January 18, 2005

The Board of Commissioners of the City of Lawrence met in regular session at 6:35 p.m. in the City Commission Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Rundle presiding and members Dunfield, Hack, Highberger, and Schauner present.  Lawrence High School Student Representative Justin Isbell was present.

PROCLAMATION

            Al & Sue Hack presented a Van Go bench to the City of Lawrence.

CONSENT AGENDA

            As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to receive the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting minutes of December 2, 2004; the Sign Code Board of Appeals meeting minutes of December 2, 2004; the Library Board meeting minutes of December 20, 2004; and the Sister Cities Advisory Board meeting minutes of December 8, 2004.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to approve claims to 231 vendors in the amount of $957,411.37.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to approve the Drinking Establishment Licenses for Rudy’s Pizzeria, 704 Massachusetts Street; 8^th Street Tap Room, 801 New Hampshire Street; and Abe & Jakes Landing, 8 E. 6^th Street.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to concur with the recommendation of the Mayor and appoint Jim Stogsdill to the Aviation Advisory Board to a term which will expire on May 31, 2005; appoint Dan Wilkus and reappoint Tom Waechter to the Fire Code Board of Appeals, both to terms which will expire January 31, 2008; appoint Kittye Hagen to the Jayhawk Area Agency on Aging to a term which will expire September 30, 2006;  and reappoint Kirk McClure to the Public Incentives Review Committee to a term which will expire January 31, 2008.   Motion carried unanimously.

 As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to approve the purchase of one pickup for the Utilities (Collection) Department from Shawnee Mission Ford off the MACPP bid in the amount of $16,454.  Motion carried unanimously.                   (1)

The City Commission reviewed bid for four (4) front load refuse trucks for the Public Works/Solid Waste Department.  The bids were:

BIDDER                                  BID AMOUNT           

Roy Conley                                                     $398,552

                        American Equipment, Bid A                            $413,832

                        American Equipment, Bid B                           $379,104

                        American Equipment, Bid C                           $442,952

                        Key Equipment & Supply                                $418,972

                        Burnup Equipment, Bid A                               $459,340

                        Burnup Equipment, Bid B                               $494,068

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to award the bid to Roy Conley, in the amount of $398,552.  Motion carried unanimously.            (2)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to approve the purchase of one 4X4 pickup for the Public Works/Engineering Department from Shawnee Mission Ford off the MACPP bid in the amount of $20,079.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                           (3)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to approve the purchase of one utility body pickup for the Public Works/Building Maintenance Department from Shawnee Mission Ford off the MACPP bid in the amount of $18,537.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                   (4)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to approve the purchase of one pickup for the Finance/Utility Billing Department from Shawnee Mission Ford off the MACPP bid in the amount of $16,488.  Motion carried unanimously.        (5)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to approve the purchase of 150,000 pounds of Nalco-Ultrion 8186 polymer for the Clinton Treatment Plant from Nalco Chemical Company for $74,250.  Motion carried unanimously.     (6)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to authorize the City Manager to amend the existing engineering contract with Delich, Roth & Goodwillie, P.A., for $55,166 for Wakarusa River and Yankee Tank Creek sewage basin studies with associated flow monitoring.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                  (7)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to approve the annexation request of approximately 17.519 acres generally located north of West 6^th Street, west of George Williams Way extended, east of K-10; and, direct staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                        (8)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to authorize transit staff to proceed with the development of a Scope of Work for a feasibility study related to K-10 fixed route transit service in conjunction with Johnson County Transit. Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                       (9)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to authorize transit staff to proceed with the development of a Request for Proposal for a transit on-board study. Motion carried unanimously.                                                                           (10)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, , seconded by , to authorize the Mayor to sign a Mortgage Release for Caroline Pravecek, 3904 Willshire.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                     (11)

CITY MANAGER’S REPORT - None

REGULAR AGENDA

Receive Traffic Safety Commission (TSC) recommendations on requests from New York School PTO

a)       Remove 30 mph speed limit sign in front of the school and relocate existing beacons.  TSC recommends approval 9-0. 

b)       Provide a pushbutton crosswalk at 11^th Street and New York Street.  TSC recommends denial 9-0. 

c)       Establish a 4-Way Stop on 10^th Street at New York Street and New Jersey Street.  TSC recommends denial 9-0. 

d)       Consider establishing a mid-block school crossing.  Request withdrawn. 

Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, explained the four recommended approvals and denials. 

Dawn Hawkins, representing New York School PTO site council, said they were requesting three things.  The first was the removal of the 30 mph speed limit sign.

The second request was to establish 4 way stops at the four corners surrounding the school, but it was the consensus of the parties involved that the 10^th and New Jersey 4 way was not necessary since there was a dip at that location that slowed traffic down.  The two intersections on New York Street at 9^th and 10^th were the most important intersections for the 4 way stop signs.

She said it was written policy that flashing beacons were needed from 150’ to 200’ feet before the crosswalk, but they did not have that situation because that area was constructed before that policy was written.  

Lastly, they were requesting a pushbutton crosswalk on 11^th and New York Streets.  The traffic at that location rarely stopped even when beacons were flashing and there was a lot of truck traffic on that street.   She said they felt a pushbutton crosswalk would be an efficient traffic control device and that device would only be used as needed.

She said the TSC recommended denial because of the studies that they had conducted to count foot traffic in those areas and that area did not meet the requirements needed for justifying the changes.  Also, the TSC felt that if they were granted those deviations, then a precedent would be set and all the other schools would want the same thing.  

The TSC did recommend moving the north and south bound flashing beacon to comply with current policy, but the neighborhood was concerned because it was not part of their request and it did not solve the problem with the existence of the 30 mph speed zone.  She said the neighborhood thought the problems could be solved much less expensively with their recommendations and perhaps the money saved could be used to install the pushbutton light at 11^th and New York.

She said the school zones needed to be rethought.  There was no school zone policy with the exception of the placement of crossing and there beacons and end zones signs.  It was her understanding that the TSC was gearing up to have a discussion about this issue in the near future.    

Nancy Myers, New York School parent, supported the requests presented by Hawkins.  She said the safety of their kids was of paramount importance.  She said making those changes were vital considering there was no designated pick up and drop off zone.  The TSC findings did not necessarily formally support those 4 way stops.  However, in light of the special circumstances, an exception should be made.       

Janet Good, East Lawrence Neighborhood Association President, said her association supported the requests from Hawkins. She said in addition to the drop-off zone problem, there was an unusual circumstance in that the Boys and Girls Club operated a before and after school program from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, which extended the number of hours that kids were walking to school. 

She had personal experience with the 11^th Street pushbutton because she lived a half block from that location.   She said she was frightened to cross that street in the middle of the day because of City vehicles and tremendous truck traffic going very fast.  She said there were kids walking to school at 7:00 am in the dark and those kids were supposed to count on the good graces of people slowing down.  The school flashing lights did not start flashing until immediately prior to the beginning of the school day which was 8:45 a.m.  She said she was surprised that there had not been a tragic accident at that location already.

In terms of the 30 mph sign in front of the school she had heard people threaten to take that sign down themselves. 

The East Lawrence Revitalization Plan in 1999 highlighted that most residents thought that 30 mph was too fast for any of their narrow neighborhood streets that had parking on both sides. 

Pete Laufer, East Lawrence resident at the southwest corner of 10^th and New York, said he had witnessed cars speeding on those two blocks.  He said this area was at the corner of a school yard that not only received school traffic, but also neighborhood traffic.  He said he had caught wind of the PTO’s activities concerning this matter and volunteered his help because he had wondered for 10 years why there wasn’t a 4 way stop at all four corners of a school yard.  He said at the TSC meetings he found out that those 4 way stops were not in because of the ordinances that were presently in place and they were asking for variances to the ordinances.

He said he walked the neighborhood and gathered approximately 30 signatures in favor of this issue.  

Shawn Hastie, New York School parent, supported the requests.  She said 11^th Street was an extreme problem.  Several years ago there was a child struck at 11^th and Pennsylvania crossing the street after school.  She said people also had almost been struck at 10^th and New York to because a person could not always see a car coming when going out into the crosswalk.

Dana Seiger, New York School parent, supported the requests.  She said this was a very important issue because it was all about safety.  She said it was easier to put a stop sign up than to move a 1,000 lb beacon because it would cost the City thousands of dollars.  The 30 mph sign needed to go and she suggested changing the speed limit to 20 mph to make it the exact speed as the beacon.    

Dana Carleton, East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, said as a neighborhood they strongly supported any way their streets could be made safer for the children and neighbors.  She asked the City Commission for their support.

Mayor Rundle asked if action was taken tonight, would it be best to send this issue back to the Traffic Safety Commission.

Wildgen said unless it was a completely new issue or if there was new information, then this issue did not need to go back to the TSC.   

Vice Mayor Highberger asked Hawkins if her petition was the same as Laufer’s petition.

Hawkins said it was a different petition.

Mayor Rundle asked how long had New York School been at that location.

Commissioner Hack said she thought the school had been there since the 1800’s.  She said the question she had about the neighborhood’s request was the pushbutton crosswalk and how successful that type of crosswalk was on Massachusetts Street.

David Woosley, Traffic Engineer, said those types of crosswalks generally worked well.  If that type of crosswalk went in at an intersection, you need to signalize that entire intersection for all vehicular traffic as well as pedestrian traffic.  It would be a fully signalized intersection if it was at the intersection, but if it was moved to mid-block location, then a pushbutton for a pedestrian crosswalk could be done.  He said that was discussed, but the neighborhood indicated that they did not think the students would walk half a block down, cross the street, and walk a half block up.  He said this would be a full signalization and at that location the cost would be $100,000 to $125,000 to install that signal.  He said staff would then need to look at turning movements to see if geometric improvements were also needed.

Commissioner Schauner asked if there were any speed analyses done on 11^th Street for average speeds.

Woosley said there had not been an analysis done at that location, but staff could get that information if it was requested.

Commissioner Dunfield asked about the approximate cost of a pushbutton crosswalk.

Woosley said it had been a few years since that type of crosswalk was installed near the swimming pool, but he thought the cost was approximately $15,000 to $20,000.

Mayor Rundle asked if there was any signal equipment that could be used or did they need to buy all new equipment.

Woosley said it depended on what was installed to whether they would fully signalize the intersection or do something mid-block.  He said there were some old City poles, but if signalizing the intersection, then the detection for the vehicles would need to be done which took all new equipment.

Hawkins said the idea of this being a signalized intersection was not brought up at their meetings and had never been discussed.  She also said that they would not have a problem if the crosswalk needed to be moved.

Woosley said the original request was for a 4-way stop at 10^th and New York and at 10^th and New Jersey, but they did not request 9^th and New York and that had not ever been looked at or discussed by the TSC.

Commissioner Dunfield asked what the implications would be for adding more 4 way stop signs.

Woosley said the warrants had been developed over the last 70 years based upon what worked and what did not work.  Generally when putting in stop signs that were not warranted, there was a tendency for people to run the stop signs and if combining that with younger children that were trying to cross the street and expecting people to stop, crossing the street without thinking, thinking that the traffic was going to actually stop could actually be more dangerous.

He said another issue was the precedent it would set.  He said if 4-way stops were placed at this location that were not warranted then they should expect other requests.  He said staff received requests for 4-way stops every week and most of those requests did not get to the TSC since those request would not meet the requirements.       

He said when staff looked at the traffic in those locations it wasn’t even in the realm of being close to what was required.   In order to warrant a 4-way stop there needed to be 500 cars an hour entering the intersection for each of 8 separate hours during the day, 200 of those cars needed to be on the side streets.  He said when they looked at those 2 locations, at 10^th and New Jersey and if looking at the 8 highest hours of the day, there was an average of 79 vehicles entering the intersection from all approaches, way under the requirement of 500 cars and the side street had 24 cars which was way under the 200 that were needed. 

He said at 10^th and New York was a similar situation.  At the 8 highest hours, the main street had an average of 53 cars and the side street had an average of 34 cars.  He said they were not even at the realm of being close to meeting those requirements. 

Commissioner Hack asked how many requests come in for 4-way stops for school zones.

Woosley said those request came in all over residential areas, not necessarily adjacent to a school. 

Commissioner Hack said that was where she would look at that policy versus the reality of the children walking to and from school.  She said the use of it in a neighborhood was a little bit different.

Mayor Rundle said he was not interested in signalizing the intersection anymore than moving the crosswalks because of the expense of the flashing beacons.  He suggested finding a less expensive solution. He asked if the mid-block crosswalk in front of the school was something that could be accomplished.

Woosley said that crosswalk could possibly be a solution.  Again, that idea was something that the neighborhood had initially thought about, but then they withdrew their request and therefore was not discussed at the TSC.  There was a concern on the west side of the street that the sidewalk was quite a bit higher than the street itself.  In order to meet ADA requirements it would take quite a bit of sidewalk meandering back and forth to build its way up to that sidewalk.  He said not that it couldn’t be done because there might be enough room, but it would not be just a ramp up to the sidewalk.        

Commissioner Hack agreed that relocating the existing beacons was not appropriate.  The sooner people received a heads up that there was a school there, the longer time they would have and the better it would be.  She said the 30 mph speed limit in front of the school made no sense.  She supported the 4 way stops at the requested intersections.  She said with City Commission direction she would like more discussion between staff and neighbors about the mid-block or signalization ideas.  

Commissioner Dunfield said removing the 30 mph stop sign in front of the school was too obvious not to do it.  He was not sure of the costs of removing the beacons or at least moving the one beacon on New York Street, between 11^th and 10^th Streets.  He said that did make sense that it would be close to the crosswalk and he would like staff to explore the implications of that idea.  He said he would like further discussions in terms of where the New York PTO would like to see those beacons on New York Street and whether that was something that could be quickly accommodated. 

He said he had mixed feelings about the 4-way stop sign because he had been through that conversation many times over a number of years about whether 4-way stops really did what people thought that 4-way stops were going to do for them or whether they were sending a signal that could make those intersections more dangerous for people, but he thought they should be looking at alternatives.  He said if they were going to reject 4-way stops as being counterproductive, it was a nice cheap solution, but he asked what other alternatives were there.   He said he did not know that he would object to the 4-way stops being put in on a temporary basis, at least to try that idea out if that seemed to be the only cost effective solution.

He said as far as 11^th Street he did not know that he had a solution.  There again, he thought they needed to talk about what could be done along 11^th Street.  He said it was a fact that street was hard to cross on foot.  He said a mid-block crossing signalized might be a solution or there might be other things that could be done such as speed tables on 11^th Street. 

He said the TSC was doing its job when it looked at the warrants and it looked at the standards and they report back to the City Commission.  He said the City Commission was not doing their job if they were not going beyond that to try to find solutions to the real problems.

Mayor Rundle said to add to Commissioner Dunfield’s comments it was pointed out that they did not have a school zone policy.  He said he would like to know how a policy could be developed or have the TSC explore that type of policy.

Woosley said the way that school zones were signed, there was a difference between a school zone and a reduced speed limit for a crossing.  School zones were signed with the advanced school sign, 150 feet in advance of the school property in all directions which identified the school zone.  He said that would not have anything to do with the speed limit because the speed limit in all residential areas was set at 30 mph by state law.  There was a policy on the reduced speed zone for a school zone and they did reduce the speed approximately 150 feet in advance and 50 feet beyond the point where students needed to cross the street either by signs, in some location, or by beacons in others.    

Mayor Rundle suggested looking at what they could do.  He said as Commissioner Hack suggested, maybe they needed separate regulations for schools than other residential situations, but that was another area to explore.

Commissioner Schauner said he was hearing a lot of agreement about removing the 30 mph sign in front of the school and he thought that made good sense.  The beacon between 9^th and 10^th Streets on New York Street seemed to be a bit too far to the south to be particularly useful and that particular beacon could easily be moved to the north and serve a better purpose.  He said he was not so sure they needed to move the beacon near 11^th Street.

He said it seemed that staff needed to have more conversations with the neighbors about the 4-way stop at 10^th and New York.  He shared Commissioner Dunfield’s concern that the existence of a 4-way stop might give false security to those students crossing that street.  Just because there was a stop sign there did not necessarily mean people would stop.  He suggested looking at some other speed control devices in that area that might give people little choice but to slow down.

He said with respect to the 11^th Street mid-block crossing question, he thought staff should see if that idea was doable and it made sense from a traffic perspective.  He said he was a little concerned that apparently the speed limit on that street was obeyed more in the absence than anything else.  He said perhaps City traffic was part of the problem and suggested that something be done with enforcement with the traffic unit to be more active in that area.                     

