October 6, 2015 Arvada, CO  In a 7 – 0 vote, the Arvada City Council amended its Land Development Code at their October 5, 2015 meeting in order to address issues related to construction defect lawsuits.

Specifically, the ordinance provides for the inclusion of a note on a multi-family plat that requires mandatory arbitration of construction defects claims, if such a note was requested by the owner/developer. 

With the coming of the Gold Line in 2016 and the demand for multi-family housing in and around transit stations, the current law on construction defects has inhibited the development of for-sale multi-family housing.  Builders, pointing to the high cost of, or inability to obtain, insurance for owner-occupied, multi-family housing construction projects due to construction defect lawsuits brought by HOAs, have chosen instead to develop rental units.  For example, both the Park Place and Solana projects which will add over 400 multi-family units in the vicinity of the Olde Town Arvada Transit Station are being developed as rental units.

As a result of the failure of the State Legislature to consider construction defect reform, a number of municipalities in Colorado have already adopted ordinances to address the construction defects issue, including Lakewood, Littleton, Lone Tree, and Parker.  Arvada’s ordinance is based upon Parker’s approach.  Read the rest of the article