HOA Fence Approval in Centennial: Getting Your Covenant Sign-Off Before You Build

In Centennial, getting a fence approved is usually two jobs, not one. The city runs its own fence permit, and if your property sits in a covenant-controlled community, your homeowners association runs a separate review. Plenty of homeowners pull the city permit, assume they are cleared to build, and only hear from the HOA after the posts are in the ground. This guide covers HOA fence approval in Centennial: how covenant review works, what your association is allowed to control, what changed under recent Colorado law, and how to line the two approvals up.

Your City Permit and Your HOA Are Two Separate Approvals

A city fence permit and an HOA approval are different approvals, with different reviewers and different criteria, and passing one says nothing about the other. Centennial requires [a fence permit for all new fences and for replacements that change height, location, or materials](https://www.centennialco.gov/Online-Services/Apply-for-a-Fence-Permit), and that permit checks setbacks, sight triangles, allowed materials, and inspection thresholds. Our guide to [fence permits in Centennial](/blog-post-fence-permit-centennial-co) walks through the city side in detail.

The HOA review is a private one, grounded in the covenants recorded against your subdivision. Colorado's common-interest communities operate under the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act, and the state's [HOA Information and Resource Center](https://dre.colorado.gov/hoa-center) exists to help owners understand their rights and responsibilities under that act. The center is a resource, not a referee: it does not mediate disputes, give legal advice, or overrule your board, so the covenant itself is the document that governs what you can build.

In practice a fence can be fully permit-legal and still break your covenants, or clear the HOA and still miss a city rule. In a covenant-controlled neighborhood you need both, so confirm you are in one before you design anything, because a large share of Centennial's subdivisions are governed by an association.

What Your Covenants Actually Control

Covenants usually reach further into design than the city code does. Where Centennial's permit is concerned with safety and land use, an association is concerned with appearance and consistency, so the recorded declaration and its design guidelines can dictate the material, the style, the height, the color or stain, and even which way the finished side of the fence has to face.

The rules that trip people up are the aesthetic ones. Many declarations require a specific material or a short menu of approved options, ban chain link in visible yards, cap height below what the city allows, or require the smooth side of a wood fence to face the street. If your neighborhood standardizes on a look, a [wood fence installation](/wood-fence-installation) may need a particular picket profile, or the community may be a [vinyl](/vinyl-fence-installation) or [ornamental iron and aluminum](/ornamental-iron-aluminum-fence-installation) neighborhood by rule rather than by taste.

When a covenant and a city rule disagree, the stricter one wins, because you have to satisfy both. If your HOA caps fences at six feet and the city would allow eight in the rear yard, six feet is your real ceiling. Read the declaration and any design guidelines before you price the job, and treat them as the tighter of the two rulebooks.

How the Architectural Review Process Works

Most covenant communities route fence requests through an architectural review committee, sometimes called the ARC or a design review board. The owner submits a request before construction, the committee measures it against the guidelines, and work is not supposed to start until it is approved in writing. Building first and asking later is the single most expensive mistake in this process.

A complete submission moves faster and draws fewer questions. Expect to provide a site plan showing where the fence will run, the height, the material and color, and often the finished-side orientation; some committees also want a survey or a neighbor's acknowledgment. Vague requests get held for clarification, so the closer your application looks to a finished plan, the shorter the wait.

Timelines are set by your declaration, not by the state, and they vary widely. Many governing documents give the committee a defined window to respond, and some treat silence past that window as approval, but you should never assume that default applies to yours without reading it. When in doubt, submit early and follow up rather than starting on the strength of a deadline you have not confirmed.

What Colorado Law Changed About HOA Enforcement

Colorado tightened the rules on how associations enforce their covenants in 2022, and the changes matter if a fence dispute ever arises. Under [House Bill 22-1137](https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb22-1137), an association has to notify an owner of a violation and, for anything not tied to public safety, allow two thirty-day periods to cure it before the HOA can take legal action. The same law bars associations from charging daily fines that stack up while a violation sits unresolved.

Those protections are real, but they are a backstop, not a plan. They slow enforcement and cap some of its cost; they do not make an unapproved fence compliant, or stop an association from ultimately requiring you to modify or remove one that breaks the covenants. Leaning on the cure period instead of getting approval up front just means you may end up altering a finished fence on the association's schedule rather than building the right one on yours.

Remember too that the association enforces the private covenant while the city separately enforces its code. A single fence can draw an HOA violation notice and a city code-compliance case at once, for different reasons, and clearing one does nothing for the other.

Building Without Approval Is the Expensive Path

The worst outcome is a fence you have already paid for that has to come down or be rebuilt. When an unapproved fence violates the covenants, the fix is usually to bring it into compliance at the owner's expense: re-staining it a different color, cutting it to an approved height, swapping a prohibited material, or removing it altogether. None of that is cheap once the concrete has set.

Neighbor complaints usually open the file. In a community where everyone signed onto the same rules, a fence that ignores them is visible to exactly the people most motivated to report it, and boards tend to act on complaints even when they might have let a quiet variation pass. The cheapest fence is the one approved before it went up.

This is also why material and design decisions are worth settling with the covenant open in front of you. If your neighborhood effectively mandates a look, the choice between [composite](/composite-fence-installation) and wood, or a solid panel versus an open ornamental run, may already be made for you, and it is better to learn that before the estimate than after.

Line Up the HOA Sign-Off and the City Permit Together

Sequence the two approvals so they overlap instead of running end to end. Start with the covenant, because HOA rules on material, height, and style are usually the tightest constraint and they shape the design the city will later permit. Once the committee signs off, the city permit confirms the setbacks, sight triangles, and inspection threshold for a design you already know your association will accept.

Then, before anyone digs, comes the safety step. Colorado law requires you to [contact Colorado 811 at least three business days before digging](https://www.colorado811.org/), and that applies to fence post holes and to homeowners doing their own work, not just contractors. Post holes along a property line run straight through where gas, electric, and irrigation lines tend to sit, so the locate is not a formality.

Handled in series, covenant review plus permit review plus a locate window can stretch past a month. Handled together, with a complete review packet and the permit moving in parallel, the same approvals take a fraction of that, and you are not paying a crew to wait on paperwork.

Centennial HOA Fence Questions

Does HOA approval replace my city fence permit?

No. They are separate approvals with separate reviewers. The HOA reviews your fence against the neighborhood's covenants; the city reviews it against its building and land-use code. In a covenant-controlled community you need both, and one never stands in for the other.

How long does architectural review take?

It depends on your declaration, which sets the committee's response window; there is no statewide clock. Some governing documents treat a lack of response within that window as approval, but confirm the exact terms in your own documents rather than assume it. Submitting a complete plan up front is the surest way to avoid a delay.

Can my HOA make me take down a fence I already built?

Yes, if it violates the covenants. Colorado's HB22-1137 requires the association to send notice and, for non-safety issues, allow two thirty-day periods to cure before legal action, and it prohibits daily fines, but the eventual remedy can still be modifying or removing the fence at your cost. Getting approval before construction avoids the whole situation.

What if my HOA's rules are stricter than the city's?

The stricter rule controls, because you have to meet both. If your covenants cap height, limit materials, or ban chain link where the city allows it, the covenant is your real limit. Design to the tighter of the two rulebooks and the looser one takes care of itself.