Vice Mayor Highberger said he would take issue with the notion that there was not a good reason for policies, procedures, and criteria.  He said if they could articulate good reasons for overriding the policies then the Commission should do so and he thought there were some good reasons in this instance.  One was the desire of the neighborhood to protect their children who were walking to school and to make the neighborhood safer for pedestrian traffic.  Actually given the relatively low volume of traffic on some of the streets involved made the stop sign a viable solution where it might not be otherwise. 

He supported the request from the neighborhood to remove the 30 mph sign in front of New York School, add 4-way stops at 10^th and 9^th and New York Streets, remove the stop signs on 9^th Street at New Jersey Street.  As far as the pushbutton crosswalk, he did not have enough information to make that decision.  He said he was not aware of the fact that a pushbutton crosswalk would require signalization of the entire intersection, but he recommended that the TSC try to find a way to develop a safe crossing somewhere on 11^th Street and have the TSC come back to the City Commission with a plan.    

Commissioner Dunfield asked if Vice Mayor Highberger was asking staff to develop alternatives and take those alternatives to the TSC.

Vice Mayor Highberger said yes.   

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to concur with the Traffic Safety Commission’s recommendation to direct staff to remove the 30 mph speed limit in front of New York School and reduce the speed limit to a 20 mph speed limit the entire length between 9^th and10^th Street; proceed with installing a 4-way stop on both 9^th Street at New York and 10^th Street at New York; remove the stop sign on 9^th at New Jersey; and direct staff to develop options for a safe crossing on 11^th Street between New York and further east and present those options to TSC for recommendations.  Motion carried unanimously. (12)

Receive request from the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) Board for additional City Commission direction regarding a plan and process for Housing Trust Funds allocation.

Barb Carswell, Chair, Housing Trust Fund Board, said the board was asking for additional clarification or specificity on how the City Commission would like that Board to proceed.  She said included in her January 11, 2005 memo were 5 options that the Board had formulated with a respectful addendum that they would also look at any other options the City Commission might have.  She then reviewed the information in her January 11, 2005 memo to the City Commission. 

She said a meaningful gesture would be to sunset the Board after a final round of RFP’s and spend the entire amount of funds in the Housing Trust Fund which currently total $560,000.  She said they had a 12 member board that represented a wide variety of constituents that got along very well, but they all approach their task on the Board with great diligence and responsibility.  She said there was good discussion and they took very seriously their role that they were there to provide the City Commission with perspectives of affordability projects and housing programs.

She said at a recent Board meeting a quorum of members were present that debated and discussed options without any clear direction as to what Commissioners would really like done.  The most encouraging part of the outcome of that meeting was that she had received first, second, and third hand information back that Commissioners were surprised at her memorandum and that the Commission was surprised that there was confusion and therefore she stood before the City Commission very assured that the Commission would be able to give her the clear direction that she was not seeing.

She summarized the 5 options that were addressed at their Board meeting.  Those options were:  

1. Take no action: temporarily retire the Board and make the decision not to fund any proposal until a housing affordability task force has been appointed and convened and presents a strategic positioning document.  At that time the Commission will reconvene the HTF Board, using the positioning document as clear directive for action;

2. Initiate a second round of RFPs to allocate the earnings on principal (approximately $60,000).  We anticipate that this will have a similar non-impacting result to the initial funding.  Benefit from this course of action would be somewhat arbitrary and nothing suggests that this same level of funding would yield any differing results;

3. Initiate a second round of RFPs to allocate $150,000, holding all additional principal in reserve until a housing affordability task-force has been appointed and convened and presents a strategic positioning document.  Increasing the amount of funding would slightly increase the possibility of having proposals with significant impact;

4. Initiate a second round of RFPs to allocate $300,000, holding all additional principal in reserve until a housing affordability task force has been appointed and convened and presents a strategic positioning document.   Again, increasing funding to this level could generate more meaningful impact in resulting proposals; and

5. Initiate a second round of RFPs with the ability to allocate all Housing Trust monies.  Allocating all funds at this time would give maximum opportunity for impact in addressing affordability issues.  If a housing affordability task force is appointed and presents a strategic positioning document, this option will require a permanent funding source to support the identified strategy.

She said the Housing Trust Fund Board had taken a stand that they were very proactively engaged in addressing and answering affordable housing questions.  There had been a passing of the gavel from Tato to herself.  She said she thought the City Commission had taken the Board’s last recommendations personally. 

She said the feedback the Board received was that the City Commission felt they were being given an ultimatum; that Tato was finding an outlet for his anger, but she thought that was not fair because Tato had given a lot of effort, time, and direction to their Board; that some of the other Trust Fund Board members wanted to see the Progressive Lawrence City Commissioners beaten up, but that was not a fair statement; that staff had not communicated to the Board, but City staff had been very diligent and thorough and every question that was asked had been researched by staff.

Mayor Rundle said he might not have fully understood the options that were previously  presented to the City Commission, but he did not recall an option that was within the Commission’s grasp.  He said they did not have any money lying around when they were in the midst of budget processes which the theme was, there was no extra money.  The kinds of mechanisms to generate a continuing and substantial income stream such as adding something to the mortgage registration fee were not things that the Commission could vote “aye” and it would happen, it took enabling legislation at the State level.

He asked Carswell to remind him of the options that were presented.  He said his feeling was that they certainly embraced the concept and recognized that $500,000 would not put a dent in housing whether spending that money all at once or using that money as a revenue generator.  He said he did not see a clear way of how they would leap from $500,000 to an annual replenishing stream of money.

Carswell said that Mayor Rundle was correct in that those options were not visibly obvious. The one recommendation that was the strongest from the Board was the mortgage registration transfer tax.  It did require additional effort in seeing if that idea could or would be done, but the Board did not receive any direction or at least the Board felt they did had not been given direction. 

She said Commissioner Highberger had discussed the Housing Affordable Workforce and how he was very passionate about that idea.  She said the Board was very excited about that notion and that might help a decision of should it be funded or should they go ahead.

She said Tenants to Homeowners put forward a proposal for a Land Trust Program which had been initiated since that time.  In November again, there was that feeling that the City Commission was looking at this favorably.

One of the issues that was prevalent in politics at City level was that when the Commission worked with Board’s they would need time to discuss issues with those Board’s which was very healthy, but those discussions should not take place in side bar conversations where one, two, or three persons could interpret those conversations. 

She asked the City Commission to give their Board a strong message of guidance.

Commissioner Schauner said when the Commission received the report from Tato a couple of months ago, he did not recall being upset or frustrated about Tato’s presentation, but rather about the City’s level of ability to resolve what appeared to be an intractable problem as it related to the affordability of housing in Lawrence.  He said he did not have any side bar conversations with anyone about that topic, but he did not know if any of those 5 options either together or individually did not resolve the bigger issue and that was how they would find a stream of income that could make a significant impact on that problem. 

He said speaking for himself, he appreciated the time that members of the Board had spent on this issue and he did not want to convey to Carswell or the Board past, present, or future, a lack of respect for the work that the Board did or the sincerity with which they made representations and options available.  He said it was matter of would they impact this problem in some meaningful way.  He said he struggled with what approach, both funding stream as well as an actual delivery program, would satisfy the greatest number of folks who needed the assistance in the most cost efficient way.  He said that was perhaps an issue that Vice Mayor Highberger was able to put together a Housing Task Force and perhaps that could be a vehicle in which those questions could be examined.

Carswell thanked Commissioner Schauner for his comments.   She said what was really being said was to take no action and not spend that money.  The issue of if they were getting any funding source was there.

She said she wanted to address something that Commissioner Schauner had said very respectfully because it was tied into what was happening.  She said in Commissioner Schauner’s conversation, it was said that he could not remember what Tato had said two months ago.  She said Tato had addressed the Commission in August 2004 and it was now January 2005.  She said two months ago the City Commission heard about the Land Trust.  She said the Commission’s time passed quickly because they were extremely engaged in a variety of topics.  If the City Commission took a look at the message they were conveying to the affordability and homeless constituents in Lawrence nothing has been done since August and the Board did not know where the City Commission wanted to go with this issue.       

Commissioner Schauner corrected Carswell.  He said he did not say he did not remember what Tato had said at that time. 

Carswell said she apologized and that she was focusing on the issue of the two months.

Commissioner Schauner said he did not know where to go with issue.  He said this Commission had not had any particular discussions since their last opportunity to visit about this issue.  He said clearly, the City Commission did have an interest in finding its way and working with the Housing Trust Board concerning that question.

Carswell said she represented the Board and they knew that the Commission was interested.  She said she just wanted to make it happen.

Commissioner Hack said the Commission was looking at two different situations.  She said this was a Board that basically had to invent itself because there was money and it seemed like a logical thing to do in easing some situations with affordable housing.  She said they never had come to grips with the idea of how to fund it. 

She said she was under the impression that the Land Trust issue was something that she felt most of the Commission wanted to pursue and that the Commission had given direction to Tenants to Homeowners, Land Trust and Housing Trust Fund people to pursue that rather vigorously. 

She said the Commission also talked about the Housing Affordability Task Force which further threw flames on that boiling pot of what were they going to do.  She said there was no stream of funding so that conversation needed to take place during budget conversations. 

She said as far as the Housing Trust Fund Board and the $600,000, she would like to look at that Land Trust issue.     

She said if the Board made a decision and received direction and then something else came to them 2^nd or 3^rd hand, that would be difficult to deal with.  She said it was unfortunate that this issue had boiled around as long as it had.  She did not have a solution other than perhaps putting that issue on hold and retire the Board for moment, but that did not mean permanent retirement.

Mayor Rundle said he apologized for any comments that gave offense, but this had been a very frustrating issue.  He said they had been communicating by long distance signals instead of sitting down and having a dialogue.  He said when they had talked about this issue before Tato’s last memo, it was a to-be-continued issue.  He said he had a meeting with Tato where they talked about the mortgage tax and the fact that they would need to wait until this legislative session to initiate that idea.  He said they also talked about research they could be doing in the meantime and it seemed that this was still a live issue.    

He said as for the land trust issue, he was enthusiastic about the idea, but he had reservations about spending the whole amount at once because if they had an Affordability Task Force it would hopefully identify clearly what the problems were in Lawrence and then find the solutions that were most appropriate for those problems.  He said plus the Homelessness Task Force had yet to complete its work and there might be needs that would be appropriate to discuss.  He said it was unfortunate that they had not sat down in a study session or had not had Commissioners attend the Board’s meetings. 

Carswell said on behalf of the board, no apology was needed.  This discussion was very healthy and as she took over the Chair of this Board, she wanted to be very productive and efficient and serve the City Commission in the best way possible.  That was the purpose of the memorandum and there certainly was no pressure sent to the Commission.  She said whatever the direction was, they would be happy to work on that direction, but the Board did not need to keep on meeting, having 4 motions placed on the table, all of which were defeated because they did not know where the City Commission was going.

She said Mayor Rundle stated he had some reservations about spending it all in case affordability came up with those great ideas or strategies which she was sure would be there.  She made note of the fact that although they did not have a formal Affordability Committee in place, they had a lot of learned, dedicated professionals in Lawrence who had brought issues forward and were very cognizant of what was out there.   

She said when the Board came and discussed sunsetting or paying that money out, staff had received three or four different inquiries about if there was money there that related to Land Trust, Habitat for Humanities, and homeless issues.  She said those inquiries had not been made as formal requests and they had not reviewed those issues as RFP’s.  Part of the discussion at the Board meeting addressed the unfairness of looking at only those who had approached them. 

Mayor Rundle called for public comment.

Hilda Enoch, Coalition of Homeless Concerns, said one of the things pressed for was the establishment of a Housing Task Force.  She said their understanding was that the money was to be dedicated to the needs of the needy in the community.  She said there were landlords that would like to rent to people who were a risk as far as the Lawrence/Douglas County Housing Authority because those people had done something wrong in the past and they might be trying to get on their feet, but the Housing Authority would not deal with those people.  She said there were opportunities, if they could work with the landlords and subsidize various units that were now empty, to begin to house people who were in the shelters which were over crowded.

She said she was very much in favor of the Community Land Trust Fund.

Vice Mayor Highberger thanked Enoch for keeping the Commission focused.  He apologized to Carswell concerning the word “confusion.”  He said he used that word in response to a question to a reporter.  He said there was a list of potential funding options, none of which seemed to provide a long-term viable funding source.  He said the idea that he was interested in was allocating some percentage of property taxes from in-fill projects to a fund like this, although it looked like the amounts that were being discussed would not be enough to do what they wanted to do.

He said he would take responsibility for not having progressed any further with the Affordable Housing Task Force.  He said that he encountered a few obstacles, but they should be starting to progress on that Task Force soon.  He said it was his impression that the City Commission received the presentation from the Community Land Trust fairy enthusiastically and it was also his impression that the direction that the Commission had given was to refer that proposal to the Housing Trust Fund Board with a fairly strong recommendation with the understanding that there was a proposal from the landlords that sounded very attractive.  He said he was willing to reconsider what he thought was a decision.

Carswell said as they looked at the December retreat that the City Commission held where they looked at key objectives and goals it was stated to adopt affordable housing strategy objectives and land trust was primarily mentioned as a source.  She said this was just off-set by some of the conversations that there had been with some of the single members of the Board that said they did not want to go out and fund all of this.  The Affordability Task Force that would be developed some time in the future needed a reserve of money.  That idea was not being said formally, but they did not want to disregard or put the Commission in the position where a future strategy would not work.

In response to Enoch’s comments, Carswell said none of the 5 options suggested that all of the money would be given to a land trust.  She said they were suggesting that RFP’s be looked at.  The Housing Trust Fund Board had made great strides into identifying evaluation of RFP’s that were in line with City stated purposes of housing trust.      

Commissioner Schauner asked if any of the 5 options were approved by a majority of the Housing Trust Fund Board.

Carswell said no.  She said it was indicative of the fact that there was no strong consensus of where the Commission was.  She said they saw their role at looking at all of the programs of affordability, housing, and homelessness and apply that process to take forward.   

She said they were aware of the landlord proposal to place some bond type money down where people could get into homes.  She said they had not received an RFP on that idea so it had not been properly evaluated, but the initial look they had into that idea, they felt that was something that could be a valid RFP.

Commissioner Dunfield said there were certainly sound reasons to continue planning and working through the Homeless Task Force issue to establish a Housing Affordability Task Force.  There were also good arguments and good reasons to act on what we know was out there and available.  The attraction of the land trust was the sustainability of the program.  The fact that it would be a self sustaining program once it was launched but that they had not figured out a way to make that be the case with the Housing Trust Fund was what he sensed was a large part of the frustration of the Board members as well as the Commissioners.

He said it seemed that the 5^th option made a lot of sense right now.  It made sense when the land trust idea was presented and it still made sense.  He did not think that the Housing Trust Fund, at least as it was currently structured, looked like the mechanism for dealing with the results that were likely to come out of the Homeless Task  Force.  He said he might be wrong about that idea and that might be reason to wait and not act for now, but it seemed that they needed to decide if they were going to use that Housing Trust Fund or were they going to do something with that fund to make it a vehicle for that larger homeless and affordability issue or were they going to say that there was a pool of money and they knew there were some good proposals out there that could make a difference in Lawrence today and let’s go ahead and act on those proposals and then deal with the next issues as they arise.  He said his leaning right now was towards Option 5 in the memo.

Mayor Rundle said when he suggested that they send that to the Housing Trust Fund, he was operating under the assumption that they had given the City Commission a spend it all or find it option.  He said if figuring out how many lots they could buy in Lawrence with $500,000 it was going to translate into a two digit number of people who could be helped.  He was hesitant to seize on that idea prior to having a better understanding of the overall housing needs picture and to work to identify the right solutions.  He said if the Board was telling him that he should be encouraged to find that money when they did identify additional needs for homelessness or other issues then he would be encouraged.  He said that may not be any easier to do than finding a long-term source for funding for the Housing Trust Fund.           

He said he was leaning more toward an RFP process.  The option would be on the table to completely spend the money 

Carswell said that Option 5 did not say give all the money to land trust.  Option 5 said, “Initiate a second round of RFPs with the ability to allocate all Housing Trust monies. Allocating all funds at this time would give maximum opportunity for impact in addressing affordability issues.”

Commissioner Dunfield said if he had given the impression that that meant handing the whole amount to the land trust that was not his intention.

Carswell said one question that was on their evaluation sheet was how many people were impacted by that proposal.  She said they did reserve the right, if a certain amount was requested to reduce that amount without taking away the impact of the proposal.  

Enoch said it was not so much how many were impacted by the proposal, but which people were impacted by the proposal.  She asked the City Commission to not lose sight of the difference between who was being served with each of those proposals.  The Commission needed to set their priorities and what she hoped were the community’s priorities.  

