June 14, 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 Highberger presiding and members Amyx, Hack, Rundle, and Schauner present.  

RECOGNITION/PROCLAMATION/PRESENTATION:

Mayor Highberger proclaimed June 12^th – 18^th, as “Juneteenth Celebration.”

Mayor Highberger said Ordinance No. 7899, concerning the smoking ordinance premises owner liability provisions and Resolution No. 6598, concerning a blight at 800 Connecticut Street, would be deferred.  

Commissioner Hack said one of the concerns expressed to her was a lack of notification to stakeholders concerning the amendments to the smoking ordinance and suggested guidelines for outside dining.  She asked if staff were planning on meeting with those concerned stakeholders.

Mike Wildgen, City Manager, said staff had given Phillip Bradley and Judy Keller, notice a week before this item was going to be placed on the agenda.  He said if there were other concerned citizens, staff could meet with those citizens.

Commissioner Hack said the concern was more of the sidewalk issue than the smoking issue.

Wildgen said staff could meet with those concerned citizens.

CONSENT AGENDA

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to approve the City Commission meeting minutes of May 31, 2005.  Motion carried unanimously.              

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to receive the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting minutes of May 5, 2005; the Sign Code Board of Appeals meeting minutes of May 5, 2005; the Human Relations Commission meeting minutes of February 16, 2005; and the Lawrence Arts Commission meeting minutes of April 13, 2005.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to approve claims to 489 vendors in the amount of $2,076,175.33 and payroll from May 29, 2005 to June 11, 2005, in the amount of $1,542,405.29.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to approve the Drinking Establishment Licenses for Jefferson’s Restaurant, 743 Massachusetts; and Royal Crest Lanes, 933 Iowa.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to set a bid date of June 21^st, 2005, for the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Program at 1526 West 22^nd Street.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                            (1)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to set a bid date of June 28, 2005 for the 2005 Concrete Repair Program, Phase 1.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                  (2)

The City Commission reviewed the bids for one Toolcat Tool Carrier for the Public Works Department, Sanitation Division.  The bids were:

BIDDER                                  BID AMOUNT                                                                        KC Bobcat                                                      $42,420.60

                        White Star                                                       $42,650.00

                        Bobcat of Platte City, Mo                                $43,250.00

As part of the consent agenda, it was by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to award the bid to KC Bobcat, in the amount of $42,420.60.  Motion carried unanimously.                      (3)

The City Commission reviewed the bids for Comprehensive Housing Rehabilitation improvements for 2558 Cedarwood and 544 Arizona for the Neighborhood Resources Department.  The bids were:

BIDDER                      2558 CEDARWOOD                          544 ARIZONA            

General Construction, Inc.                  $34,810.00                                          $33,903.00

Schmidt Contracting, Inc.                   $30,480.00                                          $41,298.00

Old Home Depot, Inc.                         $32,820.13                                          $31,857.27

Penny Construction, Inc.                    $28,430.00                                          $26,023.00

Staff Estimate                                     $28,819.00                                          $24,991.25                 

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to award both bids to Penny Construction, located at 2558 Cedarwood for $28,430.00 and 544 Arizona for $26,023.00.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                          (4)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to authorize the City Manager to enter into an agreement with Bucher, Willis & Ratliff in the amount of $78,280 for development of the Wakarusa Service Center Master Plan.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                         (5)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to authorize distribution of a Request for Proposals for Library Consultant Services.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                           (6)

Ordinance No. 7888, concerning host responsibility and minors in possession of alcohol, was read a second time.  As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to adopt the ordinance.  Aye:  Amyx, Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner.   Nay: None.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                       (7)

Ordinance No. 7889, amending Chapter 5, Article 739.2 of the Code of the City of Lawrence, Kansas, 2003 Edition and amendments thereto, concerning sign code regulations regarding wall signs, was read a second time.  Motion carried unanimously.                     (8)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to adopt Resolution No. 6599, declaring 1200 Pennsylvania Street environmentally blighted and ordering the property owner to remove the violation within 20 days.  Failure of the property owner to remove the blight will result in the City contracting to have the blight removed.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                         (9)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to deny the request for rezoning (Z-01-05-05), of approximately 8.7 acres, from A (Agricultural District) to RS-2 (Single-Family Residence District), property located northwest of Clinton Parkway and K-10 Highway (north of Judy’s Junction (Windover at Lawrence).  Motion carried unanimously.                                          (10)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to deny the request for rezoning (Z-01-06-05), of approximately 40 acres, from A (Agricultural District) to RM-2 (Multi-Family Residence District), the property is located northwest of Clinton Parkway and K-10 Highway (north of Judy’s Junction (Windover at Lawrence).  Motion carried unanimously.                              (11)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to deny the request for rezoning (Z-01-07-05), of approximately 4.6 acres, from A (Agricultural District) to RM-D (Duplex Residence District), the property is located northwest of Clinton Parkway and K-10 Highway (north of Judy’s Junction (Windover at Lawrence).  Motion carried unanimously.                                          (12)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to deny the request annexing (A-01-01-05), approximately 54 acre, property located northwest of Clinton Parkway and K-10 Highway (north of Judy’s Junction (Windover at Lawrence).  Motion carried unanimously.     (13)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to authorize the Administrative Service Department to issue a Request for Proposals for professional services to assist the City with developing and conducting the 2005 Employee Satisfaction Survey.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                             (14)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle to approve the maintenance agreement for landscaping in traffic circles in the Fox Chase South subdivision and authorize the Mayor to execute the agreement.  The developer paid a one time fee of $1,500 per traffic circle for the City to landscape the traffic circles and maintain the landscaping; and direct staff to prepare a development policy on maintenance for traffic circle landscaping for Commission adoption.  Motion carried unanimously.                                        (15)

CITY MANAGER’S REPORT: None

REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:

Receive Economic Development quarterly report and recommendations of future industrial parks from Lawrence Chamber of Commerce.

Lynn Parman, Vice President, Economic Development Board, Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, presented the report.  She addressed two issues.  First, provide the City Commission with an update on their activities and initiatives at the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Program; and second, address a memo from the Economic Development Board concerning recommended areas for future industrial parks.

She said the Economic Development Board developed a new brochure called “Douglas County Business Retention and Expansion Programs.”  She said this brochure was being used with local plant and general managers of companies that they called on, on a regular basis.  The brochure described services and programs that were available to assist existing businesses and also gave information on their business recognition programs and business retention assessments which were surveys they conducted to produce the business retention report. The brochure also contained information on expansion assistance which indicated ways to help companies grow.

She said Heather Ackerly, a staff member and the Manager of the Existing Business Programs, had been using this brochure to help articulate all of the new programs and services which would help keep businesses in Lawrence and Douglas County.  She said this month was Business Appreciation Month and they were currently implementing their 4^th year of the Pizza and Thanks Program.  This year they were serving pizza to 2400 employees throughout Douglas County to show the employees how thankful they were for contributing to the economy.

She said they were also starting a new program called the Elected Officials Visitation Program which would start in July.  City elected officials would be working with the School Board and County Commissioners in teams to make visits to major employers in Douglas County.  

Another item related to Business Appreciation Month was a new program called Cornerstone Awards.  The award would be given at a City Commission meeting, to a company that had a 10% gain in employment with an expansion project or had gained 50 new jobs, to show those companies appreciation from a community’s perspective for the employment that those companies added to the economy.

Lastly, as far as business retention programs, a lot of progress had been made on the workforce development movement.  She said U.S.D 497, a year ago, formed an administrative taskforce on technical education. The reason that taskforce was formed was because of their business retention survey results in that the businesses felt there needed to be an enhancement of technical and soft skills training in Douglas County.  That taskforce had performed a 7 month assessment with K.U. to determine what the gaps were in terms of training offerings.  She said the taskforce would meet every month for the next 6 months to discuss the results of that assessment and then they would make recommendations to the School Board and to the City and County Commissions as to what types of enhancement needed to be made to meet the training needs of existing and future businesses in Douglas County.

As far as Business Attraction Programs, they were currently in their business development season in which they were making calls to on site location consultants in various markets throughout the United States with the State Department of Economic Development as well as the Kansas City Area Development Council.  They were also attending trade shows which was a busy time for them in terms of prospecting and building relationships with those site location consultants.

During a tradeshow at the Finance Executives International Conference, they found out about 4 active projects from that show alone.  Also, they were planning to target the markets in Atlanta, New York, and Chicago over the next 2 months and calling on those site location consultants in various ways.  In terms of programming they were very busy this season.

Concerning the quarterly activity report, 2005 was the year for existing businesses. There had already been 22 expansions this year of existing businesses in comparison to last year which totaled 21 expansions for that entire year.  She said existing businesses were having a lot of confidence in their product lines and markets. 

Also, there had already been 397 new jobs created this year compared to 476 jobs last year, and they were not even halfway through the year.  She said the average wage of those 397 new jobs was $26,000.  The Douglas County’s per capita income right now was 19,000 and the median average wage was $26,000 which made it per capita and in par with the average median age.

Another strong indicator was that they had 23 site visits to Douglas County compared to 13 site visits last year.  She said it had been a very good year in terms of prospect activity.

She said they had been tracking how they found out about projects.  In past years, it was the Kansas Department of Commerce and Kansas City Area Development Council that were really the lead generation sources for finding out about projects. For the first time, this year, more projects had came directly to them than from those other sources which had a lot to do with the marketing efforts.  In 2004 they had implemented their new website, started a new direct mail campaign, and they were a lot more proactive in their business development marketing.  She said the State level and Kansas City Area Development Council were not less important because their project levels had remained consistent in past years.  The biggest difference was that those projects were coming in directly.

Mayor Highberger said the numbers show that their business retention activities were paying off and were very much appreciated.

