Many of the more than 100 residents of the Flying Saucer RV park in Sheridan have lived there for years, turning the spots they rent for their recreational vehicles and manufactured housing into year-round homes with yards, outdoor decks and small gardens.
But now the land is under contract to a development company that intends to build an apartment complex on the site. And unlike mobile home park residents, who enjoy certain protections under state law, people in RV parks don’t have the right to make an offer to buy the land.
That leaves people like Steve Ohlfest and his wife, who’ve lived at Flying Saucer for 20 years, wondering where they’ll go if the Sheridan City Council approves a proposal by the Indiana-based Garrett Companies to build a 362-unit apartment complex. The city planning commission will consider the company’s rezoning application Oct. 1 and make a recommendation to the city council about the roughly 16-acre site.
If the city council gives the go-ahead, construction could begin as early as spring or summer of 2026.
“Working with the owner, we will keep people informed about the new project,” said Cary Brazeman, a spokesman for Garrett. “People will have had nine months or more to make plans.”
Even nine months likely won’t make much difference for several people at Flying Saucer, Ohlfest said.
“Part of the problem is that in the entire Denver metro area, there are no places where you can park a tiny house on wheels legally,” Ohlfest said.
He figures he will need to hire a semitrailer to move his house, which weighs 26,000 pounds. Then, there are only three other RV parks in metro Denver that allow year-round residences and their rates are generally higher, Ohlfest said.
Chad Parades and his wife, both traveling nurses, are looking at a spot in a Wheat Ridge RV park. They have lived at Flying Saucer for about eight years and recently received an eviction notice. No explanation was listed on the Aug. 8 notice and Parades said the park manager, whose family owns the land, wouldn’t give the couple a reason.
Parades and his wife are still at the park, although the eviction notice said their lease would be terminated Aug. 31.
Anne Whipple, who signed the eviction notice put on Parades’ door, didn’t answer messages left by The Denver Post.
“A lot of these RVs can’t move. They’ve been here that long,” Parades said. “The biggest thing they don’t understand is this RV park not only houses tourists. It also houses electricians, it houses linemen, it houses nurses.”
Ohlfest has tried to spread the news about the planned sale via his website saveflyingsaucer.com. He believes at least 100 of the park’s 162 spaces are occupied.
“Then the question becomes what happens to all these people in this park? Where do we go?” Ohlfest asked. “We’ve driven all around the city and have seen areas where RVs are parked on the street. We certainly don’t want to see anything like that happen.”
An RV park by any other name?
Parades and Ohlfest said they have received no updates from the family that owns Flying Saucer. A state record lists Mary DeLisa of Greenwood Village as the property’s registered agent. An Arapahoe County Assessor’s record lists Lucille Tourney as an owner and another gives an appraised value of $1.57 million for the site.
Neither DeLisa nor Tourney could be reached for comment.
“The residents, including myself, are all quite anxious and sitting on edge trying to figure out what is a rumor and what is true. There has been no communication from the RV park,” said Meredith Long, a resident for three years. “Some people got a letter from the city. Other people didn’t get a letter about public meetings with the city of Sheridan.”
During a neighborhood meeting held by the city in June, an attorney for the owners said the property at 2500 W. Hampden Ave. had been in the family for 75 years. The attorney said a state law giving mobile home park residents the right to offer to buy a park up for sale wouldn’t apply to Flying Saucer because it’s an RV park.
State lawmakers approved protections for mobile home park residents in 2019 and 2020. The legislation was spurred by equity companies and investors buying up parks in Colorado and across the country and substantially raising the rents. The mobile home law includes protections in the case of evictions, a dispute resolution program and a park registration system.
A drive around Flying Saucer showed there are two mobile homes and two tiny homes, which are considered mobile homes if they comply with state design standards. The homes in the Flying Saucer park run the gamut, from RVs with no or minimal additions to ones with skirting around the bottom, outside decks and gardens.
The property, which has tree-lined streets, is bordered on the south by Bear Creek. The park was established around 1949.
Whether Flying Saucer could qualify as a mobile home park, giving residents a chance to make an offer on the site or line up backing from a nonprofit or public entity, is a complicated issue, said Zach Neumann, co-founder and CEO of the Community Economic Defense Project. The Denver-based organization provides services for people facing eviction and other housing dilemmas.
“Mobile home parks typically have long-term residents, more permanent structures. RV parks are typically more transitory with people who are passing through,” Neumann said. “I think where it gets complicated are situations where folks have been living there for more than a month or, in some cases, years. Or they’ve taken steps to make their structures more permanent.”
Neumann stressed he doesn’t know the specifics about the Flying Saucer park and individual residents, but said it might be worthwhile for them to explore whether it could be considered a more permanent housing site.
“Just because you put ‘RV park’ in your title, doesn’t mean you’re an RV park. You have to operate like one,” Neumann said. “And if they’ve operated like a mobile home park, then I believe the statutes apply.”
Rents for the apartments that Garrett wants to build would range from $1,600 to $2,600 a month, the company said. Flying Saucer residents pay $650 to $1,000 a month to rent a space, which is on top of utilities, propane and the payment on the RV itself.
“One of the biggest misconceptions in the public debate around housing is that people who are facing eviction or foreclosure displacement don’t have jobs,” Neumann said.
The vast majority of his organization’s clients are often working two jobs, he said.
“The real problem is that the cost of housing has gotten so high that regular people can’t afford to live here or they can afford to live here, but they’re one financial emergency away from losing their homes,” Neumann said.