This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We\'ll assume you\'re ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Read More
Part 2
2025 was a busy year at the State Capitol for AIA Colorado. Despite a significant state budget shortfall, we tracked more legislation than usual affecting the architecture profession. We identified 26 bills of interest to our members and took positions on 12 of them, listed below.
We’re proud to report that every bill AIA Colorado supported passed, and every bill we opposed failed.
This summary will be published in two parts:
SB25-157: Deceptive Trade Practice Significant Impact Standard
Bill status: Failed in Senate
AIA Colorado position: Oppose
Colorado’s consumer protection statute includes dozens of individual sections in addition to its general provisions. As a result, it’s difficult to make sweeping changes, even when they mean well, without unintended consequences. This bill could have made it easier to make a deceptive trade practice claim alongside a construction defect claim, which could open up defendants to trebel damages. A scary prospect given the dollar amounts that may be necessary to correct an issue. This situation is very different than the scale of harm for a typical consumer protection lawsuit. Appropriate damages that can be awarded exist in this act and bills targeting other sections of statute shouldn’t take precedence. Architects were one of many interest groups affected that believed this bill was too broad in its attempt to increase consumer protections and the bill failed on the senate floor.
AIA Colorado opposed this bill because consumer protection claims shouldn’t be used as a vehicle to increase judgements for construction defect lawsuits. Some trial lawyers already try to tack on consumer protection claims as a scare tactic and this bill would make this more common despite such claims not having merit. The existing Construction Defect Action Reform Act (CDARA), while not perfect, is a comprehensive statute design specifically for lawsuits against architects and other construction professionals.
SB25-185: Claims Against Construction Professionals
Bill status: Failed in House
AIA Colorado position: Oppose
Never has a bill so concise had so many negative implications for the architecture profession. SB25-185 simply stated that “Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, a construction professional owes an independent tort duty to an original residential home purchaser and a subsequent residential home purchaser“. This single sentence would have effectively removed our ability to negotiate liability-related provisions in contracts with other construction professionals.
When a homeowner suffers from a construction defect and pursues a lawsuit to correct the issue, the Economic Loss Doctrine dictates that the proper course of action is to file a contract claim against the seller of the home. This doctrine is intended to guide parties in disputes with purely monetary losses (such as paying to have a defect corrected). Terms in the sales contract are relevant to how liability issues are handled. The world of construction is a complex web of contracts, so there may be multiple suits filed down the contract line depending on what party is at fault. A homeowner could sue a homebuilder, who would then sue an architect to be made whole if the architect was at fault and was hired by the homebuilder.
To the benefit of homeowners in general, courts have ruled that subsequent buyers, who only had a contract with the original homeowner, don’t have to file contract claims. They can file tort claims against construction professionals directly since suing the previous homeowner is an overly burdensome means to get to the party who caused the defect. We’ve been operating under this guidance for decades in Colorado.
This bill would have allowed original homeowners to sue anyone directly with a tort claim.
This effort specifically tried to reverse a recent court case decision (Appleby vs Dossey Sudik) where a structural engineer limited their liability to an agreed-upon dollar amount with the architect, who was under contract with a general contractor on a for-sale residential project. The original homeowners had a structural defect and tried to sue the structural engineer directly via tort claim because a contract claim would not have covered the repair costs. However, the courts (up to the Colorado Supreme Court) all agreed that the homeowners could only file contract claims, starting with the seller of their home.
While that might sound unfair to homeowners at first pass, the intent of contract liability provisions is that both parties agree to them. If one side reduces their liability risk, then the other side opts in to taking on that liability themselves. This isn’t always about dollar amounts. Dispute resolution processes (arbitration and mediation) are also common contract clauses that this bill would have undermined. Architects are hired long before a housing unit goes to market. We’re not privy to the terms of a final sales agreement to the homeowner. As such, we can only properly negotiate contracts with the clients who hire us. We rely on contract claims to provide guardrails on who can sue who and when it’s appropriate to do so.We believe that courts ruled correctly in favor of requiring contract claims in construction defect lawsuits so that negotiated liability-related provisions are respected by all parties and taken into consideration in court proceedings.
It took a lot of work to explain how bad this bill was to legislators given how little detail there was in the bill text itself. Thankfully, we were ultimately successful in defeating it despite the bill having bipartisan support. If it had passed, architects and professional engineers (who were great allies in our lobbying effort!) would have had more lawsuit exposure in for-sale residential projects resulting in greater insurance costs and risk. This would drive firms out of this market and/or raise costs to cover the new risk.