Commissioner Schauner said in looking at the function of the Housing Trust Fund Board, it said it was to encourage and support the acquisition, rehabilitation, and development of affordable housing and/or emergency shelter and supportive services necessary to maintain independent living with dignity in our community.  He asked Carswell if the Commission were to approve spending the entire amount, would she anticipate receiving RFP’s for emergency shelter for the homeless.   

Carswell said yes.

Commissioner Schauner asked if Carswell would envision a mix of RFP’s.

Carswell said yes. 

Schauner asked whether there would be on-going administrative costs with that program. 

Carswell said there were staff costs. 

Moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to receive a request from the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) Board for additional City Commission direction regarding a plan and process for Housing Trust Funds allocation and direct staff to proceed with “Option 5” from the Housing Trust Fund memo which is initiating a second round of RFPs with the ability to allocate all Housing Trust monies.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                              (13)

Receive status report on review of Fire Station No. 5 bids.

Dan Sabatini, Sabatini & Associates, reviewed the January 13, 2005 letter he sent to the City Manager.  He said the past week was very productive in examining some potential cost savings.  He said in the letter the total net savings was approximately $112,000. He said Item C concerning the Masonry portion of the project that savings did include $40,000 of what was already anticipated as savings if they took what the lowest bidder offered at $77,000.  He said also Item F, because of the long-term cost of energy cost running the annual operational cost which was the Mechanical System they did not recommend taking that one if they went that route.  He said the City Commission had received a memo outlining the background of the projects development along with another memo indicating some potential for costs increases if they went back out to bid.

Vice Mayor Highberger asked Sabatini to explain the potential costs of if they re-bid the project.

Sabatini said they had gone back to different subcontractors based on how they divided up their divisions of architecture and engineering and overall what they had identified was labor material costs at an average of 3% which would result in a $137,000 to $140,000 increase.

He said they identified actual bidders that had taken out bid documents and those were the people that were contacted.  Those people were not necessarily the people that might have been the lowest subcontractor.    

He said in looking at those costs, he would like to revise their recommendation to the City Commission.  He said the lowest bidder with the alternate, was approximately $13,000 lower than the next lowest bidder.  Their recommendation would be to take that bid and negotiate those additional cost savings because he thought that would be the best way and most sure way of having a lower cost.   That would be the sure way to get the best dollar at this time.       

Commissioner Dunfield said at this point, he was inclined to agree with Sabatini’s recommendation.  He said there were a number of matters that were bound up together, but one point he would like to make was that the City and County Commission directed Sabatini to design a certain building and to design it to a certain level of quality.  They should all expect that this was a building that would last for 50 years, easy to maintain, energy efficient, and other qualities.  He said it was simply not possible to give the City and County the building that they asked him to design at the price that they expected to pay for that building.  He said certainly they could complain about the accuracy of the cost estimate, but it did not change the fact that assuming that the quality of the building was what they wanted, they had two choices.  He said there were only two variables left and one of those variables was to reduce the size of the building and the other was to increase the budget of the building.  He said those were the choices and at this point in time, he would prefer to see the Commission go ahead with the building that they asked Sabatini to design, accept that lowest bid and ask that there be some negotiation on those items that were identified in the course of discussion last week.    

Vice Mayor Highberger said he concurred.  If a building was going to be built, it should be built right.  He said given the information that he had received it appeared that they stood a great chance of building a less desirable building for higher cost if they re-bid the project. 

Commissioner Hack agreed with Vice Mayor Highberger.  She said certain standards had been set to build quality City facilities.

Mayor Rundle asked if they were going to incorporate the cost savings into the design.

Commissioner Dunfield said he would like to see that idea done.  He said the exception would be the mechanical system.  In terms of finished materials and some of those other items that were identified such as lighting, he did not think the building would be cheapened in terms of its value to the community.

Commissioner Schauner said this type of issue reminded him of his remodeling projects. Those projects always took longer and cost a whole lot more.  He said they just finished a long conversation about the lack of resources to fund adequate funding for the homeless and yet the Commission was talking about spending a half million dollars more than was projected to build a fire station.  He said he was not comfortable with that idea.  He said he thought the size needed to be reduced to come in with a figure that was consistent with what was budgeted.  Again, he was not at all comfortable with expanding the cost of that facility.  He said they needed to find a way to come in at the projected cost.  He said he did not want to build a building that would not last the projected life, but he also did not want to build a building that was a half million dollars more than budgeted.    

Mayor Rundle said he was leaning toward re-bidding on the chance that additional bids would be received. 

He said if new changes were going to be placed on the building then everyone should have the chance to bid on the revised design.     

Vice Mayor Highberger said his concern with Mayor Rundle’s ideas was that project savings had been identified by one to two percent or slightly higher and labor and materials cost were approximately  three percent.  He said given those percentages, it did not seem likely that they would receive a better response.

Commissioner Hack said if the Commission asked for a reduction in the size of the building that design would take awhile.  If the project was re-bid then costs could go up and they might be in the same ball park for a lesser building.  Right now there were guarantees in terms of the amount that was proposed for this project.  She said there was an expert in the field on the City Commission and she appreciated Commissioner Dunfield’s input.     

Commissioner Schauner said the only guarantee was that a half a million dollars more would be spent than budgeted if they accepted any of the bids that were submitted.

Commissioner Dunfield said if they did build the administration portion of the building which was the option that would reduce the scope of the building they were going to be faced with dealing with that administrative component at some future time.  He said they as a Commission asked Sabatini, based on the information they had at the time, to design a building which relocated Fire/Rescue Administration to that location.  He said the sensible thing to do was to follow through.  

Commissioner Schauner said that Commissioner Dunfield was correct, but at the same time, they asked for that station with an estimate of “x” amount of dollars.  When the estimate came in at essentially an eighth more, 12% over what the estimated cost was, that was a significant number and the Commission should stand back and take a look at whether that was what they could afford.  City budget had been under attack for a couple of years not to mention the lack of continuing stream of funding from the State on demand transfers.  He said they tried to keep the mill levy down. He said granted those fire station costs would be spread over a 20 year period, but it increased the City’s debt load and someone was going to pay for it.  He said they should build what could be afforded and it might not be the same thing that they would like to have.  He said he thought the project should be re-bid with something that could get them to that 4 million dollar figure.        

Mayor Rundle said he was also uncomfortable with this project.  He said it seemed when there was a project that was over estimated, the general rule was to re-bid the project.  He said he did not understand why the costs were expected to go up on this project.  If the costs were going up on this project, those costs would be going up on everything.  He did not want to get into a situation that everything that was bid the rest of the year, that they would accept those higher costs.

Commissioner Dunfield moved to direct staff to proceed with the low bidder including negotiating those cost reduction items.

Wildgen said the architect’s estimate needed to be waived regarding the bond.  

Mayor Rundle said he was uncomfortable with that motion.

Commissioner Dunfield said his motion included the waiving of the irregularity and the engineer’s estimate.

Commissioner Schauner said he would not vote for waiving the irregularity or the engineer’s estimate.

Commissioner Hack said she needed to disclose a conflict of interest regarding the bid bond and abstained from voting.

Moved by Dunfield, seconded by Highberger, to proceed with the lowest bid and waive the architectural estimate and bid bond irregularities.  Aye:  Dunfield and Highberger.  Nay:  Rundle and Schauner.  Abstain:  Hack.  Motion failed. 

Vice Mayor Highberger said he understood the concern about spending more money than estimated, but in the long term, if delaying this project by sending it out for a major architectural and engineering revisions, the costs of that plus the cost of the delay was going to mean that they would end up spending as much money in the long run.  He said it was his understanding that they made a commitment to move forward with another fire/station station and the commitment to move forward by the administrative offices in that location.  Everything that he had read indicated that steel prices along with other commodities were going to continue to increase.  He said he did not see cutting down the size of the building was in the best long-term interest.  He was skeptical that re-bidding was going to dramatically decrease the project cost especially given the fact that the top bids were within one percent of each other.

Commissioner Schauner asked what the project bid date was for the Wakarusa station.

Wildgen said sometime this year, staff was about ready to review the site plan portion of that project.  He said the bid date would be within the next three to four months.

Commissioner Schauner asked when the construction date was for that station.

Wildgen said it could start this year, but it would not be finished until next year.

Commissioner Schauner asked Sabatini if there was some reason to believe that there was some costs savings in bidding those two facilities together.

Sabatini said there was the potential for cost savings.  One of the things different about the prototype building on Harper Street was that it was designed more of a stick framed construction so that they would receive bids from the smaller contracting businesses.  Again, to bid both of those projects together, there was some potential such as saving on staffing, but there would need to be a superintendent on both sites and those buildings were designed with different materials.   

He said the preliminary study that was done in June 2002, had 4.35 million as an estimate of costs and that was the beginning point of this project.  Those were figures that were projected to be constructed in 2004.  He said they had been trying to estimate this project accurately all along, but he was the first to admit that the estimate was not accurate.  He said there was inflation happening if it hadn’t been seen.  He said he believed in talking to all the subcontractors that they were all seeing inflationary costs. 

Mayor Rundle said when talking about the amount of increase that would be risked by re-bidding it pales in comparison to the cost increases that were being seen because those projects weren’t done according to the original Public Safety Plan that was done in 1995.  All three of those buildings were to have been built by the year 2001 and it would have cost, according to the Public Safety Plan, $900,000.  He said if they were going to be concerned about costs increases then they needed to find out why projects like this were being held off when the project doubled or tripled in costs.

Commissioner Dunfield said Sabatini indicated that an earlier estimate was actually closer to the number that they ended up taking.  He said he did not recall that this Commission, when they gave the direction to proceed, said let’s go ahead and do that, but only if the total project cost was $5,000,000 and not a penny more.  He said he did not think that was part of the decision that was made at that time.  In some ways the Commission was somewhat retroactively imposing that type of requirement.  He said a local contractor that had been in business for a long time said this was the hardest time that he had ever known for estimating the costs of projects.  He said the contractor stated that he had never seen fluctuations in the market that were seen now and that was a reason to stick to his position that they should go ahead with this project while the opportunity was there.

Commissioner Schauner proposed dividing the question and voting first on whether to build the fire station, training, and administrative offices instead of taking the low bid since they would need to waive the irregularity, take the second bid and move forward.

Sabatini said if they took an alternate to go to the man-made stone, it did change who that next lower bidder was. 

Commissioner Schauner said Commissioner Dunfield’s argument were rationale and reasonable with respect to the increases in costs. The last thing he was looking at doing was getting less of a building for more money.  He said when getting into a project it always seemed to cost more.  He said he thought they recognized that the project would cost some more, but the additional amount was surprising.    

Vice Mayor Highberger said one issue that was different was that other bidders would know what the bids were on the current project so there would be some incentive to bid less, but he was still concerned that the increase in material prices would eat all that money up.    

Commissioner Schauner said if that same structure was going to be built, he was not in favor of re-bidding.

Vice Mayor Highberger said what Commissioner Schauner was asking the Commission was to make a finding that the irregularities on the first bid were sufficient enough that that bid should not be accepted.

Commissioner Schauner said he would say that differently.  In order to waive that bid, the Commission would need to make some other findings.  He said there was an irregularity in the low bid and the Commission needed to make some findings before that bid could be waived, but he had not heard anyone propose what those findings might be. He said absent some findings and discussions, he said the Commission was not in the position to waive the irregularity.

Vice Mayor Highberger said he had not received any advice from staff to indicate that the irregularity in that bid was sufficient to invalidate that bid.

Commissioner Dunfield said waving formalities was clearly not good policy and it was not something that the Commission would want to set as precedent, but at the same time the formalities were there to protect the interest of the City and also the integrity of the bid process.  As Commissioner Highberger stated there was nothing about this particular irregularity that would lead the Commission to think that it affected the outcome of the bid. He said waiving the irregularity certainly did have an advantage to the City.

Commissioner Schauner said he thought the Commission was sending the wrong message.  He said anyone that bids on projects should know that the City had a set of policies and those policies were followed.  To waive the irregularity sent the wrong message.  He asked how the Commission would not waive irregularities in the future.  He said he thought the Commission was setting a precedent and that was his concern.          

Mayor Rundle asked if such a wavier would invite any litigation.

Wildgen said this was fact based.  He said in staff’s opinion this irregularity did not give another bidder an advantage.  He said this was a situation where the bid came in before 2:00 but the bond came in after 2:00, but before the bid was read.  He said in staff’s minds it did not give anyone an advantage.

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to accept the next lowest bid that met all specifications, with negotiated estimates, and to waive the architect’s estimate.  Aye:  Rundle and Schauner.  Nay:  Dunfield and Highberger.  Abstain:  Hack.  Motion failed.

Mayor Rundle said if they had some process that was predictable that they could look to and know that if a situation came up in the future, that they would know when they would give a waiver, but the Commission kept inventing everything case by case in the way this City was managed.  He said he could grudgingly vote in support of this issue, but he did not think it was right.   

Commissioner Hack said she did not think issues were managed case by case.  She said the City had policies and those polices were applied by the City Commission and staff to the best of their ability.  She said she did not mean to be disrespectful, but she did not think that statement was accurate.

Mayor Rundle said the rules were being bent.  He asked how they know when it was appropriate to bend the rules.

Commissioner Hack said that idea was not what she was speaking to.

Mayor Rundle said staff was completely silent about why they were bidding on a $5,000,000 fire station instead of a $970,000 fire station. 

Wildgen said one reason why the projects were spread out over time was because past City Commission’s have had discussions about keeping the mill levy even. He said in order to keep it even they had to spread those projects over a period of time.  He said the Public Safety Report did indicate that certain things needed to be done and staff had done a number of those things. This was the biggest project that would be spread out over 20 years.  He said this was only one portion of all those types of projects.  He said the $900,000 figure was not done with an architect’s estimate, but probably a plug number that they had at one time.

Mayor Rundle said he was told that those were good estimates.  He said if he had not dug out that study from the library, he did not think that those decisions were made out of conscience to move this issue off into the future. 

Commissioner Schauner said he was absolutely confident that nobody on this Commission had an interest in doing anything other than providing the best fire protection, training facility, and the most appropriate living quarters for the staff that works for the Fire Department.  He said he was confident that this discussion sent a message about what he expected with respect to bids being complete and on time.  He also was not interested in spending an additional $100,000 to accept the second lowest bid because that would be inconsistent with his interest in keeping the costs down.  He said he was also not interested in re-bidding this matter so that they end up spending more money for less.  He said there was a reasonable likelihood that a re-bid would probably increase the costs by one or two percent.  He said he was willing to support accepting the low bid for the proposed facility and waiving both the architect’s estimate and the technicality on the bid bond itself.  He said was willing to support the low bid with great hesitation and he did it motivated only by what he perceived to be the need to move this project forward and to maintain the City’s fire code rating.

He said in the future when they had discussions about the next fire station they would have some better numbers for the Commission to consider at that time rather than ending up with this type of situation again.  He said this was the worst possible outcome rather than the best possible way to deal with this issue.

Wildgen asked if Commissioner Schauner was considering First Management as the low bid.

Commissioner Schauner said yes.

Mayor Rundle said he would vote in favor of this issue, but he was also going to make an early agenda item that the City hire a budget analyst or auditor or both so that they could continue.  He said talking fiscal notes, this project was monumental, a $5,000,000 fire station that could have cost less than $1,000,000.

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Dunfield, to receive a status report on Fire Station No. 5 bids and direct staff to proceed with accepting the lowest bid, waive the bid bond irregularities; and waive the architectural estimate.  Aye:  Dunfield, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner.  Nay:  None.  Abstain:  Hack.  Motion carried.                                                                     (14)

Moved by Dunfield seconded by Highberger, to break for 5 minutes at 9:00 pm.  Motion carried unanimously.

The City Commission reconvened back in session at 9:05 p.m.

Receive updated report on options for the improvement of Kasold, north of Peterson Road.

Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, said staff was given specific directions and from those directions staff came up with 2 revised alternatives.  He said some of the direction staff was given was looking at placing more medians between Tillerman and Grand Vista Drives, and to include the two roundabouts.  He said what was addressed last week was a proposal to put the roundabout at Tillerman at Calvin Drives.  After staff reviewed all of the turning movements and the function of a roundabout the three driveways on Tillerman, Calvin, and especially Calvin to Hutton Drive were too close for the roundabout to function properly.       

He presented to the Commission the two additional options that were developed.  Those options were:

R-1:     Beginning at the intersection of Peterson Road is a 5-lane section that will reduce to a 2-lane roundabout at Tillerman Drive.  Between Tillerman Drive and Grand Vista Drive would be two 18-20 foot single lanes (one each direction) with a 20 ft. median and full intersection at Huntington Drive. 

