TO: Mayor Richard C. Irvin
FROM: Trevor Dick, Director of Development Strategy and Facilitation
DATE: March 12, 2021
SUBJECT:title
A staff report regarding outdoor dining throughout the City of Aurora for the 2021 season including a newly streamlined temporary outdoor dining application and approval process, as well as a new pilot program for parklets to better accommodate restaurants.
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PURPOSE:
Outdoor dining opportunities for our local restaurants is extremely important especially during the COVID 19 Pandemic. Last summer the City through it's "Activate Aurora" program quickly created a simple application and review process to help support temporary outdoor dining throughout the City. As a brief refresher, Activate Aurora was created in April 2020 with the shared goal of reopening our economy. The guide was a collaborative effort between the City of Aurora, Invest Aurora, and the Aurora Area Chamber of Commerce. The purpose of the report was to provide guidance to local retail and restaurants in the City of Aurora with a focus on opening safe and healthy businesses for both employees and visitors. The goals were: 1) to expedite our ability to assist businesses in resuming service while taking preventative measures; 2) to establish a safe and healthy working environment; 3) and to decrease the rate of infections.
Last summer's program that allowed permits for temporary outdoor dining was extremely successful throughout the City and restaurants in all of our Wards took advantage. The City created flexibility in our requirements to allow "nontraditional" dining spaces including within portions of surface parking lots, on City ROW, and on private property. As we continue to navigate through the pandemic in 2021 staff desires to continue to support outdoor dining in a similar fashion as we did in 2020.
BACKGROUND:
Outdoor dining was a successful way for most restaurants in the City to remain open to serve dine-in customers in a safe and socially dista...
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