Arvada, CO Building Safety: Childcare Center Rules (2026)

Section 3-1-3-6(D) sets two use-specific standards for a "Day Care Center, Adult or Child" beyond the district-by-district use table in Section 3-1-2-4, which controls where the use is permitted, limited, or conditional across Arvada's zoning districts, allowed by right in several commercial and mixed-use districts but only conditionally, or not at all, in most single-family residential zones. The access standard requires the center to take access from an arterial or collector street, with a narrow carve-out for a corner lot where the local-street frontage does not also serve any single-family detached or duplex residential lots between the intersection and the center's own access point. That keeps day care traffic off streets designed for house-front driveways.

The Code's definitions section separately distinguishes a "Day Care Center, Child," covering day-care centers, before- and after-school programs, nursery schools, kindergartens, preschools, and day camps, from a "Day Care, Child" home-based use and from "Family Child Care Homes" regulated instead under Section 3-1-5-2, Home Child Care, which governs child care operated inside a residential dwelling unit and requires only that the operator reside on the property, generate no excess noise at the property line, and avoid adding off-street parking, with the licensed capacity itself set by the state, not the City. A stand-alone commercial Day Care Center, by contrast, is a distinct land use subject to the Section 3-1-3-6(D) access and size standards and to whatever use classification applies to it in the applicable zoning district's use table.