Residential Building Permit (New Construction) in Severance, Colorado

Severance requires a residential building permit (new construction) for: Plans must comply with the 2024 IRC and 2024 IECC as adopted, and meet the Town's Design Criteria: 115 mph ultimate wind speed (ice and water shield + under-floor protection required), Seismic Design Category B, 30-inch frost line, 30 PSF roof live load / 15 PSF roof dead load / 30 PSF ground snow load; EV-ready, Solar-ready, and Electric-ready documentation required per the 2026 SAFEbuilt Residential Application Checklist: minimum 40-amp EV circuit within 3 ft of a parking space; roof plan solar-ready zone(s) with prewire routing and truss dead-load verification; electric-ready prewire note and full-load calculation for new single-family/two-family/townhome dwellings; Manual J, D, and S compliance calculations required; 2024 IECC energy code compliance required via ResCheck or an energy rating company report, or full prescriptive-method documentation; Engineered structural plans and foundation plans stamped by a Colorado-licensed engineer; Metro District/HOA approval letter required if applicable (check with subdivision ARC committee before submitting); Contractor must hold a current Town of Severance Contractor License (Class A or B) plus, for electrical/plumbing trades, a current Colorado State license (contemporaneously verified, no separate town fee for those trades); Since 2015: footing, foundation reinforcement, perimeter drain (Colorado-licensed engineer inspection), and U-fer ground engineer letters plus a signed Town Setback Certification form must be submitted to SAFEbuilt before the underground plumbing inspection and before framing begins; Applications submitted online via the Community Core portal only. If your project isn't listed, confirm with Town of Severance Building & Permits Department (Planning Services, Attn: Building Department) at 970-692-7315 before starting work.

In Severance, the published Building Permit / Inspection Fee is: Valuation-based, determined by SAFEbuilt Colorado. Additional published fees: Use Tax — 3% assessed on 60% of the Total Valuation of Improvement as determined by SAFEbuilt; Administration Fee — Greater of 30% of total inspection fees or $30.00; Planning Review Fee — Greater of 15% of total inspection fees or $30.00; Transportation Impact Fee (Single Family, per unit) — $6,075.00; Park Impact Fee (Single Family, per unit) — $1,645.00; General Government Impact Fee (Single Family, per unit) — $2,611.00; Police Impact Fee (Single Family, per unit) — $749.00; Water Utility Impact Fee (3/4-inch meter) — $16,975.00; Card Processing Fee — 3% surcharge on credit/debit card payments; no fee for e-check. These are the jurisdiction's own published figures — see the fee schedule table and source citations on this page.

Severance's published plan-review target for a residential building permit (new construction) is Up to 15 business days.

You'll need: Building Permit Application; Site/Plot Plan; Architectural/Floor Plans, Engineered Structural Plans, Electrical Plans, Mechanical Plans; Manual J, D, and S Compliance Calculations; 2024 IECC Energy Code Compliance (ResCheck or equivalent); Setback Certification Letter and Form. Depending on your project, Severance may also ask for: Metro District/HOA Approval Letter. See the required-documents checklist on this page for details on each.

The Town of Severance Building & Permits Department administers the permit process, but plan review and inspections are contracted out to SAFEbuilt Colorado (windsor@safebuilt.com, 866-671-1036 / 970-674-1037). Applications are submitted online through the Community Core portal.

Apply through Town of Severance Building & Permits Department (Planning Services, Attn: Building Department) at 3 S. Timber Ridge Parkway, P.O. Box 339, Severance, CO 80546. Phone: 970-692-7315, email: building@townofseverance.org. Office hours: Monday-Friday, 8:00 am - 5:00 pm. General Permit Clerk / Town Hall line also published as 970-686-1218 (fax 970-686-6250) on Building Department PDF forms; primary Building Department contact line is 970-692-7315. Plan review and inspections are contracted out to SAFEbuilt Colorado, which uses its own contact channel (see inspections note).. Official information: https://www.townofseverance.org/173/Building-Permits.

