DENVER (KDVR) — In a year where homeowners are dealing with inflation and high property taxes, lawmakers are looking to make sure one group of residents receives advance notice if their rent were to increase.
According to the sponsors of HB22-1287, they are looking to protect people living in mobile homes by adding new safeguards to existing law, but the mobile park owners say the proposed guidelines are an unnecessary strain on their industry.
“The bill at its heart is really about affordability for residents who live in mobile home parks,” said Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, D-Larimer, a prime sponsor of the measure.
Lawmakers said they are trying to make sure people who live in mobile homes across the state are protected.
“Multi-state investors will come into Colorado, purchase a park, and in pretty quick order, increase the lot rent that those lots sit on,” said Boesenecker. “Mobile homes are really unique in that regard, in as much as owners on the home, but not the land that it sits under. So when we see lot rent increases of 25% to 50%, which is what we are seeing statewide, typically what happens is residents are very concerned that they will be able to stay in the home that they’ve purchased.”
Those concerns are what lawmakers said drove them to draft a measure that would bring sweeping changes to the mobile park industry, amending the Mobile Home Park Act and its dispute resolution program to ban rent increases greater than inflation or 3%.
It would also require landlords to cover the cost of property maintenance failures and require the park owners to specify and notify residents of events leading up to selling a park.
Mobile home industry leaders said their businesses have been through enough changes in the past couple of years, having to comply with HB19-1309 signed in 2019, then surviving blows dealt by the pandemic. They called the new proposal unnecessary and said it could have a negative impact on people living there.
“We’re like approximately 60 days before session ends so it really isn’t enough time to prepare and educate the industry, owners, operators or the residents,” said Tawny Peyton with Rocky Mountain Home Association.
“Rent control doesn’t work and it’s actually bad policy. What it does is it actually starts to escalate the cost of the homes to the point where the residents that once could afford to buy those homes in the community can no longer afford to buy those homes because of the restrictions of rent and the demand on homes in the communities.”
HB22-1287 is still under consideration after receiving several amendments on Wednesday in Colorado’s House Transportation and Local Government committee.