Residents of Swiss Village Mobile Home Park are under contract to purchase the land their homes sit upon, a crucial step toward ensuring the park between the Uncompahgre River and the steep cliffs on the west side of Ouray remains an affordable place for them to live.

The Swiss Village cooperative and the current owners of the park, Ross and Arlene Crawford, have agreed to terms in which the cooperative will purchase the 3-acre park and the 21 mobile homes at 1500 Oak St. for $2.5 million. That figure represents a compromise between the $2.18 million homeowners offered last fall and the $2.7 million price the Crawfords presented in their counteroffer.

The two sides are working through a host of details, but the deal is expected to close in May, with the help of donations from two local couples to help the owners secure their housing and ownership of the park.

It’s a 180-degree turn from where things stood less than two months ago, when residents were frantically searching for funding and the chances that they would be able to put together a financing package allowing them to buy the park and stay in their homes were doubtful, if not impossible. The window had closed on the state-mandated time frame for residents to have the first opportunity to purchase the property, and it was open for others to bid.

“It’s looking very feasible,” said Ben Moore, a financial analyst with Thistle, a Boulder-based nonprofit organization that has been working with Swiss Village residents since last summer to transition the park to a resident- owned community. “The barrier that we worked through is just arriving at a purchase price that financing could support.”

There are still some unknowns, according to Paula Damke, president of the coooperative’s board of directors who is working on behalf of the residents to negotiate the deal. Lot rent amounts have not been finalized yet, but the residents hope they will be able to include the Crawfords’ double-wide mobile home in the cooperative and count on rent from whoever lives there. The goal is to keep lot rent to a maximum of $600 per month.

The residents also hope to be able to offset the cost of the mobile home park with the sale of the Crawfords’ home, with stipulations that the new owners must be full-time residents who meet income guidelines for affordable housing.

It’s also not clear whether a grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs will be approved. The deadline for the application isn’t until March, and the residents must have an engineering study completed before then for the grant. Swiss Village will apply for $880,000, the maximum amount they can seek under state guidelines.

But even if DOLA doesn’t sign off on the grant, residents expect they’ll still be able to close on the park, thanks to the generosity of two couples.

Ouray County philanthropists Jay and Jackie Lauderdale and Cat and Barthold Lichtenbelt committed a combined $900,000 toward the purchase of Swiss Village at the beginning of January, saying they believed it was important to preserve affordable housing. The donation will act as a sort of bridge loan, allowing the residents to secure the property with the hope that the DOLA grant money will come through.

Because the grant application required the buyers to have financing and sign a contract before requesting the grant funds, the residents were in a difficult spot. Until the donors came forward and said they wanted to help, the residents had run out of feasible options to buy the property and keep lot rents reasonably priced for residents, some of whom are living month to month on Social Security payments.

Without the donation, Damke said, “”We were basically faced with not being able to purchase the park.”

For the residents, securing the contract is a relief after months of uncertainty.

“I think I’ve said more rosaries in the last seven months of my life than I think I probably have ever said,” Damke said.

The Lauderdales and Lichtenbelts stepped in and provided a lifeline at a time when a deal seemed unlikely. Swiss Village homeowners and the Crawfords had been unable to reach a compromise on a purchase price. And without more financial support, residents faced lot rent increases that would be unaffordable for most of them. Desperate, they asked the city of Ouray for $1.2 million in December — an amount well beyond the point city councilors seemed willing to contribute.

But with a commitment of $900,000 in hand, the city is expected a letter of intent for the funding during their Feb. 3 meeting.

At a meeting Jan. 21, councilors informally agreed they were comfortable with committing $200,000 and plan to take the proceeds from the city’s affordable housing fund, which is subsidized by a 15% excise tax on short-term rentals. They said they wanted to retain the balance of the money in that fund to put toward future projects aimed at retaining or creating affordable housing.

Local residents commended councilors for their willingness to help Swiss Village residents.

“I can’t imagine a better project to spend this money on,” Ouray resident Kevin Schiffer told councilors.

In addition to the city’s contribution, Swiss Village homeowners have asked Ouray County for $300,000. Commissioners are expected to discuss the issue during a Feb. 26 work session.

While the $900,000 private donation served as the linchpin to the sales contract, the Crawfords’ willingness to compromise also helped. They agreed to separate 13 acres of undeveloped land on the hillside above Swiss Village from the park itself in their efforts to sell the entire property, a distinction residents needed to help them secure financing. And the Crawfords dropped their asking price, to make it possible for the residents to buy the property..

“The Crawfords did give some more up because they wanted it to happen,” Realtor Marc Hitchcox, who is selling the property for the Crawfords, said in reference to selling the park to residents. “They’ve always wanted it to happen.”

He said the Crawfords, who have owned Swiss Village for 35 years, still intend to sell the undeveloped 13 acres separately.

Should the deal close this spring, Swiss Village will become the 13th resident-owned community in Colorado. For those involved, it’s far from an unlucky number.

“We feel good about it. We do this across the state. It happens quite often that we think a deal like this is not feasible. We’ve had a couple of instances of things coming back to life,” Moore said. “This is one of the great examples of that, where it looks like they have no chance from a baseline, fundamental, mathematical equation. And now they look like (they’ll be able to buy it).”