HB25-1261: Consumers Construction Defect Action
Bill status: Pulled by sponsor in House committee hearing
AIA Colorado position: Oppose
This bill is a long list of changes intended to benefit homeowners who file construction defect lawsuits against construction professionals, many of which are similar or returning provisions from last year’s failed HB24-1230. AIA Colorado opposed this bill not just because every section was bad for architects, but also because of the heavy-handed approach taken that would have raised costs for architects with no litigation history. The most significant changes included:
In Colorado, there are already no real penalties against lawyers who threaten every construction professional involved in a project with a lawsuit. This bill only would have made this practice more egregious. Additionally, prejudgment interest would result in a strong disincentive for a defendant to argue their case in court because judgements will automatically be higher, and the longer a case takes to resolve (which we have no control over, the higher the interest total would be.
While there’s potentially room for improvement for homeowners trying to deal with a construction defect, solutions need to respect construction professionals’ right to plead our defense in court without additional penalties for doing so. Solutions also need to be careful they don’t raise insurance or out-of-pocket costs for all architects who do residential projects even when we’re not the party at fault in most construction defect cases.
HB25-1093: Limitations on Local Anti-Growth Land Use Policies
Bill status: Signed into law
Colorado generally defers to local jurisdictions on policies related to housing growth. While logistical considerations still vary by locality, this bill prohibits local governments from enacting growth restrictions through simple limits on building or development permits. Previous implementations of such policies are forms of NIMBYism, are effectively discriminatory, and can cause significant issues—especially in clusters of cities where these limits are applied inconsistently at the regional level.
HB25-1030: Accessibility Standards in Building Codes
Bill status: Signed into law
AIA Colorado position: Amend/Support
As a home rule state, building codes are adopted and enforced at the local level. However, there is precedent for energy codes that require local jurisdictions to adopt certain versions of a code when they do any code update cycle. This makes it easier to promote adoption of newer codes even if a local jurisdiction can decide on their own schedule.
This bill promotes adoption of newer accessibility code provisions in the same way as existing energy adoption requirements. The primary difference is that this bill focuses on chapter 11 of the IBC instead of an entire publication. Either of the two most recent versions of this IBC chapter are allowed to be adopted. AIA Colorado successfully proposed a number of friendly amendments to this bill to offer clarity on how this process would work.
Even if a local jurisdiction does not want to be on the newest version of the IBC, this bill ensures better accessibility for building occupants, even if it’s slightly more complicated for architects to mix and match versions of the same code. Because the baseline in this bill is to use the 2021 IBC version, smaller rural communities are the most likely not to already be in compliance. An added benefit for architects is that a local jurisdiction may decide it’s easier to simply adopt an IBC version that meets this bill’s requirements. This could get more of the state on more modern codes.
SB25-002: Regional Building Codes for Factory-Built Structures
Bill status: Signed into law
AIA Colorado position: Amend/Support
Factory-built structures and building components are being promoted in Colorado to lower construction costs and therefore housing prices in particular. To facilitate broader adoption and investment of this construction practice, the state wants to simplify the application of building codes and inspections when construction occurs in a different jurisdiction (or state) than where the project site is located.
This bill empowers the state to determine standard off-site inspection practices and create regions with a unified set of building codes that must be designed and built to for off-site construction. AIA Colorado, amongst many other stakeholders, noted that as introduced, the bill didn’t have clear language to ensure the strictest code provisions in a region would apply in this context. With four climate regions in the state and significant variance in other site conditions such as wind loads, it’s important to ensure appropriate safety and building performance code provisions govern any given project.
With broader adoption of off-site construction, this bill will help architects, contractors, an local building departments navigate otherwise overlapping or conflicting building code requirements in projects that where construction occurs wholly or partially outside the local project site.
SB25-039: Agricultural Buildings Exempt from Energy Use Requirements
Bill status: Signed into law
Under current law, owners of certain large buildings are required to annually collect and report each covered building’s energy use to the Colorado energy office. This bill clarifies that agricultural buildings were never intended to be included in the state’s Building Performance Standards program for benchmarking and annual energy use limitations.
