Fence Installation in Aurora: Tight Rules, and Nobody Checking Them
Aurora asks more of a residential fence than the towns around it, then reviews almost none of it. Per the city's own residential fence brochure, wood, privacy, picket and rail fences need no permit. No permit means no plan check, no inspection and no second pair of eyes.
The numbers are specific. A front yard fence cannot exceed 42 inches, cannot be more than 50 percent opaque and cannot carry a solid base above 18 inches. Side and rear fences stop at 6 feet. The brochure also lists chain link and vinyl under prohibited materials.
So in Aurora the only thing standing between a wrong fence and your money is the crew you hired. Code enforcement turns up after the check has cleared.
Five Numbers Decide Whether Your Fence Is Legal
Height first. The front yard tops out at 42 inches, about hip height, which rules out the six foot privacy panel an out of town crew will quote if nobody tells them where they are. Side and rear yards get the full 6 feet.
Opacity is the one that gets skipped. A front yard fence has to stay at least 50 percent open, so a tight picket can pass the height test and fail this one. Any solid base under it is capped at 18 inches.
The setbacks are measured off the sidewalk and not off your lot line. A front fence sits at least 18 inches back from the back of the sidewalk. A side fence on an interior lot can run on the property line, but on a corner it holds 4 feet off the sidewalk.
The fifth number is the one nobody has heard of. If your rear property line butts against the front yard of the house next door, the city calls that a reverse corner lot and your side setback jumps to 10 feet. People find out when a neighbor complains, and by then there are posts in concrete.
Aurora spans three counties, and none of that changes who writes the rules. A house in the Douglas County piece of south Aurora still answers to the City of Aurora Building Division on 303.739.7420, not to a county office.
What your own tape measure settles before anyone quotes
Hook a tape on the back edge of the sidewalk out front and pull 18 inches into the yard. Stick a screwdriver in the ground there. That is the closest a front fence can legally come. Then run the tape 42 inches up a stake and stand back.
Then name your lot type out loud to every crew that bids, interior, corner or reverse corner, and see which of them already knew.
What You Can Build With, and What the Soil Does to It
Aurora's fence brochure lists chain link and vinyl under prohibited materials, and lists a privacy fence with a top rail under permitted materials on the same page. The scope is genuinely unclear from the brochure, and the city code site would not load for us to settle it.
So do not take a salesperson's word either way. Call the Building Division on 303.739.7420, ask whether the restriction covers your back yard or only the street frontage, and write the answer down with the date. Wood is the safe assumption for a rear yard here, and cedar is what most Aurora crews build with.
The bigger fight is under the fence. Aurora sits on Denver Basin expansive clay, the shrink and swell montmorillonite the Colorado Geological Survey calls a widespread Front Range hazard, with regional annual losses it puts above tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes combined. The failure mode is heaving, not settling.
A fence post is a small concrete plug sitting in that soil. When the clay swells, the post lifts, and not evenly down the run. That is the wavy top rail across the older subdivisions here, where the gate stopped latching two summers ago.
Depth and drainage are the defense. The hole has to reach below the layer that keeps wetting and drying, and the backfill has to shed water instead of trapping it against the post. A downspout emptying beside a post heaves that one post while the rest sit still. Ask for the depth and the backfill method before you sign, and call Colorado 811 on 1.800.922.1987 before anyone digs. The locate is free and required.
One more layer sits on top. Most of the newer subdivisions across south and northeast Aurora, the Southlands and Saddle Rock side, Tallyn's Reach, Tollgate Crossing and Painted Prairie, fall inside HOAs and metro districts with their own styles, stains and heights, usually stricter than the city. Ask your association for the written standard as a document and hand a copy to every bidder.
When To Build, Season By Season
February and March: get your answers while nobody is busy
Ground is still hard and crews are quiet, which makes this the cheapest month to be a customer. Do the calls now: the Building Division on the material question, your HOA for the written standard, your own tape on the setback.
April and May: workable ground, unreliable calendar
May is Aurora's wettest month, so the clay is doing its most moving and schedules slip a day at a time. Ask the crew to keep excavated clay off the foundation line and grade the trench away from the wall, because wet spoil piled against the house is what heaves things here.
June through August: the storm months that test the build
The Denver Convergence Vorticity Zone sets up on the plains just east and north of Denver, which is where Aurora is. Research on the DCVZ finds it forms on roughly a third of days from May through August, bringing hail, microburst winds and landspout tornadoes. A six foot privacy fence is a sail, and this season finds shallow posts.
