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Broomfield takes steps to tweak existing laws to better protect mobile home residents

Posted at 9:15 PM, Nov 13, 2018
and last updated 2018-11-14 01:56:36-05

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BROOMFIELD, Co. — After mobile home residents brought forth concerns of illegal towing, exorbitant rent hikes, and unfair rules and regulations by property owners, the Broomfield City Council is taking action.

At their meeting Tuesday, the council voted unanimously to move forward a tweak in local law to better protect residents living in mobile home parks including Front Range Mobile Home Park, and place additional rules on landlords to even the playing field.

“Broomfield has gone above and beyond and stuck their necks out and said we’re doing something,” Front Range resident Shannon Ginn said.

Ginn and several of her neighbors have been complaining about issues at Front Range, managed by Kingsley Management, for months. Contact7 has brought many of those concerns to light, including at another park managed by the same company in Thornton.

On top of the towing, rent, and rules issues these residents faced, Contact7 found that there wasn’t much remedy for their issues. Local governments and agencies either didn’t have rules in place or passed around the blame for who should fix it.

Broomfield is taking steps to try to change that.

The new tweaked ordinance, which passed a first vote on Tuesday and is one vote from becoming law, would do the following:

  • Clarification on the limitation of prohibiting sales of mobile homes
  • Clarification on the limitation on required upgrades to existing mobile homes
  • Clarification on Right to Privacy and management right of entry
  • Prohibition on management retaliation
  • Requirement of mediation prior to actions taken toward eviction
  • Requirement to notify the residents on how water and other utilities shall be computed and charged
  • Restriction on requiring residents to maintain large trees and other similar park owned property

“We realized some things needed to change,” Broomfield City Councilwoman Guyleen Castriotta said. “These are basic civil rights to give people the basic enjoyment of their homes which they were being denied.”

Contact7 reached out to Kingsley Management but did not hear back.