officials said they would not have approved adding the fourth bedroom under current city code or zoning regulations.
Officials said access to the building will be “severely limited” until the units are restored to permitted conditions.
The city wants to make an example by cracking the whip.
About 6 mos. ago a female that lived in there told me she paid $1700/mo. for a bedroom in an apartment. Didn’t get to find out if that included utilities.
Shouldn’t the University either provide housing options for students or hold undergraduate enrollment to available legal housing options?
It’s happening all over town. The condo complex next to me just turned living rooms into bedrooms. Without any permits posted. And of course no additional parking so now cars are all over the alley. The state law eliminating occupancy limits for unrelated people is equally bad and reinforced the city’s decision. The human rights law Boulder had before the self described “Boulder Progressives ” took over politics was great because it protected the rights of any type of family (occupancy allowed for every type of family relationship to live together). Our previous occupancy limit was intended to protect students from exactly what happened at Ash/Maria House. But people with a political agenda forgot about impacts on real people.
Either you or they have failed to cite any specific “safety concern.” What ARE actually the unsafe conditions the students were living in that were so dire they had to be evacuated, as if in immediate danger of bodily harm. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t at least call for a comment on Brad Mueller’s statement that there was an “immediate risk.” You even have a quote from one of the residents. They don’t need to give you their names to answer a question like: “Is this a dangerous environment to be living in? What are the specific dangers?” This seems to me like punishment of the owners at the expense of the students, not keeping the students safe.
We did, of course, call for a comment and were referred only to the news release as of yesterday.
David, the city code includes specific health and safety requirements such as egress (there must be two ways out of a room). So if the illegal rooms had no windows, then the resident is at risk of being trapped in a fire. There are requirements for internal sprinklers to combat fire so if the owner just put up walls without sprinklers for that new room, that’s a safety violation. Stuff like that.
I have the same question. I can only speculate that the violation relates to a bedroom without egress – an escape window – in case of emergency exit. This is required per International Building Codes, going back almost 4 decades.
Interesting. Isn’t that CJ Chapman’s place?
Not really all that surprised to see landlords attempting this sort of exploitation, given Polis and the legislature overriding Boulder’s former occupancy zoning laws.
Perhaps this is part of larger property owners’ reaction to the lifting of occupancy limits. Solving the need for housing – especially “affordable” housing (@ $1700/mo?)- seems to be getting tangled up in grasping for more $$/sq ft.
BTW, “Marpa House” was a contemplative group living facility that was in that building for decades (without such issues) but it seems the name has continued without *any* relationship to the new owners and their business model.
Why does the Colorado Secretary of State website have no listing for a company with name “891 12th St LLC”? Typo? Misrepresentation?
There is a “819 12th St Ventures LLC” listed. It’s delinquent.
Who is(are) the owner(s) of this apartment building?
A guy named John Kirkland.
Glad a person’s name is known.
But now according to the latest story here
https://boulderreportinglab.org/2024/09/17/ash-house-owner-sues-city-of-boulder-after-officials-suddenly-ordered-students-to-vacate-apartments/
the same alleged entity named “891 12th St LLC” has filed suit against the City of Boulder. If the name on the lawsuit is not a legal entity in the state of Colorado, the court filing is defective and maybe even misleading.
Is anyone checking up on this discrepancy?
Recall that the 311 Mapleton “Academy at Mapleton” project was also awarded approval based almost exclusively on the affordable housing at Fruehauf’s that never happened. It went deep into the night arguing all the specific amenities that project would be required. It’s like a proxy war, listening to this charade.
Seems to me that the city of Boulder imposed immediate risk onto these students by throwing them out on the street with just a few hours notice. SMDH!
Given that the residents are CU students, the City should have worked with CU to locate alternative housing before requiring them to evacuate. It seems like arrangements could have been made to “double up” on a temporary basis, etc. This is a horrible thing to do to students who already have a lot of stress.
Why can’t someone develop a systematic way to identify and monitor who owns properties at the state level or city level? We’ve now got a situation where corporate and private equity firms are increasingly the landlords and first in line to purchase a property, then buy and sell those properties to each other to gain ever more profit. They own a significant share of the housing market (and are making significant inroads in commercial sectors) in Boulder and statewide and there are no safeguards to rein it in. Student housing is the most lucrative for private equity as is senior housing, and now multifamily rentals are hot again. In addition to scarcity, this is a major factor driving up rental costs. Yet we have no mechanism to easily identify or track this extractive activity or these shell LLCs. If we can’t put the genie back in the bottle at least we should be able to monitor it so people are aware of the impact.
All corporations and partnerships and LLCs, etc. now have a federal obligation to reveal the names of substantive owners by the end of this year in a program called FINcen, see https://www.fincen.gov/ .
It’s a pain, but was enacted to combat money laundering. But it’s not clear whether the information will be public or only available to the government for internal reasons.
I can’t find this comment to respond TO:
“Perhaps this is part of larger property owners’ reaction to the lifting of occupancy limits. Solving the need for housing – especially “affordable” housing (@ $1700/mo?)- seems to be getting tangled up in grasping for more $$/sq ft.
BTW, “Marpa House” was a contemplative group living facility that was in that building for decades (without such issues) but it seems the name has continued without *any* relationship to the new owners and their business model.”
To whom it may concern, FYI, it’s actually called “Ash House” now.
lynn- my comment was in the context of the original version of the article, which used “Marpa House” and “Ash House” as equivalent. I submitted a correction request (suggesting the f.k.a.) and the article has since been revised.
My comment is currently 6th from the top of heading comments.