R-2:     Realignment of Calvin Drive to a 4-way intersection with Hutton Drive and construction of a roundabout, and two 18-20 ft. lanes with a 20 ft. median and intersections at Tillerman Drive and Huntington Road.  A second roundabout at Grand Vista Drive would be constructed.  This option would entail acquiring right-of-way for the realignment of Calvin Drive.  Right-of-way acquisition is not a participating item with KDOT and would be 100% City cost.  Calvin Drive will also have to be reconstructed.

Terry Coder, Project Manager, Professional Engineering Consultants, said Alternate 2 did one thing that Alternate 1 did not which was it reduced the total number of intersections from six to five.  Thereby significantly reducing the number of conflict points.  It took two T-intersections and made them into one roundabout intersection which statistically should do great things for the City’s future crash rate.

Vice Mayor Highberger said he understood that a T-intersection was safer than a 4-way intersection.

Coder said yes.  He said a 4-way intersection had 28 conflict points, a T-intersection only had 9 conflict points, and a T-intersection as a roundabout only had 6 conflict points. 

Commissioner Schauner asked Soules if the additional right-of-way cost was not on that 80/20 split and what would be the additional cost to the City for the R-2 option over the R-1 option. 

Soules said staff did not estimate the right-of-way costs.  He said staff did not have a good grasp on what those costs might be.

Commissioner Schauner asked if that would require purchasing two of those lots in that proposed development.

Soules said correct.  He said he imagined there would be some replatting that they would need to get involved with.  Those estimates were also based on asphalt.  The Commission directed staff to proceed with the option of concrete.

Commissioner Schauner asked for the estimate on the concrete asphalt.

Soules said it was estimated that it would be approximately 10 percent for the cost of the pavement which was approximately $75,000 additional costs.

Mayor Rundle said if they were looking at options of acquiring property, he asked if it was feasible to move Hutton Drive or could it be moved further south and swing it far enough away from that original roundabout on Calvin Drive.

Soules said there was a facility and a large detention basin, but staff had not looked into that idea.     

Mayor Rundle said Hutton Drive could not be moved far enough from that original roundabout on Calvin Drive to make a difference.

Mayor Rundle called for public comment.

After receiving no public comment, Vice Mayor Highberger said for a couple of reasons he liked the proposal of R-1.  He said it provided better spacing for pedestrian crossings and if the Hutton Farms folks were not attached to the idea of the roundabout at their intersection, he did not see any good reason to move that roundabout at that location. He said the engineer mentioned that T-intersections were generally safer than 4-way stops anyway.  He said the R-1 option met on the important criteria and he supported that option.

Commissioner Hack concurred with Vice Mayor Highberger’s comments.

Commissioner Dunfield said he thought either of those alternatives would serve this City well.  He said he had no problem going with the R-1 option.    

Mayor Rundle asked if the church had any problems with the southbound, not being able to do a left turn in, but he said the church could get in off of Huntington Road.

Commissioner Schauner said he still believed in the long run they would look back on this road as too small.  He thought there should be four lanes.  He said he understood the 4 lane roundabout issue.  He said of the two options, he preferred the R-1 option.

Commissioner Highberger said his concern about two lanes rather than four lanes was traffic spacing for pedestrian crossing.  He said everything that he had read indicated that the kind of traffic volumes expected 20 or 25 years in the future was pretty close to built out on that stretch of highway.  He said two lanes should be enough to satisfy that traffic.  He said this was something to consider when they address 31^st Street in the future   

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to receive an updated report on options for the improvement of Kasold, north of Peterson Road and directed staff to proceed with Option “R-1” with concrete.   Motion carried unanimously.                                                                   (15)

Adopt on second and final reading, Ordinance No. 7851, adopting the new Development code and the new zoning map, pursuant to Commission direction on December 14, 2004.  The Code and map will take effect on January 24, 2005, except the “U” University District provisions, Section 20-218, will not become effective until July 1, 2005.

Consider approving Planning Commission recommendations concerning Development Code, November 17, 2004 edition, regarding rezoning CP & RS-2 Zoned Properties

a)       Z-10-49G-04:  Rezoning of properties currently zoned CP (Commercial Parking) to zoning districts associated with the developments the CP-zoned sites serve, based on the Table of CP Properties and the Map of CP Zoned Properties.

b)       Z-10-49H-04:  Rezoning of various properties in eleven older neighborhoods currently zoned RS-2 to RS5 based on lot sizes (individual neighborhood maps are located at www.lawrenceplanning.org).  Maps and ownership tables for these zoning districts were developed based on Planning Commission direction.  The RS5 designation is part of the official zoning map and appears on the composite zoning map of all district designations.  Initiated by the Planning Commission at its meeting on August 25, 2004.  The Planning Commission held public hearing on the first portion of initiated rezonings for the new zoning map on November 17, 2004.  The map designations initiated for public hearing at December’s meeting are the CP to related zonings [RM24 (RMO), CC200 and PCD-2 [Westgate];] and specific portions of older neighborhoods from RS-2 to RS5.  (Item 5; approved 10-0.)  

Linda Finger, Planning Director, reviewed the staff memo regarding recommended revisions.  She said the business community and general public had concerns about; uses prohibited in the CD District, use terminologies; some density and dimensional table typos; the status of single-family residences as non-conforming uses and duplexes in RM Districts; and a environ landscape measurement standard.       

She said one of the larger issues was the non-conformities section, Article 15, making single-family homes, which concerned detached dwellings, in RM Districts non conforming uses.  She said staff used the vernacular of single-family residential structure, but that language was not in the new code and was referred to as a detached building or a principal building in a residential area. She said there were some minor tweaks that she would like to recommend to the language in the memo because staff carried over the language in the old code in the memo.   The recommended text changes were as follows:

Article	Section No. and Title Subsection No. and Title	Recommended Text Changes
4 USE TABLES	20-403. Non- Residential Use Table Use Category: Eating and Drinking Establishments	1. Add a “P” for Brewpub, to indicate a permitted use in the CD district. 2. Add a “P” for Fast Order Food, to indicate a permitted use in CD district and that User Standards apply. 3. Delete the use of Restaurant, High Turnover from the Development Code AND revise the Use Terminologies in Article 17, Eating and Drinking Establishments, to allow “Fast Order Food” to serve the purpose of the “Restaurant High-Turnover” use.
4 USE TABLES	20-403. Non-Residential Use Table Use Category:  Food and Beverage Sales	1.   Add a “*” to the “P” for permitted in the CD district to identify that Use Standards apply to this use category in the Commercial Downtown District.
5 USE REGULATIONS	20-501. Use Standards (i) Eating & Drinking Establishments Involving Alcoholic Beverages (3) Standards that Apply in CN1 Districts	1.  Revise the section title [20-501(i) to delete the last three words, “…Involving Alcoholic Beverages:” 2.   Revise subsection title [20-501(i)(3) to include the CN2 district.  Also add the CN2 district into the body of this subsection text.
5 USE REGULATIONS	20-501. Use Standards (i) Eating and Drink Establishments Involving Alcoholic Beverages. (4) Standards that apply in CO District	1.  Revise subsection title to include the CD district and revise the text of the section to capture the intent of section20-501(x) Restaurant, High Turnover.
5 USE REGULATIONS	20-501-Use Standards (x) Restaurant, High-Turnover	1. Delete this subsection from the Development Code as the use standards have been attached to subsection (i) and this use terminology is no longer needed in the Code.
6 DENSITY AND DEMENSIONAL STDS	20-601. Density and Dimensional Standards Table (a) Residential Districts	1.   FOR RS5: Revise Minimum Frontage to 40’ to be consistent with Min Lot Width. 2. FOR RS5 and RS3:  Revise Min. Setbacks, Side (Exterior) to reflect 10’ setback for each district when adjacent to an abutting Rear Lot Line.
10 LANDSCAPING	20-1009.  Landscape Materials Standards (c) Trees, (2) Sizes, (i) Shade Trees and (ii) Ornamental Trees	1.  Revise the height for measurement of both tree types from “four and on-half feet above Grade” to six inches (6”) above Grade,” to conform to the American Nurseryman Standards.
15 NONCONFORMITIES	20-1502 Nonconforming Uses (c) Loss of Nonconformity Status	1.  Add new text to permit expansion of existing single-family structures in RM districts.  Revise text to read: “(iv) Expansion of a single-family residential structure in an RM district, that existed on January 24, 2005, is allowed.”
15 NONCONFORMITIES	20-1502. Nonconforming Uses	1.  Add a second paragraph to subsection(2), similar to that in the exiting zoning ordinance, to permit rebuilding of nonconforming single-family residence in RM districts.  New paragraph to read: “Detached single-family residential structures that are registered nonconforming uses in an RM district shall be permitted to rebuild, except when located in the floodway overlay district.  The nonconforming residential use can not be rebuilt to a greater density than existed before the damage.  Rebuilding shall be allowed only if setback and parking requirements of the district are met.  Reconstruction must be commenced within 12 months from the time the damage occurred.”
17 USE TERMINOLOGIES	20-1702 Use Categories (s) Eating and Drinking Establishments (6) Fast Order Food	1.  Revise the definition of this terminology by changing the second sentence of subsection (6) to incorporate the intent of Restaurant, High-Turnover into the Fast Order Food concept.  The second sentence would read:  “This use category includes both establishments that have seating areas for consumption of prepared food on the Premises and those that provide prepared food only for consumption off the Premises; this category does not include drive-in fast order food establishments.”
17 USE TERMINOLOGISES	20-1702 Use Categories (s) Eating and Drinking Establishments (8) Restaurant, High Turnover	1.  Delete this use terminology from the subsection, Eating and Drinking Establishments, and from the entire Development Code.
17 USE  TERMINOLOGIES	20-1702. Use Categories (s) Eating and Drinking Establishments (9) Restaurant, Quality	1.   Revise the definition of this terminology to read as:  “An eating establishment where the principal business is the dispensing and consumption of prepared foods and or beverages at tables, not including bars, brewpubs, or nightclubs.  Table service by food beverage is available at “quality restaurants.”
17 USE TERMINOLGIES	20-1702. Use Categories (w) Food and Beverage Retail Sales	1.   Revise the definition of this terminology to read as: “Retail sale of food and beverages from home consumption.  Typical uses include grocery stores, convenience stores, butcher shops and package liquor stores.”

Finger said in Chapter 20 Article 1502(c) Loss of Nonconformity Status, these recommended revisions were geared toward those individuals who own and occupy a detached dwelling.  In those districts, the way the code was written today, the detached dwelling would be non-conforming and require a special use permit before it could be reconstructed.   The new second paragraph to this section would read: “The exception to the above paragraph in this section is that a detached dwelling, registered as a non-conforming use in an RM district, shall be permitted to rebuild unless it is located in the floodway overlay zone.  Nonconforming residential detached dwellings cannot be rebuilt to a greater density than existed before the damage.  Rebuilding shall be allowed only if setbacks and parking requirements of the district are met.  Reconstruction must be commenced within 12 months of the time the damage occurred.”

She said the City Commission may be more comfortable with the term “single-family residences”, but in the new code the term would be “detached dwelling.”   If the Commission was uncomfortable with “detached dwelling” not being a permitted use in RM district they should direct staff to change the Use Table in 20-402 to add “P” where there are “S’s” to allow detached dwellings as permitted uses in the RM districts.  The “S” denoted special uses which required a special use permit and/or a site plan.  

Commissioner Dunfield asked Finger if the language proposed would allow detached dwellings only as special uses except in the case of where there was an exiting detached dwelling on that piece of property.

Finger said the language that staff was proposing would incorporate the language from the existing code which said that if there was a non-conforming residential structure, the use could be continued even if the structure was destroyed.  The structure could be rebuilt as long as parking and setback requirements were met.  She said the development code language would not change the legal status of those structures.  They would be grandfathered as a permitted use from the existing code to the new code.  The effect was the new code makes them a nonconforming use. 

Commissioner Dunfield asked if staff’s recommended changes would take away those extra requirements.  He said if properties were to be rebuilt in time, it would take away those requirements for site planning. 

Finger said, as revised, it would remove the site plan and the special use permit requirement.  The setback and parking requirements would need to be met.

Commissioner Schauner asked if the setback and parking requirements would be those that existed at the time of the construction of the structure that was lost. 

Finger said no.  She said those requirements would be those in effect in the new code.

Commissioner Schauner said the rebuilding was allowed only if setback and parking requirements of the district were met.  He said those would be the requirements of the district that was being created, not the setback requirements that were existence at the time the original structure was built.

Finger said correct.

Commissioner Schauner said he understood that only those registered non-conforming uses would be given that special treatment.

Finger said that was also correct because staff would have no way idea of knowing if those structures were legitimate at that location if they were destroyed.

Commissioner Hack said they would still be labeled as non-conforming and they would still need to register.

Finger said yes.  She said it would not remove the registration requirements.   The way to remove the registration requirement was to make the structure a permitted use in an RM district or re-write the section on registration.

Commissioner Schauner asked if staff would have another way to tract those type of structures existence without requirement them to have an affirmative obligation to register with the City.  He said the County sent tax bills to the property owner that identified what the property was and most likely had a computer picture of their property at the County Courthouse.  He said he was trying to understand why this registration was required.  

Finger said the reason for the requirement under the Code was that any non-conforming use would need to register.  She said staff would need to write an exemption for that non-conforming use within the registration requirement that detached structures would not need to register, but that would not capture single-family occupancy because non-conformities did not deal with occupancy or ownership, only with the use.  Detached structures that were perhaps converted into multiple family could also then rebuild.  The problem was staff would not know what the density of that converted structure was because of the non documentation.  She said appraisals did not indicate whether there were for instance 5 dwelling units or 4 bedrooms leased to eight individuals.  She said it would be harder with converted structure because sometimes a water bill would be split among the occupants. 

Commissioner Schauner asked if structures had been converted without appropriate building permits and therefore, there was no way of tracking those converged structures.

Finger said there were numerous structures that fell into that category in the older neighborhoods.

Concerning the Use Terminology staff recommended revising the definition of “Fast Order Foods.”  Also, remove the definition for “Restaurant, High-Turnover”; revise the definition of “Restaurant and Food and Beverage Retail Sales”.  Specifically, in the definition of “Food and Beverage Retail Sales” remove coffee shops and delicatessens.               

Commissioner Schauner asked why coffee shops and delicatessens were being removed.

Finger said those types of uses were being removed because they were already covered under Fast Order Food and were permitted under different zoning districts

She said there were long-term changes to the code that were still on the horizon.  Staff had prepared 27 maps total which showed the RMD zone and the RM-1 zones.  She said in conversations with LAN (Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods) they were going to take those maps and identify on those maps where duplex structures were within the RM-1 districts and RMD.  Staff would then develop a cross-reference database to try and determine what duplex structures were owner/occupied and staff hoped to have that process completed by the end of March to bring back to the City Commission to review at the end of April.

She said staff had understood that the “townhoused” structures were an important consideration.        

Vice Mayor Highberger asked Finger if the multi-family unit structures that were allowed in RS3 had different requirements from those in RS5.

Finger said correct.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Schauner, to extend meeting until the agenda was complete.   Motion carried unanimously.

Sheila Stogsdill, Assistant Planning Director, said there were two unanimous recommendations from the Planning Commission which were the last set of zoning map changes that had been initiated by the Planning Commission last summer. 

The current zoning district had a category called CP (Commercial Parking) and the new code did not create a district for this to automatically transfer to.  There were 12 properties that were currently zoned CP.  There was a table that described each one of those properties and gave a specific recommendation as to how it should be rezoned and in new categories based on what the property was adjacent to and what it served.   For instance, CP district 6 was a parking lot that was adjacent to what was now a residential office district property that was developed as an office building and it had been recommended to be rezoned to RMO.

The first one was a commercial parking district that was adjacent to the Westgate PCD on the southeast quarter of 6^th and Wakarusa and that property was developed with just the detention basin for that commercial development, but that had been suggested to be rezoned to PCD-2/Westgate so that becomes part of that development plan.

She said those were individual recommendations that changed the map based on how those properties were developed and what they served.

Commissioner Schauner asked about the parking district at 6^th and Wakarusa (Dillon’s area) and was that current vacant lot included in the square footage permitted or assigned to that nodal.

Stogsdill said there was an expansion area adjacent to Dillon’s that was included on the development plan, but that was not the CP area. The CP area was just the detention basin which was southeast of Dillon’s.  She said that was shown on that development plan, but it was basically one large drainage easement that served all of those commercial properties.  She said it did not add additional commercial square footage to that property.  Stogsdill went on to say that the next set of maps were specific neighborhood rezoning requests where staff went through and identified parts of the City that currently were zoned RS-2 (Single-Family) which today’s code required a minimum of 7,000 square foot lot size.  Those neighborhoods were developed in subdivisions which were platted long before RS-2 existed and those lots had somewhere between 5,000 square feet and 7,000 square feet.  In the existing code many of those lots had been determined to be an existing lot of record where there was an exception that allowed them to be developed, but many times the Appraiser’s Office would ask what the property was zoned as and was it a problem that it did not have 7,000 square feet.

