Denver’s decision to close Belmont Trailer Park on Morrison Road and throw 40 families onto the street is arbitrary and cruelor so I argued here last Saturday. I can now report that it may be worse than that. Officials I’ve spoken to portray the decision as perhaps irreversible, too.
First, a refresher course in zoning enforcement run amok. The city ordered the trailer park closed by July because inspectors found “several enclosed structures on the zone lot, which were constructed without zoning and building permits, and which constitute an increase of floor area,” according to a notice from zoning administrator Michael O’Flaherty.
Permit me to translate: Inspectors discovered some unauthorized porches and sheds. Such offenses may be common throughout Denver, but O’Flaherty imposed a death sentence on the trailer park (and possible bankruptcy for its owners) because new trailer parks were outlawed decades ago and existing ones like Belmont grandfathered into the code. When it comes to such “non-conforming uses,” O’Flaherty told me, the rules are unforgiving. He had no choice but to shut the park down.
Shouldn’t it matter, I wondered, that the structures (mostly porches) were obviously built years — and perhaps decades — before the present owners bought the park in 2006?
“I need to respond to what’s on the ground,” O’Flaherty said. “I can’t respond based on when something was built.”
Well, then, what about the fact that city inspectors had been on the site before their fateful visit this year without objecting to the structures? As recently as April 2008, a city planning and development official reported to a potential buyer that “the property is in compliance with applicable zoning ordinance requirements,” objecting only to “some outside storage of miscellaneous items.”
That’s true, O’Flaherty acknowledged, but the official also requested “a current accurate site plan” that was never submitted. Yet how could a “site plan” have been more damning than the evidence before the inspector’s own eyes — which he ignored?
The trailer park’s owners, Vince and Marley Vranesic, have appealed the order to the Board of Adjustment, which will hear the case next month. But that board, according to director Janice Tilden, can only reverse the zoning administrator when his decision is legally in error. It can’t give a break to the families whose lives will be turned upside down (and who will likely lose their trailers) because it’s the right thing to do.
Might politicians intervene?
“My hands are tied,” Councilman Paul Lopez told me. I’d contacted Lopez to ask about a letter he sent to Belmont residents dated Nov. 25, in which he offered his assistance in relocation and provided a list of social welfare agencies — including, alarmingly, homeless shelters and “pet surrendering” outfits.
Lopez has a reputation for standing up for the little guy, yet hasn’t objected to the city’s decision and seems actually to support it. Why doesn’t he sympathize with poor people who did nothing more than try to improve the comfort of their homes, I asked.
“That’s not accurate,” he protested.
“What’s not accurate?”
“That I don’t have sympathy with those people,” he replied. However, he insisted, “With the current conditions,” the trailer park “isn’t safe at all.”
Lopez is right that inspectors found safety violations involving electrical lines, gas meters and two units heated illegally with petroleum liquefied gas. They’d gone to the trailer park in the first place because of complaints the councilman says he’d reported. If the park were being closed because recalcitrant owners refused to fix hazards, fine. But when I checked with Marley Vranesic on Thursday, she said all electrical work had been finished and a gas line to service the two units was underway.
Oddly, however, Lopez persists in citing safety as the paramount issue hanging over the complex. To repeat: It has nothing to do with the closure order.
Is there a just ending possible to this Kafkaesque saga — or even a reasonable compromise? I’ve been around long enough to see apparently insurmountable obstacles melt away when officials care enough. In this case, sparing 40 families a trip to an emergency center and a visit to a “pet surrendering” agency ought to provide that inspiration.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com
