AURORA | Adams County, Aurora and Denver are at an impasse over how to build out the area around Denver International Airport.
Millions of dollars in future tax revenue from the development around the airport is on the table. But the three communities still haven’t struck a compromise, though several letters — some critical — have been sent back and forth over the past two months and the prospect of a lawsuit looms.
Formal negotiations about Denver’s Airport City plan began in January.
Denver lawmakers’ vision is to draw businesses in the aviation, aerospace, logistics, renewable energy, bioscience and agrotech industries to the area around Denver International Airport over the next 20 years. To do that, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock proposes to create a special district that would split most of the tax revenue generated by commercial development around DIA. Hancock’s proposal, sent to Adams County and Aurora officials May 31, is to split most of the tax revenue generated from the special district among Aurora, Adams County, Commerce City and Denver. The money could be used by those communities for road improvements, bridges and other public infrastructure projects.
“This proposal would open a new chapter in regional sharing by further leveraging the economic benefits of DIA to plan and build much-needed infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer,” Hancock wrote in the letter.
Hancock said the special district could generate hundreds of millions of dollars for off-airport infrastructure projects over the next several decades.
But Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said June 4 he won’t support any proposal to do that unless it makes money for Aurora.
In his letter, Hogan lambasted an idea by Hancock to create a special district that would split the revenue generated by commercial development around DIA.
Hogan said Hancock’s revenue-sharing proposal violates a 1988 Intergovernmental Agreement between Denver and Adams County. Under that contract, Adams County voters de-annexed 54 square miles of county land so Denver could build DIA, with the promise that economic development would take place around the airport. Hogan said Hancock’s proposal would require an amendment to the contract and create a new layer of government that will assess a new tax, but Aurora residents wouldn’t get much out of it.
“My Council does not believe this is revenue sharing,” Hogan said in the letter. “Denver would keep every cent it receives from property taxes, sales taxes, employment taxes and any other taxes.”
Hogan said he’s uncertain whether any revenue Aurora received from the new tax would even be usable for public infrastructure projects under the legal terms of the Intergovernmental Agreement.
“I cannot, in good conscience, go to my citizens and tell them this is a fair deal,” Hogan wrote.
“Aurora is increasingly concerned that we have been meeting and talking about this issue for more than a year without resolution,” he wrote. “In the meantime, a cloud is hanging over economic development around DIA and that is not in the best interests of regionalism.”
In another letter to Denver from Adams County sent June 7, an Adams County attorney said Denver’s proposed development of Airport City is a “substantial breach of the IGA.”
“We demand that Denver stop its planning efforts to develop airport property in a manner that would violate the IGA,” wrote Heidi Miller, acting county attorney. Under the contract, land that Denver doesn’t plan to use for airport purposes must be returned to Adams County, Miller said.
That “default” letter paves the way for a potential lawsuit.
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com.