The RS-5 district was specifically created to provide a district that could make those lots conforming lots.  The reason there was a 40 foot width instead of a 50 foot width was because a number of those subdivisions, especially in Brookcreek, were platted with 40 foot widths and they might be longer than the original townsite lots that were 50’ x 117’.  She said those lot sizes were 40’ x 130’ and they still had the about the same amount of area, but different dimensions.  Those 40’ lots, under today’s code, often times were not developable.  She said this would provide an opportunity for some infill.  She said staff provided maps to the Planning Commission that showed structures located in each of those areas that were identified.  The structure maps were very insightful in terms of showing how the development pattern was and the fact that most of those properties were developed with structures in the center of their lots and there was not going to be a lot of opportunity for creation of new lots.  The purpose of this idea was to simply provide the ability for those homeowners and property owners to have conforming lots in the new district.                

Mayor Rundle called for public comment.

Marci Francisco, Lawrence, member of the Oread Neighborhood Association, said standard sized lots in many of those lots were 55’ x 117’.  She said the comment she wanted to make in regards to the RS-2 area in Oread was that it differed from many of the other areas in the neighborhood in that much of that area did not have alleys and therefore did not have back access.  This size of lot works well when there was an alley, particularly on some of the major streets such as Kentucky, Tennessee, and Massachusetts.  

She asked the Commission to consider how new development on those lots would effect that vehicular pattern.  In particular, the 3 lots on the west side of Kentucky Street which were all larger lots took direct access onto Kentucky.   She said allowing for redevelopment of a smaller lot might not make sense.  The other area to note were both the east and west sides of Massachusetts.  There were 4 smaller lots that would be affected by this change and all the rest of the lots, both sides of that street were larger and the RS7 zoning should work for those lots.

She said she understood there was some other deterrence to development or redevelopment in those areas.  In talking with staff they mentioned that many of those areas were within the environs, but the environs were not something that should set the pattern for development.  It should be set by zoning.   

She said the question she had on the west side of Tennessee and the east and west sides of Massachusetts, was did they really want to indicate, in the zoning, that they expected those lots to be smaller than what was existing and without being able to take vehicular access from an alley, they would want to allow for additional curb cuts on Kentucky or on both sides of Massachusetts.

Mayor Rundle asked Francisco if that was the only area where there were no alleys.  He asked if there were any other RS-3 areas that it would pertain to.

Francisco said she believed that there were some other RS areas that did not have alleys.  She did not know if those areas that did not having alleys would be on major streets.

Price Banks supported Francisco’s proposal.  He said the proposal that Francisco set forth made perfect sense.  Planners sometimes get hung up on the idea of spot zoning.  There were very many instances where it simply made sense to zone for the use that was there, particularly when talking about eclectic lot sizes.  In the older part of town it was one of the things that gave this City the character that it had.

He said he expected that he was not alone in finding it very difficult to review and respond to the new regulations.  Much of the adoption process took place during the holidays which was a very busy time.  He said he understood that the regulations were still being revised.  He said it was difficult to get copies of the regulations because copies were not available, but Planning Staff gave him a computer disk to review.  He said he deciphered most of the salient points and he wanted to share some of his concerns with the City Commission.

The first concern was the complexity of the document.  The document was not user friendly and had not simplified the regulations, but had increased in volume by about half what they previously had.  He said the vast majority of the people had no idea of the impact of that document.  He said he was not representing anyone except someone who was going to be likely impacted by the regulations as any landowner would be.  He said he would explain one reason for that conclusion which had to do with non-conformity provisions that were discussed earlier. 

He said the non-conforming provisions eliminated the grandfathering of legal non-conforming uses and the City was also going to require registration contrary to the statue.  The statue did provide that non-conforming uses could be amortized, but if changing zoning then the use was still legal.  Not going to see the Planning Director did not make it illegal.  He said he did not think the registration clause would hold water in the long run and he believed that idea would be litigated.  He said they had a registration process now and the provisions that outline what non-conformities were. 

In reading the regulations, he said non-conformity would include most of the properties that existed right now at Wakarusa and 6^th Street.  He said particularly those properties where KDOT had taken a portion of the front yard.  Those property owners could no longer meet the greenspace requirements and many probably could not meet their setback requirements, including People’s Bank and any of the uses in that area.  He said he suspected that most of the properties along 23^rd Street would have non-conformities and would be subject to the registration process.      

He said he did not know if his property had non-conformities that was subject to that process or not, but it might very well.  He said if his property did not have any non-conformities, he might in the near future because the City had threatened at one point to take a portion of his property for the new Kasold alignment.  If the City took part of his property, he did not know if he would have sufficient rear yard or not.  If he did not, he would have non-conformity.  If he had non-conformity and had not registered by the end of next year, then he had a serious problem.     

He said if he needed to refinance his house an appraiser would note that he was in non-conformity and ask him to fix that.  The fix would be to go to the Board of Zoning Appeals who might or might not grant that exemption.  He said he was not sure that they had the ability to grant an exemption if the only criteria were that he was not aware of the zoning at the time or excusable neglect.

He said he had a conversation with a person from Commerce Title, who discussed this issue with his underwriter.  The underwriter indicated that non-conforming use would be an exception on a title commitment.   He said if it was an exception on title commitment that meant that a person would not get financed or the sale would not go through until it was fixed.  If that person ended up going to the Board of Zoning Appeals then that would be approximately 60 days between the time that closing was originally proposed and the time that that person might get the loan or make the sale.  In 60 days the buyer might have walked and the interest rates would have gone some place.

He said people who were not in conformance with the existing regulations had a legal non-conforming use.  He said new regulations would be adopted and those people who had the legal non-conforming use would not have an inkling of a thought they would need to register.  He said when those property owners came in for a building permit, attempted to sell their property, or refinance there would be a big hold up and it was going to cause a lot of problems and a lot of money. 

Another concern was that with the duplex districts under the existing regulations, in the new regulations those districts were going to permit multiple family dwellings all over town.  He said the other concern was non-conformities and the fact that no single families were permitted in what were previously duplex district.  All of those issues plus other issues that were raised indicated that things were moving a little too fast and he suggested that those issue be studied further.

On the non-conforming use issue, he said he could get three volunteers to help review that issue.  He suggested that someone from the insurance, lending, real estate, and title industries, and an appraiser all take a look at those issues and make a recommendation to the City Commission. 

He said he talked to Mark Anderson, Barbara Emerson LLC, who said he would be willing to volunteer to take a look at some of those issues.  He said he was also interested in volunteering.  He said there needed to be some additional review before those regulations were adopted.              

Jeanne Ellermeier, President, Indian Hills Neighborhood Association, said her association was the group that presented the issue of duplex zoning.  She said if those types of lots were sold and the new zoning went into effect they would be able to be redeveloped as multiple type zonings such as high rise apartment areas. She said in her neighborhood many of those types of duplex zonings were next to single-family zones.  If this type of redevelopment occurred, the duplex area would lose it function as a buffering zoning between possible multiple-family and single family.  She said in earlier discussions they understood that this issue would be taken into consideration and something possibly could be worked out in order to protect the neighborhood.         

She said she was concerned about the new memo which simply stated that duplexes could be taken care of as owner/occupied.  She said many duplexes were not owner/occupied.  She said if this issue was going to come to some type of fruition by the first of April, so would the change in the Commission and their ideas that they held.  She said it was possible that they would need to start over again with an entirely new Commission to try to press their point.  If this issue was to be addressed, she asked that it be addressed quickly and set a time limit so that there was some assurance that this problem would be eliminated or protected.

Dave Geyer, Lawrence, spoke on the owner/occupied units.  He asked if they rezoned to RS-3 wouldn’t the owner/occupied units be another point of spot zoning.  He said he understood that that type of zoning was not allowed.

Chuck Magerl, Lawrence, said he had a request that would be a valuable change in that document which was the change in the terminology in Article 17 concerning the definition of a bar or lounge.  He said out of those three sentences that define a bar or lounge, he suggested that the 3^rd sentence be removed.  The definition stated: “An establishment that may include food services but that emphasizes a service of alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises.”  He said that sentence made sense.

The second sentence stated: “Any establishment generating more that 45 percent of its gross revenues from alcoholic beverages on a weekly average shall be deemed to be a bar and not a restaurant.”  He said that sentence was consistent to some of the other aspects of how we define establishments like these.

The final sentence however stated:  “Any food and beverage establishment with alcoholic beverages and remaining open to the seating of new customers after 10 p.m. on a regular basis shall be deemed to be a bar and not a restaurant.”  The problem he had with that sentence was that some of the businesses beyond his business that would thereby be deemed to be a bar would include places like La Parilla, Tellers, Milton’s,  Marisco’s, and India Palace.  He did not think those establishments would be typically regarded as bars.  Having that final sentence in that terminology did not serve the function of defining the businesses in Lawrence or providing any protection as far as the community would be concerned.  He requested removal of that final sentence in the definition.           

Joyce Wolf, Indian Hills Neighborhood Association, said according to the ownership records that were researched before this project started, there was only one owner/occupied duplex, all others were not owner/occupied in her neighborhood.  She understood that the proposal to only address owner/occupied duplexes was not going to help their neighborhood. She said they needed something that would ensure that those lots, if and when those lots were redeveloped, would reflect the character of what was there now and provide that buffer to the adjacent single-family homes     

Caleb Morse, President, League of Women’s Voters, said there was some confusion about the duplex issue.  He said the source of the confusion, if there was one, was on the two issues of owner/occupancy and neighborhood stability and Price Banks spoke eloquently to the issue of people who were living in duplexes as owner/occupied finding themselves rezoned as a multi-family district one day, having a multifamily structure built next to them.

He said Wolf also spoke about the neighborhood’s concern about the need to preserve stable patterns of development which he would address.  He said he was one of the neighbors that would do some ground work on mapping out existing duplex units.

He said regarding the issue of stability, at the risk at furthering this process, he would like to make a suggestion about a little thing that could be included in the neighborhood protection guidelines which concerned setback requirements adjacent to single-family neighborhoods.  He said an issue Finger raised appropriately was if that area was zoned RMD or RM-1 to RS-3, than there still could be those eightplexes.  He said that brought forward Wolf’s concern about lot consolidations which was a reasonable issue to be concerned about for the neighborhood.  He said as a way to remedy the possible problem of lot consolidations, he suggested including as a buffer in a residential neighborhood protection, a requirement that lot sizes in multi-family districts be the same as lot sizes in the adjacent residential family districts so that you would not need to worry about those lots consolidating and one big building that was not compatible in scale.  He said this would work particularly well with the setback requirements which were guided by the height of the building.  If the lot itself was small enough, then the building would be naturally self regulating in size and the duplex size building would be able to be maintained.   He said that issue was what everyone was concerned about that there were no limitations on scale for multi-family buildings.  He said scale was very important when talking about multi-family adjacent to residential. 

Vice Mayor Highberger asked Morse how his suggestion would apply to an area that was adjacent to resident single-family zoning of two different densities.   

Morse said a density would need to be decided and go with that density.  He said that was an issue that might need to be discussed.  He said in his neighborhood many of the duplexes were all on the same lot size as the single-family residences across the street.    

Gwen Klingenberg, Lawrence, spoke on the duplex issue.  She requested the ordinance be deferred until the duplex issue was resolved.  If it was not resolved before the passing of this ordinance, the duplex issue could cause problems for neighborhoods and new development. 

The Planning Department had already received concerns from neighborhoods and from duplex owners.  The duplex owners were concerned about the RS zoning and if it would affect the number of unrelated people living in their duplexes.  The neighborhoods were concerned with the loss of transitional buffers of small scaled buildings between single-family and RM or commercial zones.

She said in the residential chapter of Horizon 2020 there were several policies that referred to the transitions and scale which was Policy 3.3c which encouraged compatible infill and it referred to scale.  Policy 4.1 was the criteria for location of residential and also referred to scale. The medium and high density section, Goal 1, Policy 1.1a, which referred to scale and considered land use relationships with scale. 

She said at present there were only 2 housing types, single-family and multi-family.  The multi-family only dealt with density, not scale.  She said one solution could be that other communities, such as Overland Park, zoned for building types as well as for densities.   Overland Park had separate zoning districts for duplexes, garden apartments, and higher density apartments.

Another solution was the performance standard.  She said spot zoning where there was one single owner with that duplex problem she said they were asking that they defer at least this issue and obviously the non-conforming issue which was affecting 11 neighborhoods.   

Patricia Sinclair, Lawrence, said going north on Folks Road off of 6^th Street there was a large development call Bauerbrook which was currently not in within the City limits, but was almost entirely surrounded by the City.  That area was currently zoned A-1 so that meant the City was not receiving City taxes. 

She said she questioned why that area had not been annexed and why that area was not part of the residential zoning that was presently being looked at.  Particularly without trying to be rude to an individual, but particularly since one of the major owners at that location was actively involved in annexing areas into the City and also was involved in rezoning and development in the City.  Because this area was almost entirely surrounded by City land, those residents routinely use City streets and there were also animals kept in that area.  She said those types of animals were not allowed in City limits and yet they were sort of within our City limits without being in the City limits.  She questioned why it was not part of the zoning discussion.

Vice Mayor Highberger said her question concerned annexation.  He said they were talking about rezoning existing lots within the City.  He said he was aware of the issue she raised and he expected there would be some type of action on that issue.

Sinclair said she would like to comment on that issue if the issue came before the City Commission. She said she thought it was related to zoning.       

Sinclair went on to say that last year she did a lot of research into the non-conforming use regarding drinking establishments in the CD district.  She said she had no idea how the new regulations addressed this issue.  She said she was delighted that excited and enthusiastic owners purchased the Eldridge Hotel for continued use as a hotel, but that establishment was one of those animals and the owners were in the process of remodeling that hotel which the City’s previous ordinance would have set restrictions on in terms of remodeling, expansion, and change of use and still maintain a non-conforming use.  She said the City had dropped the ball in the past and she suggested trying to make it easy for those owners and fair play for all downtown.

Sinclair addressed the issue of rezoning (Z-10-49H-04) various properties in eleven older neighborhoods currently zoned RS-2 to RS5.  She said she raised her token objection to both the product and the process in the proposed rezoning of many lots in the Barker neighborhood from RS-2 to RS5.  In particular, she objected to the methods used by the Planning Department which were in part, misleading, unresponsive, and secretive.  Although she requested information from Planning more than one month ago, most of that information was not received.  In particular she wanted to know the pro’s and con’s of this issue for homeowners. 

She said she asked her LAN representative, Jim Carpenter, about this issue a month ago and he did not know anything about it. 

She suggested that the Planning Department adopt a more user friendly practice, such as weekly normal people language updates on the website so that people did not need to download a massive list of corrections, typo’s, and changes that you could not make heads or tails of. 

She said she appreciated the comments from Banks and if Banks was having trouble following this issue, you could understand why she was because Banks was much more knowledgeable about those types of issues.

It seemed unfair to rezone an established neighborhood where people have settled with an expectation of current zoning conditions and density continuing.  This rezoning could and would result in more dense housing and perhaps setbacks that block one’s view and light.  She said while there might be a need for smaller and more affordable lots within the City, it was not the responsibility of the older neighborhoods to change to make those smaller lots available.  She said they were already sacrificing enough through increased traffic, loss of land to road projects, paying or improvements in new parts of the City, and loss of neighborhood schools.

Additionally, she doubted that those persons affected were even aware of the proposed rezoning.  She said the rezoning might be legal, but she did not think it was ethical. 

She asked what was the purpose of the proposed rezoning; who requested that rezoning; what were the sizes of the lots to be rezoned; and what would be the status of existing homes if they were destroyed and needed to be rebuilt under the current zoning and what were the pro’s and con’s to homeowners.

Planning’s report indicated that the purpose of the proposed rezoning was to protect homeowners in case their home were destroyed and they could not rebuild due to not meeting the RS-2 requirements.  She believed this only applied to lots that were quite a bit smaller than required by RS-2, but she could not get Planning to answer that question.  She said what would be the situation for most people who had lots only slightly smaller than required. 

As for the question of who requested that rezoning, Planning’s report indicated that this new zone RS-5 was created in response to a request from an “Informal Coalition of Representatives from Central City Neighborhoods.” She said when she asked Finger to identify those individuals, Finger declined and suggested that she contact some other people to try to find that information out.  In other words, this was done in response to a request from the neighborhoods.  She said she wanted to know who those people were and if anyone in her neighborhood, Barker, asked for this rezoning.

