AURORA | A proposal to limit the number of businesses in Aurora that some say pose health and safety risks to neighborhoods won’t roll out before lawmakers and the community scrutinize it, according to city council plan proponents.
“I don’t want to necessarily refer to these businesses as ‘unsavory.’ I think we talk about them having a role in society,” Aurora Manager of Financing Trevor Vaughn told the Sentinel. “Our concern is regarding the concentration and balance of the retail environment.”
Lawmakers will decide whether vape shops, liquor stores, check-cashing outlets and similar businesses near each other attract or even cause crime and neighborhood deterioration, and whether limiting them can reverse that.
City lawmakers last week discussed what city planners are calling a Socioeconomic Impact Permit. The proposed plan would be to identify which businesses are deemed problematic and regulate them, preventing them from concentrating in strip malls and neighborhoods across Aurora.
If approved by the city council, the proposal would limit targeted businesses by creating new zoning regulations. The measure was moved forward by a council committee last week to a future city council study session.
The idea of business types causing crime and health problems stems from the “Risk Terrain Modeling” theory developed by Joel Caplan of Rutgers’ School of Criminal Justice. “There’s a TED talk where Joel Caplan talks about risk terrain modeling and focusing on places and not people,” Vaughn said.
The theory suggests that some businesses, especially drawn to set up in low-income and minority communities, attract police calls for a variety of issues and crimes. By limiting the concentration of those businesses, cities can reduce the need for police activity and profiling people who patronize them as possible suspects.
“The example we tend to immediately gravitate towards, is the Colfax corridor in that Peoria to Yosemite area, where you have a lot of these types of businesses concentrated but not necessarily a great balance with other retail sales and services,” Vaughn said.
While existing targeted businesses would be allowed to continue operating, future, new businesses would be limited under the new proposed restrictions. If an established targeted business leaves a vacancy, the proposal would allow a landlord to lease to the same kind of business — but only within six months.
The proposal calls for at least 300 feet between the restricted business types, which would effectively prevent multiple targeted businesses in most strip malls and retail centers. If approved, it would preclude, for example, a liquor store from being closer than 300 feet from a vape shop.
Two restricted businesses of the same type would have to be at least 2,000 feet apart, according to the proposal, further limiting concentrations of businesses like vape shops.
In addition, restricted businesses would have to be 500 feet from light-rail stations and major bus junctions. There are also specific restrictions for extended-occupancy motels that would require 1,000 feet of distance from any other targeted business.
A revision of the proposal gives special consideration to convenience stores. The change came after some business lobbyists pointed out that some small markets do sell products such as vapes that the proposal deems problematic. Some of the stores, however, provide critical access, too, to groceries in what are increasingly so-called food deserts.
Vaughn says he hopes implementing the business restrictions would provide a boost for Aurora’s retail centers, and draw new and more desirable businesses, especially in blighted or poorly maintained, vacant retail properties.
“We talk about it as perhaps a downward spiral, where you’re going with these uses because it may just be the easier thing to do rather than figuring out how to get your retail center to spiral up,” said Vaughn.
Proponents say much of the focus and need for the proposal targets northwest Aurora and especially, the East Colfax Avenue corridor. The region is represented by Councilmember Gianina Horton.
She said she’s open to pursuing the ordinance, but she’s skeptical.
“So I’m not for it at the moment,” Horton said. “I am in a state of learning more about the need for this impact report as well as how the community is going to really respond to it. If this ordinance goes forward, it will impact Ward One tremendously.”
Some members of the city council and the business community have questioned whether it oversteps the concept of free markets.
Horton said she also has concerns about the effects of the proposed ordinance on the small-business community and gentrification of some neighborhoods in her council ward.
“From a developer’s perspective, that is a ripe opportunity to really flip a neighborhood,” Horton said. “To invest in large apartment complexes and big stores and move the small businesses out.”
Horton said there are numerous projects poised to bring change to northwest Aurora, and they need to be considered together.
“Ward one is on the precipice of immense change,” Horton said. “We are mitigating gentrification and displacement of residents who have lived in this area for a very long time.”
Others on the city council have already signaled they like the idea.
Councilmember Alison Coombs said the change would give more attractive businesses the opportunity to move into vacancies previously owned by hookah lounges or liquor stores.
Coombs, who is the bill’s sponsor, said optics plays a large part in public conduct surrounding certain types of businesses.
She said conduct like loitering, drinking and doing drugs in public are linked to the businesses targeted by the proposal, and that they’re a turn-off to potential owners of more desirable types of operations.
“If there’s a center that’s primarily occupied by liquor stores, vape shops, check-cashing places, pawn shops, those aren’t businesses that other tenants aren’t interested in locating near,” Coombs said.
She said she’s confident the measure would provide ample opportunity for more businesses like coffee shops and bakeries to plant their flag in Aurora neighborhoods.
Proponents of the measure say there is a plan to provide for substantive community engagement in how the measure might be implemented, including public meetings.
“We want to make sure we give people the opportunity to have a meeting and come on and be heard regarding this topic and then make any adjustments on that,” Vaughn said.
Horton said she’s expecting that.
“Everything needs to take a step back, look at the wording, and the language of the ordinance with a fine tooth comb.”