Last week, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman urged the city to shut down the apartment buildings that have made national headlines over an alleged “Venezuelan gang takeover.”
“I strongly believe that the best course of action is to shut these [buildings] down and make sure that this never happens again,” he posted on Facebook.
He was responding to reports of activity by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua at several apartment buildings, which has become the focus of national media coverage.
He added that the Aurora City Attorney's Office was preparing to, “request an emergency court order to clear the apartment buildings where Venezuelan gang activity has been occurring by declaring the properties a ‘Criminal Nuisance.’”
But those plans are not moving forward, for now.
Aurora is working with the property owners on other options, local officials said. A spokesperson for Coffman said that closing the buildings is no longer the mayor’s goal.
The proposed closures would have affected hundreds of people living in two buildings owned by CBZ Management: The Edge at Lowry and Whispering Pines Apartments.
A third building, Fitzsimons Place, at 1568 Nome Street, has already been shut down over code violations.
The apparent change of plans comes as Coffman is reportedly negotiating with the landlords at CBZ Management. They’re working on a plan, according to a city spokesperson.
“Due to new communications with the property owners and their attorneys since [last] Friday, there are no immediate plans to go forward with such a request at this time,” wrote Aurora spokesperson Michael Brannen, in a statement this week. “But it remains one of the City’s legal options moving forward, if needed.”
What we know and what we don't about these apartment complexes and Tren de Aragua
Aurora has arrested 10 suspected Tren de Aragua members for various crimes, including assault and attempted murder. In Denver, one crime has been linked to the gang: the robbery of a family-owned jewelry store.
The city and the landlord have a strained relationship. Coffman has called the owners “slumlords,” while the landlords have accused the city of letting Tren de Aragua “take over” the buildings.
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The city and the landlord have been in a multi-year battle with the city over zoning code and habitability issues — complaints residents have been making for years. That dispute led to the previous shutdown of Fitzsimons Place, forcing families out of nearly 100 units.
There’s another complicating factor: Coffman doesn’t have the power to unilaterally shut down apartments, according to Councilmember Crystal Murillo. She’s the representative of the district in western Aurora that is home to the apartment buildings.
A shutdown would require support from Council and also work from the City Manager, she said.
Murillo is uncertain how her fellow council members would vote, but she opposes a shutdown. She told Denverite she’s concerned that the apartments are unlivable and that the landlord has abandoned the building — but if the building is closed, residents will have nowhere to go, and many could be left homeless.
“I am concerned that people are still at risk,” Murillo said. “We already know there's a shortage of affordable units that are livable. And you know, I'm concerned that this false narrative is making that even harder.”
Community activists rallied on Tuesday to decry the idea of shutting down the apartments, as well as to protest CBZ Management’s alleged poor upkeep of the buildings, as well as to push back on what they described as racist and biased media coverage of their community.
Several Venezuelan immigrants said they can’t find new apartments because landlords don’t want to rent to them — a problem that’s only grown worse with sometimes hyperbolic claims of a gang takeover in Aurora.
The City of Aurora is already embroiled in legal action against Zev Baumgarten, an owner of CBZ. The company has not responded to multiple Denverite requests for comment. Coffman also has not responded to requests for interviews about those negotiations or his desire to shutter the buildings.
Aurora previously shuttered a separate CBZ Management property, displacing hundreds of people
The closure of Fitzsimons Place, at 1568 Nome Street, forced 300 tenants out of 99 units.
The City of Aurora provided those tenants with a few weeks of rent and the possibility of downpayment assistance, but no city workers were on the ground to help tenants on the day of the shutdown. Only nonprofit workers were present.
Weeks after the shutdown, Nate Kassa, an organizer with the East Colfax Community Collective, said organizers are overwhelmed as they try to find new housing for so many people.
Many families from the Nome Street apartments fell through the cracks, and he worries they may be living on the streets, he said. Murillo fears the same would happen to the residents of the other CBZ Management apartments the city has considered shuttering.
Murillo has heard from housing advocates that some landlords are reluctant to rent to people coming from the CBZ buildings, “because now they're all being labeled incorrectly and falsely as gang members,” she said.
“And so really, the collateral damage are still the residents. They were the victims in the first place. They're still the victims now. And they're suffering the consequences and being caught in the crossfire of this political grandstanding that's happening.”