She addressed the sizes of the lots to be rezoned.  Although Planning prepared an 8 page table listing the lots to be rezoned in the Barker neighborhood and this table listed owners, addresses, parcel numbers, and other information, it failed to include either the dimensions or square footage of those properties or ways in which those property setbacks might not comply.  Surely City staff had that information.  By failing to provide that information, they had failed to provide the facts to back up their case.  There was a notation that it was somewhere between 5,000 and 6,999 square feet.

She said RS-2 was the current zoning throughout the entire Barker neighborhood. There were quite a few houses that had lots larger and equal to RS-2 and some lots that were smaller.  She said RS-2 had a 60 foot frontage, 7,000 square feet, and they were proposing to change the area to RS-5 which was a 40 foot frontage, 5,000 square feet.  She said her house, as an example, had a 50 foot frontage and 6,500 square feet which was 10 feet too narrow, but only 500 square feet too small.  She said some of those properties that were mentioned in the report were lots in Brookcreek with 40 foot wide frontage and there were other neighborhoods mentioned as having those tiny little lots, but that was not the case for Barker.  She said it had been said that rezoning needed to reflect the actual size of the lots, but it did not really seem that that was the case or what was going to happen. 

Vice Mayor Highberger said that Sinclair was one of the people that this zoning district was designed to protect because she would not be conforming under the existing zoning, but she would be conforming under the RS-5 zoning. 

Sinclair said she was not suggesting that she wanted something that would get her in trouble with rezoning.  One of the questions that she kept asking to Planning staff was the pro’s and con’s.  She said that was an important piece of information.  She asked about the lot sizes and where were the statistics that back that information up.

Sinclair said she did not know how the rezoning would affect her property values.  She said if you’re living in a neighborhood where the lots were zoned smaller, it was typically not a well to do neighborhood and it might have some ultimate affect on the value of homes in the neighborhood.

She said she did not know about the status of her property. She said obviously some monster structure could be built on a little lot.  The cons were having denser environment than the one that a person bought into.  She went on to say the only way she found out about this issue was that the Chair of Barker Neighborhood Association, sent out an email to a very small number of people who were on a list serve just before the week of the Planning Commission meeting.  She said it had been enormously frustrating.  She asked if staff could clarify what her existing situation was with a house that was 75 years old that had been in the RS-2 zoning district all that time. 

Mayor Rundle said he had a list of the major issues.  He thought staff had been very responsive lately of those concerns that had come up at the last minute.  He said the Commission would be continuing that dialogue in the coming weeks and he encouraged staff to keep addressing those concerns.  He said if things surface that appear to be major, and that did not get resolved, then those issues should be taken to the Planning Commission for review.  He said the duplex issues should be discussed later.

He asked Finger to address the issues of non-conformity in the new code versus the legal non-conforming status in the existing code.

Finger said Banks had indicated that non-conformities would just disappear, but that was not the case.  She said if reading Article 15 in conjunction with Article 1 it was very clear that if  a property was an existing non-conforming use today, that property would continue to be a non-conforming use.  At one point in time when the use was created or the structure was built, if it conformed to the current regulations and then the regulations changed either prior to this ordinance adoption or with this ordinance adoption that non-conformity would be allowed to continue.

Registration of a non-conforming use was an issue which Duncan Associates discussed with the Zoning and Codes Advisory Board, which was the ad hoc group that helped with the original drafting of the code document.  She said Eric Kelly, consultant with Duncan Associates, was a Land Use Professor and an attorney and was well recognized in Land Use Law and also edited the Land Use Journal.  She said that Article 15 recommendation in how registration occurred was worded by Kelly.  She said she did not purport to know land use law to the degree of either Kelly or Banks so she needed to rely on the consultant that this document was legitimate and it did fit within the State statutes.  She said Dave Corliss, Assistant City Manager/ Legal Services Director, has also looked at this document and may want to comment.

She said the document did not amortize uses, but it did have an impact that if a person did not register that use after a year, the ability to prove that your property was a non-conforming use took you to a higher level.  She said that person would need to go to the Board of Zoning Appeals to show that he or she didn’t know to register or there were other prevailing factors.  She said there was an out, it was not automatic, you were not a non-conforming use if you don’t register. 

She said staff had a very detailed approach for registration that they expected to carry forward in communications.  Staff had been working the last 6 months to try and go through all the parcels in Lawrence through a mapping process and identify those that had a very high potential of being non-conforming.  She said there was a two letter process that they would like to implement, but they could not do any of that until staff knew that they had an adopted code and what the timelines were.  She said if the development code was not adopted tonight, then staff would need to change the effective date and that would make a difference in sections of the code.

The article in the newspaper indicated that staff would be getting in touch with individuals that staff was aware were non-conforming and a public education process would be implemented. 

Another issue that Banks brought up was that landscaping could make a property non-conforming.  She said landscaping could make a property non-conforming if it was required on a site plan today if a property did not have the required street trees or buffers.  She said if you were required to do something through a site plan or planned procedure, non-conforming was probably a wrong word for the use.  If it was required and it was not done, then a person was in violation of the code.    

Commissioner Schauner asked if that landscaping was taken through a highway project, for example, and you could no longer comply with the site plan requirements for landscaping, would that turn that property into a non-conforming property.

Finger said that concern was discussed extensively during the appraisal process when staff met with KDOT’s engineers along west 6^th Street.  The fact that non-conformity was not due to your creation was important.  They talked about taking all of those properties forward to the Board of Zoning Appeals for the Board to grant variances and if they were granted, then those properties would not become non-conforming.

Commissioner Schauner said what he heard was that property would become non-conforming and staff would be willing to work with some of those properties to get a BZA approval on a variance.

Finger said yes, if there was not a procedure already taken and if it was a condemnation or eminent domain, that property could be made non-conformity, but certainly that was a process that a person needed to take into account when looking at appraisal of a property for those determinations of eminent domain or condemnation.

Vice Mayor Highberger asked if those properties that had a non-conforming status would need to be registered.

Finger said yes.

Commissioner Hack asked if a property that had just been built on west 6^th had part of that property taken from KDOT to widen the road, would that property be non-conforming.

Finger said the property would not be non-conforming because that property would go through the BZA process to have a variance granted to that area.

Commissioner Hack asked how that would differ from the existing property that they would be making non-conforming by that ordinance.

Finger said one way was, due to an act of a body through a legal condemnation or court action.  There was specific language in the code that addressed lots that had been created through some lawful division.

Mayor Rundle said he understood that they did not intend those types of consequences for non-conforming uses.  He said if there was agreement that there was still a problem that problem would need to be addressed.  If there were disagreement with the interpretations, then those needed to be resolved as well.

Finger said the other concern raised by Banks was the creation of non-conformity out of a use that was a permitted use.  She said that was exactly what the code did for detached dwellings in RM districts and this was a recommendation from the Planning Commission.  She said because of the loss of transition when detached dwellings are built on RM properties, staff would agree with the Planning Commission’s logic.  By removing detached dwellings from a permitted use then, by defacto, the transition would not be lost through a marketing trend, that allowed a dwelling type to occur that could impose a use change. 

Mayor Rundle asked Finger to identify those language problems and plan to resolve them.  He also asked if the duplex issue in the RS3 zoning district and those various lot sizes in Oread were resolved.

Finger said dividing lots into smaller lots was an accurate statement and that issue could be addressed by those lots RS5 zoning.

Commissioner Dunfield said the suggestion that he took from Francisco’s comments was that those lots be simply excluded from that RS5 zoning district and allow those lots to stay at the RS-2 equivalent which was RS7.

Finger said correct. 

Mayor Rundle said concerning Magerl’s suggestion on the terminology of bar or lounge, he said that terminology should be addressed.

Finger said concerning the duplex issue, staff was not trying to confuse the public.  She said it was not staff’s intention that they were only going to look at owner/occupied dwellings that were duplexes.  She said staff’s intention was to be able to stratify what the duplex use issue was so there was an idea of what was owner/occupied, as there was greater benefit for the neighborhood and the individual if both existed.  It increased the benefit or assurance that a property owner would want protection in an RS3 or RS5, because that was consistent with the current use of the property and that was what the neighborhood would like to see.

The next level was to look at where duplexes in an RM district were located, whether it was an RMD or an RM-1, and quantify the amount of duplexes so staff could bring the different types of uses in those categories to the City Commission for review.  She said with that information the Commission could determine if they wanted to initiate a rezoning or a change in the zoning district based upon factual information of what the actual structure and use were.

Commissioner Dunfield said he did not understand why owner/occupancies even figured into this discussion.

Finger said the owner/occupancy issue did not figure into anything that this Commission needed to be concerned about at this point.  She said all staff had wanted to do was to bring forward to the Commission how properties were owned and used.

Commissioner Dunfield asked if the survey and the effort that was discussed in terms of identifying those properties were not dependent on ownership.

Finger said no they were not.  She said it was something staff could determine when they received the survey information. 

In response to Mr. Morse’s issue, she said in any of the RS districts there could be attached dwelling and they were on the size of the lot that was required in that district.  She said lot sizes in the RM districts where they were adjacent to RS typically were the same size.  Even if those lots were the same size, it did not imply that the structure would be contained within one lot because lot lines could be built across. 

She said one provision that she wanted to make sure the Commission was aware of was section 20-602(h). She said what the sections in staff’s table spoke to, when looking at the height of any structure where the structure was adjacent to RS, setbacks were either the height of the building or the minimum required setback whichever was greater.  She said the streetscape would begin to be impacted when there were many lots were pulled together whether large or small lots.

She said in one sense this section was protecting what the neighborhood was asking for but, that they needed to understand that there were consequences of having setbacks equal to height.

Commissioner Schauner said if you don’t have the setback then you end up with significant shadowing on adjacent properties.

Finger said yes, it was a tradeoff.

Commissioner Schauner asked why that tradeoff would need to be made if they were trying to protect or preserve the character of the neighborhood.  He asked why greater massing would be permitted

Finger said because the districts created were not “forms based” so districts were not created to allow only a certain building type. 

Commissioner Schauner said if a goal was to preserve that neighborhood character, it seemed that they needed to look at a different way of addressing that RMD question. 

Vice Mayor Highberger said “forms based” districts was the next step and to introduce that idea at this point in the process the Commission would need to throw everything out and start over.

Mayor Rundle said from what he understood from developers townhomes were among the affordable housing options and to be able to build duplex and triplexes they would want to certainly preserve that option.  He said it might be that this issue needed to go to the Planning Commission so that they did preserve neighborhoods, but also preserve that housing option.

Finger said at the workshop for neighborhood development there would be different avenues available to the old codes’ approach to separate building types and uses.  That was not the direction Planning and Neighborhood Development were going today.  They were trying to go to a mixture of uses to add a greater flavor to a neighborhood and still be compatible on how those structures were built.

She said Geyer pointed out that he wanted a response to spot zoning.  She said it was not that staff believed that the RS3 would be spot zoning, but staff wanted people to be aware that RS3 did not remove the ability for attached dwellings to be built.  Staff needed to know what the size of the lots were and if those lots were in compliance.  She said non-conforming uses should not be created when RS3 zoning was recommended for sites that were zoned RMD or RM-1.

She said Magerl had made a good recommendation to delete the last sentence concerning the terminology of bars and lounges and his recommendation would not affect the intent of the regulation.

Finger said concerning RS5 zoning, she had never spoken to Sinclair about this item.  As the Commission indicated, the Bauerbrook property was an annexation request and it had not been applied for at this point.  The appropriate zoning would be recommended once it was annexed into the City.  Until that annexation occurred, the area was not a zoning map issue and was not pertinent to the adoption of this ordinance.

In response to Ms. Sinclair, the reason why she could not respond to who the informal coalition was that recommended the original town site zoning, was because she did not know.  She said Caleb Morse might be able to respond to that question because she thought he was part of that coalition.

Commissioner Dunfield said that informal coalition discussion went back as far as his involvement in neighborhood association affairs.  He said that had always been one of the central neighborhood goals to have a residential zoning that actually corresponded and made their lots legal and this concept would do that for the first time.  He said there had been so many discussions over such a long period of years he could not name names either.

Finger said the discussions went back at least 5 years and came forward as a proposal for an original town site zoning, which staff looked at with the Zoning and Codes Advisory Committee.  She said they came up with the RS5, RS3, and the Urban Conservation Districts which, when used together, could achieve what an original town site zoning would do.                

The actual rezonings to RS5 for the neighborhoods were initiated by the Planning Commission last year based upon review of neighborhoods and massing of lots.

Stogsdill addressed the specific questions concerning the staff report.  She said as Sinclair stated, questions were forwarded to staff while she was still compiling the staff report.  She said she specifically, in the body of the staff report, tried to address a number of the issues that had been raised. 

She said on pages 6 and 7 of the staff report regarding RS5 rezoning, there was discussion about creating the district to make substandard lots conform so those lots were no longer subject to that existing lot of record provision and also discussed the fact that property owners with those lots now often needed to go through the BZA in order to do any development or redevelopment on their property.

She said there was discussion in the staff report on the bottom of page 6 regarding the comparison of setbacks in RS5 versus the proposed RS7 which addressed the question that had been asked.

She said also, the discussion concerning RS districts were subject to the occupancy requirements and the definition of family whether RS7 or RS5.  She said she certainly attempted to address those issues that were raised ahead of time.

Stogsdill said as to the question about the table that listed areas, that table information was readily available through the GIS system.  She said with all of those maps, the number of lots that were affected, staff would have needed to go into each individual platted subdivision and specifically look at those lot sizes in order to compile that table.  That type of information was just not readily available on the system. 

She said staff knew from past efforts and questions that there were numerous 40’ wide lot subdivisions in certain parts of the City so staff had specifically attempted to address both those substandard lots as well as the original town site lots.

Vice Mayor Highberger asked if Sinclair had a specific question that she did not think was addressed.

Sinclair said she would still like to know the size of the lots affected in her neighborhood and what would happen to her property in case a natural disaster occurred. 

            Mayor Rundle suggested that Sinclair have discussions with Finger.  He said Ted Boyle also had major issues, but Boyle had discussed them with Finger and those issues were resolved.  He said if the questions still persisted after discussion with Finger, then the City and Planning Commissions would want to hear about those issues.

Banks asked whether the Commission was going to make amendments to exclude certain types of non-conformities.

Commissioner Hack asked if that was a suggestion from staff to alleviate some of those concerns with the non-conforming single-family homes in the RM district and the change in the table to allow those.

Finger said yes.  She clarified that staff had never mentioned that there were 2,000 single-family homes that were non-conforming.  She said the majority of non-conforming uses created by this ordinance were going to be detached structures in RM districts and those structures could simply be made a permitted use and that would remove a large percentage of what would be created as non-conforming uses and it would remove them from the registration process.  

Commissioner Hack said that Banks had addressed the issue of lending and she had spoken to several lenders concerning Banks’ concern.  She said during appraisals, if the form was checked non-conforming, the lending institution would not even look at lending to that individual.  The other issue was that of insurance.  She said there were companies that would not insure non-conforming uses and they would also only guarantee a certain percentage of costs related to ordinance required upgrades.

She said this was a work in progress and the only way they would find out if it worked was to pass the new development code.  She said they might need to agree as a Commission the timeline for staff to get information back to the City Commission concerning implementation.  She said she felt this issue could be moved forward it those non-conforming situations were clear along with the duplex issue.     

Vice Mayor Highberger said he wanted to clarify the issue of the non-conforming use for detached dwelling in multi-family zoning.  He said the code provided that even if those were non-conforming uses, those structures could be rebuilt if necessary without a special use permit.

Finger said yes that was the language staff brought to the Commission tonight.

Commissioner Hack said that answered part of the question from the City’s standpoint.  She said the lenders were saying that they could not lend money on a non-conforming use.   

Mayor Rundle asked if Duncan Associates responded to those general types of issues.

Banks said the City Code included landscaping and parking. The Orchard Shopping Center would be non-conforming because the parking spaces were too small. 

            Finger said Duncan Associates did not comment on that issue because it was a change that was made after staff received the draft.  She said that issue was discussed at the Zoning and Codes Board and was not something that Duncan Associates recommended.

Finger said a compromise could be, if the Commission wanted to move forward tonight, to allow detached dwellings that existed today and to change the use standard which was referenced on the table (20-501(h) which stated: “A detached dwelling shall only be permitted in an RM or RO district by approval of a special use permit.”  She said that statement could be modified to say: “Shall only be permitted in an RM or RO district after the adoption of this ordinance or after January 24^th by the approval of a special use permit which would mean anything that pre-dated that would be allowed to exist.

