When the City of Boulder gave CU students only a few hours to vacate the Ash House apartments this month due to safety concerns over unpermitted extra rooms — right as the school year began — most people had never heard of the property owner, 891 12th St LLC.
Ash House has been renting on University Hill for only two years since its remodel to create more off-campus apartments. But in both years, 891 12th St LLC left students scrambling for housing just as classes were starting. The company purchased the building, formerly known as Marpa House, from Shambhala in 2019, amid community pushback.
In 2023, its first year as expanded student housing, tenants’ move-in date was delayed from Aug. 1 to Aug. 21, according to email communications seen by Boulder Reporting Lab. Those same emails show that 891 12th St LLC waived August rent after repeated delays. Then, days before move-in and barely a week before classes began, 891 12th St LLC terminated all the leases, according to two people who had signed leases.
Tenants were given the option to reclaim their security deposit and find new housing or wait an unspecified amount of time to sign a new lease, according to former tenants. One tenant told Boulder Reporting Lab she spent days without secure housing while she waited to resign a lease.
“These were families who were moving and taking flights from New York and Chicago and God knows where else,” said Ann Sobil, who signed a lease for her daughter to live in Ash House last year. “It did not have to happen. The communication was awful.” Sobil found new housing for her daughter rather than continue to work with Ash House management.
This year, 891 12th St LLC added new walls and doors in 13 of the 16 units without building permits, the company’s attorney has said. Students told Boulder Reporting Lab that three-bedroom units were modified to create four, with some tenants not listed on the lease. The city found the additions posed safety concerns, affecting fire sprinklers, smoke alarms and ventilation. Two rooms lacked proper egress, and the renovations included unapproved electrical work, which officials said could be a fire hazard.
The city responded quickly after a neighbor’s complaint led to an inspection, ordering more than 60 students to vacate the building without offering alternative housing. After 891 12th St LLC sued the city and the city countered, a Boulder District Court judge, siding with the displaced students, allowed them to return until at least the next court hearing on Oct. 8.
No matter the outcome, about a dozen students living in unpermitted rooms will now need to find new housing.
The company is also removing the walls while students remain in the building and has proposed rotating them through vacant units left by tenants who terminated their leases — a plan that could raise additional safety concerns. Affected tenants will receive a 25% rent reduction for the lease period, according to communications reviewed by Boulder Reporting Lab.
891 12th St LLC was formed on July 23, 2019, and purchased the Ash House property from Shambhala for $4.9 million on Aug. 5, 2019, according to City of Boulder assessor records.
John Kirkland, the owner and developer of Ash House, has represented 891 12th St LLC since the purchase. He is listed in court records related to the current legal dispute with the city. Kirkland represented the LLC in city council meetings and proceedings concerning Ash House’s historical designation and nonconforming use review to add rooms. He was also listed as the owner in land-use review applications and other documents during that time.
Kirkland has been criticized by neighbors for allegedly misleading Marpa House residents before purchasing and converting the property into student housing. He did not respond to requests for comment, nor did My Boulder Rental, the property manager for Ash House.
The Buddhist organization Shambhala owned Marpa House, now Ash House, from 1977 to 2019. When it sought to sell the property in 2019, Marpa House was still occupied by Shambhala members. These members formed a group called the Community of Marpa House in an effort to purchase the building and preserve their living arrangements. Several members said Kirkland met with them in the months leading up to the sale, expressing interest in helping COMH buy Marpa House, the Denver Post reported. COMH shared their proposal with Kirkland, including their offer price. Several months later, Kirkland purchased the property himself for half a million more than COMH’s offer.
In a 2019 statement to the Denver Post, Kirkland said his purchase of the property was intended to help the residents by paying a fair price to Shambhala, of which all the residents were members. “My understanding was, and has always been, that the residents of Marpa House were Shambhala members and adherents first and, as beneficiaries of Shambhala’s subsidized housing for 40 years, were completely aligned with Shambhala’s desire to avoid complete financial ruin,” he said. In 2021, the Boulder City council approved Kirkland’s proposal to convert the property into 16 three-bedroom apartments.
Ash House is one of five properties on University Hill that Kirkland has helped develop, according to 891 12th St LLC. He was also part of the team behind the construction of Oak House, a student apartment complex completed in 2014. Students who had signed leases to move in that August were given less than a month’s notice that their apartments wouldn’t be ready until at least Oct. 15 due to construction delays, according to the Daily Camera. As a result, students struggled to find housing or were forced to secure 90-day rentals, paying double rent during the lease overlap.
Today, Ash House students remain in limbo.
Andrew Peters, an attorney working with 891 12th St LLC, told the Boulder County District Court on Sept. 20 that plans were in place to demolish the new walls “as fast as humanly possible,” estimating the work would take two weeks. On Sept. 26, the city announced an agreement with 891 12th St LLC in which the owner agreed to obtain permits to tear down the walls, with a deadline of Oct. 7. When Boulder Reporting Lab visited Ash House on Sept. 29, no construction had begun.
The agreement doesn’t address what will happen to the students or where they will stay during construction.
My Boulder Rental has said the construction wouldn’t require anyone to move out, just to change their sleeping arrangements, according to tenants. “Not sure how that would work because they literally have to remove a bedroom and turn it back into a dining room,” said one tenant, who requested anonymity due to privacy concerns. She was not on the lease and was living in a room being removed. Now she has to move out and find new housing.
This tenant also rented an apartment in Ash House last year.
