Commerce City, CO Development Impact Fees (2026)

Commerce City is a home-rule city in Adams County, CO. Its development impact fees are codified in Land Development Code Article IX (parks/school/road/water-acquisition/drainage framework) with dollar amounts adopted by City Council resolution and published in the city's "Directory of City Fees and Charges" (rev. 11/20/2025, Section 17 Public Works & Engineering) and the Planning "Development Impact Fees" Facts-to-Know sheet (rev. Dec 2023). CITY FEES (per dwelling unit unless noted): Road Impact Fee (TWO mutually-exclusive service areas: Northern Range primary, Core City alternative excludeFromTotal); Park Facilities Impact Fee; General Government Facilities Impact Fee; Public Works Facilities Impact Fee; Police Facilities Impact Fee; Drainage Impact Fee (per SQ FT of new impervious area, varies by drainage basin — all per_sqft and NOT addable to a per-DU total, so all drainage rows excluded from the per-DU sum); Water Acquisition Fee (city fee buying water rights for city PARKS, NOT a home water tap — escalates 10%/yr; latest verbatim published value is 2025 = $2,782.79, so medium confidence for the current 2026 year; 2026 ≈ $3,061 is calculated, not published); School land-dedication Fee-in-Lieu (Article IX, land value $106,150/acre set by school districts eff. 11/1/2021; only published $ figures are in the Dec-2023 FTK, hence medium confidence).

Non-double-count

The "Public Park Development Fee" in the planning FTK ($7,502 SF / $5,698 MF) and the "Park Facilities Impact Fee" in the Directory ($7,502 SF / $5,698 MF) are the SAME fee — reported ONCE (parks). Confirmed identical in both sources.

Separate-district fees

(1) FIRE — South Adams County Fire Protection District (SACFD) Fire & Emergency Services Impact Fee, collected on Commerce City development applications submitted after 5/20/2025. Schedule (Board adopted 5/20/2025) phases: SF $1,100 → $1,420 (eff. 1/1/2026); MF $486 → $722 (1/1/2026) → $960 (1/1/2027). As of the 6/16/2026 verification date the 1/1/2026 tier is in effect (SF $1,420, MF $722, reported primary); earlier $1,100/$486 tier marked excludeFromTotal. (2) WATER & SEWER — SACWSD levies connection fees, tap fees, system development charges, water-resource development charges, and (south of Sand Creek) Denver System Development Charges. The Rules & Regulations (eff. May 2026, confirmed live) DEFINE these fees but place all dollar amounts in a separate Appendix A fee schedule not in that PDF; the public tap-fee webpage returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval (confirmed). The District maintains 19+ tap-fee schedules varying by water-resource agreement and location, so no single per-unit figure exists. SACWSD water/sewer fees OMITTED rather than invented; builder must obtain a project-specific quote (Tap Sales Administrator 303-288-2646). NO standalone municipal library, open-space, or affordable-housing impact fee exists. No general school impact fee (Colorado uses school land dedication / fee-in-lieu). No city-collected water/sewer tap fee (utilities are SACWSD). "Preferred Economic Development" land uses (most commercial/retail/office/lodging/medical) are EXEMPT from park, general-government, public-works, police, drainage and most road fees; residential is fully subject. Construction-materials sales/use tax applies but is a tax, not an impact fee, so excluded.

Verify

confirmed 22 of 22 rows; dropped 0. All directory road figures (Northern Range SF $4,842 / MF Low-Rise $2,745 / Mid-Rise $2,173; Core City SF $2,670 / MF Low-Rise $1,543 / Mid-Rise $1,187) and drainage basin rates (First Creek $1.55, Second $0.74, Third $0.21, Henderson $0.70, Irondale $1.25 per sq ft) verified verbatim from extractable text. The Park/General Government/Public Works/Police facility-fee tables are embedded as IMAGES in the Directory PDF (no extractable text); their dollar amounts were verified by OCR-reading the rendered pages — Park SF $7,502/MF $5,698, Gen Gov SF $707/MF $538, Public Works SF $612/MF $465, Police SF $2,175/MF $1,651 all match exactly (sourceQuotes for these rows are faithful reconstructions of the image tables, not copy-paste text). Planning FTK confirmed verbatim: Water Acquisition 2024 $2,529.81 / 2025 $2,782.79 (no 2026 published), School fee-in-lieu SF $1,645.33 / Apartment $413.99. Fire PDF confirmed verbatim: SF $1,100→$1,420 (1/1/2026), MF $486→$722 (1/1/2026)→$960 (1/1/2027). Sources index 2 (Article IX, intermittent Akamai 403 but confirmed HTTP 200 on retry — framework only, no $ depend on it), index 4 (SACFD webpage, confirmed), index 5 (prior fire schedule, SF $688 confirmed), index 6 (SACWSD Rules, confirmed live, fee definitions only), index 7 (SACWSD tap webpage, HTTP 403 confirmed as claimed) all valid. excludeFromTotal corrections: set excludeFromTotal=true on the Drainage Impact Fee (First Creek) primary row — it is per_sqft and cannot be summed into a per-dwelling-unit total, so no drainage row should enter the per-DU representative sum (the other drainage basins were already correctly flagged). All other exclude flags verified correct: Core City road (mutually-exclusive service area), Second Creek and Irondale drainage (mutually-exclusive basins), pre-1/1/2026 fire SF tier (superseded). No confidence downgrades beyond the researcher's existing medium ratings, which are appropriate.