The Aurora City Council tackled several major city topics at a Saturday winter workshop, moving forward with ADA accessibility improvements for the council chambers, addressing concerns about the Regional Navigation Campus and debating a new impact fee for businesses.

In recent meetings, members of the public have spoken to the council during public comment about improving ADA accessibility in the council chambers, which are currently not compliant with ADA standards.

Talk about improving the chambers started in 2021, when officials conducted a space study for the Aurora Municipal Center.

In 2022, officials allocated $750,000 in ARPA funds for the design and construction of ramps to the council floor and accessible seating.

A final design was completed in 2023 but the City Council deferred construction in February 2024, asking for a full ADA study across the city before moving forward.

In December, an ADA review found the council chambers out of compliance with current standards, Deputy City Manager Laura Perry said.

To implement the existing design would cost about $975,000, Perry said Saturday. Construction would also require a full closure of the chambers for about eight months.

Officials also recommended additional updates to the design, Perry said, which would likely cost about $100,000. Once the new design is ready, in about four to six months, construction will begin, she said.

Councilmembers on Saturday discussed in-person meeting alternatives, including moving meetings to the Aurora Public Library in the interim, but did not make a final decision.

Perry also updated councilmembers on the Regional Navigation Campus, which is still undergoing construction and has raised several concerns over the last month.

The navigation campus — formerly a Crowne Plaza hotel — at 15500 E. 40th Ave. has been in the works for more than a year after the city purchased the building in May 2024 for $26.5 million.

The 600-person facility opened Nov. 17 under operator Advance Pathways.

In recent council meetings, concerns about the living quality on the campus have come up. In January, Perry informed the council of plumbing issues in tier one and tier two. Those issues have been fixed, she said Saturday.

Pet kennel construction and ongoing construction on tier three are projected to be complete by the end of the month, Perry added, saying they still anticipate other construction and maintenance issues to arise due to the building’s age.

Long term, she said, the city intends to construct an outdoor recreation area for guests and add respite beds.

Stephanie Keiper, the city’s homeless services manager, pointed to early successes at the campus in terms of numbers.

As of Dec. 31, Advance had enrolled 10 people in its Workbridge Affiliate Program, in which residents of the campus help keep the inside and outside clean, Keiper said. They also had 94 guests enrolled in case management services.

From the day the navigation campus opened to Dec. 31, the campus day center served 1,081 different people, she added. They have also served 55,700 meals.

In November, when the campus first opened, 159 people on average stayed on the campus each night. In the first month, only the low-barrier tier one beds were open.

Throughout December, the campus’s tier one beds slept about 264 people on average each night. Tier two, which provides more private sleeping space and requires people to be actively involved in case management, had 10 people per night on average. Tier three, which requires people to be working and sober and provides hotel room-style sleeping arrangements, had five people, Keiper said.

Preliminary January numbers showed an average of 280 people per night in tier one, 46 in tier two and four in tier three, she said.

In December, 36 people moved from tier one to tier two, Keiper said. None moved to tier three.

Advance has guest grievance forms through which people have reported concerns including stolen medication, food allergy accommodation needs and a need for senior-specific resources, Perry said.

Some people have provided positive feedback as well, notably saying they can finally sleep at night and access consistent medical care, she added.

Mayor Mike Coffman said Saturday that he was proud of the city’s work to get the campus up and running.

“Because of the cold weather, we opened it prematurely,” Coffman said. “It’s a tradeoff for the building not being ready, but you’ve navigated it very well.”

Also Saturday, the council discussed the possibility of adding transportation impact fees for non-residential land uses, which would be phased in over the next two and a half years, according to Perry.

The council did not formally approve anything Saturday, but debated the pros and cons of such fees, which would target non-residential developers. There is already a transportation impact fee for residential developers, and Perry pointed to fairness and a need for infrastructure funding as reasons for widening the fee’s applicability.

Under the recommended fee plan, new fees would phase in starting July 1 for any new land-use applicants, Perry said. The council could choose how to phase those fees in, and Perry recommended charging 25% of the full rate through 2028, then charging half the full rate until the 2.5-year mark.

Maximum rates the council could choose to charge per square foot would be $16.47 for retail and shopping centers, $9.60 for offices, $4.93 for industrial, $1.43 for warehouses, $1.04 for mini warehouses and $5,706.81 per room for hotels.

Councilmembers and staff will continue to look into the possible fee and meet with members of the public and business community to figure out how best to address it.

The full Saturday winter workshop can be watched on Aurora’s YouTube Channel.