Severance, Colorado has adopted: 2024 International Residential Code (IRC) — Town of Severance 'Design Criteria Town of Severance' document (SAFEbuilt/Town primary source, DocumentCenter/View/1106), Residential Construction section; 2024 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) — same source, Residential Construction section; 2023 National Electrical Code (NEC) — same source, listed under both Residential and Commercial Construction sections; 2024 International Building Code (IBC) — same source, Commercial Construction section; 2024 International Plumbing Code (IPC) — per the 2024 Client Design Criteria document (SAFEbuilt/Town, Commercial Construction section); HOWEVER, the Town's own codified Municipal Code (library.municode.com/co/severance, Chapter 18, Article 4, Sec. 18-4-10, successfully retrieved live via browser rendering on 2026-07-23) states: 'The International Plumbing Code, 2018 Edition... is hereby adopted by reference as the Town of Severance Plumbing Code' (Ord. 2019-07 § 4; Ord. No. 2025-27, § 6, enacted Dec. 9, 2025) — i.e. the codified ordinance readopted/carried forward the 2018 IPC edition even in the same Dec. 9, 2025 recodification that moved most other codes to 2024. The codified Municipal Code (the Town's actual adopted law) is treated as authoritative over the SAFEbuilt client-facing summary sheet for this fact; IPC is 2018, not 2024, in Severance.; 2024 International Mechanical Code (IMC) — per the 2024 Client Design Criteria document (SAFEbuilt/Town, Commercial Construction section); HOWEVER, the Town's own codified Municipal Code (Chapter 18, Article 3, Sec. 18-3-10, retrieved live 2026-07-23) states: 'The International Mechanical Code, 2018 Edition... is hereby adopted by reference as the Town of Severance Mechanical Code' (Ord. No. 2025-27, § 4, enacted Dec. 9, 2025) — the same Dec. 9, 2025 recodification ordinance that adopted 2024 IBC/IRC/IECC/IFGC/IPMC/IEBC left IMC at the 2018 edition. The codified Municipal Code is treated as authoritative over the SAFEbuilt summary sheet; IMC is 2018, not 2024, in Severance.; 2024 International Fuel Gas Code (IFGC) — same source, Commercial Construction section; 2024 International Energy Code — same source, Commercial Construction section (listed as a separate line from the 2024 IECC entry under Residential; the Town's document does not clarify whether these are intended as the same document cited twice or two distinct adoptions, so both are recorded as they appear on the primary source); 2024 Pool and Spa Code — per the 2024 Client Design Criteria document (SAFEbuilt/Town, Commercial Construction section); HOWEVER, the Town's own codified Municipal Code (Chapter 18, Article 12, Sec. 18-12-10, retrieved live 2026-07-23) states: 'The International Swimming Pool and Spa Code, 2018 Edition... is hereby adopted by reference as the Town of Severance Swimming Pool and Spa Code' (Ord. No. 2025-27, § 9, enacted Dec. 9, 2025). The codified Municipal Code is treated as authoritative; ISPSC is 2018, not 2024, in Severance. (No standalone swimming-pool permit-type entry exists in the permitTypes array, so this correction is recorded here only; the 2024 Swimming Pools Guide, DocumentCenter/View/203, is a generic SAFEbuilt trade guide and does not itself state a code edition or fee/timeline figure.); 2024 International Property Maintenance Code — same source, 'Other Adopted Codes' section; 2024 International Existing Building Code — same source, 'Other Adopted Codes' section; State Codes (as listed on the Town's own Design Criteria document): Electric Ready, Solar Ready, EV Ready — consistent with Colorado HB22-1362's statewide energy/electrification floor (2021 IECC-derived electric-ready, solar-ready, EV-ready provisions, effective window July 2023-July 2026); confirmed independently by the '2026 SAFEbuilt Residential Application Checklist' (DocumentCenter/View/1149), which requires EV-ready (min. 40A circuit within 3ft of a car space), Solar-ready (roof-plan solar zones, prewire routing, truss dead-load verification), and