What it costs in government fees to build a home in Douglas County, Colorado
Every impact fee, water and sewer connection charge, and building permit for a new
single-family detached home in unincorporated Douglas County — itemized, sourced, and dated.
Total government fees$55,528Single-family detached, 2,000 sq ft finished, 4BR, on a platted lot in the unincorporated county — water and sewer from whichever special district serves the parcel. Ranges from $55,528 (Dominion district, lot 5,000 sq ft or larger)
to $67,602 (Roxborough Water & Sanitation District).
What this specific number is.
Dominion Water & Sanitation District (Sterling Ranch), the main greenfield single-family area in unincorporated Douglas County. It is one point inside a 1.2× range — $55,528 to $67,602
for the identical house on different lots in the same county. In
Colorado the question "what does it cost here" has no single answer until you name the parcel and its
service district, so read the range as the real answer and the headline as one worked example.
Check the utility provider before you rely on thisDouglas County has roughly 28 separate water providers and no county utility. Tap fees are 89-91% of the entire stack and vary by $12,000 between districts. Only about three of the 28 publish an actual number. The district determines the answer — the county barely matters.
Water & sewer — Dominion Water & Sanitation District
Fee
Amount
Water Infrastructure Fee
Eff. Dec 19, 2025 · sourceDominion Water & Sanitation District, Attachment A-1. Single-family, lot 5,000 sq ft or larger.
$25,200.00
Water Resource Fee
Eff. Dec 19, 2025 · sourceDrops to $9,870 on lots under 5,000 sq ft.
$12,960.00
Sewer Tap
Eff. Dec 19, 2025 · source⚠ These are WHOLESALE fees charged to the Sterling Ranch district authority. The retail amount a builder pays may carry a markup that is not published.
$11,310.00
Subtotal
$49,470
Building permits, surcharges & other
Fee
Amount
Building Permit Fee (Table 10.3)
Eff. Jul 1, 2026 · sec 10.3 · source$993.75 + $5.60 per $1,000 increment over $100k. Valuation from ICC Building Valuation Data with a modifier of 1: 2,000 sf x $175.92 = $351,840. Covers ALL building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing work — Colorado counties vary on this.
$2,404.95
Use Tax on construction and building materials
Eff. Jul 1, 2026 · sec 10.3.10 · source⚠ 1% of 50% of valuation. This has no Florida equivalent and is easy to miss entirely — the code section states only that a use tax 'shall be collected' with no rate. The rate comes from the Colorado Department of Revenue schedule.
$1,759.20
Plan review fee
Eff. Jul 1, 2026 · sec 10.3.1 · source65% of the permit fee, or 10% if using a stock plan.
Zoning fee, one and two family
Eff. Jul 1, 2026 · sec 10.3.6.1 · source
$50.00
Driveway permit
Eff. Jul 1, 2026 · sec 10.3.4 · sourceRural, no curb, gutter or sidewalk.
$40.00
Subtotal
$6,058
Water and sanitation district
Each district has its own board and its own tap fees. These are the three that publish current schedules.
District
Fee
Dominion W&SD (Sterling Ranch)
$49,470
Parker Water & Sanitation District
$50,762
Roxborough Water & Sanitation District
$61,544
Fees Douglas County does not charge
Verified absent, so you don't go looking for them.
No road or transportation impact fee. Confirmed three ways: the adopted fee code enumerates sections 10.3.1 through 10.3.10 exhaustively with no impact fee; the county's transportation funding page names only property tax and two sales taxes; the new-home page lists none.
No park impact fee — parks are handled as land dedication or cash-in-lieu at subdivision, not per permit.
No school impact fee at building permit — land dedication at subdivision only. The school district collects nothing at permit.
No separate electrical, mechanical or plumbing permit — the adopted code states a single residential building permit covers all of it.
No Colorado equivalent of the Florida state surcharges (F.S. 468.631 / 553.721). No state percentage add-on to building permits exists anywhere in Colorado.
No address assignment fee and no certificate of occupancy fee in the adopted schedule.
What we could not verify
These are reported as gaps rather than estimated. The total above is a floor.
Pinery Water & Wastewater, Perry Park, and Castle Pines Village metro district all decline to publish tap fees — each says amounts are set by the board or must be verified individually
A Cherry Creek Basin Water Quality Authority fee and an E-470 corridor fee are both flagged by the county as possibly applying, with no amount published anywhere
Douglas County has 150+ Title 32 metropolitan districts, most levying a substantial ongoing mill levy plus possible one-time charges. Parcel-specific; no generic figure exists.
The model could not be reconciled against a real issued permit — the county portal requires viewstate POSTs that could not be scripted. This is the weakest link in this county.
Why this number is easy to get wrong
The county's own building-fees PDF is dated June 2018 and is still the top search result and still linked. It omits the Zoning fee and the Use Tax entirely — roughly a 30% understatement. Colorado counties re-adopt I-Codes on a three-year cycle and the fee schedule rides INSIDE the code amendments, not a standalone fees document.
Roxborough's fee table contains two 'Subdistrict' rows that read as additive but are not — the stated components already sum to the total. Adding one overstates by 26-39%.
Parker's schedule contains a $27,500 Water Resource Toll that applies only if a water resource credit was not previously dedicated. Normally the developer satisfied it at platting. Including it by default is wrong.
Special district documents recorded with the Clerk are frequently scans with no text layer. Dominion's June 2026 amendment returns nothing to text extraction; rendering showed tap fees unchanged.
This page models one house. 2,000 sq ft, single-family detached,
Dominion W&SD (Sterling Ranch).
If you're underwriting an actual project — a unit mix, a different district, a CO date that might slip
past a scheduled increase — we compute that stack for you.
Need a county we haven't published? That's the main thing we do.from $290What we compile, and what it costs →
How to use this. Every figure is transcribed from an official
Douglas County, service-district or Colorado Revised Statutes document, linked inline, with its effective date.
No third-party legal-code mirrors were used — in testing, one returned impact fees off by 2.4×. Water and
sewer is 89% of this stack. Built for screening and pro-forma work; confirm with the county and
the district before you sign anything.