About 30 years ago, Aurora and other Adams County communities caved on resisting a push from Denver to allow that city to annex huge tracts of land on the eastern plains to build a new airport instead of expanding Stapleton International Airport.
While some critics of Aurora and Adams County said communities out here were being needlessly parochial, there was solid logic behind not wanting Denver to build a new airport in Aurora’s backyard: money.
Few people pay attention to local politics and city boundaries, but the effects of separate municipal governments are real. Taxes pay for services — police, fire, libraries, recreation and roads all come from tax revenues. And the reality is, residential development not only doesn’t generate enough income to pay for all the services Aurora residents want and need, it’s often a net drain on the budget. It’s taxes paid by commercial development and businesses that really funds things like roads and schools.
Carving out a huge part of Adams County for a new airport and sending every dime of tax revenue back to Denver created a problem for the county, Aurora and Commerce City. Denver does not pay for Aurora services, and while Denver has an expansive buffet of cultural and recreational venues and programs, Aurora doesn’t have the cash to fund them. Just a few years ago, Aurora was forced to close libraries, and recreation expansion has been next to nil for decades, despite steady city growth. No one thing is to blame, but a relative dearth of commercial development rises to the top of the list of reasons why Aurora doesn’t have more arts, recreation and social amenities.
Knowing what the problem was then and would be in the future, Aurora and Adams County officials in 1988 forced Denver to agree that it could build DIA, but that city would be subjected to tight limits on commercial development outside the airport gates. Denver could keep all the cash it made from airport services, a substantial bevy of tax generators, but Aurora and Adams County would be able to reap the tax rewards from commercial development outside the airport gates when it would develop years down the line.
The time is now finally ripe for that commercial development, and Denver wants to change the rules.
While there really is no compelling reason for Aurora and other local governments to allow Denver to exploit property along its flagpole annexation for non-airport-related commercial development, the reality is that Denver will bully and connive its way into making it happen. So Aurora, Adams County and a few other local governments have created an amended agreement with Denver, allowing them limited commercial development opportunities along Pena Boulevard. In exchange, Aurora and other local governments get a cut of new tax revenues generated by Denver’s successes.
This only makes sense because it’s clear that Denver will eventually find a way around the 1988 pact. What makes the most sense for Aurora and Adams County is to draw those lucrative, job creating, tax-paying commercial businesses to the area themselves — and keep all the money for Aurora residential taxpayers, hungry for more and better city services and unwilling to raise residential or sales taxes to pay for them.
What Aurora has bartered looks like an acceptable compromise, but it’s not a victory. And it’s not a done deal.
Voters here, all across Adams County, and in Denver must sign off on this new DIA pact this November. As private groups and the media scrutinize this agreement, it will become more clear whether this compromise really is an acceptable way forward for the entire region, or a bum deal for Adams County taxpayers pushed around by Denver business interests.