Electric-ready (pre-wire location/note and full electric-appliance load calculation for new single-family, two-family, and townhome dwellings) documentation for permit submittal, and by the New Commercial Plan Submittal Procedure (DocumentCenter/View/182), which states 'EV ready, Solar ready and Electric ready are now required to be shown on plans.'; Note on a separate SAFEbuilt-published document: the '2023 NEC Photovoltaic System Submittal Requirements' guide (DocumentCenter/View/210, last revised 08.11.2023) states 'Applicable current codes are the 2023 NEC, 2018 International Codes' — this conflicts with the Town-specific 2024 Client Design Criteria document and appears to be a generic/stale SAFEbuilt template not yet updated to Severance's current 2024 code cycle; the Town's own jurisdiction-specific Design Criteria document (2024, explicitly labeled 'Severance') is treated as authoritative for this record rather than the generic PV guide.; A note on sourcing: a Citizen Portal article — a third-party, AI-generated meeting summary, not an official Town/.gov document — describes a Severance Town Council work session at which building official Russ Weber (SAFEbuilt) briefed Council on the 2024 ICC model codes and state-mandated changes, and reports that no formal adoption ordinance/vote occurred at that specific work session; Council directed staff to return with a formal adoption package excluding wildfire-resiliency provisions pending clarification. Because it is not an official source, that article is not cited for any fact here; it is noted only as context for why a formal Chapter 18 adoption-ordinance number from Municode's Severance library (library.municode.com/co/severance) is not independently confirmed. The Town's own primary-source Design Criteria and permit-guide PDFs (all dated 2026 or explicitly labeled '2024 IRC'/'2024 International Codes') serve as the governing record of the currently-adopted codes.; The codified Municipal Code on Municode states: 'SEVERANCE MUNICIPAL CODE Codified through Ordinance No. 2025-27, enacted December 9, 2025' (Supp. No. 15, online content updated June 29, 2026); that ordinance repealed and re-enacted Chapter 18 Articles 1-10 and 12 in full. Ord. No. 2025-27 is the December-2025 code-adoption ordinance, and cross-checking every article against the SAFEbuilt Design Criteria PDF surfaces three code-edition corrections: IMC and IPC are codified at the 2018 edition (not 2024) per Ord. No. 2025-27 §§ 4 and 6, and the Swimming Pool and Spa Code is codified at the 2018 edition (not 2024) per Ord. No. 2025-27 § 9 — see the corrected codesAdopted entries above. IBC, IRC, IECC, IFGC, IPMC, and IEBC are independently confirmed at the 2024 edition per the same ordinance (Sec. 18-1-10, 18-2-10, 18-8-10, 18-6-10, 18-9-10, 18-10-10), and the NEC is confirmed at 2023 (Sec. 18-4-40, Ord. No. 2023-09). Chapter 18, Article 11 (Building Permits, Sec. 18-11-10 'Issuance' and Sec. 18-11-20 'Surcharge') contains only permit-issuance criteria and the administration surcharge (30% of inspection fees or $30.00, matching the Administration Fee line above) — no permit-type-specific review-timeline SLA and no demolition-specific fee or process are codified anywhere in Chapter 18, confirming from the Town's own adopted law (the strongest available primary source) that the review-timeline and demolition-fee gaps noted across these permit types are genuine publication gaps. Separately, Ordinance No. 2025-08 adopted the 2024 International Fire Code.. Local amendments apply — see the Severance overview page for the full list.

Yes. The Town's 2026 SAFEbuilt Residential Application Checklist requires EV-ready (minimum 40-amp circuit within 3 ft of a parking space), Solar-ready (roof plan solar zones, prewire routing, truss load verification), and Electric-ready (prewire location and full electric-appliance load calculation) documentation for new single-family, two-family, and townhome dwellings, consistent with Colorado's statewide HB22-1362 energy/electrification requirements.