Apache Junction Building Permit and Impact Fees for a New Home: The $6,736 Development Fee

A new home in Apache Junction, in Pinal County, carries two separate buckets of city money. First, a building permit and plan review fee, priced off the value of your construction. Second, a development impact fee, the larger charge that pays for the streets, parks, police, and library service your home will use. This page gives you the real impact-fee numbers from the city's own ordinance, plus the basis for the permit fee, so you can put accurate line items in your budget.

The development impact fee is $6,736 for a single-family home

Impact fees are charges a city collects on new construction to pay for the public infrastructure that growth requires. Arizona authorizes them under A.R.S. 9-463.05. Apache Junction adopted its current schedule by City Council Ordinance 1521, effective October 31, 2022, and codified it in Volume II, Chapter 7 of the City Code. The city assesses four categories on a new home, and the Appendix 7-A schedule sets each one per housing unit:

Single Family, Per Housing Unit: Library $550, Parks and Recreation $1,707, Police $1,229, Streets $3,250. Total Development Fee $6,736.

So a single detached home pays $6,736 in combined development impact fees. The streets fee, at $3,250, is the largest single piece, because it is built from the average vehicle-miles a new home generates. Parks ($1,707), police ($1,229), and library ($550) follow. Apache Junction has no city water or sewer impact fee in this schedule, since those four categories are what the city adopted. The development fee is collected up front, as the city code makes plain:

No building permit or certificate of occupancy shall be issued if a development fee is not paid.

So the $6,736 is part of the cash you bring to pull the permit, not a later bill.

How the building permit fee is calculated

Separate from the impact fee, Apache Junction charges a building permit and plan review fee. For a house, the city does not use the ICC valuation table it applies to commercial projects. It sets the fee from a flat square-foot rate in its adopted fee schedule (Ordinance 1469): $1.20 per square foot for the first story with an $850 minimum, $1.05 per square foot for each additional story, and $0.80 per square foot for occupied roof or covered area. Plan review is charged alongside the permit.

Because the rate is per square foot, you can estimate the permit fee before you apply. A single-story 3,000 square foot home comes to about $3,600 in permit fee (3,000 square feet at $1.20), comfortably above the $850 minimum, with plan review added on top. The City Council adjusts the fee schedule over time, so confirm the current rate with Apache Junction Development Services at 480-474-5090. The development impact fee is separate and fully published at $6,736 for a single-family home.

When these fees come into play

• At first permit. The development fee is calculated and collected with the application for the first building or electrical permit. The city will not release the permit until the fee is paid in full.
• The 24-month freeze. Under City Code 7-1-13(D)(1) and A.R.S. 9-463.05, once the first building permit issues for a single-unit residential development, the city locks that development's fee schedule for 24 months at the permittee's request, so a later fee increase does not catch your project mid-build.
• Valuation drives the permit fee. Because the permit fee runs off the ICC valuation table, a larger or higher-value home pays a larger permit fee, on top of the flat $6,736 impact fee.

What this means for you

Budget two separate numbers. The first is firm: the $6,736 single-family development impact fee, due up front at permit, split as $3,250 streets, $1,707 parks, $1,229 police, and $550 library. The second is the building permit and plan review fee, which scales with your home's ICC-table valuation and which you should confirm with the city for your specific valuation. If you have a single-unit residential lot, ask the city to lock your fee schedule for 24 months when your first permit issues. Apache Junction collects no separate city water or sewer impact fee in this chapter, so if your lot is on septic or a private well, budget those through Pinal County and the state instead.

This entry sits in the Apache Junction building-codes module alongside Apache Junction Residential Building Permit Requirements , which covers what you submit, and Apache Junction Adopted Building Codes , which covers the standards your plans are checked against. For how the permit basis differs across the metro, see valuation versus per-square-foot permit pricing in Arizona and how much a building permit costs in Arizona .

Source

The $6,736 single-family total and the four category amounts are reproduced from the City of Apache Junction's Volume II, Chapter 7 development-fee schedule (Appendix 7-A, Ordinance 1521), a public record published on the city's Development Services Fees page. The collection-at-permit and 24-month-freeze rules are codified in City Code Section 7-1-13 . The permit office is the Division of Building Safety and Inspection , and the statute behind impact fees is A.R.S. 9-463.05 .

These fees change by city action, and the per-valuation permit-fee figures are not posted in a machine-readable form. Confirm the current impact fee and the permit fee for your valuation with Apache Junction Development Services before you rely on any number here for a budget.