New rules for modular housing in Colorado go into effect at the end of the month

DENVER — At the end of the month, new rules for factory-built homes will go into effect in Colorado.

The rules are part of SB25-002, a bill Governor Jared Polis signed into law last year, along with several other bills that address affordable housing in Colorado.

SB25-002 creates a uniform set of rules for regions across the state for modular housing.

Nate Peterson, the CEO of Vederra Modular — a modular housing factory in Aurora — explained just how beneficial this streamlined process will be.

“We had to build everything for one singular address, and so you had to submit plans for that singular address, build for that singular address, and if you wanted to build one for the address next door, you had to do the whole process again,” Peterson explained.

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Peterson serves on the committee that was put together to create the rules that will be implemented June 30. He said SB25-002 eliminated the need to apply for permits on every single thing that was going into the same building zone.

“The front range might be zone four. If you build a project that is approved for zone four, it can go anywhere in the front range without having to go back in for permit approval, and so that’s a really handy thing,” he said.

State Senator Jeff Bridges, D-District 26, echoed the benefits and importance the changes this law will bring, saying it is game changing for housing in the state.

“That [new rules] actually allows them to build up inventory to say we’re going to build like 50 homes that could be put in anywhere in sort of the rural resort parts of Colorado, we know what those standards are, and then as we have customers come in, we have units that we can just sell them and install right away,” Bridges explained. “By having this uniform set of policies that folks will be working off of, you are preserving safety across the state for the people living in these homes, but you’re reducing the burden on the developers for building them, lowering costs, making housing more affordable.”

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Bridges emphasized that the long-time goal and bottom line of this bill is to make housing more affordable in Colorado.

“We know we’re in an affordability crisis here in Colorado. We know that housing is a big piece of that, and this helps to address housing affordability for new builds that are using modular homes,” Bridges said.