AURORA | The city is seeking feedback from residents over whether to implement gas station buffers to prevent new developments from locating near residences or congregating near one another.
Comments can be submitted online at EngageAurora.org/GasStations through Oct. 31 on four different buffer proposals. The proposed options are a quarter-mile or half-mile buffer around existing gas stations or a fifth-mile or half-mile buffer around residential areas. The city is also considering requiring stations to have electric vehicle charging stations.
Currently, the city prevents new gas stations from locating within 500 feet of daycare centers, hospitals, schools and nursing or group homes, as well as an intersection with two existing gas stations or other auto-related businesses.
City council returned to the conversation around gas station buffers earlier this year when a new gas station was built on Alameda Avenue, immediately next to another gas station.
At a July committee meeting, council members supported staff moving forward with public engagement on the topic and a plan to bring a proposal before city council later this year or early 2027.
According to 9News reporting, other cities in Colorado that restrict gas stations include Denver, Lakewood and Louisville.
Lakewood requires new stations to be located at least a half-mile from existing stations and must include a minimum of three EV chargers. Denver limits new gas stations from opening within a quarter-mile of existing stations or light rail stops and prohibits them near certain residential neighborhoods.
Here is one Aurora’s citizen input to any buffer zones. Let the free market be free and let business people make these decisions. Let local politicians attempt to take care of local problems like asset decay, local safety and fire protection. Water, too but Marshall Brown has his own ideas about that and the politicians leave him alone to do what he wants with that department. Sooner or later someone will discover that Marshall is not Aurora Citizen’s ally or friend. I suspect much later.
The local socialists in politics, in Aurora are doing everything they can to disrupt those things in capitalism to further their cause while Aurora decays.
Between this and the “harmful business” ordinance, the council seems pretty bent on making large sections of Aurora consist of vacant lots and empty buildings. I agree that gas stations, liquor stores, and vape shops may not be the most desirable types of businesses, but at least they are still an operating business that provides a few jobs and generates much needed tax revenue.
Banning or limiting certain types of businesses isn’t going to create or encourage other business to move in, it’s just going to create more vacant store fronts and abandoned property that signal to potential residents and commercial investors that Aurora is not a place anyone wants to be.