TINY HOMES

tiny home building and manufacturing in Colorado.”

Laubach said since the Colorado Tiny House Bill passed, it will be better next year now that they are opening up the building code, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). It’s an organization that handles standards.

“The building code has been approved as part of the new bill, which was in effect beginning of July. Next year, the ASTM code we hope it will be approved nationally”, Laubach said.

“So if you wanted to build a tiny home, let’s say in Missouri and you want to bring it to Colorado, then you would be able to get the inspection done. Its would be more viable.”

“The legislation will also provide a path for counties to recognize tiny homes as permanent dwellings and open up financing opportunities,” Laubach continued.

There are several places where tiny home living is already legal in Colorado, including El Paso County, Park County, Durango, Leadville, Lyons, and Woodland Park.

Public Health and Environment. ey plan to submit their applications to the state this fall, with tentative zoning reviews with the Brighton Planning Commission in July and the City Council in August. ey’d hope to be operating by the beginning of 2024.

Moving into an already-existing building is a bonus for the company.

“We’ve already con rmed there is enough electricity for the rst phase of our project and we will be building out the interior space of the structure,” Huie said. “Most of the construction we need to do will be inside the building.”

Understanding the process e facility would be located at 18875 Bromley Lane, just 600 feet south of Brighton’s Mt. Princeton St. and homes in the surrounding Brighton Crossings neighborhood and due north of Brighton’s water treatment plant. Neighbors have made their fears of res and pollution clear at Brighton City Council meetings.

Huie said company o cials have met with neighbors and other concerned Brighton residents since they announced their plans in March. ey’ve hosted two neigh- borhood meetings at the Brighton Armory and have met one-on-one with several neighbors, Huie said, and more meetings are scheduled.

“One of the reasons why people are nervous is that they don’t understand the process and our business, so that’s why we are doing community outreach,” Huie said. “We want to educate them on what we are doing and how we are mitigating the concerns they bring to the table.”

Lithium-ion batteries have been the news lately, with res in batterypowered E-bikes and cars, but Kang said most of the danger comes from mishandling and overcharging by users. He notes that his factory would not manufacture charged batteries, but empty batteries waiting for users to charge them.

“In the res, you’ll see that the battery quality is one factor and battery misuse is another,” Kang said. “ ey can be overcharged or dam- aged, like when a car crashes. But Amprius has passed U.S. military speci cations. We are very safe. And I have not heard of a re inside a battery factory in four years. I have never heard of a battery factory re.”

Even so, the warehouse’s interior space would be divided into smaller, re-resistant rooms for making and storing the empty batteries and the factory will have a state-of-theart re suppression system.

“So we will have many engineering controls in place to help manage risks,” Huie said. “We will have four-hour-rated rewalls down to one-hour-rated walls all separating the di erent hazard classi cations. We have high-tech re suppression and re detection systems as well. We will be coordinating all of this with Brighton’s Fire Department so they understand what have at the facility, the hazards as well as the suppression systems.”

Kang said he expects the company’s initial customers will be the aviation industry, providing rechargeable battery power for military pseudo-satellites and high-altitude unmanned aircraft. He also sees a market for his batteries in Electric Vertical Take-o and Landing aircraft. Someday, as soon as 2025 he said, it will be possible to take an electrically powered air taxi from Denver International Airport to downtown Denver. He wants his company’s batteries to power those vehicles.