HB25-1061: Community Schoolyards Grant Program
Bill status: Signed into law
AIA Colorado position: Support
This bill creates a grant program that can support planning, design, or construction grants for schoolyard projects that benefit and are accessible to the broader community beyond use by students during school hours. Suggested uses include natural landscapes or playgrounds, recreational spaces, sustainability/resilience projects, and hands-on learning spaces in underserved and underfunded schools and communities.
This community schoolyard grant fund has limited money available given Colorado’s budget challenges this year but can still make school outdoor space projects viable that might not otherwise have funding. Architects doing school projects are urged to speak with their clients to determine if part of the project scope may be qualified for this type of grant.
Bill status: Signed into law
AIA Colorado position: Support
This bill creates a program, with a board led by the state treasurer and including the state architect, to provide financing to eligible projects. These include various infrastructure and affordable/accessible housing projects. This program is funded using state treasury money as collateral for more favorable rates than other project funding sources. Given the unique nature of this funding, projects have to be individually evaluated and subject to available money.
Given the substantial 2025 state budget deficit, legislators tried many different creative ways to find money not available in the general fund this year. This bill focuses on making certain capital construction projects a reality that are ready to begin but where supplemental funding is necessary for related infrastructure work.
HB25-1245: Heating Ventilation & Air Conditioning Improvement Projects in Schools
Bill status: Signed into law
Schools that accept funding from the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act cash fund” for HVAC improvements must now meet certain performance, quality, and contractor qualification standards for the project.
SB25-006: Investment Authority of State Treasurer for Affordable Housing
Bill status: Signed into law
The state treasurer may invest up to $50 million of state money in bonds with below-market interest rates if the proceeds are used for the creation or financing of new affordable, income-restricted for-sale housing that otherwise would not be made available.
AIA Colorado is a member of Building Jobs 4 Colorado (BJ4C), a coalition of construction trade groups that work with industry stakeholders to preserve and build construction and design jobs in Colorado. There are numerous bills each year that BJ4C takes positions on in addition to our own efforts.
HB25-1286: Protecting Workers from Extreme Temperatures
Bill status: Failed in House committee hearing
AIA Colorado position: BJ4C coalition opposed
Climate change is resulting in more common extreme temperature days in Colorado. There is no worker protection consistency across industries with outdoor workers and this bill would have given protection to works for both heat- and cold-related temperatures. Protection would have included risk mitigation measures, rest break details, and injury/illness prevention plans. The construction industry was generally opposed to this bill as there are already robust measures in place in accordance with national OSHA requirements.
If this bill would have passed, it could have significantly reduced productivity on construction sites during the hottest and coldest parts of the year. Opponents successfully argued that the proposed protections would have gone well beyond what is required to protect worker safety. As temperatures continue to rise however, this issue isn’t going away. For the construction industry though, there are numerous examples of extreme weather procedures already in place in many southern states that we can emulate.
HB25-1300: Workers’ Compensation Benefits Proof of Entitlement
Bill status: Signed into law
AIA Colorado position: BJ4C coalition opposed
This bill makes a significant change to Colorado’s existing worker’s compensation benefits act by allowing injured workers to see their own physicians. Previously, employers were allowed to only approve a limited number of physicians that could be seen as part of a worker’s comp claim except in emergencies.
Opponents claimed that it benefits workers to see a physician who has experience both with workplace injuries and navigating typical billing procedures for worker’s comp claims that are typically the responsibility of an employer. There is also fear that less experienced physicians will keep workers from returning to their jobs longer out of an abundance of caution. It remains to be seen if these concerns prove true and if there will be impacts to construction costs or schedules.
HB25-1001: Enforcement Wage Hour Laws
Bill status: Signed into law
After last year’s attempt at addressing wage theft was vetoed, proponents for reform came back with a more narrowly focused bill. Protections for workers have been strengthened, but there is an orderly process in determining the parties responsible for making workers whole. This is important in construction with multiple layers of contracts between various parties. We will hopefully see fewer wage theft issues on projects that could result in cost overruns or slowdowns.
SB25-005: Worker Protection Collective Bargaining
Bill status: Vetoed by Governor
Colorado is unique in requiring two elections to form a union and this bill would have removed the second election. It would have likely resulted in more union construction labor in the state. Proponents may this bill back either next year if a compromise can be identified or in 2027 when Colorado has a new governor that may be more union-friendly.