The Value of Your Voice

Protecting Our Home Valuations

Every homeowner in Chatfield Bluffs has a financial stake in preserving property values — and that begins with responsible, transparent, and well-informed Board decisions about how our community is managed.

The Preamble and Article IX, Section 1 of the CC&Rs clearly state the Board’s #1 priority:

“...for the purpose of protecting the value and desirability of said property...”
“...to enhance the value, desirability, and attractiveness of the Lots and subserve and promote the sale thereof.”

Any Board action or decision that reduces, or even has the potential to reduce property valuations is in direct violation of these covenantal clauses.

Why There’s a Recall Vote

You may have noticed recall signs throughout the neighborhood or received a Special Recall Meeting proxy in the mail. This recall vote centers primarily around your home valuation — an issue you may not have been aware of that we are about to fully explain.

For months, concerned homeowners have been fighting on your behalf to the current Board members to maintain property valuations, safety concerns and legal issues now at our doorstep.

What the Board Did

When the HOA Board voted to remove long-standing restrictions on access to our community’s open space, they did so without performing a valuation impact study — the real-estate equivalent of an environmental or traffic impact analysis.

Such a study would have independently measured how this change would affect property values, buyer perception, and future sales — the same type of due diligence developers are required to perform before altering any community features.

None of the Board members are "experts" in property valuations and were asked months ago to perform such a study before making any decision, which they ignored as this report currently does not exist. Due to their actions, the current Board has now exposed the entire community to potential negative valuations moving forward. This should be very concerning to you and your real estate investment here in Chatfield Bluffs.

Why This Matters for Your Property Value

In real estate, lot adjacency determines value — a home adjacent to busy highway is simply valued differently than the exact-same home adjacent to a park. This is real estate 101. It’s all about location, location, location. This is the most basic of all real estate investment decisions that the current Board members completely ignored.

By opening previously restricted sensitive wildlife areas, the current Board has altered the neighborhood's long-standing adjacencies, and without soliciting any independent professional guidance, which now impacts valuations across the entire community.

Misinterpretation of State Law

The Board’s sole claim is their decision was made in response to Colorado Revised Statute §38-33.3-302(1)(a) – a law passed in 2022 to stop associations from restricting access to amenities the community previously enjoyed.

However, clarification directly from State Representative Tammy Story’s office, who herself co-authored this exact legislation, revealed that the current Board has totally misinterpreted the statute’s purpose. She wrote the bill, and clarified it’s meaning, yet the current Board has dismissed her interpretation.

The law was written to prevent HOAs from unreasonably restricting access to amenities that were already accessible to community members — such as pools, gyms, and tennis courts — not to require HOAs to “open access” to areas that were “restricted” in the first place.

It was designed to stop associations from locking owners out of facilities and amenities due to maintenance costs or management decisions — for example, closing a pool for the summer to avoid maintenance expenses, or shutting a gym down indefinitely just because one machine breaks. That’s the simple purpose of the law that Tammy Story’s office confirmed.

In contrast, the open space of Chatfield Bluffs was never accessible — not from the beginning of the development, and not under any previous Board's interpretation. The restriction was established by the original developer Alan Fishman and fully disclosed to every buyer at the time of purchase by Ryland Homes.

By reversing the long-standing status of that space, the current Board has literally flipped the intent of Colorado Revised Statute §38-33.3-302(1)(a) on its head — transforming a statute meant to protect access to areas that were "accessible" into one that now forces access to areas that were "restricted," and in doing so, now exposes the entire community to unintended financial, safety, and liability consequences.

If you want to keep informed on this issue email info@chatfieldvalues.com for future updates.

New Exposure Under CRS §39-1-103(5)(a)

But that’s just the start of the problem that the current Board members created. Their actions now expose the neighborhood to Colorado Revised Statute §39-1-103(5)(a).

• What it is: A Colorado tax valuation provision allowing owners to request reassessment when external factors materially affect market value.
• What’s changed: Because adjacencies have been altered by opening access per the Board's actions, affected owners adjacent to these areas may now seek tax reassessment under §39-1-103(5)(a).
• Community impact to consider: While reassessment will lower an individual’s property taxes due to a reduction in their tax valuation, widespread reductions will also lower sales comparables determined by appraisers and aggregate sites like Zillow who both pull this information from the tax assessor, which will then ripple across valuations for the entire neighborhood.

In Simple Terms

To put this matter in the simplest terms — the current Board members just opened Pandora’s box with respect to the entire community’s property values, without even consulting professionals as to the financial impact of their decision. The Board was given all of this information just presented to you months ago and ignored it.

Solutions

During deliberations over the past couple of months the Board asked for possible solutions to be presented. One such solution provided below attempted to provide a balanced solution. Even though the Board misinterpreted Colorado Revised Statute §38-33.3-302(1)(a) as confirmed by Tammy Story’s office, how could they “say” they were complying with this law, yet maintain their covenantal duty established in the CC&R’s to maintain property valuations?

