Aurora’s long-simmering fight over a patch of pasture-like open space just south of East Jewell Avenue and South Joliet Street is headed toward construction. On Monday, the Aurora City Council voted 9-1 to rezone roughly four acres for a controversial "missing middle" project of paired homes and duplexes, with neighbors sharply divided over whether the change will stabilize the area or turn it upside down.
The plan from Urban Cottages LLC calls for about 30 paired homes, a scaled-back version of an earlier 40-unit concept that was trimmed after neighborhood feedback. The site plan won unanimous support from the Planning & Zoning Commission last September, and city staff had recommended the rezoning. Project designers said the revisions were meant to respond directly to neighbors and the physical constraints of the property, according to Sentinel Colorado.
Residents Say Safety, Drainage And Character Are At Risk
Opponents packed multiple hearings with a long list of technical concerns, including drainage, abandoned wells, a natural-gas distribution main running across the site, emergency access, and questions about the developer’s experience. Some residents told officials that hundreds of neighbors had signed a petition, according to public-meeting records. With tempers running high, the council put the case on hold last year amid heavy public comment before reviving the rezoning debate this week, per Citizen Portal.
Supporters on the dais framed the proposal as a small but important slice of "missing middle" housing in a city struggling with affordability. Councilmember Curtis Gardner argued that the project fits into a broader need for a wider range of homes, saying, "Aurora needs more housing and more housing diversity, and this is a small bit of missing middle housing that you all should be very excited to welcome into our city," as reported by Sentinel Colorado. Councilmember Francois Bergan warned that turning the plan down could open the door to an even denser apartment project later. In the end, the zoning map amendment passed 9-1, with Councilmember Stephanie Hancock casting the lone no vote.
What Comes Next
For now, the project remains on paper. The Planning & Zoning Commission’s approval came with conditions that require all remaining technical issues to be solved first, including right-of-way details, utilities, landscape buffers, and other engineering items. City staff and the commission have said those reviews and third-party checks must be finished before the site plan can be recorded or any building permits issued, according to Citizen Portal.
The decision fits into a broader pattern in Aurora, where officials have recently signed off on higher-density housing in other corners of the city, including a major push to add thousands of units at the Fitzsimons campus. That trend toward more housing capacity, detailed by The Real Deal, helped bolster council members who argued that relatively modest, for-sale paired homes would add useful variety to the local housing mix.
After the vote, both sides are essentially waiting on the same thing: engineering and permit reviews that will decide if the project ever breaks ground. Opponents say they will keep pressing the city to apply every technical standard on the books, while the developer maintains that its revised layout already reflects neighborhood input and that the remaining steps are mostly procedural hurdles on the way from concept to construction.