Parman said the business retention activities had been a focus for the Economic Development Board for the last three years and businesses were benefiting from the programs that were in place.

Parman said back in May, the Economic Development Board asked if the City Commission would like the board to perform further review of the work that ECO² had accomplished and determine where the prime locations for industrial parks and open space development were between now and 2012.  She said the City Commission also asked about the implementation aspects because it was one thing to designate an area that might work for an industrial park, but the question was how to get issues on line such as zoning and infrastructure extensions.  Also, the City Commission asked the board to look at open space development in identifying projects.

She said the board wanted to come back midstream to find out if they were on the right course.  The Economic Development Board would like input from the City Commission as to whether or not the board should explore the implementation aspects for those sites specifically.

She said a meeting was scheduled on June 24^th in the chamber offices.  At that meeting, they wanted feedback from the Commission to focus on open space. She said Roxanne Miller was on the Economic Development Board and the Chairman of ECO² and Miller had been working on helping them identifying open space projects and also gave advisement in that area.

She summarized the memo that was sent to the City Commission.  The Economic Development Board looked at the current weaknesses in the industrial park inventory which was an important task because they had been looking at project requests.  She said there were voids in their inventory and after looking at data, they realized that they had current weakness in the existing inventory. 

She said the first point in the memo discussed lack of industrial land available located near I-70.  She said there were currently 249 acres available in our industrial land inventory which meant that land had infrastructure, the land was zoned, and was being marketed. Of the 249 acres, only 12% or 31 acres of that inventory was along I-70.

In addition, they looked at the building vacancy inventory which was not clear in the memo.  She said they had worked with real estate brokers in the community to try and understand all of the available buildings that were available in Douglas County to determine vacancy rates because in their business, people begin with a building search, and if those people could not find a building, then they would look at land.  In looking at that thinking, only 3% of the vacant building inventory was located within a 1 mile radius of I-70 or close by I-70, as compared to 80-83% of their vacant building inventory located along K-10.  She said there was really a gap in the inventory of buildings and land sites that were located near I-70.  There was also a lack of industrial lot sizes over 31 acres, and if you looking at the data, 26% of their requests of projects, last year, were for industrial lots over 31 acres and they currently had only 2 lots, but in 3-5 years from now, they might not have those lots and that reasoning was why they thought there was a void of lots sizes over 31 acres.  There were also no industrial lots over 100 acres, and that was 13% of their requests in 2004 and again, they felt like there was a void or would be a more of a void in their inventory, in the coming years, of lot sizes over 31 acres.

She said they had also looked at the absorption rate which was previously discussed and in the last 5 years, in looking at County record’s, Douglas County absorbed about 15-20 acres of industrial land a year.  She said if they had 249 acres, and took out the 87 acre tracts from the 249 acres, 162 acres would be available. If they absorbed 15-20 acres or even 10-15 acres, in 8-10 years there would be no land left.

She said lastly, the East Hills Business Park was one of the few industrial parks in Douglas County that had stringent restrictions and covenants. For instance, metal facades could not be built on the buildings. She said there were also additional landscape requirements.  When looking at the aesthetics of the park, it was more stringent than some other areas.  Once East Hills Business Park land was absorbed, there might be a void in inventory of those types of parks, which could be desirable to some types of companies. 

She said when looking at the ECO² Industrial Park Program and the criteria, they reviewed the 6 industrial areas near Lawrence that were identified by ECO²  which were the Lawrence Airport, Midland Junction, Farmland, Southeast area, 6^th Street and South Lawrence Trafficway and I-70 and the Lecompton Interchange.  She said within each of those areas they discussed transportation access, amount of acreage, average slope, extraordinary cost to extend infrastructure, and the number of property owners.  After much discussion, they came up with 2 recommended areas.

The first area was near Lawrence Municipal Airport. The Board thought that area might be prime land for larger tract sizes, 31 acres or more.  She said there were some infrastructure challenges, but they would like to explore those challenges with city staff.

The Farmland Industries area was also discussed contiguous to East Hills Business Park.  Because of the infrastructure that was in place at East Hills Business Park, and how East Hills could be expanded to the west to eventually blend into the former Farmland facility as well as, in the Economic Development Board’s words, “the community obligation for something to happen to that parcel of land,” they felt like that was a priority as well. She said there were priorities along I-70 as well as K-10.

Also, they had also discussed the Southeast Area Plan, but thought they had some incorrect information. She said for some reason they were working with 187 acres industrial area size that they thought was already zoned and in the Urban Growth Area, but she heard from a City Planner that it was actually a smaller size that was zoned industrial which was 147 acres.  

She said the Board recommended as a priority that the Airport and the Farmland facility, in terms of the next 7 years, come on line.  She said the Economic Development Board was asking direction from the City Commission on those options to help the implementation aspects to those areas that the Commission wanted to explore.

Commissioner Schauner asked when East Hills Business Park started and how many acres were involved.

Parman said they started the land identification in the late 70’s, and they had identified Midland Junction as the area for the industrial park.  In the meantime, there was a family that came along and said that area would be available, and they shifted gears and went to the East Hills B usiness Park.  By the time the infrastructure was in place, it was online in the late 80’s.

Commissioner Schauner asked about the amount of acreage.

Parman said it was a 300 acre business park and it had 87 acres adjacent to it.

Commissioner Schauner asked what part of the East Hills Business Park was left unsold. 

Parman said in terms of the land that would be suitable for development, and the grading challenges, there were approximately 50 acres in the park, as well as the 87 acre track that they wanted to keep together because that was the largest track.

Commissioner Schauner said there was essentially 137 acres that could be built on out of the original 300 acres.

Parman said correct.  She said the original 300 acres did not include the 87 acre tract and they had absorbed 200 acres, at this time, in the last 15 years.  She said the first land sale was the end of the 1980’s.

Commissioner Schauner asked if any of the six criteria listed in the report for each area were weighted.  In other words, which criteria were the most important and least important.

Parman said when the ECO² Industrial Sub-Committee originally developed a formula, there was weighting, but they developed the formula so that it could be fluid as to the wishes of the political bodies. For instance, transportation access was weighted more heavily than the number of property owners, just because it was hard to move highways, and that seemed to make sense. The Economic Development Board did not look specifically at the exact weighting of each of those criteria in that process. If that was something the City Commission wanted, then that could be accomplished at the June 24^th meeting, but it was felt that it would be difficult to get into the intricacies because the weighting of certain criteria might be different depending on the political body because the Commission might determine transportation access was more important than the number of property owners.  She said the committee took more of a broad approach in looking at those areas.

Vice Mayor Amyx asked if there was any discussion by the committee that discussed the need for rail service because when they had discussed developing East Hills one of the big issues was making sure they had rail service to the industrial park, and that was one of the reasons Midland Junction and East Hills looked good.

Parman said they did track reasons for elimination on projects for the last 3 years. It had not been a major factor in their reasons for being eliminated. In fact, they had a decreasing number of requests for rail served sites.  In the early to mid 1990’s there were a lot more requests for rail served sites and they were not seeing that type of request much.  In fact, it did not even show up as a reason for elimination last year in their data. She said the Farmland facility did have that rail spur and would be a plus for some projects, but in terms of seeking out an area, it had not been a major criteria.

Mayor Highberger called for public comment.

Melinda Henderson, Lawrence, said she was pleased that they were moving forward in handling the short term issue of where to locate future business and industrial parks and employment centers.

She said she reviewed the updated City Commission goals for Economic Development and there were three objectives which were:  1) Identifying industrial sites; 2) Using the Southeast Area Plan to create an employment zone; and 3) Move toward acquisition of the Farmland property.  Based on those key objectives, this first regular agenda item was to get the Commission in step with achieving some of those goals.

She said Chapter 7 of Horizon 2020 was in the process of being updated which was the business industrial land identification which had been an issue for a long time.  She said Parman had put in a lot of work in helping get to this point in identifying appropriate sites for the short term while ECO² continued to work on some of the long term issues.

She said she hoped that they could get more clarification on the recommendation from the Economic Development Board regarding the Southeast Area Plan.  She said she had helped in the industrial land identification process through ECO² and she was trying to figure out where those 187 acres were located because she never saw that acreage identified during that process.  She said there were over 10 property owners for the 187 acre industrial area.  She said it was her understanding that this was not land that was already in this city or zoned industrial.  She said the Board recommended that a portion of the area that was within Horizon 2020, for industrial, would be the 2^nd priority which needed clarification by the Board. 

She presented a map to the City Commission and discussed why she was confused with the acreage.  She asked the City Commission to get clarification on the Economic Development Board’s recommendation on the Southeast Area Plan.

Mayor Highberger asked if Linda Finger, Planning Director, had any response to the questions that Henderson raised.

Finger said staff had a response, but staff was not able to answer the intentions of what the Economic Development Board. She said staff could respond later to the acreage issues.

Parman said as far as the intent of the Economic Development Board on that specific point, she did not think it was the exactness of the 170 acres, rather, what was already designated within the Horizon 2020 as staying industrial and also being a priority.

Mayor Highberger asked if staff could provide a map of the existing zonings.  He said the current uses were in the report already.

Commissioner Hack said she thought the Economic Development Board was asking for direction as to whether the City Commission would like the Board to work with staff to find out how to get from paper to implementation.

Parman said the Board was hoping to receive feedback and direction before their meeting on June 24^th to know if the Board should pursue more due diligence on the Lawrence Municipal Airport as well as the Farmland in terms of what it took to get them online as a business park and other priorities that the City Commission might have as well.