September and October: the best window there is
Dry, stable ground with storm season behind you. If you get to pick a month, pick one of these two. Crews are off the summer rush and there is runway before frost for concrete to cure properly.
November through January: repair, not installation
Augers fight frozen ground and quotes reflect it. What this stretch is good for is fixing what summer exposed: the posts that lifted, the gate that no longer closes, the section a microburst pushed over.
One job for you the week before the crew arrives. Colorado 811 marks public utilities and not your own sprinklers, so run each zone, watch where the heads pop along the fence line and flag them. Aurora currently limits watering to two assigned days a week, so check auroragov.org for your day and test inside it. A cut lateral you never marked is your bill.
Fence Installation Costs in Aurora CO
These are the Aurora ranges we see, here so you can tell whether a number is sane. They do not replace a quote on your run. Two things push a job to the top of its range in this city: deeper holes and better backfill for the clay, and an HOA standard dictating the stain, the style and which way the good side faces.
Choosing a Fence Company in Aurora
Interior, corner or reverse corner. The reverse corner carries a 10 foot side setback almost nobody outside the Building Division knows about, and it is the most common way an Aurora fence lands in the wrong place.
Front fences hold 18 inches off the back of the sidewalk and corner side fences hold 4 feet. A crew that walked your property line and never looked at the sidewalk measured from the wrong thing.
Clay heaves posts here and depth plus drainage is the defense. A specific number in writing beats a confident tone. Vague is a no.
The brochure lists chain link and vinyl as prohibited and the scope is not obvious from the page. The right answer is a call to 303.739.7420 with the date written down, not a claim that everybody does it.
Colorado licenses electricians and plumbers at state level, and Aurora licenses building, roofing and mechanical contractors, but fencing is not a class anywhere in that stack. Ask for general liability insurance and a written scope covering height, setback, post depth, materials and gate hardware.
Common Questions About Fence Installation in Aurora CO
Do I need a permit for a fence in Aurora?
Per the city's residential fence brochure, wood, privacy, picket and rail fences do not require a permit. Other fence types may, so confirm yours with the Building Division on 303.739.7420.
No permit is not the good news it sounds like. Nothing gets plan checked, so a fence at the wrong height or setback stands until somebody complains.
How tall can a fence be in Aurora, Colorado?
Side and rear yard fences top out at 6 feet. Front yard fences are capped at 42 inches, cannot exceed 50 percent opacity and cannot have a solid base above 18 inches. Height and opacity are separate tests, so a tight picket at 42 inches can pass one and fail the other.
Can I install a vinyl or chain link fence in Aurora?
Aurora's fence brochure lists chain link and vinyl under prohibited materials. What it does not make clear is whether that covers the whole property or only the street frontage, since a privacy fence with a top rail appears as permitted in the same document.
Do not let a contractor settle that for you. Call 303.739.7420, ask about your specific yard, and note the date and who answered. Getting this wrong costs an entire fence.
What is a reverse corner lot?
A lot whose rear property line abuts the front yard of the interior lot next door. In Aurora that carries a 10 foot side yard setback.
Stand at your back fence line and look at what is on the other side. If you are looking at somebody's front lawn and their front door, ask the Building Division before you buy a panel.
Why did my fence posts lift and go crooked?
Expansive clay. Aurora sits on Front Range shrink and swell soil that takes on water and pushes upward, so posts heave instead of sinking, and they do it unevenly down the run.
Find the water source before you reset anything. A downspout beside a post or a low spot that ponds after a storm will lift the same section again.
Are fence installers licensed in Colorado?
No. Colorado licenses electricians and plumbers at state level and fencing is not on that list. Aurora issues its own contractor licenses for building, roofing, mechanical and a long list of specialties, and fencing is not there either.
So a licensed Aurora fence contractor is not a thing that exists. What is real: a general liability certificate, a written scope, and Aurora's public contractor lookup at coaapps.auroragov.org if the company also does building work.
Do you build the fence yourselves?
No. Contractor Palace matches you with insured Aurora fence crews and the crew you book does the work. The match costs you nothing.
Need a fence in Aurora? We will go find you a crew.
Tell us the run, the yard it sits in and whether you are on a corner. We match you with an insured Aurora fence crew that knows the 42 inch front cap, the sidewalk setbacks and how deep a post goes in this clay. You pay the crew, never us.
Get my free Aurora fence installation quotearrow_forward