Aurora has given a green light to the construction of potentially hundreds of houses half a mile from Denver International Airport’s next planned runway, highlighting growing concerns over what an explosion of new neighborhoods near the airport may mean for future homeowners.

Officials from the airport recently lobbied the Aurora City Council over the next phase of High Point at DIA, a 1,152-acre mixed-use community just southwest of the airport, pleading with the city not to open the door to homes being built so close to the airfield.

“The property in question will be subject both to overflights and to single-event noise exposure from current airport operations, and will experience significantly increased noise impacts once the master-planned future runway south of Peña Boulevard is built,” Rachel Marion, DIA’s director of government affairs, told the council in December. “This level of noise exposure is not good for residents, and it is not good for airport operations.”

Marion reminded Aurora’s elected leaders that noise and safety concerns 25 years ago led to the relocation of Stapleton International Airport far from where people live.

But in recent years, developments on once-vacant land surrounding DIA have sprouted in Commerce City to the west and in Aurora and Denver to the south — with many more in the planning stages — giving airport officials the uneasy sense that the rapidly growing metro area is fast encroaching on DIA.

George Merritt, senior vice president of government and community affairs for the airport, says there is a sense of “creep” as new homes and businesses advance on DIA.

“We’re seeing this come closer and closer to the airport,” he said. “This is not an Aurora-only issue.”

But Aurora, which for years has been planning significant commercial and residential projects in the vicinity of DIA, said High Point is outside of the airport’s noise contour in which residential construction is prohibited. And that noise map is forward-looking, accounting for impacts from all 12 runways that one day could be up and running at DIA.

Currently, the airport has six runways.

“It’s like any development — it’s all a question of balance,” said Jason Batchelor, deputy city manager of Aurora.

Outside noise contours

The city says it has taken steps to minimize noise impacts to future residents, chiefly by guiding any proposed residential development to the west side of E-470 — away from the airport.

“We understand the concern of the airport, but we’ve worked with developers to remove residential (elements) east of E-470,” Batchelor said. “This development has hit a sore spot with them but I would point to the overall balance of our actions.”

There are a half-dozen large projects planned along East 64th Avenue in Aurora, including High Point, Painted Prairie, Avelon, Harvest Mile and Porteos, where hundreds of new homes and thousands of square feet of commercial space could eventually go in.

Batchelor noted that the developments closest to the airport, like Porteos and Harvest Mile, will mostly encompass office and industrial uses that would be impacted less by nearby takeoffs and landings at DIA than residents would be.

Then there’s the reality, Batchelor said, that many property owners and developers have legal entitlements to build homes in the area, based on land-use agreements hammered out years ago.

“Once somebody goes through the planning process, it vests certain property rights to them,” he said.

In the end, Batchelor said, the decision by Aurora City Council last week to redesignate the High Point parcel from “urban district” to “emerging neighborhood” allows developer Westside Investment Partners to shift its crop of future detached single-family homes just a few hundred feet to the north of where they would have been allowed anyway under the city’s comprehensive plan.

The result of that shift, he said, is that land right along East 64th Avenue that would have been populated with homes can now be turned into commercial or entertainment uses, fueled in part by guests staying at the nearby 1,501-room Gaylord Rockies Resort & Conference Center.

“We would like to develop that property to the best and highest use and that includes activating 64th,” Batchelor said.

Andrew Klein, founder of Glendale-based Westside Investment Partners, said his firm has already agreed to reduce the acreage dedicated to residential development at High Point from 450 acres to 150 acres.

Westside will only work with reputable homebuilders who will mitigate the potential impacts of aircraft noise, such as using thicker insulation and installing triple-pane windows, Klein said. Ultimately, he said, it will be up to prospective homeowners to go into the purchasing process with eyes wide open.

“At some point, we have to give credit to people that they are smart enough to know they are buying a home close to DIA,” Klein said.

Denver more restrictive

DIA’s Merritt said the airport’s concern centers around High Point’s plans for single-family detached homes so close to DIA’s future seventh runway. That type of housing, he said, is particularly vulnerable to noise because it lacks adjoining units that can act as a sound barrier, and residents typically have a yard in which to spend time outdoors.

That’s why Denver has agreed to limit all residential development near the airport to areas south of East 64th Avenue. Furthermore, the city committed to allowing no single-family detached housing to be built north of East 56th Avenue.

Laura Swartz, spokeswoman for Denver’s Community Planning and Development office, said the logic behind the city’s decision to restrict homebuilding close to DIA “is to learn from the lessons of Stapleton Airport and prevent the encroachment of incompatible development on DEN.”

“It’s our understanding that Aurora takes a different approach and uses actual noise contour lines to determine where residential is/isn’t allowed,” she said. “This has the end result of Aurora allowing residential in similarly situated land where Denver prohibits it.”

Future noise issues played a role in the Aurora Planning Commission’s decision in November to deny Westside’s requested change to the city’s comprehensive plan. The airport’s Merritt said he was “stunned” that the City Council went the other direction last week.

“The vote sets a precedent that is inconsistent with decades of joint land-use planning and threatens the region’s economic engine, all within a generation of relocating our airport because of issues related to residential noise exposure,” he said.

Particularly vexing to DIA is that Aurora is permitting homes close to the airport at the same time it is suing DIA for alleged noise violations in neighborhoods much further away from the airport. The city joined with Thornton, Brighton and Adams County in asking a judge to compel DIA to pay $33.5 million for noise violations. No ruling has been issued in that case.

“This airport has been a vital piece of the success of the community over the last 25 years,” Merritt said. “And perhaps no community stands to benefit over the next 25 years more than Aurora. It’s important that we plan thoughtfully so that we don’t close out an opportunity for the airport and the community to reach full potential together.”