Commissioner Schauner said the Governing Body needed to have more discussion about the Southeast Area Plan.  It seemed that it would be worth the Economic Development Board time, to think about Farmland because Farmland might be a critical ingredient.  He said one of his concerns about Farmland was the unknowable cost of development, clean up, and other issues, as well as the apparent inability to do a good job of assessing what that situation was in terms of need for clean up and other issues.  He said it was an attractive area because of its contiguity to the East Hills B usiness Park, but on the other hand, he was concerned about the numbers used such as the number 18 million dollars over 5 phases, and it sounded like a pretty expensive proposition and that was just an educated guess at this point. But again, because of the tandem ness of industrial development and the Horizon 2020 designation of industrial space in the Southeast Area Plan as well as the lack of any certainty with respect to the Southeast Area Plan, it was premature for the Economic Development Board to do a lot more work on those sites until there was a better fix on the southeast area.

Commissioner Rundle asked what was the timeframe for the ECO² group to complete the work plan that was set out for them last summer.

Parman said the ECO² group had another plan for the next year and that was why the Economic Development Board understood that the City Commission wanted the ED Board to think in the short term, between now and 2012.

Mayor Highberger said he thought the ED Board was doing things that were consistent with the City Commission’s direction.  He said they obviously needed to resolve some issues about the southeast area and Farmland, but the process had been delayed quite a bit already.  He said it seemed consistent with what ECO² was doing.

Parman said the ED Board could focus their upcoming meeting on open space and that would give the City Commission more time and then use the ED Board’s meeting in July to work on more of those implementation aspects for those industrial parks.

Commissioner Rundle requested more detail in what led to the ED Board’s recommendations.

Parman said the ED Board utilized the criteria that the ECO² committee had come up with such as the transportation access, slope, infrastructure, and other criteria that were outlined to determine what made sense, as well as the gaps in their inventory.

Commissioner Hack asked if the City Commission received that information in matrix form.

Parman said the City Commission received a template of the formula, but she did not know if the City Commission had seen the complete formula.  She said the ED Board focused on the requests they had over the last 5 years, market trends, vacancies in industrial land and buildings, and the criteria that ECO² had came up with for those recommendations.

Commissioner Hack said the Economic Development Board had accomplished what was asked of them which was to analyze the various locations objectively and completely.  She said it seemed that they were looking at the airport because of the proximity to I-70, and the concerns that they had about the lack of proximity. She said there were difficulties in terms of Farmland, but it was a work in progress.  It seemed that telling the ED Board to wait would back track on what the City Commission asked the ED Board to accomplish in the first place. 

She concurred with the Mayor that it was important to move forward in terms of the airport, Farmland, and the southeast area which would help, pending what happened with the Southeast Area Plan. 

Commissioner Rundle asked what it meant by moving forward with an implementation plan.   He asked if the ED Board would be assessing infrastructure needs.

Parman said the ED Board would be assessing those types of issues such as infrastructure needs and also the timing in bringing the infrastructure in advance as well as funding mechanisms. This might be an issue that the private sector might be interested in, or it might be like East Hills where it was more public sector driven.  Those types of issues needed to be explored and that would take some time.

Commissioner Hack said Parman came to the City Commission two or three times in the last 2 years indicating they were running out of industrial space that met certain criteria.  She said to tell the ED Board to wait even longer was sending a bad message in terms of what the City Commission goals were.

Vice Mayor Amyx said later during their meeting, the Commission would be discussing the Southeast Area Plan and would be designating a certain amount of that area to be industrial.  He asked if the Commission would be setting their priorities for industrial development in the future during that time, and did the ED Board need direction on how much area the Commission would be recommending as part of the Southeast Area Plan before the Commission sent the ED Board to look at the other two plans.

Parman said to designate an area was one thing, but to actually implement an area as a business park was another thing. For instance, the Farmland area was already zoned for industrial by the County, and if the City Commission decided to designate more areas in the southeast area, it would help to have some direction in terms of priority because implementation aspects needed to be explored depending on what the City Commission saw as the priority, but the Farmland site was already at that level, in terms of having that industrial zoning.

Vice Mayor Amyx asked if the Commission would be including the Farmland property in their inventory at this time.

Parman said the Farmland property was not ready to go, that property had industrial zoning and the area needed to be redeveloped, along with infrastructure gaps.  Therefore, there were issues that needed to be addressed much like the southeast area.  

Commissioner Schauner said it seemed that there should be a seventh factor and that was the cost of cleanup.  The Farmland property, even if it was zoned and had proper roads, was clearly not ready to be used until the toxic or chemical issues had been addressed.  Therefore, it should be one of the factors to consider.  He said they did not have cleanup costs like that in other places.

Parman said that was a really good point and the ED Board had quite a bit of discussion on that issue and under the extraordinary cost criteria that certainly would fit.  The sentiment of the ED Board discussed was that if it was the desire of the community that that area be developed as an industrial park, then the Board thought that there was probably no other way to do it other than having the public sector involved because of the reason that was outlined.   If it was the desire not to have that area commercial or residential, there was a concern about leaving it stagnant and not doing anything with it.  That thinking outweighed the extraordinary cost of something needing to happen to that area as being a gateway to the community.

Commissioner Schauner asked if there was any reason to believe that the bankruptcy trustees were more cooperative in allowing them to look at that property than they were 6 months ago.

Parman said she was not involved in that area, but there were other members of the City Commission that had been a lot more involved with the bankruptcy aspect.

Commissioner Schauner said City Commissioner Hack and County Commissioner Jones had been involved, but what he had seen suggested was that there was not much willingness to even get a look at the property in order to make any reasonable assessment about its mitigation costs which was a concern.

He said he would like to see some weight to those factors rather than having those 6 or 7 factors float in space.  If they were going to measure those factors against sites, it seemed that they should be given the same weight with respect to each site, rather than sort of having a fluid kind of use of those factors.  In a fluid state they would not mean very much because they could be twisted any way someone would want just to satisfy a particular goal.  He said he would like to see those 2 or 3 sites measured against some specific weighting.

Commissioner Rundle said the airport has been on the radar screen for many years in trying to get some research and development type of things related to aeronautics.  If that area was pursued, he would want to get a sense of where the Kansas Department of Health and Environment was on contained and modular water treatment, because to put in a sewer main all the way to the airport, would be inordinately expensive, and also would bring pressure for additional development and he did not think that area could sustain it very easily because of the flood prone nature.   Also, that modular approach kept costs contained.

Parman said that issue needed to be explored with City staff’s help.

Commissioner Hack said she thought that was what the ED Board was asking taking into consideration what was known or not known about the Farmland property, the airport, or the southeast area.  She thought the ED Board was asking for the opportunity to move forward to find out what it would take to get from a piece of paper to selling that site to someone wanting a place to do business.

Parman said she did not want to go down a path for an area that was not of interest to the Governing Body.  She said Commissioner Hack had summed their idea up well.  She said they just wanted to make sure they were midstream instead of at the very end.

Mayor Highberger said it would be good to hear if there was any opposition to further exploration of any of the 2 or 3 sites that were identified.

Commissioner Schauner suggested including the southeast area and he did not have any objections with the other 2 sites.

Mayor Highberger asked if Parman made a suggestion that their Board would discuss open space at their next meeting.

Parman said they would focus on open space and see how far they could discuss some implementation aspects.

Mayor Highberger said the ED Board would know more about the City Commission’s thoughts on the southeast area before their meeting took place.                                                 (18)

Consider a funding request from The F.A.N. Club for $5,000 for an art exhibit/community event entitled “Convergence: Work by Canadian and U.S. Women Artists” to be held at various locations throughout Lawrence in October and November, 2005. 

Ann Kuckelman Cobb, member of the F.A.N. Club, a women artist support group that had been meeting together monthly since 1987, said the event was a community wide international art exhibition and cultural exchange and they had been working on this event since 2002.

The history was that this was the second half of an international art exchange between F.A.N. Club artists and 9 Canadian women artists. The first half of that exchange took place in May 2002, in Ottawa, Ontario Canada and was funded, primarily, by the City of Ottawa. Since that time, the F.A.N. Club had donated many hours of volunteer effort to make this a reciprocal event, one that brought prestige to the City of Lawrence and extended art beyond the gallery walls to involve many segments of the community.

She said this event was a one time project and met one of the City’s stated goals which were creating social capital and cultural enrichment. She informed the City Commission about the types of activities and events that were planned for the event.

She said their second goal was to involve 10% of the Lawrence community in those multiple events and bring to Lawrence a large number of people from out of town through state and region wide marketing.  She said there should be a significant economic impact on the community from this project because the event would be marketed statewide.

She said their third goal was to provide to Canadian counterparts an outstanding art experience.

She said they estimated the cost of the project between $15,000 and $17,000, which was a modest estimate for the scope of the project.  She said they were requesting only a portion of that money from the city, which was their $5,000 request. She said the funding would cover the following:

•           Bus transportation between the Lawrence Arts Center and the KU Art and Design Gallery on the night of the opening receptions, Oct. 22, 2005;

•           Funding for receptions;

•           Funding for artist stipends and materials for workshops, including a felting workshop by 2 of the Canadian artists, a children’s workshop by 2 other Canadian artists;

•           Funding for an artists forum and presentations open to the public, at which the artists will answer questions about their art work;

•           funding for printing costs involved in producing invitations, brochures, and a modest exhibition catalog

•           funding for a website: www.convergenceart.com, for complete information about the events and artists in “Convergence”; and

•           other operating and technical expenses.

She said that budget of $15,000 to $17,000 did not include any money for the either the local or Canadian artist for transportation, room and board, shipping of art work, or material, except with the workshops.

A lot of volunteer hours had already gone into fundraising and seeking sponsorship in various segments of the community, and they were very grateful for their list of 25 individuals, businesses, and organizations including the City of Lawrence through the Lawrence Arts Commission, who had already generously contributed to the implementation of the project.  She said they had raised approximately $3500.

