Centennial, Colorado - City Development Fees
Centennial | City | Arapahoe County | Denver Metro (South) | Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO MSA | FIPS 0812415
Centennial is a home-rule city in Arapahoe County in the southern Denver metro, incorporated in 2001 and run on a contract city model in which most municipal services are delivered by contractors and independent districts rather than by City departments. That structure shapes its entire development-fee profile: the City publishes a valuation-based building permit and plan review schedule, but it levies no municipal impact fee and no utility tap fee, because water and wastewater service comes from independent Colorado Title 32 special districts rather than a City utility. Land-use application fees are computed per project through the City's official Development Permit Fee Estimation Calculator at pre-submittal rather than published as a flat schedule. This page presents the published flat-fee coverage in full and documents each of the non-administered families with its administering entity. Verify current amounts with the City of Centennial before relying on them.
On this page
Fee Summary
| Fee Type | Status | Top-Line Figure | Effective Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Building Permit, Plan Review, and Electrical Fees (official Building Permit Fee Schedule) | Confirmed | Valuation-based permit fee from $23.50 (valuation up to $500) to $5,608.75 plus $3.15 per additional $1,000 (valuation above $1,000,001); plan review at 65% of the permit fee; residential electrical $100.00 to $200.00 by living area | Current as of 2026-07-23 (no printed adoption date) |
| Impact Fees | Not administered | Contract city; no codified municipal impact fee. Capital recovery via Public Improvement Agreement collateral and public engineer's cost estimate | - |
| Utility Tap Fees | Not administered | No municipal water or sewer utility. Tap and connection charges are levied by independent Title 32 districts and by Denver Water | - |
| Special District Fees | Not administered | Title 32 metropolitan districts and SEMSWA are separate governmental entities; the City levies no per-application special district fee | - |
| Proffers | Not applicable | Colorado jurisdictions do not use Virginia-style cash proffers | - |
Building Permit, Plan Review, and Electrical Fees
Source: City of Centennial official Building Permit Fee Schedule (two-page PDF published on centennialco.gov). The schedule is live-linked as the current Permit Fee Schedule from the City's official Apply for a Building Permit page, which establishes its present-tense currency, but the document itself prints no adoption or effective date.
Building Permit Fee by Total Valuation
| Total Valuation | Fee |
|---|---|
| $1.00 to $500.00 | $23.50 |
| $501.00 to $2,000.00 | $23.50 for the first $500.00 plus $3.05 for each additional $100.00, or fraction thereof, to and including $2,000.00 |
| $2,001.00 to $25,000.00 | $69.25 for the first $2,000.00 plus $14.00 for each additional $1,000.00, or fraction thereof, to and including $25,000.00 |
| $25,001.00 to $50,000.00 | $391.25 for the first $25,000.00 plus $10.10 for each additional $1,000.00, or fraction thereof, to and including $50,000.00 |
| $50,001.00 to $100,000.00 | $643.75 for the first $50,000.00 plus $7.00 for each additional $1,000.00, or fraction thereof, to and including $100,000.00 |
| $100,001.00 to $500,000.00 | $993.75 for the first $100,000.00 plus $5.60 for each additional $1,000.00, or fraction thereof, to and including $500,000.00 |
| $500,001.00 to $1,000,000.00 | $3,233.75 for the first $500,000.00 plus $4.75 for each additional $1,000.00, or fraction thereof, to and including $1,000,000.00 |
| $1,000,001.00 and up | $5,608.75 for the first $1,000,000.00 plus $3.15 for each additional $1,000.00, or fraction thereof |
Plan Review and Inspection Fees
| Item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Building plan review fee | 65% of the building permit fee (UBC Sec. 106-3-2); separate from and additional to the permit fee |
| Inspections outside of normal business hours (minimum charge - two hours) | $125.00 per hour, or the total hourly cost to the jurisdiction, whichever is greatest |
| Re-inspection fee (Section 305.8) | $55.00 per hour |
| Inspections for which no fee is specifically indicated (minimum charge - one half hour) | $55.00 per hour |
| Additional plan review required by changes, additions, or revisions to plans (minimum charge - one half hour) | $55.00 per hour |
| Use of outside consultant for plan checking and/or inspections | Actual cost |
| Temporary Certificate of Occupancy (TCO) | $800.00 |
| Paper plan submittal surcharge (commercial plans only) | $3.00 per page |
Electrical Fees
| Item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Residential - living area not more than 1,000 sq ft | $100.00 |
| Residential - 1,001 to 1,500 sq ft | $150.00 |
| Residential - 1,501 to 2,000 sq ft | $200.00 |
| Residential - each 100 sq ft in excess of 2,000 sq ft | $10.00 |
| All other electrical - value of installation not more than $2,000 | $100.00 |
| All other electrical - value of installation $2,001 and above | $100.00 plus $5.00 per $1,000, or fraction thereof |
Underwriting note: the plan review fee is a genuine 65 percent add-on rather than a component of the permit fee, so a project with a $1,000,000 valuation carries roughly $5,609 in permit fee plus roughly $3,646 in plan review before any inspection, TCO, or electrical charges. Authority: City of Centennial Building Division.
