Family Wins Battle With City Over Right To Sell Home To Developer
By Stan Bush
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - Angie Garcia was consumed with anxiety testifying for the right to destroy her family home so she could save her family's future.
"My parents and others family members bought houses on Goss Street because that's all they could afford. It was the poor side of town, the other side of the tracks," Garcia said in a Boulder meeting on Wednesday.
Her home at 2122 Goss Circle is one of the last remaining structures from what was Boulder's historically low income black and Hispanic neighborhood. The rest of the neighborhood has been scraped for new buildings.
Garcia's home has been under contract for nearly twice what it would have cost to fix the home, but the Boulder Landmark Board placed a stay on the demolition to review the home's historic status. Garcia's family argued that blocking the demo was a double dip of the racism that contained minorities to the neighborhood to begin with.
"Now you want to discriminate against my mom again because her last name is Chavez," Garcia said in Wednesday's hearing before the board.
Landmark commissioners are fighting to preserve Boulder's past, but in a shocking move voted on the spot, 3-1, to allow immediate demolition of the home.
"It's a double-edged thing. I'm so relieved that now we can move forward with the sale. There are mixed emotions with selling the family home," said Garcia.
For Garcia, the cost of losing her childhood at home is immense, but it's the price to protect her family. The money they will earn will pay for her 95-year-old mother's extended care.
"The most important part of this was my mother and taking care of my mother," she said.
Stan Bush is a general assignment reporter at CBS4. His stories can be seen on CBS4 News at 10. Read his bio and follow him on Twitter @StanBushTV.