Commissioner Schauner said it is late in the evening, and he had heard comments, pro, con and in between.  He said he wanted to see something in writing from Planning Staff in response to the comments made by the public tonight.  He said this was very important and as a result, he was not prepared to vote on this issue this evening.  He said he would like staff to have the benefit of knowing whatever the financial or insurance industries could provide on this topic so citizens would know how to protect their largest single investments.

He said he would like to defer this issue until the Commission could receive some written responses.

Commissioner Dunfield said what he hoped to avoid was prolonging this debate indefinitely.  He said the danger in not taking action had to do with the implementation schedule that Planning had worked on and having to reorganize that entire schedule.  The other danger in not taking action was what had been said repeatedly, that this document would need fine tuning and that there were Commissioners that had specific items that they wanted to see changed in the development code.  He said they were never going to have all the answers.  He said he respected the seriousness of the non-conformity issues that had been brought up, but he was wondering if there was a way that the Commission could go ahead and adopt the new development code with some specific exclusion of the non-conformity language or with some specific direction that the non-conformity language be brought back to the Commission as a separate agenda item as well as the duplex situation which they all agreed in their last discussion was something that was going to need to be brought back again for further discussion and refinement.  He said he would like to see the Commission at least advance those parts of that ordinance that were not in dispute at this table rather than taking the whole document and setting it aside once again.

Commissioner Hack suggested putting this document aside for two weeks and getting a document that the Commission would be comfortable with.  She said she would rather advance a whole document that she was happy with.

Commissioner Dunfield said he did not think two weeks was long enough.  He said two weeks was enough time to possibly identify the individuals that would be put in a room with the Planners.  He said they were talking a about a process of months.

Commissioner Hack said that was a very good point.  She asked if the Commission should advance the document pulling out the duplex and non-conforming issues along with the suggestion from Magerl on the terminology of bar/lounge.     

Commissioner Dunfield said yes with some of the other text changes in that chart.

Commissioner Schauner said the reason he was not comfortable with that idea was that Finger was proposing off-the-cuff amendments for some text in response to the public.  He did not know if he even had a laundry list that he was comfortable with in knowing exactly the things that were commented on.  He said if it took another six weeks or two months, the world did not come to an end.  He said the Commission ought to have a package with some of the issues addressed in a more appropriate fashion.

Mayor Rundle said he was leaning toward Commissioner Dunfield’s approach.  He said the Commission had been at this issue long enough that things had gotten out of date.  He suggested coming back next week to address some of those issues. 

Commissioner Schauner suggested coming back in a week or two with a written list of those issues that the Commission heard comments on and specific responses from staff then he was willing to move forward.

Commissioner Hack said that was a good compromise.  She suggested that those comments be addressed in two weeks that would allow staff to put in writing some type of timeline for the critical issues.

Commissioner Schauner said with that list, the Commission could approve the balance of that document.

Vice Mayor Highberger said his concern was that two more weeks would give the Commission enough time to identify enough issues to delay it two more weeks and that cycle would continue indefinitely.

Commissioner Schauner said if there were that many issues that needed to be addressed then that said something different about the document.  He said people had looked at and identified half a dozen issues that needed to be addressed in terms of a more formal response.

Commissioner Hack said from a professional standpoint, she agreed that it was a work in progress, but she did not want to pass a document that they immediately needed to make amendments to in a short time period after it was passed.             

Vice Mayor Highberger said the Commission was down to three issues to discuss.

Mayor Rundle said the two issues were the non-conformity and the duplex issues.  He said he would be comfortable with moving forward on the other issues. 

Commissioner Schauner asked Finger what was the text amendment that she amended verbally. 

Finger said it was in response to Commissioner Hack’s concern that detached dwelling would become a non-conforming use.  She said she understood the majority of the non-conforming issues raised, but she was not certain what the Commission wanted in regards to the duplex issue.

Mayor Rundle said that duplex issue would need to be referred back to the Planning Commission.  He said it was a major enough issue that they needed to make sure they preserved the category and not have unintended consequences.

Vice Mayor Highberger said existing recommendation was to zone all RMD and RM-1 as RM12.  The alternative would be to zone, at some point, those properties as RS3 or RS5.  At this point the Commission was not prepared to make that breakdown.

Finger said that was correct.  She said what the neighbors had presented was to create a conversion for RMD to go into an RM12D which would be the same density, but there could only be duplex structures.  That did not address the Indian Hills Neighborhood’s concern because their duplexes were in RM-1.   She said she was confused because she did not know if it was a structure issue, a zoning district, or a compatibility issue which all blended together but, they were not the same thing.

Commissioner Schauner said the Indian Hills neighborhood stated that they were concerned about having an aggregation of two existing lots and building a structure which was, from a mass and density standpoint, significantly different than the current neighborhood character.

Commissioner Hack said that was one concern and the second concern was preserving that buffer between the transition areas.

A member of the public asked if the Commission addressed Francisco’s concern.

Commissioner Dunfield said his proposal on that concern was to leave those properties out of the RS5 district.

Commissioner Schauner said with that list of identified topics, he was prepared to move forward in two weeks with adopting the document.    

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Dunfield, to defer for 2 weeks the adoption on second and final reading of Ordinance No. 7851, adopting the new Development Code and the new zoning map.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                   (16)

Finger said in order to address Francisco’s issue the Commission would need to direct staff which lots they would like to have removed. 

Vice Mayor Highberger said he was not sure he shared Francisco’s concerns.  He said all those lots were built and in order for the zoning to increase the density there were no lots that were 10,000 square feet.

Commissioner Dunfield said Massachusetts had lots that size.

Stogsdill said there were also three lots on the west side of Kentucky that were larger parcels and could eventually be subdivided.  On Massachusetts the 1500 and 1600 Blocks did not have alley access.     

Mayor Rundle asked if staff would address the whole area or just the large lots.

Stogsdill said just the large lots.

Moved by Dunfield, seconded by Schauner, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to adopt the findings of fact and approve the request for rezoning (Z-10-49G-04) of properties currently zoned CP (Commercial Parking) to zoning districts associated with the development of the CP-zoned sites serve, based on the Table of CP Properties and the Map of CP Zoned Properties; and direct staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                   (17)

Moved by Dunfield, seconded by Schauner, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to adopt the findings of fact and approve the request for rezoning (Z-10-49H-04) of various properties in eleven older neighborhoods currently zoned RS-2 to RS5 based on lot sizes (specifically removing the following properties from the RS-5 rezoning: 1601, 1611 & 1617 Kentucky along the west side of the block; 1501 – 1639 Massachusetts along the west side of these blocks; and 1602 – 1646 Massachusetts along the east side of this block; these properties will convert to RS-7); and direct staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance.  Motion carried unanimously. (18)

Consider authorizing the City Manager to enter into an agreement with BG Consultants for the design of the improvements at the intersection of 19^th and Louisiana in an amount of $37,180.08

Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, presented the staff report.  He said the proposal submitted by BG Consultants was being recommended based on the responsiveness to the criteria.  The scope included 4 alternative roundabout layout options and staff planned on involving stakeholders, neighborhoods, Lawrence High, KU, and the City Commission. The scope of work also included survey work and a pedestrian study.  

Commissioner Schauner asked if the BG Consultants work would include alternatives other than a roundabout for that intersection.

Soules said at this point staff was following the Wilson & Co., Louisiana Traffic Calming Study and staff had not anticipated looking at other options.  He said other options were looked at back when Wilson & Co., study was done and at that time that was the recommendation. 

Commissioner Hack asked if BG Consultants did any modeling.

Soules said modeling was not included in the scope of this agreement, but it could be added.  Modeling was not a cheap component and was very technical.  He said staff ran all their roundabout designs though KDOT for review and staff could ask them about modeling. 

Mayor Rundle asked what problems those improvements would address in the function of that intersection.  He asked if there were signalization changes that needed alternatives.  

Soules said there was an issue with crashes.  He said there had been a number of crashes at that intersection even with the signal and also issues with congestion and pedestrians.

Vice Mayor Highberger asked where this intersection was in terms of warrants. 

Woosley said warrants were specific in terms of signals and there was already a traffic signal at that location which met the warrant for a signal a number of years ago.  There were not warrants for roundabouts.

Vice Mayor Highberger asked what factors were analyzed to rank intersections that needed improvements.

Woosley said those were two different lists.  There was a list for new intersections where there had been no improvements made such as 15^th and Wakarusa and there was another list of intersections that have had improvements in the past, but those intersections were still having problems.  This project was at the top of the list for those latter intersections.  In addition, a previous study recommended a roundabout for this intersection to improve safety in this neighborhood.

Commissioner Dunfield asked if staff knew the level of service function of that intersection. 

Woosley said he did not know, but staff could get that information.

Commissioner Schauner asked about the problems that staff was trying to solve at that intersection.

Woosley said crashes and peak hour congestion, but a roundabout could handle more traffic than a traffic signal could and it was much safer so the crashes would go down.  He said when you have a signal, the street that had green light traffic did not slow down at all and traffic sometimes sped up.  If you have a roundabout all traffic entering into that intersection had to slow down which was a safety factor and it made it easier for pedestrians to get across the street.

Commissioner Schauner asked if Woosley believed the intersection at 19^th and Louisiana would need significant geometric improvements and a significant amount of right-of-way to handle a roundabout the size of roundabout at Barker.

Woosley said the Louisiana Study then, showed a larger roundabout at Barker.  The reason for the size of the roundabout at 19^th and Louisiana was because fire trucks would be making left turns at that location.  At Barker there was not a big need for fire trucks making a left turn and that was why the roundabout at Barker was smaller. 

Commissioner Schauner asked if staff new what the impact would be on those four corners. 

Woosley said the Louisiana Study showed that one of the corners would need to be acquired and it depended how the roundabout was laid out.  

Commissioner Hack asked how the size of the roundabout at Barker compared to the roundabouts at Monterey Way and Harvard.

Woosley said those roundabouts were close in size and the Fire Departments large ladder trucks for those intersections could not make left turns.   He said the roundabout at 19^th and Louisiana was similar to the roundabouts at 28^th and O’Connell or Overland and Congressional or the two roundabouts by Inverness.

Mayor Rundle said if this particular intersection was on a list, why staff didn’t have a process to look at that list.

Woosley said staff had not typically taken those upgrades to the Traffic Safety Commission or to the City Commission.

Mayor Rundle said he thought it was the first time the other roundabout was taken to the Traffic Safety Commission.

Woosley said some of those upgrades could be as little as $10,000.  He said there was a whole list of intersections that were done as a part of that program for $10,000 a piece.

Mayor Rundle said he was still puzzled at the fact that among all the projects listed on the Louisiana Traffic Calming Study the Capital Improvement Plan listed a roundabout to address the offset entrances of the Malls Shopping Center and Checkers and listed that intersection as the next project and then this project just came out of the blue.

Woosley said this intersection was actually approved with a previous Resolution.

Mayor Rundle said the way he read the Capital Budget in 2003-2004 it was listed as a signal improvement.  He said everything was just a plug number or a plug project.  He said he did not understand how those projects came about.

Soules said like Woosley said some of these projects are more significant than others.

Commissioner Hack said this issue was being discussed by the site councils at Lawrence High School over several years and had been on the radar since 2000 as a corridor issue.

Soules said staff anticipated a lot of interaction with the schools.  He said staff had received a letter from the school board and they had already designated two people for City staff to keep in contact with.

Mayor Rundle called for public comment.

C.J. Brune, Lawrence, said in the 1970’s and 1980’s, her sons walked through that intersection at 19^th and Louisiana almost on a daily basis because they attended both Centennial School and Lawrence High.  Today, even though it was the major pedestrian throughway out of her neighborhood going towards 23^rd Street, she refused to use that intersection because it was extremely dangerous.  She said it was dangerous because, at times, when standing by the Laundromat on several different occasions during the day, there would be traffic backed up two or three blocks in at least three directions—south, east, and west because of the traffic signal.  When that traffic signal changed, those cars would go out of there like demons.  The only thing they’re looking at was the next traffic signal and how to get to it before it changed.  She said they did not look at a single pedestrian.  She said it was an extremely dangerous intersection to try and walk through, let alone drive through.  She said she had 35 years of experience at that intersection. 

She said when her kids walked that intersection, it was a four way stop at the time and there was crossing guard back in 1986.  The traffic has increased ten fold.  The University was continuing to build and funneling traffic out on 19^th Street.  She urged the Commission to approve the roundabout.   

She said the University Place neighborhood had a traffic safety committee formed in 1985 and they had always preferred traffic calming devices and they would like a device at the 19^th and Louisiana intersection.

Carol Bowen, Lawrence, resident of the Parkhill Neighborhood Association, thanked Mayor Rundle for bringing this issue up.  She said neighborhoods from University Drive to 31^st Street came together to propose an overall plan because they were determined not to have a band-aid solution.  She said she thought the whole situation needed to be looked at. 

She said their area was the first roundabout project and they thought they could be patient, but never mind that South Iowa was developing and traffic was doubling every year.    She said it was at the point where they needed a plan.  She said before they had studied the area with a consultant they had studied the area for two years with KDOT and the City.  She said this plan needed to be updated, but they could not go back and re-decide everything again. 

She said they had two objectives when they first started out.  One objective was to accommodate the flow of traffic in the City.   She said they did not feel they should block that area off and they did not get involved with the South Lawrence Trafficway dispute.  She said they just figured the traffic needed to flow and there was no sense in worrying.  However, they wanted to protect their neighborhood.

She said there were a multitude of driveways, cul-de-sacs, four schools, and Parkhill Neighborhood was landlocked.  Louisiana Street was the only street they had to get out on.  She said she knew the Commission had heard a lot of complaining about the obstructions on Louisiana Street, but people in the Parkhill Neighborhood Association absolutely love those obstructions and perhaps they had been too quiet about that issue.  The problem with that street was the T intersections, which did not lend themselves to traffic lights very well.  The neighborhoods needed to see some consistency from Commission to Commission and every time a commission change came around, they would get a little nervous. 

She said there had been proposed apartment complexes south of 31^st Street and on 31^st Street in which they needed to be prepared for that proposal.  She said they needed to identify capacity issues and they could not do that with half of their project complete.  That was not the only large roundabout they proposed.  The other large roundabout was in front of South Junior High School.  She encouraged the Commission to look at the entire picture and maybe kick this issue back to the Traffic Safety Commission.

Mayor Rundle asked if the proposed roundabout at the Malls and Checkers was a large roundabout.

Bowen said she did not think that proposed roundabout was as large.

Woosley said the roundabout could probably be smaller because fire trucks did not need to make a left turn.

Bowen said this was a safety issue.

Pam Houston, Lawrence, said she was only familiar with three roundabouts, but she believed only one was really a roundabout and it was the other two that she was concerned about.  She lived on the east side, worked at KU, and used the roundabout at 19^th and Barker and it worked for what it was supposed to do.  The other two areas that lead her to question the sanity of the City were the roundabouts at 17^th and Indiana and 17^th and Illinois.  She said they started out as traffic calming devices which were small curb pieces in the intersections.  There were still stop signs at those intersections on 17^th and Illinois and Indiana being the through streets.  There were not signs initially of circles leading someone to believe someone might think of these as roundabouts.  But now, not only are there curb pieces in the intersection, there were circular signs leading into those intersections that led someone to believe they must drive in a circle rather than making a normal left turn and the stop signs had been removed. 

She said she was heading to campus this morning, going up Indiana, and was not able to reach campus because of an accident and needed to take another route.  She said whatever was happening at those two intersections was wrong.   She said she loved roundabouts and had been to other countries that had roundabouts, but those were not roundabouts.  She said there were no yield signs.  Those intersections needed to be made into normal intersections and if someday those intersections were intended to have roundabouts, wait and make them roundabouts when there was the space to do that and the proper traffic flow.  Right now they were hazardous and there had already been accidents and she was concerned about the safety of citizens.

She said she appreciated Commissioner Hack’s statement in today’s newspaper about having to reeducate citizens about proper use of roundabouts.  She said she was wondering if the city needed to do some relearning about what roundabouts were at those two intersections. 

Patricia Sinclair, Lawrence, said she had her notes from previous roundabout discussions.  She said regarding Commissioner Hack’s question about the relative sizes, the roundabout on Barker, the middle piece across was about 94 feet.  The other roundabouts vary from 102 to 106 feet excluding the roundabout on Monterey.  All but Barker were larger roundabouts in a sense that the crosswalks were a further distance from the center piece.  There was a significant difference in size. 

