2-4 Unit Town Home Development

[Chris Kane]

I own a property in Idaho free and clear that is in an area under revitalization and re-development, there is a lot of high end town homes and condos in development selling before the places are even finished. The property I own is two separate side by side city lots with a mobile home sitting on the property that I rent out. The zoning allows for high density, up to 35 units per acre but the layout of the property realistically would only fit 4 town-homes. The city is much less restrictive if you only build two units per lot so my plan is to build two separate (2)-unit town-homes, one per lot. Building more than two units per lot requires extra storm water treatment and adds more design, review, and construction costs From what I can tell, other builders/developers in the area have built two and three unit town-homes that do not have HOA's. Do any of you out here have any experience with developing 2 to 4 unit town-homes? Or if any of you own a small unit town-home with no HOA what has your experience been? If I can go down this path with minimal legal work and avoid setting up a complicated HOA and CCR agreements I will be able to get the most out of the property.

[Jesse Rolla]

In Colorado HOA's are a hot button due to construction defect litigation so we try to avoid them at all cost. If we build 20 units or less we can get away with just using a party wall agreement vs HOA which is far less cost and less risk. Typically an attorney can draft you one of these relatively inexpensively - probably $5k +/-. Hopefully that gets you in the right direction.