She spoke to the 4 criteria for midyear funding proposals.

1) Fill an existing gap in City services. She said that it did fill that gap by providing an international community wide event and outreach to art accessibility in the community. Convergence was a one time opportunity to put an international spot light on the City of Lawrence. This kind of opportunity was usually afforded to only major metropolitan units like Ottawa, which was a parallel to Washington, DC. It was extremely important for Lawrence to leverage the project and show that it was truly a city of the arts;

2) Meet City Commission’s community goal in which it created social capital.  Lawrence had invested heavily to build a beautiful, functional, Art Center, and this was the perfect opportunity to leverage that investment as well. Continuing to draw creative people to Lawrence and supporting the richness of this City’s art heritage would build the social capital that was needed to be a successful community.  One consequence of their effort, so far, was that the State had contacted the F.A.N. Club to present at the Kansas Culture and Heritage Convention in the fall, to describe how an event of this scope of convergence could be organized in other communities;

3) Provide a need in the community that was otherwise unmet. Again, the project was very large in scope. It involved the business sector, the University, people from all social economic strata, artists, and art educators. There was something for everyone in this event. Convergence would be yet another opportunity for diverse sectors of the community to work together, and to celebrate together;

4) Help leverage outside funds. The Convergence project was consistent with Kansas Department of Commerce’s new initiative to focus on promoting tourism through cultural and heritage events at the local level. This project would bring in tourism dollars through active marketing, state and region wide, would leverage funds from the state, and they had submitted grant proposals to the Kansas Arts Commission, and planned to apply to the Kansas Department of Commerce for funds. F.A.N. Club members had already received money in the past from the city of Ottawa for workshops and presentations that were conducted there in 2002, and of course brought that money back to this community. They had already received some private contributions from out of state donors, and hoped that would continue.

She said several community sponsors were present to speak briefly in support of this project if the Commission desired.

Mayor Highberger said just knowing who was present to support this event was very helpful.

Commissioner Rundle said the City spent a lot of money on things that did not have a return on the City’s investment, but this event did.  He said this was an excellent use of funds.

Mayor Highberger said this event was a great compliment to our Sister City’s activities. It was really nice to be able to put Lawrence in the spotlight with a major city like Ottawa.  He liked the idea of including public participation in those projects and he supported the request.

Commissioner Hack said that the F.A.N. Club had worked hard on this event and it was a joy to learn about the event.  She supported the request.

Commissioner Schauner said this was a great project for all of the reasons already stated.  He supported the project.

Commissioner Rundle said he hoped that their group was coordinating this event with the media in Ottawa as well.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Schauner, to approve a funding request from the F.A.N. Club for $5,000 for an art exhibition/community event entitled "Convergence: Work by Canadian and U.S. Women Artists" to be held at various locations throughout Lawrence in October and November, 2005.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                     (19)

Receive staff evaluation of pedestrian crossing on 6^th Street between Kentucky Street and the underpass at Pinckney Elementary School.  Provide staff direction on the installation of the pedestrian crossing at 6^th Street and Louisiana Street.

Mayor Highberger said he had initiated this issue because he had been concerned for a long time about the lack of a safe crossing on 6^th street between Kentucky and the Pinckney underpass.  He said he had asked staff to come back with some possible options for a safe crossing in that area.  He said this discussion was just an initial step to this issue.

Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, said staff evaluated all of the intersections from Kentucky to Pinckney School.  Staff also evaluated mid-block areas, but some driveways would be blocked if some type of pedestrian refuge was placed at those locations.  After careful consideration, staff felt that 6^th and Louisiana was the best place for a pedestrian crossing because there was good visibility with overhead lighting at the northwest and southeast corners. He said Kansas Department of Transportation had approved that location, but they had received mixed reviews from the neighborhoods. Staff had received other suggestions in other areas in which neighbors would like to see the crossings improved at Kentucky Street and further west.  Again, he said the 6^th and Louisiana location provided good visibility. He said if this pedestrian crossing saved one person, it was a good idea.

He said there were costs and ADA issues associated with this pedestrian crossing, but he would not discuss those issues unless the City Commission desired.

Vice Mayor Amyx said he visited that area and the concern he had was the raised island concept, especially with the street being designated as a highway.  He asked if Soules felt comfortable with a pedestrian crossing at that location and the pedestrian stopping in the middle of that highway.

Soules said staff would prefer a controlled intersection.

Vice Mayor Amyx concurred.

Soules said the costs for that concept would be an additional $150,000 for a traffic signal.  Also, there were no warrants for a signalized intersection between Pinckney School and Kentucky Street. 

Vice Mayor Amyx said installing a pedestrian crossing along 6^th Street to tie Pinckney and Old West Lawrence together was a good idea, but he would like to put as many traffic controls devices as possible in that area.

Soules said the pedestrian crossing on Louisiana Street stopped a number of vehicles.

Commissioner Schauner said there was a tunnel in that area and they were discussing a raised island pedestrian crossing.  He suggested looking in another direction such as some type of pedestrian bridge.  

Soules said the problem with that idea concerned ADA accessibility. He said in California they were retrofitting some of their old pedestrian overpasses with elevators or escalators.

Commissioner Schauner asked if they were required to have ADA access if a bridge was used.

Soules said staff would need to review that idea and the expense. He said truck traffic would need to be taken into consideration.  He said that idea would not be neighborhood friendly as far as what it would look like.

Mayor Highberger called for public comment.

Larry Martin, property owner at the west corner of 6^th and Louisiana, said they were trying to figure out what effect this might have and how good of an idea it really was.  He said he was not philosophically opposed to the idea.  Living at the corner, he had the sport of watching people trying to cross 6^th street and it was indeed exciting.  He said he crossed 6^th Street rarely, but he commonly went down to the tunnel to cross because he felt more secure in the tunnel than he did in the middle of the street.

He said most of the changes that affected him involved putting in the ramp for the wheelchairs.  He said his house at one time had considerably more ground, but with the widening of 6^th street, most of that ground was lost and in the process, cuts were made which steeply elevated his yard. When the wheelchair ramp was put in, both the sidewalk on the north side of the house and the sidewalk on the Louisiana side would need to be cut down which would increase the elevation of his yard.  He said he was concerned because he had a rather large spruce tree in the corner.  Unfortunately, he was concerned that its roots were running underneath the sidewalk and would be cut in the process of this project, and he would hate to replace this spruce tree, but that was not his biggest concern.

He said he agreed that a safety island would be a good thing and in fact, a safety island at every corner would be a good idea.  He said when a safety island would be installed at 6^th and Louisiana that would direct pedestrian traffic to use that particular corner. If going west on 6^th Street there was a pedestrian school crossing sign for Pinckney School.  He said he would argue that they had already identified, two blocks down, a crossing which people were expected to cross, but in general they hoped the underpass would be used

He said if he was in a wheelchair, he would choose not to cross anywhere on 6^th Street and frankly, it was not safe for people who were well conditioned athletes.  He asked if it was impossible that the underpass could not be converted in such a way that it became a useable crossing for, not only the school children, but also pedestrians.  He said he did not recall how that underpass was situated, but he presumed that there would be at least some issue about making it wheelchair accessible just because it was a school entrance.

He suggested reviewing this issue more before deciding on this particular plan. He said he realized this issue was moving fast because there was a lot of heavy equipment on 6^th Street at this time and there would be some economic benefit in implementing this idea right away. 

He said he was sure that the City had picked a good place for pedestrian crossing, but what was really being said was if all other conditions were equal, this was the best place to put the crossing and he said he was suspicious that in this case, all other conditions were not equal.

Marilyn Roy, recent resident in the Pinckney neighborhood, said she lived for 11 years in the Barker neighborhood where a project that she initially opposed, had turned out to be wonderful project and she wished she still lived in the neighborhood because a series of islands extending from 15^th Street all the way to 23^rd Street had been placed all the way down Barker Avenue with a roundabout, which she initially opposed, on 19^th and Barker Streets.  She now thought that that roundabout was the most beautiful roundabout in the City, and saw that the roundabout worked well. 

She said living in the Pinckney neighborhood she had the pleasure trying to cross 6^th Street in several places, by car and not so much by foot.  She said she saw 6^th Street as a City street even though that street was designated as a highway.  She said this issue warranted further consideration about placement of the crosswalk.  She asked if what was being proposed, was the same type of island arrangement like that on 6^th and Louisiana Streets

Mayor Highberger said the pedestrian island crossing would be wider but similar.

Roy said she lived on 5^th and Indiana, and she wished they could have a full intersection with stop lights at 6^th and Indiana Streets, because that street was nearly impossible to cross on foot or in a car.  She said people were driving fast and she would like to see some mechanism in place, wherever the crosswalk was installed, that would slow people down. She said she feared for people crossing 6^th and Louisiana Streets without a full stoplight because she was not sure people were going to slow down.

Malcolm Lodwick, President of Old West Lawrence, said he had the opportunity to live at the intersection of concern. During the time that he lived in the area, there had been problems associated with the street only having 4 lanes. Numerous people attempted to drive their children to school at Pinckney.  He said people block the lane heading east as they attempted to turn north on Mississippi Street.  Motor vehicle accidents occur because of complications and some people were always hurried.  The idea of re-striping 6^th Street so there was a center turn lane would help traffic to maneuver so that the 4 lanes of traveling would not become obstructed when people attempted to turn left.  He said to place a crosswalk in the midst of all of these complications was obfuscating. What needed to done was to find out how well the re-striping project worked.