She said not trying to make a joke, but if the City was a half million dollars short for a fire station, she thought many, if not all residents of the City, were interested in having the City’s firefighters have the most effective ability to fight fires and give them safe, comfortable housing during their strenuous shift work. 

This proposed roundabout was going to cost half a million dollars, not including staff time and she did not know if that amount included land acquisition.  She said her vote was for the money to be spent on a fire station. 

Contrary to some reports, she was not against all roundabouts, but she had concerns about their placement in areas of high vehicular and pedestrian traffic, as well as in older neighborhoods.  She said there was an increased flow of traffic without those intersections, if building roundabouts, traffic would come and she believed that happened on 19^th Street and continued to happen.  The more traffic flows, the more non neighborhood traffic there would be and she did not think that was necessarily what those neighborhoods were banking on. 

She said she saw this issue not as a need for public education, but rather a need for City staff to reexamine the concept of roundabouts nationally.  She said it needed to be acknowledged there was a diversity of opinions and facts about roundabouts nationally and that thinking needed to be updated.

She said Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, was the person who she had discussed this issue with previously at the November meeting when this issue first came up.  She said she had asked Soules about his diversity of opinion, but he said no comment.  She said he also stated that the City did not have standards for the design or placement of roundabouts, yet at the meeting, he referred to some State standards and so forth.   He also said there was not a traffic calming device, but more of a traffic control device which were two different things.  A week later, she said she received a copy of the definition of the traffic calming devices.  She said she thought they should be clear when using those terms. 

She said the Commission needed to think about what was happening at this intersection and did they need this to happen at that location.  She said the yellow house on the southeast corner, had land taken from it twice, and the owner finally sold it and now it was a rental with beer cans in the yard.  She said she drove through that intersection all the time and she never had a problem, but she did not intend to cross that intersection on foot.  Most people commented on how much they liked the19^th and Barker roundabout, but they had never tried to cross it on foot.  She wanted those people to try and walk across this intersection safely and then let her know how much they liked that roundabout.

Ironically, one of the things a hand full of people from the Barker Neighborhood Association who actually voted for the roundabout said, was that as the lesser of evils the other choice was an intersection like the existing intersection at 19^th and Louisiana.  They were also told that if this roundabout didn’t work out, they would get an intersection that was signalized with a separate left turn lane which would involve taking more land from the homeowners on the corners.  She said she found it ironic that they were talking about doing the exact reverse.  She said she could not follow that logic.  The only thing she thought was it could maybe move more traffic through faster and become more and more of commuter route and a high traffic volume area. 

One of the elements in the definition of traffic calming devices was “to improve conditions for a non-motorized street user.”   She said she saw no evidence that this would improve safety, especially when there were two busy streets.  She said people might say pedestrian and bicycle safety was going to be safer, but she was asking for facts.  In fact, in high traffic areas, pedestrians who were children, elderly, moved slowly, cognitively impaired, or visually impaired, etc. had more trouble using roundabouts safely.  In fact, this might be a violation of the ADA.  She said she did not think a roundabout should be placed next to a school which served a diverse population which must include children who fell into some of those categories.

The very nature of what made a roundabout appealing was a sort of no gap, seamless movement of traffic.  That was the antithesis of what made it easy for a pedestrian to cross which people waited for traffic to stop for a gap and that was what blind people did.  A roundabout defies that notion. 

Other studies suggested that there might actually be a change in pedestrian use when a roundabout was installed.  She said they would never know at Barker because there wasn’t a study performed for pedestrian use prior to the installation of the roundabout.  It was quite possible people were now avoiding that intersection on foot. 

To anyone who said they liked the roundabout at 19^th and Barker, she suggested that they park their car and try to walk across the roundabout.  Then they could determine whether a roundabout was safe for pedestrians. 

Betty Alderson, property owner west of the High School, said she was glad Bowen spoke to the history of this issue because she was at those meetings, but it seemed like years ago that the four neighborhoods along Louisiana Street were involved in this study.  She attended the meetings that were open to the residents in the neighborhoods.  She thought this whole issue of the Louisiana Street traffic calming was approved over two or three years ago by the City Commission.  She thought that an engineering study was performed and brought back to the City Commission which probably explained why this issue never went through the Traffic Safety Commission at that time.  One of the things they needed was to teach people how to use the roundabouts and the traffic circles, which were two different traffic calming devices.  She said she had been in cars that have been rear ended at that intersection twice in the last eight months.  That had never happened before.  The traffic backed up between 4 and 5pm from Massachusetts to Iowa. 

She said high school students like those pedestrian islands on Louisiana Street.  The studies conducted by the engineers after those islands were constructed said that the traffic slowed down.  Those islands were a nuisance to some people, but a great help for other people.  She hoped that the City Commission would move forward on the proposed roundabout.

Mayor Rundle said he was the one who brought interest to this item when it was just sailing along on its course.  He said he believed in roundabouts and he defended those roundabouts to people who opposed the,. 

He said studies showed that roundabouts move more traffic and increase safety when properly used.  He said they did needed better education so people knew how to use those roundabouts.  Like the pedestrian islands, he thought proper use wasn’t necessarily at its peak.  Those islands continued to be invisible from time to time and if those islands were going to calm traffic, those islands would need to give a signal to someone who could not see those islands particularly at night.  Since those islands did not give a signal, then they could not be a signal.  He said that was a small facet of whether they were using those things properly.  There were many other options for traffic calming in our repertoire that he did not think they necessarily exploited.  It was mentioned a lot of intersection signalization projects were relatively inexpensive and cost only $10,000.  So it was with speed humps and other options and there might be cheaper ways to calm more traffic than putting all the money into a roundabout and that was his hesitation. 

He said they went through this elaborate process with the intersection improvement priority list.  It was his understanding that they had enough money to do one intersection.  He learned from the Traffic Safety Commission that the City Commission had allocated enough money for one intersection, but that process raised another issue.  There were a number intersections identified every year on that priority list as meeting traffic warrants which translated to being unsafe and needing intervention.  The idea that they did one improvement a year was a policy issue that they had never addressed.  He asked why they wait for years to address some of those intersections.  He said once they knew they had a safety problem, be planning ahead within a couple of budget cycles getting all of these intersections addressed.  He said this one intersection popped up out of the community.  He said he was not convinced that staff knew where the other intersections with high crash rates were.  He asked if this was the priority intersection that needed to be done, or even along the Louisiana Street corridor.  He asked why the intersection improvement at the Malls shopping Center was in the CIP for years if it wasn’t the top priority. 

The approved cost estimate for this project was $250,000.  This particular intersection went from a $250,000 item to a $350,000 item from the 2004 budget to the 2005 budget, but the intersection at 19^th and Barker cost over $400,000.  When the traffic calming study for Louisiana Street was performed it was estimated then that this intersection was over a $450,000 project.  He said unless those numbers were just pulled out of the air, and tonight he learned that the City might need to acquire a property, he did not think staff knew how much this project was going to cost.  Since there were limited resources and they had all those other needs in the community, he asked if staff had a process where they went with the priority project. 

He said they recently had the State Road Safety Audit which identified a number of items within the City on the state highway transportation system that the City was asked to address.  He said they also recently approved the re-striping of 6^th Street.

He thought this raised a bigger issue that staff did not have a handle on a CIP process that had some meaning and predictability or even the resources that were available.  He said he was not comfortable in spending an ever growing amount of money on a project when it did not fit in a context that made any sense.

Commissioner Schauner asked if there were other alternatives for that intersection that could provide an answer to the warrants that currently existed.  For example, could dedicated right turn lanes be done or some other alternative that provided some improvement to that intersection which was problematic from a service level.

Soules said one of the concerns would be that a dual left turn lanes could be put in or two through lanes in either direction, but once getting out of that intersection, he did not think the neighborhood wanted to continue those two through lanes past the intersection that far.  He said that would give more capacity and it would be a larger intersection for pedestrians to cross. 

The roundabout would slow down that traffic at that intersection, allowing time for pedestrians to cross.  He said he did not know of any other options.  He said there were already right turn lanes on three of the legs anyway. 

Commissioner Schauner said the westbound turn lane at 19^th and Louisiana Street was a fairly short turn lane.  He wondered if there were other geometric improvement that might provide relief.

Commissioner Hack said the warrants process determined whether or not a signalized improvement was necessary and that had been done, but there was still a problem at that location.  She said when she first heard Woosley talk about roundabouts, he mentioned that the roundabouts addressed two issues—one was slow down traffic which was important to the neighborhood and the other was that the roundabout kept traffic moving which was important to the corridor.  She said this corridor issue was not a new issue.  The only thing she asked was that if KDOT could help with the modeling to see how it would work in real life.  She said if the roundabout was not going to do what it was intended to because of the proximity to other intersections—specifically to the east, then they did not want to create a worse situation.  This is a bad situation and was difficult because there was a commercial area nearby, a park, neighborhoods, and 1,700 people and they needed to figure out a way to keep that intersection safe.  She supported moving ahead with this proposed project because it was due.

Commissioner Schauner said this was sort of the reverse of the NIMBY phrase “Not in my back yard.”  He said this was where the neighbors were saying they wanted a roundabout and the people traveling through the neighborhood did not want the roundabout.  He suggested that the Commission not approve the study unless they were serious about constructing the roundabout.  He said having said that, if they were going to construct this roundabout or any others, he thought resources needed to be allocated to do some public service announcements that would educate the driving public on how to use those roundabouts.  This was one of those cultural issues that would take some time for the driving public to get use to roundabouts. 

He said as roundabouts were built, those roundabouts would need to be built large enough not only for a fire truck making left hand turns, but also that an average driver could feel comfortable going around them.  He recognized that increased the distance a pedestrian had to traverse, but maybe it didn’t.  He thought smaller roundabouts were less popular than roundabouts that had a greater diameter.

Commissioner Dunfield said when talking about a pedestrian trying to cross, that seemed to be a real strength of roundabouts and he had crossed the roundabout at 19^th and Barker many times on foot.  The fact of the matter was, if crossing a signalized intersection that had a double left turn, a double through lane, and a right turn lane on both sides, that pedestrian was crossing hundreds of feet of roadway risking being hit by a car.  A pedestrian crossed one lane of traffic on the proposed roundabout for 19^th and Louisiana.   

He said there was a legitimate question concerning priorities because they could not do all that was needed to be done at one time.   

He said they heard a lot of complaints from people about traffic congestion in Lawrence.  He said maybe this was not the place to invest money right now, but it was a valid question that needed to be explored to see if they could get a better feel from staff about how that intersection compared to some other intersections where money needed to be invested.  He agreed that education was going to be a big part as roundabouts were being developed in this community. 

Mayor Rundle asked if there was an optimal size range for roundabouts.  Obviously, the barricades at the intersections made of concrete blocks were not going to have the same effect in slowing down and creating gaps like the roundabouts on the highway going to Paola, KS. 

Woosley said there was no such thing as a one size fits all.  Those roundabouts needed to be specific to the location, the angle of the roadway, the volume of the traffic, and the peak hour traffic, all needed to be addressed.  Those roundabouts came in different shapes and sizes. 

Mayor Rundle said he was speaking in terms of functionality.  He said when there was the County/City/School Board meeting various individuals said that the roundabout at 19^th and Barker was not large enough because individuals could zip on through.  He said it might be that what was needed was education or it might be the size of the roundabout.  He asked if a certain sized roundabout was needed to make traffic flow; was there enough space at that location; or did they need to take two properties for those improvements.

Commissioner Hack said that was what the study would do.  She said the neighbors had been very patient.  The first meetings she attended were in the fall of 2000 and that was a long time to wait and worry about safety.  The study would reveal where the roundabout would work, how it would work, and what property they would need to acquire.

Mayor Rundle said that was a valid point, but in finding all the intersections on the traffic priority improvement lists for the last ten years, then there would be other intersections at least as long as those and he thought the same pitch could be made.

Commissioner Schauner said one of the issues that the Mayor raised was that there were previous conversations about the Capital Improvement Plan and how that plan was a type of wish list and how issues moved from one place on the list to the top of the list.  He said if there were a more genuinely prioritized list of what needed to be done, it would be easier for neighborhoods to recognize when it was their turn. 

Again, he said his concern about spending $40,000 on a study today was that he was still uncertain about where this particular project fell in a legitimate list of major intersection expenses.  He said he would not support approval if this project was not a higher priority than others that might be on the list.  That wasn’t to downplay the importance of this intersection, but it was to place all those intersection in some fair context of who went first and who went second.  He said they were doing staff and the driving public a disservice by not having a more concrete priority list.  That might be a helpful way to regularize those improvements.

Vice Mayor Highberger said staff had said there was a list of existing intersections that had been improved, but still needed work.  He said he was not sure how that fit with other projects.

Commissioner Schauner said it was hard to consider $400,000 an upgrade.  This was a big massive project at this intersection and how would this compare to just signalizing.  He said he knew staff put together a list of warranted intersections and some of those intersections had been addressed, but if they were going to spend that large amount of money then they needed to make sure this project was top priority. 

Wildgen said staff could provide a report.

Commissioner Schauner said that was important information.  He said roundabouts were with us and in our future.   He said he thought roundabouts worked and provided good traffic flow.  He thought they should move forward, but he questioned the timing of the project.  He asked staff for more information.

Soules said staff could put together the intersection priority list and a renovation list for the City Commission to review.

Vice Mayor Highberger asked if those lists were kept separate because for separate funding issues.

Soules said one list was new and the other list was maintenance.

Wildgen said the first list did not have any traffic signals and the other list had signals now, but needed some type of geometric improvements.  He said the City applied for state money and part of that money would be used for the 7^th and Kentucky project which was on the list.  He said staff tried to use all available resources.

Commissioner Hack said there were a multitude of factors that went into each decision about each intersection.  She asked Commissioner Schauner if he was suggesting that the Commission not move forward on this issue until they received that list.

Commissioner Schauner said he did not want to commit to the $40,000 for a study if they were not going to be able to do this fairly soon. 

Commissioner Hack said there would be some timing issues in terms of how long the study would take, but this wasn’t something that could be done over Spring Break.  She said there were timing issue that might put this issue back another year.

Commissioner Schauner said he did not know how long it would take to get a comprehensive list of upgrades and new installation.

Mayor Rundle said rather than blending those lists together, he would like to see the existing lists.

Vice Mayor Highberger asked if Woosley could respond to Houston’s questions about the traffic circles.

Woosley said that would be part of the discussion tomorrow because staff had contacted several people about 17^th and Indiana and 17^th and Illinois.

Wildgen said there was neighborhood involvement and it was the plan to eliminate those traffic circles and put in modern facilities, but it had to wait because it was a timing issue as well.

Vice Mayor Highberger said as far as education went, he received a report from a friend at the Kansas Local Technical Assistance Program up at KU.   He said they have several videos on roundabout use.

Woosley said KDOT had a new video out concerning roundabouts.

Vice Mayor Highberger said apparently other communities had run those videos on their Public Access TV and that might be something that staff should look into.                                    (19)

PUBLIC COMMENT: NONE

Moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to adjourn at 12:40 am.  Motion carried unanimously.             

APPROVED:

_____________________________

Mike Rundle, Mayor

ATTEST:

___________________________________                                                                        

Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk

City Commission meeting minutes of January 18, 2005

1. Purchase – Pickup from Shawnee Mission Ford for (Utilities)  $16,454.

2. Bid – Refuse trucks, to Roy Conley.

3. Purchase – 4x4 pickup for Public Works from Shawnee Mission Ford for $20,079.

4. Purchase – Utility body pickup for Public Works from Shawnee Mission Ford for $18,537.

5. Purchase – Pickup for Finance from Shawnee Mission Ford for $16,488.

6. Purchase – 150,000 lbs of Nalco-Ultrion 81836 polymer for Clinton Treatment Plant from Nalco Chemical for $74,250.

7. Engineering Contract amendment – Delich, Roth & Goodwillie, P.A., for $55,166 for Wakarusa River and Yankee Tank Creek Sewage basin studies.

8. Annexation Request – 17.519 acres, N of W 6^th, W of GWW, E of K-10.

9. Feasibility Study – K-10 fixed route transit services with Johnson County.

10. RFP – Transit on-board study.

11. Mortgage  Release – 3904 Willshire, Caroline Pravecek.

12. TSC – New York School.

13. Housing Trust Funds allocation.

14. First Station No. 5 bids.

15. Kasold, north of Peterson improvements.

16. Ordinance No. 7851 (deferred) Development Code.

17. Rezone – (Z-10-49G-04), CP to CP-zoned sites. 

18. Rezone – (Z-10-49H-04) RS-2 to RS5, 1501 – 1639 Mass & 1602 – 1646 Mass

19. Agreement – 9^th & Louisiana intersection to BG Consultants for $37,180.08.