Hotchkiss, Colorado - Home Free!

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We finally did it! My wife and I purchased 20 acres in Hotchkiss, Colorado. That's me in the photo standing next to our stream that supplies irrigation water to our land and our neighbors. Happy landowner...soon (hopefully) to be happy homebuilder.

The land is located in the small, libertarian enclave of Hotchkiss located in the heart of Delta County. Delta county is one of several in Colorado without benefit of an adopted building code. Our land is within the unincorporated county area. We are therefore HOME FREE as far as building code oversight is concerned.

However, the state of Colorado has a statewide adoption of an electrical and plumbing code. We will have to pull permits for those trades when we eventually build. It will be interesting to have inspections only on those items, but not on the rest of the house. At that point, why bother?

We learned a lot in the purchase of the land. The first thing we learned was to buy land without any buildings on it whatsoever. The lack of building codes has resulted in the construction of some very marginal structures. Owners ascribe values that represent quality construction. Unfortunately, they were so bad that demolition was the only viable way to fix them. It is hard to pay money for something that you have no choice but tear down...not to mention that junk construction is NOT sustainable in the first place.

We also learned that restrictive covenants can be a bigger burden than locally adopted and enforced regulations. In an effort to control bad construction, proliferation of junk cars, and operation of smelly cattle feed lots, folks around these parts write very restrictive covenants to provided for local control. Unfortunately, these are usually so poorly crafted that they become very exclusionary as to the type of buildings and uses that are permitted. We rejected many properties simply because we could not build using the alternative construction or because some of the small scale production agriculture and animal husbandry we would like to try was prohibited. Crazy overreaction best describes the circumstances.

Water is extremely important in Colorado. We are have a dry, arid climate. Irrigation water from a quality source is essential to ensure successful cultivation of the land. A lot of the value of our land is in irrigation water rights that came with it. A majority of ours are pre-1922 water pact rights. This will be beneficial when bigger, thirstier states decide their expanding urban populations need more of Colorado's water to keep their bluegrass and petunias healthy. Guess whose water they will be looking to take? Not looking forward to that fight, so have protected ourselves as best we can.

So...being in an area without building codes is not utopia. There are a lot of factors besides regulatory oversight to consider. Be an informed consumer. Don't rush into anything until you do a lot of research.