He said putting a crosswalk across Louisiana was not a good idea at this point because it needed to be figured out how traffic and safety would work prior to attempting any kind of intervention. He said he saw opportunities to making Lawrence pedestrian friendly and he supported that effort, but with this particular instance, they needed to see how things transpire, before things started to become more complicated.

Andrea Albright, homeowner in the area said she heard about the proposed changes at 6^th and Louisiana on June 9^th and she was concerned that neither her husband nor neighbors heard much about the extent of the proposal.  She said that concern was something they wanted to make sure as discussions went on they would be included so that they could contribute to the issue at hand.

She understood the need for progress and pedestrian safety, but she thought a number of issues needed to be addressed before decisions were made. She said it was a bad idea to introduce pedestrians into traffic in that traffic was considered to be so heavy that they were re-striping on 6^th Street to prevent accidents.  Pedestrians crossing in far busier areas in business districts at several locations along 6^th Street further west had no access to crosswalks. 

Another consideration was the restriction of left turns, north off Louisiana onto west bound 6^th Street. She was concerned about additional traffic on an alley way that actually ran parallel to 6^th Street, just two lots south. The alleys had received national recognition for being situated the way they were in a historic district, and they were an access for school children headed to Pinckney School and it was almost a secondary driveway for those of us whose houses were situated off that alley, because it was the access that they had from our garages to the street.  She said she was concerned for all those people who used that alley as a secondary street to get to Pinckney School in the morning or other people who just used the alley during the day because there might be increased traffic in that alley.

Finally, she said she had concern about the potential destruction to her neighbor’s property which would affect their enjoyment of their home, and eventually could affect property values. It seemed that a pedestrian crosswalk at that location would not be safe, unless a light was installed, and if a light was installed, she worried about the added vibration, the proximity of their house to that traffic, what damage that vibration from the traffic could do to their house and to their property. Eventually, something like that could end up detracting from the aesthetics of what was one of the most beautiful blocks of Old West Lawrence.

One of the issues that had been discussed was that ADA ramp that would bring the grade down for wheelchairs to go from Louisiana Street to that crossing, across 6^th Street, and they would lose some of the sidewalk that existed.  She said there had been some discussion of how that could otherwise be used on the property, but there was also discussion that it might not be the best place to put wheelchair bound person and send them out onto 6^th Street without that traffic control and she hoped that idea was something that would be given a lot of thought before a decision was made.

She said her biggest concern was that the neighbors in the immediate area be included in the discussions of this issue so that they could contribute any concerns they might have.

Steve Braswell, Pinckney Neighborhood Association, said he was not speaking for the whole neighborhood on this issue.  He said he had lived in the neighborhood for 20 years and the difficulty of crossing 6^th Street came up all the time, specifically, the question about a crossing at 6^th and Louisiana Street.  He said there were two issues concerning that point. 

One issue was if it was a good place for a crossing of any type, and that was an issue that could be discussed, but as someone that drove on 6^th Street a dozen times a day, this was a totally inappropriate kind of walkway for this road because all that was being done was breaking the street up.  If that crosswalk was placed at that location, it would be encouraging people to cross there and he saw that whole design as totally inappropriate and not safe.  If a crosswalk was warranted at that location, there needed to be some type of controlled walkway.

He said over the years, he had heard about how difficult it was to cross with the existing crosswalk at 6^th and Kentucky Streets.  The big problem was traffic, and when people had a crosswalk to cross 6^th Street and the traffic light was red, they had to watch out for traffic turning right from Kentucky onto 6^th Street.  He said those people would need to contend with 2 lanes of traffic that the traffic could turn into.  He said he heard a lot of concerns of how difficult it was to cross with a light, so it seemed if people felt it was dangerous crossing with a light, how could crossing without a light be any better.

He said before getting into this issue too far, he would like to see what could be done with an existing crosswalk at 6^th and Kentucky.  He said there was now a no right turn sign that was lit when there was a train crossing 6^th Street.  He suggested tying that into the pedestrian crosswalk, that when the pedestrians had the light to cross 6^th Street, that right turn on red would not be allowed.  He did not know how much of a demand there was for a crosswalk at Louisiana Street, but he could see a crosswalk further west by Wisconsin or Colorado Streets.

Danny Drungilas said the City Commission had formed another commission called the Traffic Safety Commission (TSC), and there were procedures and guidelines exactly for those situations.  He asked why this issue was not being addressed by the TSC.  Secondly, the TSC had appointed a Pedestrian Advisory Council in which he was co-chair of that group and would like to meet with whoever had concerns.

Mayor Highberger said one problem was the quick time frame and normal procedures were not followed.  He said his goal on initiating this idea was to improve the quality of life in the two neighborhoods, but if the people in the neighborhoods did not perceive this idea as an improvement in the quality of life, then there was absolutely no reason to proceed.  He said he would like to thank City staff for their work, but he recommended taking no further action at this time.

Commissioner Schauner said what was heard on a regular basis was that people drive too fast.  He said the City had a traffic unit in which part of the budget considerations for fiscal 2006 was to maintain this traffic unit.  In fact, there were pedestrian crossing issues on 6^th Street and he suggested an increased level of speed patrol in that area. Clearly, he thought that road would get busier, quicker, faster, and not slower when re-stripping was done and the stacked turn lane was installed, time would tell.  He certainly supported the Mayor’s suggestion to take no further action.

Commissioner Rundle said if the TSC and/or Pedestrian Advisory Council happened to come up with an idea that was relevant, then those groups could bring this issue back to the City Commission.

Commissioner Hack said it was important to remember the spirit in which this was presented because this was an attempt to see if there was any way to slow people down and to let people realize that there were individuals on two feet out there and those individuals needed to be protected, and it gave some opportunity to discuss some future traffic calming influence on City streets so that visually, people would see the need to slow down.

Mayor Highberger said he would like to see a safe pedestrian crossing, every quarter mile if possible, even on arterial streets.  Those crossings needed to be taken into consideration in the City’s new street design, which might not have been adequately addressed in the current 6^th Street construction project, but hopefully in the future that consideration could be done.                                                                                                                                                           (20)

The City Commission recessed at 9:30 p.m., for 10 minutes.

City Commission reconvened at 9:30.

Conduct a public hearing on the draft Southeast Area Plan.  The plan generally includes area bounded on the north by K-10 (East 23^rd Street); on the west by O’Connell Road (East 1600 Road); on the east by Noria Road (East 1750 Road); and on the south by the Wakarusa River floodplain.  The draft plan is available for viewing on or at the Lawrence/Douglas County Planning Office and at the department’s website www.lawrenceplanning.org

Sandy Day, Planner, said the Southeast Area Plan was originally started a couple of years ago relating to several development requests that were occurring at O’Connell Road and 23^rd Street.  Before proceeding with those development requests, it was decided that they needed to look at a particular area plan.  The Southeast Area Plan was bounded on the north by east 23^rd Street, on the south by the Wakarusa River.  The plan extended all the way over to the east to Noria Road, and its western boundary was O’Connell Road.

Staff highlighted the existing industrial zoning in this area which had been a focus of a lot of different discussions most recently. There was both city and county zoning in that area. The southeast area was within service area 1 of the Comprehensive Plan, Horizon 2020. That document set out basic land uses which were the starting point for this particular project. That particular piece of industrial zoning was approximately 140 acres.  There was some County industrial zoning occurring on the south side of 23^rd Street and that together probably came close to the 180 acres that had been discussed.  The acreage was certainly not all one particular piece.  She said staff had identified that there were other industrial zoning areas on the north side of 23^rd Street, but that was not within the boundary of the study area.

Staff would have been delighted if any group had came forward with specifics on where they wanted to see industrial property and the exact amount that was needed, but that kind of analysis was not out there.

In Horizon 2020 today, there was industrial land, mix use land, and the balance of the area was identified as some form of residential. She presented a map to the Commission showing the areas that were already in the city limits.  She said those land uses were already established in that particular piece, so staff used those land uses as base elements as they continued through the planning process.

There were a number of different discussions and public hearings and quite a few communications that had been made from both property owners, residents, and then the development interest from this particular area.

The Planning Commission worked very hard in trying to come up with a particular recommendation.  There were a lot of discussions about the impacts of traffic in the area, the timing of different infrastructure, and what those pieces of development would have in relationship to the land use. Ultimately, the Planning Commission came to a consensus in October when staff brought forward two choices.  One choice extended residential uses further on the east side of Franklin Road and another plan that took forward more an industrial and mixed use type of project and that was actually the plan that staff prepared, with the help of the Comprehensive Plan Committee, and was the document that the City Commission ultimately received.

The Planning Commission then held a public hearing on this document in January 2005 and forwarded a split recommendation to the City Commission.  There were certainly a number of issues that the Planning Commission wanted to discuss. The plan was still somewhat broad in nature, and the Planning Commission did add specific things that they wanted to see added to the document.  The Planning Commission recommended the addition of language concerning financing public infrastructure. That had been a discussion both at the committee level and at the public hearing that based on the plan recommendation today there would be some public involvement in facilitating the necessary infrastructure that would need to be in place which included the wastewater facilities, as well as some of the traffic facilities.

She said the Planning Commission also had discussions about what was an employment center.  The conclusion was that it was more of a campus type use, it might have some very limited retail, but the idea of a campus approach that was seen in some mixed use planned unit developments seemed to be the idea that they wanted to focus on for the employment center.

The plan also followed several discussions about arterial roads and what those arterial roads should look like.  One of the recommendations for the plan to be revised was for the addition of a multi-nodal transportation boulevard which came out of some of the design charrettes that they had at the end of last year and at the very beginning part of this year.

Specifically, the recommendations that were added to the plan dealt with adding or constructing a bridge across the Kaw River, to add language to connectivity to I-70, and that really started to address the question of the eastern bypass.

