You’ve done the research. You’ve walked your property line with a tape measure. You’ve gotten preliminary cost estimates from builders. You’re ready to move forward with an accessory dwelling unit. Then an envelope arrives from your HOA. It says, in clear terms, that ADUs are prohibited under your community’s Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs). You read it three times. Is that the end of the road?
The answer, for most Colorado homeowners living in urban and suburban areas as of June 30, 2025, is no. It isn’t. And understanding why—and how to navigate it—can be the difference between giving up on an ADU and moving forward with a project that will define your family’s financial future for the next 15 years.
What HB24-1152 Actually Does
In May 2024, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed House Bill 24-1152 into law. The bill became effective on June 30, 2025. This wasn’t a small tweak to a niche policy. It was a fundamental reordering of how Colorado handles ADU regulation.
The law does four key things. First, it requires certain Colorado municipalities—called “Subject Jurisdictions”—to allow at least one ADU per single-family residential lot. Not discourage. Not limit through burdensome fees. Allow. Second, it removes the subjective public hearing process that traditionally preceded ADU approval, replacing it with administrative (staff-level) approval. Third, it prohibits unreasonably restrictive design standards that effectively ban ADU construction. And fourth, it created a $13 million state grant program for municipalities that comply with the law’s requirements by June 30, 2025.
The practical effect: if you live in a Subject Jurisdiction, your HOA can no longer categorically ban ADUs. The ban is null and void as a matter of state public policy. Your HOA has lost its nuclear option.
What Is a “Subject Jurisdiction”?
Not all Colorado communities are bound by HB24-1152. The law applies to “Subject Jurisdictions,” defined as any Colorado municipality with a population of 1,000 or more residents that is located within a “metropolitan planning area.”
In plain English: if you live in or near Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, or a suburb that feeds into one of these metros, you’re likely in a Subject Jurisdiction. This covers the entire Front Range, the I-25 Corridor, the Denver metro suburbs (Aurora, Littleton, Westminster, Thornton, Broomfield, Longmont, Loveland, and hundreds of smaller towns), and several surrounding areas.
If you live in a mountain community with fewer than 1,000 residents—places like Nederland, Estes Park, or Ouray—you may fall outside HB24-1152’s reach. Same for deeply rural areas in the Western Slope or Eastern Plains. Your local ADU regulations remain whatever your city council decided they should be.
The first thing you should do: confirm whether your city is a Subject Jurisdiction. Check your municipality’s planning or community development website, or call your planning department directly. Ask: “Is our city a Subject Jurisdiction under HB24-1152?” If yes, you have state law backing you. If no, you need to rely on your local ordinance and whatever leverage you can muster with your city council and HOA.
The June 30, 2025 Deadline — What Changed
June 30, 2025 was a hard deadline. By that date, every Subject Jurisdiction was required to update its local land use code to be compliant with HB24-1152. Compliant means: allowing one ADU per single-family residential lot, removing prohibitive design standards, and establishing an administrative approval process.
Many cities—especially forward-thinking ones like Fort Collins, Boulder, and Denver—had already updated their codes before the deadline. Others dragged their feet and scrambled in the final weeks of June 2025. A few pushed back, arguing that HB24-1152 was an unfunded mandate or an infringement on local control. They updated anyway. The law doesn’t give cities discretion. It mandates compliance.
What does this mean for your HOA? If your city has updated its ordinance, the city’s new ADU-friendly rules supersede any older CC&R provision that banned ADUs. You’re operating in a new legal landscape.
HOAs: What They Can and Cannot Do Now
This is the critical distinction that many homeowners misunderstand. An HOA in a Subject Jurisdiction cannot outright ban ADU construction. The ban is unenforceable. It’s void as a matter of public policy under Colorado state law. If your CC&Rs say “no ADUs, ever,” those words have lost their teeth.
However—and this is important—HOAs retain significant power to enforce design and aesthetic standards. Your HOA can require that your ADU’s exterior materials match (or complement) your primary home’s finishes. It can enforce consistent roof pitch, exterior color palettes, and setback requirements that align with neighborhood aesthetics. It can impose reasonable landscaping standards to ensure your ADU doesn’t look like a jarring afterthought dropped in the backyard.
Where HOAs cannot go: they cannot impose design standards so restrictive that they effectively prohibit ADU construction. For example, an HOA rule stating “all ADUs must be identical in exterior appearance to the primary home” would be unreasonably restrictive and likely unenforceable. An HOA rule stating “ADU exteriors must use compatible materials and colors” is reasonable and likely enforceable.
The practical implication is this: prepare for your HOA to push back on aesthetics and design. That’s their legal remaining lever. Be ready to engage with them on those terms. But if they claim ADUs are banned outright, they’re citing a rule that Colorado state law has overruled.
What to Do If Your HOA Still Fights Back
Many HOAs operate in institutional inertia. Their management company may not have updated their playbook to reflect HB24-1152. Your HOA board may consist of volunteers who haven’t read the law. A letter arriving from the HOA saying “ADUs are prohibited” doesn’t necessarily mean the HOA has done its legal homework.
