Aurora scales back Gaylord Rockies urban renewal area amid concerns about new state law

AURORA | Aurora City Council Monday voted to scale back the urban renewal area set aside for the massive Gaylord Rockies Hotel and Conference Center after a city lawyer said a new state law could impact the embattled project.

The timing of the resolution’s near-unanimous passage — Councilwoman Renie Peterson as the lone dissenting vote — and the careful wording of the resolution were  prompted by a new state urban renewal law giving counties, school districts and special districts more say in urban renewal projects — something that has Aurora’s City Attorney Mike Hyman concerned.

“House Bill 1348 affects future urban renewal and urban renewal where there’s a substantial modification to the plan,” Hyman said, referring to the bill that was signed into law last month by Gov. John Hickenlooper. “We don’t think the bill will have any impact on this urban renewal area, but the bill created a great deal of uncertainty. We don’t know what the world is going to be like under 1348.” 

Monday’s resolution shrinks the planned urban renewal area for the 1,500-room hotel from 125 acres to 85 acres. The project is in a rural and undeveloped part of the city, north of East 64th Avenue, east of what will be an extension of Himalaya Road. Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan and city council members Barb Cleland and Bob Roth were absent from the meeting.

Hyman said the site for the urban renewal area initially was set at 125 acres due to the owner negotiating the land deal at the time and uncertainty over the exact placement of the site in the fall of 2011.

The resolution was specifically worded to note that the city did not view the change as a substantial modification, which would make the plan subject to the provisions of HB 1348 once it takes effect in August.

The urban renewal bill gives counties and school districts three voting seats on 13-member urban renewal authorities if they are within the boundaries of an urban renewal project.  Aurora  has an 11-member city council who also all serve as voting members on the Aurora Urban Renewal Authority.

Urban renewal areas are typically funded through the property and sales taxes generated from present and future development in the area for up to 25 years in a subsidy system known as tax increment financing (TIF).

Under the new law, all of the entities will have to agree on how and when TIF monies are pledged to a developer, and on ways to offset the impacts of new development. If an agreement can’t be reached on a project, it will go through a binding mediation process.

Hyman said the language of the bill made it confusing to understand how those voting members would be applied to the Gaylord hotel project and to urban renewal projects in general.

Aurora is one of several Colorado municipalities that has noted concerns about the impacts of the bill.

Outgoing Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach was among several city leaders who spoke out against the bill in May and said it would jeopardize pending urban renewal projects, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Aurora is still appealing an Adams County ruling that negated Aurora’s urban renewal plan for Gaylord, according to Hyman. In February, an Adams County ruling upheld a lawsuit filed against the city by two Aurora residents who claimed a 2011 vote on the project violated Colorado’s Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR). The judge ruled for the residents, saying that the election to help spur the $300 million in tax incentives for the project did not adhere to TABOR and was invalid.

In Aurora, the Aurora Urban Renewal Authority now controls 14 urban renewal areas across the city, which make up about 2 percent of the city’s total land area, according to AURA manager Andrea Amonick.