They talked again about adding some language about signage on K-10 and visibility concerns for some of those industrial areas.  Because the industrial area was extended so much further to the south, there was no direct visibility along the highway that the current industrial areas shown on Horizon 2020 had today. That was an area that the Planning Commission wanted staff to further explore in a revision to this document.

Finally, the Planning Commission concluded that references in the plan were used in the employment center and they wanted to tie this plan back into Horizon 2020, because Horizon 2020 was still the umbrella document that the term “employment center” really needed to reflect the language that was in that plan, which was office research and industrial.  Those were the recommendations that came forward from the Planning Commission.

The City Commission received other communications from property owners, especially, for that area that was on the south side of what would be 31^st Street extended. Staff did sit down and meet with some of those property owners about their concerns for how their property was classified, both through the planning process and what the ultimate land use recommendations were for them.

Commissioner Hack said the only question she had was in looking at the map that was presented, there was no indication about what Horizon 2020 said for south of 31^st Street or where 31^st Street extended.

Day said there was a lot of floodplain when starting to move south of 31^st Street and that would limit what was going on. The way that particular map was drawn and the layers that were added, that was the way it appeared, but that would be the extent of what the land use descriptions were that were defined in Horizon 2020.  She said that area occurred in a different service area for that piece.

Mayor Highberger called for public comment.

Karen Heeb, 1685 North 1300 Road, thanked staff for visiting with them at home and at City Hall about the neighbor’s thoughts, concerns, and questions about the proposed Southeast Area Plan land uses.  She said they understood that the City Commission would be voting this evening either to approve or deny this proposal as it was submitted to the City Commission by the Lawrence/Douglas County Planning Commission. She said they were asking that the City Commission deny the proposal as requested.

She said they had one further issue that they would like to share with the City Commission beyond what was shown on the Southeast Area Plan land use map which was the omission of their homes on that map.  She said they had a couple of maps that they wanted to share with the City Commission and discuss their homes in relation to the flood plain area and other issues.

Bill Vervynck presented the maps showing the existing County floodplain. 

Heeb said they had concerns about the area being zoned industrial.  She asked why it necessary to zone any property industrial on the south side of North 1300 Road from East 1600 Road which was O’Connell Road over to East 1750 Road.  She said those who visited with them indicated that their land was not conducive to industrial development, that there was too much slope, and that the flood plain concerns were too close to North 1300 Road.

She said this issue tied in with what Lynn Parman said earlier in the evening regarding the Economic Development Board and their preference for future industrial parks to be either the former Farmland Industries, which was 467 acres or a 300 acre site near the Lawrence Municipal Airport.  It seemed zoning of their area industrial would be unnecessary compared to the different factors that they were seeking and the qualifications.

Another concern was the plans for 31^st Street extended.  She said they felt this needed to be addressed in the plan.  Their request included keeping North 1300 Road as an access road, with the existing trees as a buffer for 31^st Street extended. Once zoning was approved and construction began without plans for 31^st street extended, she asked what would happen at that time.

She said they believed that those were critical questions and concerns that had not been addressed with the proposed plan and they had a right to some answers and clarification before this plan was adopted as it currently was being presented. Again, they asked that the City Commission deny the adoption of the Southeast Area Plan land use as forwarded by the Lawrence/Douglas County Planning Commission.

Bill Leek, Peridian Group, said Peridian was a landscape architecture, civil engineering, and surveying firm.  He said he had the honor of making a presentation to the City Commission last month, but he wanted to apologize for the type of impromptu nature of that presentation because the presentation was based on some quick sketches and notes that he had put together. He said he would like to take the opportunity to make a little more coherent presentation and try to clarify some of the issues he was trying to make on that evening. In doing so, he had prepared a better quality plan.

Commissioner Schauner asked if it was appropriate for the City Commission to consider a completely different map, when what they were considering, at this time, was the proposed Southeast Area Plan.

Mayor Highberger said he had called for public comment.  If there was anything that the City Commission wanted to send back to the Planning Commission, they could do that.

Commissioner Rundle said it would be helpful to relate Leek’s plan to the existing plan.

Leek presented the plan.  He said two points that they wanted to make for the City Commission’s consideration were that they would appreciate if the Commission gave more consideration to an increase in the amount of residential and associated neighborhood uses in the southeast area, and give more consideration to the amount of existing industrial land that already existed north of K-10.

There was a need for housing in Lawrence of a varied type and cost and an increase in the amount of housing in that area could help alleviate some of that need if there was a need for housing and associated neighborhood uses. There was also a great deal of existing industrial land, north of K-10, and they would like the City Commission to consider development of that land in lieu of an increase in the amount of industrial land, south of K-10.  There was some industry, south of K-10, and this conceptual plan allowed for that industrial use and even showed a slight increase in that amount, based on a spine, basically running along 25^th Street, but most of the land south of that industrial area was more suitable for residential development and associated neighborhood uses.  He said possibly even some retail in the form of neighborhood retail center.  The various neighborhoods could be of a mixed use type, such that they could have a mixture of residential types along with some office, retail, and dining possibilities in those neighborhoods.

He said they would encourage development of a trail and park system to help with the connectivity of the various neighborhoods along with the development of local streets in that area.

He said they did not see this plan as the definitive answer for the southeast area, but they were simply offering it up for City Commission consideration, and asked the Commission to take those issues into consideration when discussing the southeast area.

Mayor Highberger asked Leek if Peridian represented any of the property owners that were covered in this plan.

Leek said Peridian had contracts with several of those property owners in this area, however, none of those property owners were paying them to do this work or to make this presentation this evening.  He said they were offering this plan up to the Commission in an attempt to help bring groups of people together, bring thoughts together on how this area should be developed. Certainly, it was no secret that once a plan was developed, Peridian probably would have some contracts come out of their association with some of the property owners, but at this point in time, they were not being paid to do this presentation or any associated planning with it.

Steve Glass, property owner in the area, said he was representing two different groups which he had interests in.  One group was LRM, which owned approximately 50 acres, most of the property fronting K-10 and backing up to 25^th Street, and a piece of property that was in the County, just to the east of the original LRM track where there was a recycling facility.

Also, he was representing PDO Investors, which owned Franklin Business Park, which was immediately south of 25^th Street, in which they owned approximately 75-80 acres, between 1700 and 1750 Roads and north of 1300 Road.

He said they had been concerned for some time about development in this area, and they felt that the plan Peridian Group was presenting was a plan that merited, at least, discussion.  He said they personally support residential development, in at least a portion of this area.  The area provided the potential for more affordable housing. The potential or lack of potential of the Farmland property was an issue and should be sent back to the Planning Commission and let the Planning Commission take a look at this plan.  He said he had attended the Planning Commission meeting when they actually voted on this issue, but the Planning Commission would have benefited looking at this planning concept.

Glass encouraged the City Commission to return this plan to the Planning Commission, and the Planning Commission should look at the issues of both the development of the Farmland property and the development of this area, to see what the consensus was for the best for this community.

Danny Drungilas, Lawrence, said he agreed with Commissioner Hack’s earlier comments concerning the Economic Development Plan, because he believed that the area south of K-10, north of K-10, the Farmland properties, and the Airport, should be looked at to see the financial feasibility that would be imposed on the taxpayers for that development.  He said he understood there was already sewer and water north of K-10.

The cost for the remediation of Farmland was known.  Kansas Department of Health and Environment had documents that showed exactly what needed to be done cost wise, the steps needed to be taken, and the process, to remediate that land north of K-10, the former Farmland Industries Plant.  He said those areas needed to be explored before they to looked south of K-10 and at the Airport.

He said they had a Prairie Park Neighborhood Association meeting with a trustee from Farmland and two representatives from KDHE.  He said the 4-H Fairgrounds was trying to pick up some of that land too, and someone needed to step forward and address those 500 acres in the area.

He said it was obvious that he did support residential development, east of O’Connell Road and east of Franklin Road.  If someone would come forward with this campus like environment for some of that property, south of K-10, then bring some of those ideas out to present those ideas to the people in Prairie Park to see how those residents could buy into that concept, rather than warm and fuzzy employment agencies and industrial uses.  Again, he thought the Southeast Area Plan should be incorporated with the Economic Development Plan to take a look at those 3 areas to see which areas were most feasible.

Gwen Klingenberg, Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods, said the Southeast Area Plan was going to affect more than just the southeast area. There were 5 neighborhoods that were east of Massachusetts that were going to be highly affected by the amount of traffic that came out of the southeast area.  If a lot of residential homes were in that area, there would be 10 trips per day, per residential.  She said those residents could go east to Kansas City or they could wander through the neighborhoods trying to make it onto 23^rd, Harper or Haskell.  She said Barker Avenue and Connecticut Street would be major thoroughfares which those streets were already because those streets were used to get downtown and it was also adding traffic to 23^rd, 19^th, 15^th, and 11^th Streets.  During the Planning Commission meeting that was held at the Art Center, several of the neighborhoods spoke of their concerns about the amount of traffic that it would produce.

She said the Southeast Area Plan created more industrial and placed it on K-10, which was less than 30 miles away from Olathe and Lenexa’s industrial area. It was a major thoroughfare between all of those industrial areas. It would create connectivity between Farmland and East Hills, but if they turned the area into residential, then 23^rd Street would be far worse. The Southeast Area Plan as industrial was needed. 

Todd Thompson, representative of property owners in the southeast area, said a little over a year ago, a development plan was submitted for his client’s property, and it was put on hold with the idea of an area plan being developed before the project would proceed.  He said they had watched and monitored the discussion process. The disagreement that had kept an area plan from being adopted thus far, related to the area east of Franklin Road.  He said in virtually all of the discussions and in all of the plans that had been submitted, considered or discussed, the essence of his client’s property for future development had remained the same which was some commercial and office on the corner with a multiple family component and a single family to the south.