She said that both years, she asked to have all four people listed on the lease but My Boulder Rental rebuffed her with vague explanations. Each time, My Boulder Rental assured her the apartment would have four rooms, so she planned to move in with three others.
Last year, she arrived to find only three rooms. This year, the apartment does have four rooms – but not for long.
I remember this happening with another project that came through Planning Board where what appeared to be designed as a dining room was having a wall extended and a door applied. Karl Guiler picked it up and said there was no closet and it appeared for all intents and purposes that it was going to be an illegal bedroom. Caught. Since rent-by-the-bedroom has been normalized in town, initiated by Marpa House, there’s a been a trend for this conversion from dining room. I was confused how the 4th bedroom got added in at Ash House. Thanks for the investigative reporting BRL!
Thank you for digging into this. Now, what is Boulder planning to do with this out of control slum lord?
I appreciate the thorough reporting here adding more details. Clearly, given the owner’s and manager’s experience in real estate, they should have known better and deserve any fines or fees imposed on them for this project. Additional, they should prioritize housing students impacted by this in legal dwellings at highest priority.
Nonetheless, I would be curious if they would ever make a statement about why they made these renovations without permit? In reflecting on the city and Planning Boards side of things, what is so onerous about the planning and permitting process in Boulder that developers choose instead to circumvent the process? What changes should be considered towards Boulder permitting process to allow changes to a private property easier to navigate, say in the case this wasn’t a commercial property and instead it was a single family home looking to split their home into a duplex to house a family member and help them pay the mortgage, increasing property taxes, etc?
As much as this issue was the fault of Kirkland here, there are reasons he chose not to follow city code on this and I’d be curious what those reasons are.
I’m sure time was of the essence in subverting the permit process but that’s not the real reason. He and his org are shady and underhanded as first indicated by the way they tricked the Marpa house tenants into thinking he was working with them instead of against them. Then he adds a bunch of illegal bedrooms without egress or sprinklers, and repeatedly has left students in the lurch. He’s a treat to society, but our laws turn a blind eye to this kind of predatory behavior.
The recent Ash House case perfectly illustrates how landlords in Boulder bypass regulations, with unpermitted renovations and safety violations leaving tenants in limbo. This case is one of many where landlords exploit a lenient system, paying minimal fines and continuing business as usual.
In my experience with Rahe Properties, they were first busted in 2009 for illegally converting another complex. However, in 2012, they conducted similar illegal renovations at my complex, converting single-family units into mini-apartments and falsely filing permits as “media rooms.” These renovations, which violated building codes, were never caught at the time. In 2024, inspectors confirmed that the permits were voided, yet the city still hasn’t taken any substantial action. On top of that, the illegal conversions caused mail delivery issues, as the complex was still classified as single-family housing, making it difficult to access services that require unique addresses for each tenant.
When I reported these violations, Rahe retaliated by filing a false eviction claim in December 2023, using perjured statements of unpaid rent. After filing a motion to vacate based on their perjury, the eviction was vacated. They attempted a second illegal eviction in January 2024, which I also prevailed on. The case was settled in June 2024, although I can’t disclose the settlement details. However, I am not bound by a non-disparagement clause, so I can inform others that the issues—especially the electrical problems—were never fixed. These issues caused permanent damage to tenants’ electrical equipment, including AC units, fridges, microwaves, GFCI outlets, and MOV surge protection devices, which all suffered thermal runaway due to increased load demand, false grounds, and other electrical failures.
Personally, I’m still affected by these power issues. My oxygen concentrator and other electronics were repeatedly damaged, leading me to install a Tripp Lite SU1000 UPS for $700. That unit failed due to the same false grounds and surges. I replaced it with a second UPS, a Tripp Lite SU2200, which retails for around $1,500, along with a $400 diode-based surge protector to minimize damage. Despite these efforts, I’ve had to repair or replace the same equipment multiple times since the settlement.
Rahe Properties and Ash House aren’t isolated cases; many landlords in Boulder employ similar tactics, knowing that paying fines is often cheaper than following proper permitting procedures. The system fosters a “mess up now, beg for forgiveness later” mentality, without real criminal penalties, such as charges for endangerment, allowing landlords to continue with minimal accountability.
That is horrendous, Thomas, and yet as you say widely tolerated in Boulder. Why is that? Are inspectors so very expensive and hard to find? Are they getting kickbacks preventing them from reporting these crimes? Why doesn’t someone have to reimburse you for all your expenses caused by illegal activities by the owner? Maybe this whole thing is above anyone’s pay grade in Boulder. These slumlord activities may be a job for the attorney general. Weiser was genius in holding Four Star accountable, at least as far as charging illegal fees goes.
Thomas, yup, recidivism follows if crimes aren’t prosecuted to match expense. And just archiving and documenting the expenses are costly and long standing. Costs of violating code must be projected generously and open ended over time to cover unanticipated issues. The user is not the expert, the law and code, within interpretation is. Violations need to be broadcast widely.
It sounds like they passed inspection on 3 bedrooms after construction. Then the first residents lived in it the first year and after the lease ended, they converted the dining rooms. Otherwise, residents would be upset that their dining room was being converted. The agency probably only offered leases for 3 to keep the 4th off the record, and that’s how it presented as “vague”. John should have to pay back a years worth of rent on the dining room bedroom in addition to other punitive measures. And previous residents and records should be tracked so the exact date of this conversion should be accounted for. That income off lease should be found. The previous residents know.
How many bedrooms were added??? If bedrooms were added in 13 units, how do you come up with four? “….This year, 891 12th St LLC added new walls and doors in 13 of the 16 units…”