The solution is simple. Nowhere in Colorado Revised Statute §38-33.3-302(1)(a) does it say that 100% of an amenity needs to be accessible. Therefore, create a buffer between the neighborhood and the open space to maintain property valuations first and compliance with the law second - at least in the way the Board was misinterpreting the law.

In fact, the current open space is not 100% accessible. The retention basin in this open space area is restricted, which technically means that less than 100% of the open space is accessible under their new ruling – even though this contradicts the Board's interpretation that we need to open access to “all” open space.

This Is About Protecting Value, Not Resisting Progress

This is not about resisting progress in the community — it’s about protecting your home's value and holding "any" Board's actions accountable to the governing CC&R document that explicitly prioritizes your home's valuation above anything else.

Did you know that no state, county, or city authority has contacted the Board and required that they act in the manner that they have? This was a Board-initiated decision that ignored valuation data, legal intent, tax ramifications, and countless homeowner warnings. And due to the current Board’s actions the future value of your home is now in question.

Call to Action

The intent of this website is to educate the neighborhood on every matter concerning Chatfield Bluffs. Most likely this is the first time that you have heard of the issues presented in this section, which have been discussed for the past few months by only a small group of residents.

Getting this information in your hands to hear your voice on the matter is an important goal of this site. Now you know more of the facts concerning your real estate investment that your neighbors have been fighting to maintain on your behalf.

We would love for you to join us in the conversation!

Transparency & Truth

Transparency isn’t just a word — it’s the foundation of trust. For too long, homeowners in Chatfield Bluffs have been left to interpret fragments of information, while the full picture of important issues and decisions has remained out of reach.

This new community site was created to change that. From this day forward, every homeowner will have access to accurate, complete, and timely information about what the HOA Board is doing, why decisions are made, and how community funds are spent.

Our goal is not to divide — it’s to clarify. True transparency isn’t about taking sides; it’s about ensuring that every resident can see and understand the facts for themselves.

When “Transparency” Becomes a Talking Point

The current Board often describes itself as “the most transparent in the community’s history.” But transparency can’t be self-proclaimed — it must be demonstrated.

Homeowners have repeatedly asked for access to reports, contracts, and spending records, only to be met with delayed responses or denials. Meeting minutes have been summarized in ways that omit key discussions or reshape context, and the HOA’s communication channels have increasingly been used to promote a single narrative rather than an open exchange of information.

True transparency doesn’t fear questions. It welcomes them. It recognizes that homeowners are not outsiders — they are the HOA.

The Rattlesnake Example: What Was Said vs. What Was Reported

A clear example of how selective reporting distorts understanding came during a recent HOA meeting when a Colorado Parks and Wildlife Officer spoke about the danger of rattlesnakes on the bluffs.

If you read the Board’s summary afterward, you would have come away believing that rattlesnakes were a minor issue — that only three had ever been relocated from the area. That single figure was technically true, but deeply misleading.

What the officer actually explained was that he personally had relocated only three, but that he is just one of many wildlife officers covering this region — and that others have relocated far more. He emphasized that our south-facing bluffs are well-known among wildlife professionals as one of the most active rattlesnake nesting environments in Colorado.

Because of their orientation and warmth, the bluffs allow snakes to remain active long after colder areas have gone dormant. In his words, this terrain is a serious and ongoing hazard — one that requires awareness and caution from everyone living near it.

Yet that full warning never reached homeowners. The Board’s official recap removed the context, flattening an expert’s concern into a sound bite that served to minimize risk rather than inform.

What True Transparency Looks Like

Transparency means presenting the whole story — not the portion that supports a preferred narrative. It means acknowledging when an issue deserves attention, not downplaying it for convenience.

This community platform will now serve as the public record for Chatfield Bluffs. Here, residents will find:

• Complete and factual recaps of every board meeting, written from direct observation or verified recordings — not selective summaries.
• Detailed accounting of HOA spending, fund allocations, and vendor contracts, so every homeowner knows where each dollar goes.
• Access to documents and reports that have historically been withheld or delayed.
• Neutral coverage of decisions, so residents can form their own informed opinions rather than accept filtered interpretations.

Accountability Starts With Information

An informed community is a strong community. By shining light on every decision, we remove the shadows where misunderstanding and mistrust grow.

This isn’t about hostility toward the Board — it’s about accountability to the people they "serve." Every homeowner deserves to know what’s being decided, what it costs, and what it means for the neighborhood’s future.

When residents have access to the truth, they can respond with wisdom, not rumors. They can participate in meetings with context, not confusion. They can finally have a voice grounded in facts rather than filtered narratives.

That’s what real transparency looks like. And that’s what this site will deliver.

If you have a concern you wish to share please email info@chatfieldvalues.com and we'll get it posted.