He said what they were asking the City Commission to do, whether the area plan was approved as submitted, whether there was suggested modifications to that area plan, or whether the area plan was rejected and sent back, they would ask the Commission to allow this area to proceed and they would like to bring their plan before the City Commission for consideration.

Again, there had been agreement on the general nature of that plan, the basic layout of where those streets were throughout the discussion that they had observed for over a year and they would like to proceed with that plan.  He said they were not advocating that the Commission accept or reject the area plan as it was proposed for east of Franklin Rd., but they would like to proceed with the area that was west of Franklin Road.

Commissioner Schauner asked if the area would be medium density.

Thompson said the area was zoned RS-2.  He said they had submitted a traffic study to the city, which had been analyzed by the City’s Traffic Engineer and by KDOT. The city had that now for close to a year in connection with their original proposal.  Again, they were not there to suggest that the City Commission pass or reject the proposal that was before them, but they would like to point out that in all of the proposals and discussions, this particular area had been discussed as being developed essentially along those lines and they would ask that the City Commission let them proceed with that portion of that particular area.

Wally Emerson, Progressive Lawrence Campaign, said the City Commission was being asked to commit this city to a development plan that would shape Lawrence for generations, and the Commission was being asked to make that commitment before they really knew what they needed.  He urged the City Commission to take the time to develop a vision for this city. A vision that was based on proper research, factual information, rather than simply responding to developer and political pressure.  Not that there was anything wrong with that kind of pressure, it was a fact of life and it was part of how things were done, but just understand where it came from.  He said at this point in the process, they thought the City Commission should send this plan back to the Planning Commission and ask them to scrap it and just start over.

A lot of critical information needed to be gathered and considered, for example, the need for employment center space over the next 25 years.  He suggested finding information out first before committing large plots of land.  Other critical information needed was future transportation network; existing infrastructure; developing a methodology for measuring housing supply and demand; coordinating land use projections with U.S.D. 497; what was needed for healthy and sustainable neighborhood formation, and determine the traffic implications of various land uses in this area. 

He said much of this area would be naturally served by the Wakarusa Wastewater Treatment Plan, which was projected to be built in 2011.  So to develop this area before that happened would require expensive temporary measures, even if the developer would say they would pay those expenses, he could not imagine that those cost would not be passed on to the cost of the housing.  He suggested being careful how we talked about affordable housing because it was a very easy thing to toss about as something that a plan would address which should also be looked at.  Again, what they were saying was to send this issue back to the Planning Commission and take the time to do this right.

Melinda Henderson said comments had been made about lack of information on which to base a good decision on the southeast area.  She said they needed to consider having a land use planner on staff who had an emphasis on Economic Development, who could help answer questions that were continually being asked.   She said she was not knocking the work that the Economic Development Department, but could they help Economic Development do a better job if there was a land use planner who was trained in Economic Development.

She agreed with other people who spoke on this issue to send this back to the Planning Commission and get some answers to some serious questions before they could begin identifying any kind of land uses.

Mayor Highberger said there were three options to this issue:

1. Approve the recommended plan from the Planning Commission by a majority vote

2. Override the recommended plan by a supermajority with 4 votes; or

3. By a majority vote, return the plan to the Planning Commission with instructions.

Mayor Highberger said he knew a lot of work had gone into this issue, but his preference would be to send this issue back to the Planning Commission.  He said he had some serious concerns almost all of which had been addressed except for one concern which was the traffic concerns.  He said if that area became industrial development that area would be a traffic nightmare.  He said they needed to address how traffic was going to get in or out of that area, whether it was residential or industrial.  He also suggested looking at a southern connection over Franklin Road. He was not sure that was feasible with the flood plain, but they needed to do something at that location.

He said one thing he liked about the alternative plan that was presented was looking at other options for the park or school that the City has already purchased.  He commended city staff for getting ahead of the curve and buying land when it was cheap, but the way things had developed, he was not sure that was an ideal location for a park or school.  He said he would like the Planning Commission to have the freedom to look at an alternative location for that facility.

He said he was concerned that the Planning Commission’s plan identified more industrial space than what was realistically going to use in the period when this area ought to be built out and he would like the Planning Commission to consider allocating somewhat less of the area for industrial uses.  He would like the Planning Commission to look at the possibility of mixed use development that was currently not possible under our codes, something along the lines of what was advocated by new urbanism plans or something that neighborhoods would be more self-contained and might not generate as much outside traffic as our traditional suburbs, and such as mixed use, could include an employment center.

He did not see any reason to rezone the plan for the land south of 31^st Street or for it to be anything other than low density residential. He was not sure it was suited for industrial because it was too close to the floodplain.  He said they needed to remember, no matter what they did, it was going to be a very busy street.  There were street designs that could accommodate the kind of a neighborhood they wanted to see at that location and still carry a high level of traffic.

Lastly, the northwest corner of the Southeast Area Plan, the property Mr. Thompson discussed, did appear to be fairly consistent with all the versions of the plan that had been presented so far, and if this issue was being sent back to the Planning Commission, they needed to consider, at least on some near term agenda, the possibility of letting some of the existing plans proceed. 

Commissioner Amyx said he was a big believer in the work that the Planning Commission had accomplished.  One important issue would be to give the Planning Commission’s recommendation a “yea” or “nay” or send the recommendation back with reasons why the City Commission was doing what they were doing.  He said he concurred with the Mayor concerning the 87 acres south of 31^st Street not needing to be considered in this plan because the floodplain came too far to the north. 

Another big issue was the traffic on 23^rd Street and K-10.  He said there had been discussions with KDOT about safety concerns in that area and the idea of adding to those safety concerns when developing the area over the next 20 years. 

He said one area of importance was a traffic plan.  He thought 31^st Street should be a boulevard or a 2 lane road needing to connect to K-10 and tie into the bridge; 40 mph roadway, maximum speed; and divided with trees.  He said they did not need any more entrances/exits that already existed along 31^st Street from Louisiana to Haskell.  All of those issues needed to be considered as part of the plan because if those issues were not considered, they would be adding a lot of the concerns from Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods.  He said they were going to fill those existing neighborhoods because there was no other way to move traffic from east to west. The traffic had to travel on 23^rd Street or go through the existing neighborhoods and that needed to be addressed before placing any type of designation of planning on the Southeast Area Plan.

Commissioner Hack said she agreed with comments that were made concerning the size of the area and there was a potential to incorporate some of the ideas that were going to have a positive affect on land use.  She said she did not know the proper balance between industrial and residential in this area.  She had a feel for less industrial and more residential, but she did not have a handle on the percentage.  She also thought it was important to understand that the Planning Commission had spent a lot of time on this issue and throwing it back to them might or might not create some angst, but she thought they were prepared for that.

She said she believed that the area south of 31^st Street should not be included in this plan for reasons such as the floodplain.  Should 31^st Street be developed, it should be developed in a way that would not cause problems for the frontage to properties.  She also agreed with the Mayor that it seemed as though they were holding a plan hostage that had been part of all of this discussion.  She suggested as this plan moved forward, to give consideration to Thompson’s concerns and move that parcel forward as soon as possible.  In fairness it was not right that that piece of property be held up.  She suggested sending the plan back to the Planning Commission for further discussion.

Commissioner Rundle said this issue had been well articulated by other people. He concurred that this issue should go back to the Planning Commission.  He said he was somewhat uncomfortable with allowing one parcel to proceed ahead because there was no way to say “no” to those nearby.  He said they put this area on hold for some time ago for the very reasons that the area was not ready for development because it needed to be planned.  He said he wholeheartedly concurred with the need for a transportation and traffic plan and he was not sure he could concur with how 31^st Street or any other street needed to go through.

Commissioner Schauner said the issue of concern was if the area was developed in a way that created unknowable, unpredictable, and unintended consequences for other neighborhoods they would all live to regret it.  Most particularly, even if a neighborhood centered area plan was developed that would try to minimize or mitigate traffic away from the neighborhood to attain city services, commercial services and so forth.  He said if there were 6,500 homes constructed in that area southeast, times 10 trips per day, they would be looking at 65,000 car trips a day out of that area.  It’s an inconsumable amount of traffic with our current road structure. He said he knew there was some concern with this warm fuzzy descriptor of an employment center, but he honestly believed that that sort of development provided the sort of economic infrastructure that could bring good jobs to town, create fewer road trips, create less congestion, be a greater economic engine for the community than just more houses which produce short term profit and don’t produce long term economic benefit to the community.  He said his sense of what the Planning Commission should consider was, how they would build a transportation network through this area; how would they provide for land uses that did not create more problems than they created benefit.  He said he did not think that a 6,500 house development, in that area, served anybody other than the short term interests of some people.

He said he was not adamantly opposed to considering Thompson’s client’s interests in this northwest corner, but he did have some concern about taking a piecemeal approach to this area, and to the extent that did piecemeal this area they would be doing a disservice to the neighbors and landowners who lived in the balance of the southeast area where a plan was being considered.  He said he would like to see the Planning Commission go back and take a look at transportation issues in this area.

He said all of us had a lens on which they viewed, analyzed, and made decisions about all issues.  He said he did not have any idea how much industrial space that could be consumed in the next 20 years as a community.  He said what he really would like to do was to get some professional help in terms of what could be consumed, what was reasonable, how much of East Hills was left, when was it reasonable that they could put Farmland property online as an industrial park, and how much of that could they consume without cannibalizing the rest of the community.  Again this might be a 2006 budget conversation, but concurrent with the Planning Commission looking at this issue, as a City Commission, they should be looking at how to provide the technical resources that would help them make better decisions, more informed decisions that benefit landowners, prospective employers, taxpayers, and all of us who lived in this community. He said he would like the Planning Commission to consider those concepts as they took up this issue.

