New Braunfels, TX Development Impact Fees (2026)

RESIDENTIAL development impact fees in New Braunfels are levied by TWO jurisdictions: (1) the City of New Braunfels collects ROADWAY impact fees, and (2) New Braunfels Utilities (NBU) - the separate municipally-owned water/wastewater utility serving the city's service area - collects WATER and WASTEWATER impact fees. A builder must pay both. CONFIRMED CURRENT FEES (all official, high confidence): - Water impact fee: $19,448 per LUE (NBU Impact Fee Policy Schedule 3, effective 02/01/2023, collected at 100% of max; Schedule 3 = Schedule 2 maximum). - Wastewater impact fee: $6,244 per LUE (same source). A standard single-family home on a 5/8" x 3/4" meter = 1.0 LUE, so combined water+wastewater = $25,692 per single-family dwelling unit (confirmed in 2023 NBU Impact Fee Report meter table). - Roadway impact fee (City, Chapter 100 / Ordinance 2022-87, Exhibit 2, effective 03/01/2023, now collected at 100% of max): SINGLE-FAMILY DETACHED ranges from $1,471 (SA2) to $10,829 (SA4) per dwelling unit across SIX mutually-exclusive service areas (SA1 $4,914, SA2 $1,471, SA3 $2,328, SA4 $10,829, SA5 $6,320, SA6 $8,192). The exact roadway fee depends entirely on which of the six service areas the parcel is in - SA6 ($8,192) is used as the representative primary row; the other five are included as excludeFromTotal rows so the full range is visible. Multifamily (mid-rise default, ITE 221) roadway fee ranges $654-$4,815/unit by service area. REPRESENTATIVE SINGLE-FAMILY TOTAL (primary rows): Water $19,448 + Wastewater $6,244 + Roadway SA6 $8,192 = ~$33,884 per single-family detached dwelling unit. Using the lowest roadway area (SA2) the total is ~$27,163; using the highest (SA4) ~$36,521. The impact fees are NOT tiered by home square footage - they are per LUE / per dwelling unit, so no size-based tiering applies. WHAT DOES NOT EXIST HERE (Texas Local Government Code Ch. 395 limits impact fees to water, wastewater, roadway, and drainage ONLY): NO school, park, police, fire, library, open-space, affordable-housing, or general/capital impact fees - prohibited under Texas law. New Braunfels has NO municipal DRAINAGE impact fee (only a discretionary, case-by-case 'Stormwater Connection Fee' under City Code Sec. 143-20, not a standard per-dwelling-unit development fee).

Caveats

NBU also charges minor administrative/meter-set charges and standard service-tap installation costs not publicly itemized; small relative to impact fees and not separately verified. NBU's FY26-FY27 'rate adjustments' (eff. 08/01/2025) are utility CONSUMPTION rates, not impact fees. Census 2024 population for New Braunfels city ~116,477. New Braunfels spans BOTH Comal and Guadalupe Counties but is the seat of Comal County.

Verify

confirmed 10 of 10 rows; dropped 0. Both NBU figures ($19,448 water, $6,244 wastewater) verified exact against Schedule 3 of the Impact Fee Policy PDF and cross-confirmed against the 2023 NBU Impact Fee Report meter table (5/8" = 1.0 LUE = $25,692 combined); both sourceQuotes present verbatim. All 8 roadway values (6 SFD service areas + multifamily SA6) verified exact against the Chapter 100 Exhibit 2 rate table (ITE 210 SFD 4.61 veh-mi: SA1 $4,914/SA2 $1,471/SA3 $2,328/SA4 $10,829/SA5 $6,320/SA6 $8,192; ITE 221 MF mid-rise 2.05: SA1 $2,185/SA2 $654/SA3 $1,035/SA4 $4,815/SA5 $2,811/SA6 $3,643) for the 'on or after March 1, 2023' column; sourceQuotes present. excludeFromTotal corrections: NONE - the six SFD service areas are mutually exclusive, SA6 correctly retained as the single included representative with SA1-SA5 correctly flagged excludeFromTotal=true, and the multifamily row correctly flagged excludeFromTotal=true (separate land use). Representative SFD per-dwelling-unit total ($33,884) is sane and not double-counting. Census QuickFacts URL returned HTTP 403 on re-fetch but population 116,477 corroborated via multiple secondary sources; population is not a fee row.