The Town of Carbondale Board of Trustees carried out its June 25 regular meeting at the Third Street Center. All trustees were in attendance with the exception of Chris Hassig.
The agenda item that took up most of the meeting was a proposed ordinance to adopt state required energy code updates and adjust the Town’s municipal Residential Efficient Building Program (REBP). The challenge: balancing those items with the Town’s current building code as well as its 2022 Roadmap to Net-Zero.
Aaron Kuhns, the Town’s chief building official, and Jeff Dickinson of Biospaces Energy Consulting, presented to the trustees.
The 2022 roadmap “is not a part of code,” clarified Dickinson, whose time is funded, at least in part, by the Colorado Energy Office. “We’re getting a lot of support state-wide for this.” He noted that Carbondale has been a leader, regionally, in energy conservation and countering climate change.
“The goal is to adopt the 2021 IECC [International Energy Conservation Code] … and also adopt the Colorado solar energy and electric ready codes,” Dickinson said. Currently, the Town is using the 2015 IECC, and the state requires an upgrade to the 2021 code by June 30, 2026.
“The law now requires local jurisdictions to adopt the 2021 IECC and the state’s model electric ready and solar ready code when adopting or updating any other building code between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2026,” reads the Colorado Energy Office’s website. “Beginning July 1, 2026, local jurisdictions must adopt the state’s model low energy and carbon code (which the Energy Code Board will develop by June 1, 2025) when adopting or updating any other building code.”
“Basically, electric ready means a building that has infrastructure in place to convert to electric from gas,” Dickinson explained. A solar ready building has a space reserved for solar panels.
The Town is currently operating under the 2009 building code, but hopes to update to the 2021 code before too long, according to Town Manager Lauren Gister.
“For quite a while we didn’t have a building official so we didn’t put a lot of energy into these updates as requested by the council,” Dickinson acknowledged. Following the departure of the Town’s previous chief building official, John Plano, the position was vacant for nearly a year.
Later in the meeting, Gister mentioned that when Plano was the building official Kuhns was a part-time inspector and the only other staff member in the department. Earlier this year, Kuhns was hired as the building official and a full-time inspector was brought onboard. Gister and Kuhns have also discussed the potential of hiring a plan reviewer.
“It seems sort of cart before the horse to adopt an energy code that is so far ahead of the building code,” said Trustee Jess Robison, adding that it’s “hard to reconcile” even the 2009 building code versus the 2015 IECC. Although a “heavy lift,” she advocated for updating the codes in unison.
“There are definitely times when there are conflicts between the older codes and modern energy codes,” Kuhns agreed. He added that the department would be “months out” from developing amendments that would coincide, as much as possible, with the latest energy codes.
“Why are we doing this first if we’re just trying to keep up with a roadmap that’s internal?” questioned Robison. “It’s worth the wait … I would hate to shoot ourselves in the foot by adopting the 2021 IECC and then having these unforeseen problems in the field.”
Erica Sparhawk noted that the board has been pushing the Roadmap for the past couple of years. She suggested allocating more resources to the department so the Town can move forward.
During a public comment period, Angela Loughry with Confluence Architecture suggested simplifying — and possibly cutting much of — the REBP.
“We’d love to take time and either gut [the REBP] or something,” replied Dickinson. “We need to do that. If [the Town] can manifest another couple of people to help [Kuhns] adopt the 2021 … codes and change the REBP all at once in a timely manner, I am all for that.”
In the end, the ordinance was not voted upon.
Instead, “We’re asking staff to formulate a plan to get us to code alignment … and to a point where the REBP is either integrated into those or greatly simplified,” summarized Mayor Ben Bohmfalk. Ideally, he said the board would like to see a plan and timeline outlined during a meeting in July.
In other news, the Town received a glowing review of its 2023 financial audit conducted by McMahan and Associates.

To view the meeting in its entirety, visit www.tinyurl.com/BonedaleYouTube