"We're 7 to 8 feet of snow short of where we need to be," Denver Water's manager of water supply said in March, describing a mountain snowpack so thin it left the utility no path back to normal before summer. Two weeks earlier, on March 25, the Denver Board of Water Commissioners declared a Stage 1 drought for the first time since 2013. Two weeks after that, the board did something it hadn't done since the drought of 2002 to 2004: it approved a surcharge on outdoor water use, layered on top of everyone's regular rate.
Every water utility in the metro spent this spring pushing customers toward conservation. Cherry Hills Village spent it passing an ordinance that outlaws one of the more common conservation tools available to a homeowner planning new construction. Ordinance 6, Series 2026 added a new section to the city's municipal code, Section 18-5-30, prohibiting the use of all graywater and the installation of graywater treatment works, anywhere in the city.
If you are buying a teardown candidate here, selling a large-lot property that needs disclosure work, or drawing plans for a rebuild, that timing matters more than it looks like it should.
What the ordinance actually forecloses
Graywater systems route water from showers, sinks, and laundry back out to landscape irrigation instead of down the sewer line. In a drought year, on large lots where irrigation is the biggest line item on the water bill, that kind of system is exactly what a builder or architect would normally propose to a client trying to control costs. Section 18-5-30 takes that option off the table before it reaches a permit application. The prohibition covers use of graywater and the treatment works themselves, so a plan set that includes a laundry-to-landscape system or a graywater tank will not clear plan review in Cherry Hills Village, regardless of how it would be treated a few miles away in unincorporated Arapahoe County or in Denver proper.
This is not a theoretical inconvenience. Cherry Hills Village's own building division reviews construction documents parcel by parcel, and any water system component of a new build or major remodel goes through that review before a permit issues. A design built around graywater reuse now needs to be redesigned before submission, not adjusted after a rejection.
Why the timing lands harder on large lots
Denver Water's drought pricing took effect with May 2026 water use, billed in June, and runs through April 30, 2027 unless the board acts sooner. The structure is tiered: a surcharge of $1.10 per 1,000 gallons on moderate over-baseline use, and $2.20 per 1,000 gallons once a customer crosses into high-volume outdoor use.
| Tier | Surcharge | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 2 | $1.10 per 1,000 gallons | Moderate outdoor use above seasonal baseline |
| Tier 3 | $2.20 per 1,000 gallons | High-volume outdoor use above seasonal baseline |
A half-acre lot in a denser Denver neighborhood might never see Tier 3. A property on two, three, or five acres in Cherry Hills Village, the kind of lot this city is built around, crosses that threshold far faster once irrigation season starts. Cherry Hills Village holds a Total Service Agreement with Denver Water for the majority of its residences, which means most homeowners here are subject to the same mandatory schedule and the same drought pricing as anyone inside Denver proper: two assigned watering days a week, nothing between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. The city is not exempt from the restriction. It is simply one of the places where the restriction bites hardest on a per-property basis, at the exact moment it closed off a tool that would have softened that bite.
Not every parcel in the city sits under that same agreement. Cherry Hills Village includes several smaller water and sanitation districts, including Charlou Park, that operate outside the city's Total Service Agreement. Anyone underwriting a purchase or a rebuild here should confirm which district actually serves the parcel before assuming the citywide schedule applies exactly as described.
The septic question that was already the biggest line item nobody puts on a listing sheet
Water systems in Cherry Hills Village were already a first-order underwriting question before this year's ordinance, and the graywater ban stacks directly on top of it rather than replacing it.
The Cherry Hills Village Sanitation District, formed in 1974, serves roughly 1,150 residences through 47 miles of sewer main, sending wastewater to Englewood or Denver Metro Wastewater for treatment. That leaves a meaningful share of the city's housing stock on other arrangements, private septic among them. A property converting from septic to the district's main requires a sewer tap permit, a district inspection, and in some subdivisions an additional tap fee to a satellite provider such as Buell Mansion, Covington, or Hillcrest Water and Sanitation, plus a separate inspection by the City of Englewood where the tap lands at the main. New service lines cannot use ABS or vitrified clay pipe. Septic tank repairs are not permitted except in limited cases. An abandoned private sewer has to be plugged at the main, at the owner's expense.
None of that is prohibitive on its own. All of it is a real cost that belongs in a buyer's underwriting before an offer goes in, and in a seller's prep timeline well before a home hits the market. A seller who waits until the inspection period to answer the septic question hands the buyer's team the leverage in that negotiation.
The water rights question that lives in the title, not the listing
A second system question rarely makes it onto a buyer's checklist coming from central Denver: whether the property carries ditch shares. The High Line Canal, which supplies water to Buell Lake here in Cherry Hills Village, has run through this part of Arapahoe County since the 1880s, and irrigation rights tied to it are conveyed as real property interests, separately from the house and the land, using the same formalities as any other real estate transfer. General guidance on Colorado water rights is blunt about the practical problem this creates: recorded documents often do not reveal the full chain of title, records for water rights are notoriously incomplete, and confirming what a ditch company actually has on file for a given share can require research beyond what a standard title search turns up.
A title company unfamiliar with agricultural water rights transfers can miss this entirely. For a buyer, the fix is simple to state and easy to skip: ask early whether the parcel carries a ditch share, and if it does, get someone who works in Colorado water law to confirm what is actually being conveyed before closing, not after.
What this means if you are underwriting a property right now
Three questions now belong at the top of due diligence for any Cherry Hills Village property, whether you are buying a rebuild candidate or preparing to list one:
- Is the parcel on septic or connected to the Cherry Hills Village Sanitation District main, and if it is on septic, what would conversion actually cost and how long would it take
- Does the property carry a ditch share tied to the High Line Canal or another historic irrigation right, and has that been specifically confirmed in title rather than assumed from the deed's general language
- If new construction or a major remodel is part of the plan, has the water system in the design been checked against Section 18-5-30 before the plan set goes to the city, not after
A rebuild designed around a graywater system in January would have needed a full redesign by the time drought pricing hit June bills. That is the kind of six-month gap where a buyer's carrying costs and a seller's timeline both quietly move, and it is exactly the sort of detail that never shows up in a median price.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Stage 1 watering schedule apply inside Cherry Hills Village? For most residences, yes. The city holds a Total Service Agreement with Denver Water, so most Cherry Hills Village properties follow the same two-day mandatory schedule and drought pricing as customers inside Denver proper. Properties served by a separate district, such as Charlou Park, should confirm their specific rules rather than assume the citywide agreement applies to their parcel.
If my home is still on septic, do I need to convert before I sell? Not automatically. Conversion is a capital project that runs through the Cherry Hills Village Sanitation District's tap permit and inspection process, with additional fees in some subdivisions. The more urgent step for a seller is documenting the current system's condition and history so a buyer's team can price the future conversion accurately rather than treating it as a surprise during inspection.
How do I find out if a property carries a ditch share? Start with the ditch company itself, since it holds the share ledger, and confirm the water right's status with the Colorado Division of Water Resources. Because recorded title documents do not always capture the full picture, a water rights attorney is often the right resource for confirming what is actually conveyed before closing.
If you're weighing a purchase, a rebuild, or a sale in Cherry Hills Village and want someone who already knows which of these questions apply to your specific parcel, Wadsworth Property Group can walk through the comps, the systems, and the timeline with you. Request a Free Home Valuation & Consultation to start with a number and a plan grounded in your street, not the citywide average.