Impact Fees - Not Administered
The City of Centennial does not levy or publish a codified municipal development impact fee. As a contract city, Centennial recovers development-related capital through the land development Public Improvement Agreement (PIA) collateral and the public engineer's cost estimate (ECE) posted by the developer, rather than through a per-unit impact fee schedule.
This is a documented closed-search outcome rather than a coverage gap. Three official paths were checked: the official Permit Fee Schedule, which carries building permit, plan review, and electrical lines only and contains no impact fee line; the official Permits and Licenses for Developers land-development process page, whose Steps 1 through 9 describe pre-submittal fee determination and PIA collateral and ECE rather than an impact fee; and the Centennial Municipal Code Chapter 12 Land Development Code, which surfaces no impact fee article.
This matches the closure pattern already documented for the Colorado peers in ZoneFee's coverage: Fort Collins, Lakewood, and Aurora. For a Colorado contrast where growth exactions are charged at the municipal level, see Arvada, which levies park and school land dedication with a fee-in-lieu plus a per-unit Park Development Fee.
Utility Tap Fees - Administered by Special Districts
The City of Centennial operates no municipal water or sewer utility and levies no tap or connection fee. Water and wastewater service in the Centennial area is delivered by independent Colorado Title 32 special districts, and water tap fees flow to Denver Water as the wholesale water provider. The City's own Trash and Utilities page confirms that Centennial does not provide water or sewer utilities.
Administering entities identified for the Centennial service area:
| Entity | Role |
|---|---|
| Southgate Water & Sanitation Districts | Publish Water System Connection Charges for their service area; the districts' own notice directs water tap fees to Denver Water |
| South Arapahoe Sanitation District | Sanitary sewer service for its portion of the Centennial area |
| Denver Water | Wholesale water provider; receives the water tap fee |
No dollar figure is published on this page for these charges, because they are levied by separate governmental entities rather than by the City and vary by serving district. Developers must confirm which district serves a specific parcel and obtain the connection charge directly from that district and from Denver Water. Closed-search outcome: this fee family is not administered by this jurisdiction.
Special District Fees
Colorado Title 32 metropolitan districts and the Southeast Metro Stormwater Authority (SEMSWA) are separate governmental entities. The City of Centennial levies no per-application special district fee of its own. Three official paths were checked and none contains a special district line: the official Permit Fee Schedule; the developer land-development process page, on which stormwater is handled through SEMSWA and PIA collateral rather than a City fee; and the Centennial Municipal Code Land Development Code.
Metropolitan districts overlying a specific parcel levy their own mill-levy assessments on landowners. Those assessments are district charges, not city-administered fees, and are outside the scope of this page. This closure is consistent with the Fort Collins peer. Closed-search outcome: this fee family is not administered by this jurisdiction.
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 fixed fee amount traceable to a dated or byte-stable 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 sources.
Land-use and development application fees
Centennial does not publish rezoning, plat, or site plan application fees as a flat schedule. The City computes them per project through its official Development Permit Fee Estimation Calculator at pre-submittal, a mechanism confirmed on the City's developer land-development process page. That calculator-gated model is a documented official process rather than missing data, but it means no fixed dollar figure for those applications can be published here. Obtain a project-specific estimate from the City before budgeting land-use application costs.
