Picture a 1960s brick ranch on two and a half acres, the kind of large, quiet lot Cherry Hills Village is built on. The septic tank sits under the side lawn, original to the house, and the seller has just been handed a disclosure form to fill out before the property goes to market. The buyer's inspector will eventually stand over that tank with a dip stick and a camera. Everything about the sale, the timeline, the price, the repairs anyone can ask for, runs through what happens next with that tank and the sewer line it may or may not be connected to.
That is the part of a Cherry Hills Village transaction the median price never shows. And this year, the city made it slightly more rigid. In 2026, the City Council adopted Ordinance 6, Series 2026, adding a new Section 18-5-30 to the Municipal Code that prohibits all graywater use and the installation of graywater treatment works. It is a short piece of legislation. Its effect on a septic property sale is not.
A Small Ordinance Sitting on Top of a Large System
Graywater systems reuse water from sinks, showers, and laundry, typically for landscape irrigation. They do not treat blackwater from toilets, so they were never a substitute for a septic system or a sewer connection. What they were, for an owner weighing options on a large estate lot, was a way to manage water use onsite without touching the sanitation infrastructure at all. As of this year, that option no longer exists in Cherry Hills Village. Anyone buying a large-lot property here with plans to install a residential graywater system for irrigation, a request that comes up often with buyers focused on lower water bills or drought-resilient landscaping, needs to know that plan is off the table before they write an offer.
That single new prohibition matters more here than it would in a smaller house on a smaller lot, because Cherry Hills Village's sanitation system was already unusually layered before this ordinance existed.
The District Behind the Lawn
The Cherry Hills Village Sanitation District was formed in 1974 as a quasi-municipal corporation under Colorado's Title 32 statutes. It now serves roughly 1,150 residences in the city, plus two subdivisions in Greenwood Village, through 47 miles of sewer main. That wastewater does not stay local. It flows to treatment facilities operated by the City of Englewood or Denver Metro Wastewater, under contracts CHVSD holds with both, and CHVSD users pay the treatment fees those two outside agencies charge.
The district's authority to operate this way traces back to a Connector's Agreement dated May 12, 1997 between CHVSD and the City of Englewood. Because of that agreement, CHVSD's own rules incorporate Englewood's Wastewater Utility Ordinance by reference wherever Englewood's provisions are more restrictive, including Englewood's sections on sewer tap fees and private sewer connections and repairs. In practice, this means a buyer's contractor connecting a Cherry Hills Village property to the sewer main is often working under two governments' rules at once, not one.
What a Septic-to-Sewer Conversion Actually Costs
The district publishes its tap fees, and they scale with the size of the water service. A single-family residence with a standard 3/4-inch water tap pays a $12,000 sewer tap fee. Step up to a 1-inch tap, common on larger estate properties with more fixtures or irrigation demand, and the fee rises to $20,040. These are not negotiable line items and they are not visible anywhere on a listing sheet. They belong in a buyer's underwriting the moment a property shows as being on septic, and in a seller's pricing conversation well before that.
| Water Service Size | District Adjustment Factor | Sewer Tap Fee |
|---|---|---|
| 3/4 inch | 1.00 | $12,000 |
| 1 inch | 1.67 | $20,040 |
Beyond the fee, the district's summary of sewer permitting regulations sets specific construction requirements that catch contractors off guard. ABS and VCP, or vitrified clay, pipe are not acceptable for new work or for reuse, meaning an older service line often has to be replaced entirely rather than tied into. A video inspection of any existing pipe and tap is required before the district will approve reuse. And inspection of a new tap connection is required by both CHVSD and, on most parcels, the City of Englewood.
Not every parcel, though. Properties in the Buell Mansion and Covington subdivisions are specifically exempted from that additional Englewood inspection, a detail that only shows up if you read the district's own permitting summary rather than a general listing description. The rules are not uniform across the city, and knowing which set applies to a specific address is part of the diligence, not an afterthought.
The Sixty-Day Clock
The district's rules define septic system "failure" precisely: a system that is overflowing, full, or not functioning properly, where the fix requires more than minor maintenance work. Replacing tees, risers, pumps, floats, or a damaged valve does not count as failure. A system that has actually stopped working does.
Upon failure of such system, the property owner on whose property such system is being used shall within sixty (60) days purchase a sewer tap permit and make arrangements to timely connect his improvements to District facilities at property owner's expense.
That sixty-day window is not a suggestion. It is the operative rule, and it runs from the moment failure occurs, not from the moment a buyer's inspector happens to notice it during a due diligence period. Septic tank repairs are not permitted by the district except in limited cases, which means many properties on septic in Cherry Hills Village are effectively one significant failure away from a mandatory, time-boxed sewer conversion at the full published tap fee.
What This Means on the Disclosure Form
Colorado's statewide Seller's Property Disclosure form, the version the Colorado Division of Real Estate put into effect for contracts signed on or after January 1, 2026, asks sellers directly about septic permit issuance dates, inspection dates, and pumping records, along with the general source of water for the property. The form also asks about graywater storage or use as a standard disclosure item. With the new ordinance in place, that particular line will read the same way for every Cherry Hills Village seller going forward: no such system exists, because none may legally be installed.
What that leaves is the sewer and septic section itself carrying more of the real weight. A seller who has not confirmed the permit and inspection history on an aging system, or who has not asked CHVSD directly whether the property's tap classification and pipe type meet current standards, is filling out that form with gaps a buyer's inspector will find anyway. Getting those answers before listing, rather than during a buyer's objection period, keeps a transaction on schedule.
A Detail Worth Confirming Before an Offer
For a legacy estate on a large Cherry Hills Village lot, questions about the sanitation setup are not a minor line item buried in a home inspection report. They touch the price, the closing timeline, and now, with graywater off the table, the landscaping and irrigation plans a buyer may have assumed were available. The parcels that move smoothly through escrow tend to be the ones where these questions were answered before the property ever hit the market.
FAQ
Does the graywater ban apply only to septic properties, or to every property in the city? The prohibition sits in the city's building code rather than in the sanitation district's rules, so it applies citywide, regardless of whether a given parcel is on septic or already connected to the CHVSD sewer main.
What exactly counts as a septic system "failure" under the district's rules? The district defines failure as a system that is overflowing, full, or not functioning properly, where correcting it requires more than minor maintenance such as replacing tees, risers, pumps, floats, or a damaged valve.
Does every Cherry Hills Village property need a City of Englewood inspection to connect to sewer? Most do, since CHVSD's system feeds Englewood's treatment infrastructure under a 1997 interlocal agreement. Properties in the Buell Mansion and Covington subdivisions are specifically exempted from that additional inspection under the district's own permitting summary.
If you are weighing a purchase or a sale on a Cherry Hills Village estate lot and want the sanitation and disclosure questions answered before they become a closing-week surprise, Casey Perry Properties can walk through the specifics with you. Request a private consultation to start with the facts that apply to your parcel, not the citywide average.
