AURORA | A deal to allow a zoning hearing and aid residents of the closing Denver Meadows Mobile Home Park is final. Aurora City Council members passed the deal unanimously Monday during its regular meeting.
Park residents will get up to $300,000 collectively from the park owner, per the agreement. Each unit is set to receive a different amount, based on the purchase price of the mobile home and outstanding debt.
Along with the agreement, the body re-activated the zoning hearing park owner Shawn Lustigman asked for in July 2016. Council members unanimously approved tabling that previous decision.
Lustigman wants the plot of land to be zoned for a transit oriented development, as the park is sandwiched between the Anschutz Medical Campus and the R-Line, which parallels I-225.
Aurora Mayor Bob LeGare told the Sentinel last month that he believed the owners would be better off offering some assistance to the displaced residents because “untabling” the measure would be an unpopular move with the possibility of families being forced out of their homes. Families in 18 units will receive that money. Dozens of families have already moved from the park, making them ineligible for the funds.
The motion passed 9-1, with council members Crystal Murillo opposed and Bob Roth absent.
The zoning hearing is now scheduled for June 3 and could be finalized by July.
“…I just think it’s been a really terrible situation how these people have been treated in our community,” Murillo said of the three-year ordeal. “And now that this is scheduled, I know that we have to have an independent discussion about rezoning. Nothing we’ve talked about up until today was related to the zoning request.”