Permit fee schedule effective date
The Building Permit Fee Schedule prints no adoption or effective date anywhere in the document. Its currency was established a different way: the City's official Apply for a Building Permit page live-links this exact document as the current Permit Fee Schedule, which is a present-tense citation. The effective date is therefore stated as current rather than inferred to a specific day.
Public Improvement Agreement collateral
Development-related capital recovery in Centennial runs through PIA collateral sized against a public engineer's cost estimate for the specific project's public improvements. That is a project-specific bonded amount, not a schedule figure, so no dollar range is presented. It is nonetheless the substantive capital obligation a developer takes on in Centennial in place of an impact fee.
District connection charges
Water and sewer connection charges are levied by the serving Title 32 district and by Denver Water rather than by the City. This page names the administering entities but publishes no dollar figures for them, because those charges sit outside the City's fee authority and vary by district. They are captured on those entities' own published schedules.
Proffers
Colorado has no Virginia-style conditional-rezoning cash proffer system; Virginia Code Sections 15.2-2298 and 15.2-2303 are Virginia-specific with no Colorado counterpart. Closed-search outcome: this fee family does not apply to this jurisdiction. Consistent with the Fort Collins, Lakewood, and Aurora peers.
Fee Authorities
| Authority | Fee Types | Official Website |
|---|---|---|
| City of Centennial Building Division | Building permit fees, plan review fees, inspection fees, temporary certificate of occupancy, and electrical fees | centennialco.gov |
| City of Centennial (land development process) | Land-use application fees computed per project via the Development Permit Fee Estimation Calculator; Public Improvement Agreement collateral and public engineer's cost estimate | centennialco.gov |
| Southgate Water & Sanitation Districts | Water system connection charges for their service area (independent Title 32 district, not a City fee) | southgatedistricts.org |
| Denver Water | Water tap fees for the Centennial service area (wholesale water provider, not a City fee) | denverwater.org |
Other Denver metro jurisdictions covered by ZoneFee: Aurora, Denver, Lakewood, Arvada, Westminster, Douglas County.
Sources
| Document | Agency | Accessed |
|---|---|---|
| Building Permit Fee Schedule (permit, plan review, inspection, and electrical fees) | City of Centennial (centennialco.gov) | 2026-07-22 |
| Apply for a Building Permit (currency citation for the fee schedule) | City of Centennial (centennialco.gov) | 2026-07-23 |
| Permits & Licenses for Developers (land development process, Steps 1-9) | City of Centennial (centennialco.gov) | 2026-07-23 |
| Water System Connection Charges | Southgate Water & Sanitation Districts (southgatedistricts.org) | 2026-07-23 |
Last verified by ZoneFee: 2026-07-23. Fee schedules are subject to change. Verify current rates directly with the City of Centennial Building Division, and connection charges with the serving special district and Denver Water, before relying on this data for any financial decision.
This page reflects fee data sourced from the City of Centennial official Building Permit Fee Schedule, the City's Apply for a Building Permit page, the City's Permits and Licenses for Developers land-development process page, and the Southgate Water and Sanitation Districts connection charge page. ZoneFee does not guarantee that fee amounts are current at the time you read this page. Fee schedules change. The Building Permit Fee Schedule carries no printed adoption or effective date; its currency rests on the City's present-tense link to it. Centennial is a contract city that levies no municipal impact fee and no utility tap fee, and it does not publish land-use application fees as a flat schedule - those are computed per project through the City's Development Permit Fee Estimation Calculator at pre-submittal. Public Improvement Agreement collateral is sized per project against a public engineer's cost estimate and is not a schedule figure. Water and sewer connection charges are levied by independent Colorado Title 32 special districts and by Denver Water, not by the City, and no dollar figures for those charges are published here. Colorado jurisdictions do not use Virginia-style cash proffers, and Title 32 metropolitan district mill-levy assessments are not city-administered fees. Verify all current rates directly with the City of Centennial and the relevant districts before relying on this data for land acquisition, project budgeting, or any financial decision. This page is for research and due-diligence reference only - it is not legal or financial advice.