Aurora Water tells council city cannot serve full planning boundary; staff to pursue comp-plan amendment

Aurora Water staff told the City Council that current and projected supplies cannot support the city’s full planning and annexation boundary and recommended a targeted reduction to avoid creating expectations the city cannot meet.

Daniel Grznowski introduced the briefing and turned the presentation over to water staff. Aurora Water explained the planning and annexation boundary (PAB) is a long-range tool found in the city’s comprehensive plan that defines where property owners may file annexation applications and where the city plans to extend services.

Staff provided the council with supply and demand metrics: modeled demand in 2020 is about 93,193 acre-feet; the system delivers roughly 55,000 acre-feet on average; and projected demand could reach about 116,000 acre-feet by 2060. Staff said losses in transport and evaporation—previously roughly 10%—have grown toward 20% due to a hotter, drier climate, and stressed that acquiring new water is expensive. Prairie Waters (a reuse facility) is a critical drought-proofing component and is planned to expand (staff cited current scale at about 10 MGD, with planned increases to 30 MGD and later to 50 MGD). Staff described an aspirational "Portfolio E" of projects for the Lower South Platte with estimated total buildout costs in the range of $1.5–$3 billion.

Given the gap between supply and potential buildout, staff recommended reducing the PAB and prioritizing infill and strategic annexations rather than allowing full boundary buildout. Planning commission review unanimously supported the proposed reduction and staff said the item will move forward as a comp-plan amendment for formal action.

What’s next: Staff will advance a comp-plan amendment to adjust the planning and annexation boundary and return with ordinance-level materials for council consideration.