Loveland Water and Power Tap Fees: System Impact Fees and Raw Water Charges (2026)

Inside Loveland city limits, water and wastewater service come from Loveland Water and Power, the city-owned utility (part of City of Loveland Utilities). Under the city’s 2026 Utility Rates, Charges and Fees, a new single-family home with a 3/4-inch meter, on an assumed 1,800 sq ft home footprint and a 6,000 sq ft lot, pays about $14,548 in official charges: $13,068 in Raw Water, Water and Wastewater System Impact Fees (SIF) plus $1,480 for the meter, water tap and sewer tap. The single most important thing to know is that Loveland restructured these fees for 2026: instead of a flat per-home amount, the SIF is now priced per square foot of the house (indoor water and wastewater) and per square foot of the lot (outdoor water), so the total scales with the size of the home and lot you build.

Official Loveland fees in one table

All figures below come from the City of Loveland Utilities 2026 fee schedule, effective January 1, 2026. Loveland calls its capacity charges the Raw Water Impact Fee, Water System Impact Fee and Wastewater System Impact Fee; for single-family homes these are priced per square foot, not by meter size, so those three rows have no meter-size breakout. The 3/4-inch and 1-inch rows are the separate meter, tap and wastewater-tap charges. Rows marked not typical, such as the 1-inch meter, CIPP sewer tap, or multi-family and cash-in-lieu rows, apply only in those cases. The fee schedule does not define whether “home square feet” means finished floor area, heated area, or total building footprint; confirm with Loveland’s permit office how they measure it before you rely on a specific number.

What a new Loveland house pays: worked example

Assumptions: a detached single-family home inside Loveland city limits, no dedicated irrigation meter (so the outdoor water charge applies), a 3/4-inch water tap and meter, and a standard 4-inch sewer tap into a main without a cast-in-place pipe liner (CIPP). Loveland doesn’t publish a “typical” house or lot size, so we show the arithmetic for three illustrative sizes:

Loveland System Impact Fees by home and lot size (2026 fee schedule, inside city)

The $5.1096 indoor rate sums the Raw Water Impact Fee ($0.7553), Water System Impact Fee ($2.1896) and Wastewater System Impact Fee ($2.1647), all on “home square feet.” The $0.6452 outdoor rate sums the Raw Water and Water System Impact Fees ($0.1655 + $0.4797) on lot area; there’s no separate outdoor wastewater charge. The $1,480 fixed piece is the 3/4-inch meter ($380), install ($145), meter pit inspection ($110), water tap ($390) and sewer tap ($455).

With a dedicated irrigation meter for all outdoor water, only the indoor SIF plus fixed charges apply. A 1-inch meter and tap add $80 to the fixed subtotal ($75 more for the meter, $5 more for the tap).

What is not included in Loveland fees

The System Impact Fees buy capacity in the water, wastewater and raw-water systems. Wet-tapping fees cover the city’s own tap work at the main; the applicant still digs the trench to the main. National estimates for the private-side work (methodology):

• Water service line: $30–$150 per foot, typical $50. At 60 feet, about $3,000.
• Sewer service line: $50–$250 per foot, typical $100. At 60 feet, about $6,000.
• Street cut or bore: $1,000–$10,000 per crossing, typical $4,000.
• Plumbing permit and inspection: varies by jurisdiction; not part of the Loveland Utilities fee schedule above.

How and when Loveland fees are paid

System Impact Fees are due at the time a building permit is requested, or, if the property needs no building permit, at the time of a request to activate the water meter. Once paid, the SIF stays with the property as long as the building use and connection size don’t change; there is no refund for downsizing. Meter and tapping fees are due when you apply for the tap, and the applicant is responsible for excavating the trench to the wastewater main.

Multi-family buildings skip the per-square-foot formula: a 2-to-8-unit building pays flat per-unit fees of $1,218 + $3,750 + $3,330 (raw water, water, wastewater); 9-or-more-unit buildings pay a higher $2,680 water SIF and $2,780 wastewater SIF per unit. The fee schedule doesn’t print a separate raw water figure for the 9-or-more tier, so we can’t confirm whether that fee stays at $1,218/unit or changes; ask Loveland Water and Power for the 9+ unit raw water figure before budgeting a large multi-family project. Nonresidential taps under 2 inches pay flat fees by tap size; 2 inches and larger pay ongoing per-1,000-gallon surcharges instead of an upfront fee.

Loveland fee changes to watch

• Loveland restructured these fees for 2026. In 2025, a single-family detached home paid a flat $2,732 (raw water) + $7,610 (water SIF) + $3,300 (wastewater SIF) = $13,642, regardless of house or lot size. Starting January 1, 2026, the fee is priced per square foot of home and lot instead, so a small home on a small lot can now pay less than the old flat fee and a larger home or lot pays more.
• Water meter purchase prices rose about 50 to 85 percent alongside the restructuring: the 3/4-inch meter went from $205 (2025) to $380 (2026), and the 1-inch meter from $300 to $455.
• A Proposed Rates Charges and Fees 2027 document is posted for next year. If adopted, per-square-foot SIF rates would rise (indoor water $2.1896 → $2.2836, wastewater $2.1647 → $2.4235, raw water indoor $0.7553 → $0.8142) and the cash-in-lieu fee would rise from $48,825 to $51,900 per acre-foot, effective January 1, 2027. Not yet adopted.
• We could not find how many acre-feet of raw water a typical single-family lot must dedicate — that quantity is set through separate development review, not this fee schedule, so it isn’t in the worked example above.

How Loveland compares

Typical official connection totals on our other Colorado pages (each page states its own assumptions)

Loveland’s mechanics are closest to Fort Collins: both scale the water charge with square footage and both keep a separate, larger raw-water cost off to the side (Fort Collins’ water supply requirement, Loveland’s cash-in-lieu fee) instead of folding it into the base total. Boulder and Denver use flatter, meter- or lot-based formulas.

Loveland tap fee FAQ

Related guides for Loveland

Colorado utility connection costs · Fort Collins tap fees · Boulder tap fees · Denver Water tap fees · water meter installation cost · tap fee vs impact fee · utility connection cost calculator

Sources for Loveland figures

• 2026 Utility Rates, Charges and Fees (current schedule, effective Jan 1, 2026), City of Loveland Utilities / Loveland Water and Power. Checked Sep 25, 2026.
• Last Year’s Rates Charges and Fees 2025 (prior-year rates, for comparison), Loveland Water and Power. Checked Sep 25, 2026.
• Proposed Rates Charges and Fees 2027 (pending Council/Utilities Commission approval), Loveland Water and Power. Checked Sep 25, 2026.
• Rates, Charges and Fees, City of Loveland Utilities. Checked Sep 25, 2026.