Aurora, Colorado - City Development Fees

Fee Summary

Impact Fees and Construction Use Tax

Colorado authorizes local development impact fees under C.R.S. Section 29-20-104.5. Source: City of Aurora Development Fees Checklist (2026) (SHA-256 7ff7139b...), Fee Schedule 6 (Parks, Recreation and Open Space, Effective 2026; SHA-256 d34cca8e...), and Fee Schedule 7 (Water Development and Connection Fees, Effective 2026; SHA-256 990116b8...), captured verbatim. The Capital Impact Fee applies to residential projects only and is due at building permit issuance.

Capital Impact Fee (Residential Only)

Park Development Fee (Cash-in-Lieu) and Infrastructure Development Fees

The Park Development Fee (Section B of Fee Schedule 6) is a formula-based, cash-in-lieu-of-park-construction obligation - there is no single fixed per-unit amount. The city calculates it per project as park construction cost per acre multiplied by the required acreage. The per-acre construction costs and the required-acreage and population factors are shown below.

Construction Use Tax and Other Capital Costs

Note: the Construction Use Tax and Arapahoe County Open Space Use Tax are taxes collected at permit issuance, not fees per se, but they are significant development costs. The 0.25% Arapahoe County Open Space Use Tax applies only to properties located in Arapahoe County.

Zoning, Building Permit, and Plan Review Fees

Source: City of Aurora Fee Schedule 1 (Zoning and Development Review Application Fees, Planning and Business Development Department, Effective 2026; SHA-256 b322b59a...) and Fee Schedule 3 (Permit and Plan Review Fees, Development Services Department, Effective 2026; SHA-256 28408e3c...), captured verbatim.

Zoning and Development Review Application Fees

Building Permit Fees (Per Square Foot by Occupancy)

Contractor Licenses (Annual)

Authority: City of Aurora Planning and Business Development Department (zoning and development review application fees) and Development Services Department (building permit and plan review fees).

Water and Sewer Connection Fees

Source: City of Aurora Fee Schedule 7 (Water Development and Connection Fees, Aurora Water, Effective 2026; SHA-256 990116b8...), captured verbatim. Aurora Water is the city's municipal water and wastewater utility. Honest gap: only the Single Family Residential Detached connection rates (page 1 of Fee Schedule 7) are confirmed this pass. Page 2 of Fee Schedule 7 - covering single-family attached, multi-family, and commercial connection rates - had a character encoding error and was not extracted; those user classes are pending capture (see Coverage Notes).

Single Family Residential Detached - Water and Sewer Connection Fees

The outdoor-use water transmission development fee is charged per square foot of lot size in addition to the indoor connection fee (for example, $0.053/sq ft of lot size for the 1-2 bathroom SF detached class), and varies by whether the conservation ordinance lower rate applies. Dashes above indicate values not present in the SF-detached page-1 schedule for that bathroom class.

Stormwater Quality Discharge Permit

Coverage Notes - What This Page Does Not Cover

Per ZoneFee's Partial-Verified Publication Standard, the items below were not closed on this page with a fee amount traceable to a hashed official source document. They are disclosed here rather than estimated, paraphrased from a non-official source, or omitted silently. These items remain under limited-coverage review until these gaps are closed from official, hash-captured sources.

Water and sewer connection rates for non-SF-detached user classes

Only the Single Family Residential Detached water and sewer connection rates (Fee Schedule 7, page 1) are confirmed. Fee Schedule 7 page 2 - covering single-family attached, multi-family, and commercial connection rates - had a character encoding error ('charmap' codec issue) that prevented full extraction this pass. Those user classes will be added when captured cleanly from the official Aurora Water Fee Schedule 7.

Park Development Fee per-unit dollar amount

The Park Development Fee is a formula-based, cash-in-lieu-of-park-construction obligation calculated per project (park construction cost per acre multiplied by required acreage). There is no single fixed per-unit dollar amount in Fee Schedule 6; the per-acre construction costs ($220,308 Neighborhood Park; $221,412 Community Park) and the required-acreage and population factors are presented verbatim above, not a fabricated per-unit figure.

Effective date

All City of Aurora fee schedules captured this pass are labeled "Effective 2026" only. The explicit calendar effective date (for example, January 1, 2026) is not stated in the document text captured this session; the 2026-01-01 effective date shown on this page is inferred from the "2026" label.

Special District Fees (Metro Districts / CRS Title 32)

Metro districts are common in Aurora but operate as quasi-governmental entities with their own boards and mill-levy assessments on property owners - these are not fees administered by the City of Aurora. The city charges a $5,716 review fee for Metropolitan District formation requests (documented in the Development Fees Checklist 2026, Office of Development Assistance Review section), but that is a city processing/review fee captured under zoning fees above, not a metro district assessment. Metro district mill-levy assessments are set independently by each metro district's board of directors and are not city-administered fees. Closed-search outcome: this fee family is not administered by this jurisdiction.

Proffers

Colorado jurisdictions do not use cash proffers (a Virginia conditional-zoning mechanism under Virginia Code Sections 15.2-2303 and 15.2-2303.4 with no Colorado counterpart). Developer-side capital contributions in Aurora are captured under impact fees (capital impact fees, park development fees, drainage and infrastructure fees) and utility connection fees. Closed-search outcome: this fee family does not apply to this jurisdiction.

Fee Authorities

Sources