Gentrified Out Of Aurora Mobile Home Park, Residents Say

AURORA, CO – By Rachael Long for The Colorado Independent. More than 50 residents facing eviction from a north Aurora mobile home park pleaded with City Council members for help this week, in another attempt to stop the park’s owner from forcing them out.

“I feel like I’m abandoned. It’s breaking my heart,” Petra Bennett, a 17-year resident of Denver Meadows Mobile and RV Park, told Aurora City Council members Monday night. “But you, as the leaders of the city, have a choice to help low-income communities like us. So I beg you, choose.”

The park’s longtime owner, Shawn Lustigman, wants to redevelop the property and has given residents until Sept. 30 to move.

Denver Meadows, one of 12 mobile home parks in Aurora, is home to about 60 families, according to 9to5 Colorado, the nonprofit that has been helping organize residents to fight the eviction. Organizers say that about 40 other families have moved out since early 2016 when Lustigman informed residents that their days in the park were numbered.

Lustigman has said he wants to take advantage of the property’s now-prime location near light rail and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center by rezoning the land for transit-oriented development. The park sits on about half of the roughy 20-acre property. According to the Adam’s County assessor’s office, the land under the mobile home and RV park has an assessed value of almost $5 million.

Residents and local housing activists have been fighting Lustigman’s plans on multiple fronts, including filing a lawsuit alleging harassment and attempting to buy the park themselves. In April, the Aurora City Council placed a 10-month moratorium on development, delaying all rezoning decisions until March of 2019. That decision has given some residents hope that rather than sit on empty land, Lustigman will push their move-out date to early next year.

But it’s unclear whether that would happen. Lustigman and his management declined to comment on the situation when reached by phone last week and again Wednesday.
“I have nothing to say to you, so don’t bother,” Lustigman said. “If you want to call my lawyer, you’re welcome.”

His attorney, Mark Shaner, is on vacation and did not respond to an email from The Independent for comment.

Read more in the Colorado Independent

Image: Denver Meadows residents planned an action before the Aurora City Council meeting Monday Aug. 6. By Rachael Long

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