This year, after more than seven years of planning and construction, the first Ponderosa Mobile Home Park resident to get a home through a partnership with the City of Boulder and Habitat for Humanity moved into her new net-zero triplex.
Across the street, a similarly sized two-bedroom house is selling for about three-quarters of a million dollars. But the Ponderosa resident, who wished to remain anonymous, paid less than $200,000 for her home.
“I’m very fortunate, I realize,” she said. “To be living in Boulder in an inexpensive home is pretty amazing.”
The home was built through a city-backed redevelopment project at Ponderosa Mobile Home Park in North Boulder, decades in the making. Since the 1990s, the city had been trying to purchase the park in order to prevent it from being sold to developers likely to raze the properties for more profitable real estate.
In 2017, the city succeeded. In 2022, the city began working with Habitat for Humanity to replace mobile homes with affordable duplexes and triplexes, which it reports are more climate resilient, safe and healthy. In March, Ponderosa residents closed on the first three units, and since then 13 more have been completed.
The pace of the project is accelerating following the launch of Boulder Mod, the city’s new factory for modular affordable housing units. The last four duplexes installed at Ponderosa were built at the factory.
The city is selling the homes to Ponderosa residents first, at a price lower than it would for other affordable homes. Kurt Firnhaber, the city’s housing and human services director, said the goal is to build more duplexes as land is freed up by residents moving out of their mobile homes. The city has promised residents they can stay in their mobile homes if they want to, and plans to take a pause when there are no more residents interested in relocating, likely around 2028. But long term, the city intends to replace all Ponderosa mobile homes with duplexes as residents pass away or move.
About 20 households sold their homes at the outset of the project, leaving about 48 households behind. At least a dozen of those remaining have opted to buy one of the new homes.
Many residents seem excited to own a new, more spacious home in Boulder, something that likely would have been impossible without this project. Firnhaber said he was with a resident as she toured her new duplex last month, and “she was jumping up and down and screaming and crying with joy.”
But not everyone is enthusiastic about the changes to the park. “It’s awesome for the people that want these homes, but not so great for people that don’t,” said Tina Boguhn, who has lived at Ponderosa for over 20 years.
Despite promises that residents “could live the rest of your life here,” Boguhn said a few people whose homes are in the way of new infrastructure, like a flood pond or a planned road, “have to make a choice to leave or go into a habitat home.” Boguhn is concerned that other infrastructure could eventually force her to make that choice.
Firnhaber disputes this, saying that residents who may be in the way of infrastructure plans are able to stay in a different mobile home within Ponderosa if they prefer.
“As the project continues, we expect to need to relocate additional mobile home owners, and we will address each case based on available housing and their desire to stay in a mobile home or move into a Habitat home,” he told Boulder Reporting Lab.
Some residents are likely to stay in mobile homes. Even with considerable subsidies, the homes are still too expensive for some. Boguhn said one of her neighbors opted to buy a Habitat home and is now paying more than $1,000 per month toward her mortgage and HOA fees, more than twice the lot rent for her mobile home.
The first resident to move into a Habitat home said she pays about $900 a month, but was able to reduce her mortgage rate with a $60,000 downpayment.
Most of Ponderosa’s residents fall into the federal government’s definition of “extremely low-income,” earning less than $26,000, according to surveys conducted by CU Boulder researchers. Some residents don’t have bank accounts, making it extremely difficult to get a loan or mortgage. Others are undocumented immigrants, many of whom left early in this process out of fear the city’s presence at the park would put them at risk of deportation.
“I think it’s great for some of my neighbors that really needed a different place to live, but you have a percentage of people that don’t qualify for them or are just happy where they are,” Boguhn said. “All we’ve asked for all this whole time is one document saying we can stay in our homes with no ‘ifs, ands or buts,’ and they’re not willing to give that to us.”
Firnhaber said the city has already made that commitment, in a 2017 city council resolution. Similar language is included in the annexation agreement for the property. He added that under the state’s Mobile Home Park Act, residents cannot be required to sign new leases.
“The Ponderosa stabilization program made a commitment to the existing residents in 2017 to continue to live in their mobile homes throughout the redevelopment of the property, with minimal displacement,” he told Boulder Reporting Lab.
City helping with finances
The city is subsidizing the cost of the duplexes, which cost over $300,000 to build at Boulder Mod and are being sold to Ponderosa residents for $165,000, according to Firnhaber. The price is set to be affordable for people making about 50% of the area median income, or about $52,000, roughly twice the income of most Ponderosa residents.
After residents have had a chance to buy the homes, the city will sell the rest at a rate affordable for residents making about 70% of AMI.
Firnhaber said the city is staying in touch with residents who moved away to ensure they have the opportunity to take advantage of the deal. Those who are undocumented and have adult children who are U.S. citizens are being offered the opportunity to put the house under their child’s name.
The city is also offering to buy residents’ mobile homes at market value — an average of $30,000, according to Firnhaber — on the condition that they can’t sell to anyone else. That’s lower than other mobile homes for sale in Boulder, because “there are no other parks that have units that are as old as Ponderosa and are in such poor condition,” Firnhaber said.
The city has also put some American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding toward offering residents a “silent second mortgage,” which the city recovers only if the house is sold.
“It’s basically a zero-interest loan to the resident for as long as they own the home,” Firnhaber said. “Between all those different things, we can almost get everyone to be able to qualify for a home.”
HOA fees. This is absurdity. This is exactly why the city’s housing stock of “affordable homes” are not affordable at all to anyone who actually qualifies, and now you’ve foisted this on the most vulnerable and lowest income residents in the city. Most people won’t be able to afford these homes even without those exorbitant fees. The city should have stayed out of trying to micro manage this, and just turned it over to Thistle to figure out how to turn this into a ROC like they do with other mobile home parks. Or at least turn it into a community land trust. Let the real experts figure it out. HHS cannot ever innovate sufficiently, and these people are getting screwed. Even at the bargain basement price for the homes, it still comes in at double the income of most residents. So you are creating winners and losers and have already driven away long time residents due to your heavy handed approach to this.
Gentrification in the guise of affordable housing.
Sounds like a great program ! Many mobile home parks across the country are being swept up by corporate equity raiders, who jack up rates and put residents in impossible situations. (Watch the John Oliver episode)