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Aurora planning staff report faster reviews and higher volume in 2024; civil plan submissions rise
Summary
City planning and development staff told the Planning and Economic Development Committee that 2024 saw higher application volumes and improved on-time review rates, with civil construction plans up sharply and customer-service metrics near target.
Janine Restad, Aurora’s director of planning and business development, and Jacob Cox, director of development services, told the Planning and Economic Development (PED) Committee on Feb. 12 that development-review work in 2024 increased while the city improved review timeliness and customer service.
Staff said the department recorded an average of about 90% on-time performance across application stages in 2024. Jacob Cox said pre-application meetings rose about 25% from 2023, with 181 pre-application meetings last year and a 99% on-time rate for those meetings. Civil construction-plan submissions were up roughly 41% in 2024, staff reported.
Those metrics come alongside other measures staff highlighted: roughly 26,000 building permits issued, about 16,000 plan reviews completed, nearly 135,000 field inspections, and 78,489 calls to the permit center, which staff said were answered within 45 seconds 97% of the time.
Why this matters: faster and more predictable reviews can accelerate housing and commercial projects, affect city revenues and infrastructure timelines, and are factors in meeting state housing-related requirements that Aurora is tracking.
Cox described cultural shifts behind the numbers, saying the department is emphasizing collaboration with applicants rather than strict metric-driven rejections. "We want to make sure that developers see us as a partner," Cox said, adding that staff will sometimes take an extra day to coordinate with applicants so a single, final review letter closes issues rather than triggering additional rounds of resubmittal.
Staff described several operational changes contributing to results: consolidation of civil engineering, traffic review, land services and building review under one department; pilot projects to test new processes before code changes; revisions to timelines for civil plan reviews; and efforts to reduce late-stage comments that reject nearly-finished sets.
Staff also described ongoing modernization work. The citywide Amanda system work remains in progress; staff said civil plans and development application folders are being prepared in Amanda to improve business process and reduce administrative friction.
Committee members thanked staff for the work and asked about staffing and specific items. Cox said the 2025 budget added seven positions to support the workload and that the department is actively recruiting for a few hard-to-fill plan-review roles. Janine Restad said planning and development teams are coordinating closely with Aurora Water and other departments to implement changes and maintain consistency.
Less critical details: staff said renovation and smaller-project reviews remain strong (renovation reviews up 16%), while some large categories of new construction — notably multifamily unit counts — dipped in 2024, which staff said affects projected capital-impact fees.
Staff asked committee members to continue emphasizing early coordination and stakeholder outreach; no formal action or vote was taken during the presentation.