Here’s your action sequence. First, document the HOA’s restriction. Photograph the letter or CC&R provision. Second, pull your city’s updated ADU ordinance from your municipality’s planning website. Third, compare the two. If your city ordinance allows ADUs and your HOA CC&R bans them, the state law creates a conflict. Your city ordinance wins.
Next, contact your city’s planning department or community development office. Ask for clarification on whether HOA prohibitions are enforceable in your jurisdiction now that HB24-1152 is effective. Many planning departments have guidance documents addressing exactly this question. They can often send you official language confirming that state law supersedes HOA bans.
If your HOA continues to resist, consider sending a certified letter—or having your attorney send one—citing HB24-1152 and your city’s updated ordinance, and notifying the HOA that categorical ADU bans are unenforceable. In many cases, that’s enough to shift the conversation from “no” to “what design standards do we need to agree on?”
One caveat: this area of Colorado law is still evolving. Several legal disputes over HB24-1152 and HOA authority are working their way through the courts. If your HOA is particularly aggressive, consulting a Colorado real estate attorney is prudent. Many can provide guidance for a flat fee or brief consultation and may ultimately cost far less than letting the ADU project stall.
For a comprehensive breakdown of HB24-1152, including the specific statutory language and how it’s being interpreted across Colorado, see our in-depth HB24-1152 article from our modular pillar.
The Administrative Approval Shortcut
Before HB24-1152, building an ADU in many Colorado cities required approval through a public hearing process. Your application went to the planning commission. Your neighbors received notification. An engineer or architect presented your plans. Community members commented (often opposing). The planning commission voted, sometimes months after you first applied. If you were unlucky, you got sent back to the drawing board.
The process was slow, adversarial, and killed many ADU projects before they started.
HB24-1152 replaced this with “administrative approval.” If your ADU meets the code requirements and design standards your city has established, planning staff at the city level can approve it without a public hearing. No neighborhood notification. No planning commission meeting. No theater.
The timeline has compressed from 3–6 months to 2–4 weeks in many cases. The cost has dropped—no need to hire a consultant or attorney to shepherd you through a public hearing. And the adversarial pressure has evaporated. It’s a staff-level permit review, like any other.
This is huge. Administrative approval means you can move from application to approval to construction financing in a matter of weeks, not quarters. For modular ADU builders like Olerra, this means the permitting timeline no longer extends the overall project schedule. You’re not waiting on city hearings. You’re moving straight to construction.
Different cities have slightly different administrative approval processes and timeline. For a city-by-city breakdown of ADU regulations, approval procedures, and what to expect in Denver, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins, check out our ADU rules guide for Colorado’s three largest metros.
The HOA Design Negotiation: How to Get to “Yes”
You’ve established that your HOA can’t ban ADUs outright. Now comes the negotiation. Your HOA will likely ask questions about your ADU’s appearance: What color will it be? What materials? How tall? Will there be a patio? Where will the trash go? These aren’t frivolous. These are the tools your HOA uses to maintain neighborhood cohesion.
Go into the conversation prepared. Bring renderings. Bring photos of similar structures in other Colorado neighborhoods. Show your HOA that you’re not building a jarring eyesore; you’re building something that complements the street. If your HOA is concerned about privacy (a common worry), propose screening with trees or a fence. If they’re worried about parking, propose that your ADU’s parking is tucked to the side or rear.
Most HOAs, when approached collaboratively and armed with professional renderings, will work with you on design. They understand (increasingly) that ADUs are here to stay. Their goal isn’t to kill your project. It’s to ensure it doesn’t trigger neighbor complaints or look out of place.
Your Legal Shield: The State Law Backing
Here’s what changed on June 30, 2025: you now have Colorado state law on your side. You’re not petitioning your HOA for permission. You’re informing them of a legal reality. One ADU per single-family lot is now allowed in your jurisdiction. Your HOA’s role is to ensure you build it thoughtfully, not to veto it.
This shift in negotiating leverage is enormous. It transforms the conversation from “can we build an ADU?” (answer: maybe, if the HOA says so) to “how do we build an ADU you’re comfortable with?” (answer: within these parameters, however you’d like).
Olerra navigates these HOA conversations and local permitting complexities as part of the modular ADU process. We work with your local planning department, understand your city’s design standards, and manage the administrative approval timeline. The result: you move from ADU concept to shovel-ready in months, not years.
The Bottom Line: You Have More Power Than You Think
That HOA letter saying “ADUs are prohibited”? It’s outdated. It’s relying on a legal framework that Colorado state law has reordered. You have options. You have leverage. You have a path forward.
Does your HOA matter? Absolutely. Design standards, aesthetics, neighborhood compatibility—these remain important and legitimate concerns. But can your HOA stop you from building an ADU? In a Subject Jurisdiction, the answer is definitively no.
Ready to explore how a modular ADU works with Colorado’s new legal landscape? Browse our Flex-Flat models to see options that homeowners and HOAs alike appreciate. For a broader overview of modular ADU advantages and how they fit Colorado’s market, check out our Modular Homes Colorado Guide.