.png){kind=logo}
Colorado currently has over 900 mobile home parks
(May 23) — Gov. Polis just signed a bill sponsored by Rep. Edie Hooton, D-Boulder, and Rep. Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, to protect the rights of mobile home owners in mobile parks.
HB19-1309 creates a low cost and effective Mobile Home Park Act Dispute Resolution and Enforcement Program within the Department of Local Affairs Housing Division. It also provides counties the same permissive authority that home-rule municipalities have to enact and enforce regulations.
“Over the last several years, serious concerns have been raised by Colorado’s mobile home owners over mistreatment from park owners,” said Rep. Hooton, D-Boulder. “This bill will give more tools to help protect Coloradans who are being exploited by relatively loose regulatory structures.”
In addition, HB19-1309 extends the time a homeowner has to sell or move from their home after an eviction from 48 hours to 30 days, and extends the time to cure a late payment from five days to ten days.
“In rural communities, affordable housing is at a premium and mobile home parks are an essential part of the solution to our housing crisis,” said Rep. McCluskie, D-Dillon when the bill passed the House this session. “However, there are many concerns about how residents are being treated in parks. This bill will create a process for effectively resolving conflicts so mobile home parks can remain a strong housing option for Coloradans.”
Approximately 100,000 Coloradans live in mobile homes, many of them within the state’s over 900 mobile home parks. Currently, the only recourse a homeowner of a mobile home has if they believe a park owner has violated the Colorado Mobile Home Park Act (MHPA) is to initiate a private action in civil court, which is often times too expensive for more homeowners.
The Colorado Mobile Home Park Act was passed in 1985 and it lists the rights of mobile home owners and park owners, but no enforcement was ever created.
The Governor also signed a bipartisan bill sponsored by Rep. Hooton that would add a condition for which a physician would prescribe an opioid, primarily for acute pain, to the list of disabling medical conditions that authorize a person to use medical marijuana for his or her condition.
“The opioid epidemic doesn’t discriminate, it affects all ages, races, genders, and socioeconomic status. Medical marijuana is an option to help people with their disabling pain without the repercussions of addictions that we are seeing in this epidemic,” said Rep. Hooton when the bill passed the House in April.