Commissioner Hack said there was no point in creating a transportation plan until a land use was known.  She said that they needed to look at land use and then transportation and she would save her comments concerning an economic development planner, until the budget session.

Mayor Highberger said he would assume that the minutes of this meeting would be adequate direction for the Planning Commission rather than trying to thrash out some sort of consensus recommendation. 

Finger said the minutes could be used for direction to the Planning Commission once the City Commission had a chance to review those minutes to make sure all the points were captured.

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Schauner, to return the Southeast Area Plan back to the Planning Commission for further consideration.                                                                (21)

Moved by Schauner, seconded by seconded by Amyx, to extend the meeting until 10:30.  Motion carried unanimously.

Linda Finger, Planning Director, noted that the County also had input on this plan and they would be acting on the plan next week.

Mayor Highberger noted that the City Commission did not take action on Thompson’s request, but they would consider placing that request on a future agenda.

Receive and approve Capital Improvements Plan (CIP) for years 2006-2011.

Linda Finger, Planning Director, presented the Capital Improvements Plan.  She said staff had modified the procedure for the CIP, and staff had went through a different process trying to bring more reality to the projects as they come forward to the City Commission in relationship to budgetary constraints and physical planning. There was a different review body that took a look at this issue.  She said what the City Commission was looking at was a recommendation from the Planning Commission that the CIP be adopted. There was a split vote on the CIP with Planning Commissioners Burress and Ermeling in opposition of the adoption because they thought there were additional steps that could be taken to show how each project would be in conformance in achieving a goal or policy in Horizon 2020 rather than just identifying what they were related to. 

Mayor Highberger called for public comment.

After receiving no public comment, Finger said this document along with the County’s CIP, and the State Transportation Improvement Plan, would be woven together to become the Transportation Improvement Plan, which was the document that the Metropolitan Planning Organization, used in their long range planning.

Commissioner Hack said she was part of that process and they looked at each one of the requests related to Horizon 2020, and whether it was an unfunded mandate and, whether it required additional funding. She said she felt much more comfortable with some of those issues, such as necessity and what the balance was from department to department in terms of priorities.  She said she felt that this was more than a wish list, and she had not felt that way before.  She said she felt they had an objective assessment and based it on criteria that were linked to Horizon 2020.  She said every time they did anything they could always look for ways of improvement.  In fact it, they had some corrections and thoughts on the matrix that was used.  She said she thought this plan went through a very lengthy process and she felt much more comfortable that those things that rose to the top were truly in priority, the priorities that were necessary.

Mayor Highberger said the plan looked like a big improvement.  He said one issue he would like to consider in the future would be weighting some of those categories.  He said he had a question about one of the program improvements that concerned improvements to the existing skate park which was not listed as a line item in the CIP.  He asked if that issue would be included in the general park improvement list.

Mike Wildgen, City Manager, said staff had anticipated that that would be one of those second generation projects if it was funded that way.

Mayor Highberger said if that issue was listed as one of the general park improvements then he had no objections.

Mayor Rundle said he appreciated the effort to make changes to the process and the plan itself, but he thought they still had some major work to do.  He hoped that eventually they would vote on the CIP and not come back next year with intersection plan improvements and current budget year’s street maintenance plan developed in the middle of the year.  He said they should have that in place so that they could start going down that plan, having things bid and moving ahead.  Also, having the funding identified that would be tied to those different projects in the plan and for the next year it would be clearly in place.

Commissioner Schauner said he would like to echo his support for weighting the criteria because it would make the matrix a bit more usable.  He said as he went through the plan and assumed that all those projects got check marks in all the boxes and that was how they made it to the list.

Finger said no.

Commissioner Schauner said in looking at a whole list of criteria, every project that he looked at had a check mark in every box. He asked what that represented.  He suggested that he have private conversation with staff.  He said he did like the process better than in the past and he suspected that the process could be further refined and if they weighted those criteria in the future, he thought the process would be even better.   

Vice Mayor Amyx asked Commissioner Rundle if he believed that this process was better than 5 years ago.

Rundle said yes, but there was progress.

Vice Mayor Amyx said the improvements had been were incredible over the last 17 years.  He said concerning those projects, some projects would come to pass and some would not, but a plan and priorities were needed. He said he thought staff and the Planning Commission had done a good job to get us to this point.

Commissioner Rundle said on issue that he would like staff to flag was the change that was made between one year to the next on Peterson Road which was moved from state funding and moved into a benefit district financing.  He said anything like that, that might seem like a small change that would be overlooked, he would appreciate those changes be noted.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Schauner, to approve the Capital Improvement Plan for years 2006 - 2011.  Motion carried 4-1 (Commissioner Rundle voted Nay).                          (22)

Discuss the Planning Commission’s Rural Planning Committee (RPC) report.

Commissioner Schauner said he did not intend to discuss the report, but he had an interest in talking about the process they would follow.  He said he understood that this committee had made a report in which the Planning Commission had not yet acted upon.

Linda Finger, Planning Director, said the report had not been presented to the Planning Commission yet.  The committee would meet with Baldwin and Eudora and they would present this report as a committee report on June 20^th to the Planning Commission at which time the committee would ask for the report to be initiated as a comprehensive plan amendment to Horizon 2020 as a new chapter.

Commissioner Schauner said in a meeting that took place with the County, what he thought he heard in that conversation was that planning staff was going to be hiring consultants to do some work with respect to another rural subdivision project.

Finger said not exactly.  The County asked staff to move ahead with a consultant to work on the subdivision regulations.  Those regulations were in draft form and the Planning Commission had reviewed those draft regulations.  She said they would like to move those regulations ahead.  She said those draft regulations had been paralleling this process, but this particular committee had worked on those regulations as long as the subdivision regulations had been in draft form.  She said the consultant was looking at specific areas of the subdivisions regulations with staff, which are exceptions, exemptions, and administrative processes, to move those subsections ahead and they fall within the body of what this report also discussed.

Commissioner Schauner said hiring the consultant and doing that work was not going to be inconsistent with this report, assuming this report were to be approved by the Planning Commission and the two governing bodies.

Finger said it would not mirror this report because the County Commission had asked them to look at some simplified methods rather than, for example, the build through acreage, to find a simpler method to replace the 5 acre exemption and to look at a conservation subdivision. 

Commissioner Schauner asked if the report adopted a build through approach.

Finger said this report presented a build through approach, but it was not codification of text.  What the County Commission wanted to move ahead was actual text language whereas this was just policy.

Commissioner Schauner said this would be a text approach that would be different than build through.

Finger said she did not know the answer at this point.  The County Commission had asked them to look at some different options.

Commissioner Schauner said different than build through.

Finger said simpler than build through. Not necessarily different, but something that did cluster development, perhaps, not in the same method that a build through would. So it was still achieving cluster development.

Commissioner Schauner said his concern was that he did not know how much money they were talking about spending with a consultant, but what he did not have a big interest in doing was spending a lot of money on a parallel path until such time as they either approved or disapproved of the report that the Planning Commission’s recommended, based on, in part or whole, the rural Planning Commission work.

Finger said the County was paying for the consultant that was doing that work.

Commissioner Schauner asked if this was all county funding.

Finger said the City was contributing approximately $4,000 and that was for the additional revisions to the subdivisions regulations.

Vice Mayor Amyx said it was said that the Planning Commission would be looking for initiation and would it be initiation from either this body or the county.

Finger said no, the Planning Commission could actually initiate the comprehensive plan amendments.  What the Rural Planning Committee, which was a subcommittee of the Planning Commission, was looking for was the full Commission to bring this forward as a text amendment, and then the City Commission would see the report after public hearing which would be July or August.

Commissioner Schauner asked if that would be at the Planning Commission level.

Finger said the public hearing would be with the Planning Commission and would come to the City Commission no sooner than 3 weeks later.

Mayor Highberger called for public comment.

Melinda Henderson asked how a moratorium would affect the subdivision regulations now, because if there was a moratorium on a 5 acre exemption, did that mean that the section of the subdivision regulations 21-104, and 21-105, that basically dealt with the 5 acre exemption, null and voided those sections, and if so, the subdivisions were joint city/county and she did not hear anything about that issue in the discussion last week at the study session. 

She said as far as the process, she wanted to see the Planning Commission initiate this as a text amendment so that they could have public hearings.  She said she was concerned that the County Commission, in a way, put the City in a bind, as far as their timeline went.  She said she was at the County Commission meeting when this item came up, and in a matter of weeks there was a resolution.  She said she worried that the City Commission might be placed in constraints as far as being able to follow that timeline.  She said she wanted to encourage the City Commission to take their time to do the due diligence that needed to be done and part of that included dealing with this draft and having time for the Planning Commission to initiate the text amendment, and hopefully they were not going to be spending any additional money to re-invent, what a lot of people in the community thought was already a pretty good wheel.

Wally Emerson said when listening to this document being discussed at the County Commission, it was characterized as being radical or really asking an awful lot, and he thought it seemed that the City Commission should consider that this was the compromised document. There were people on this committee from the county and city representing all sides who worked on it for a long time. He said he believed this was the compromise document and he would like the City Commission to act on this document.

Finger said the moratorium itself was on building permits. It was not on the 5 acre exemption.  She said people could continue to create division, but they could not pull permits if that division was created after June 1^st and November 30^th, 2005, that the moratorium was on.                                                                                                                                                        (23)

PUBLIC COMMENT:           

Clifford Harding, Lawrence, said he had discussed with staff the fact that he had water everywhere on his farm.  In 1964, when his father bought that farm, there was a levy with no gates and the levy went from the north edge of their farm to Teepee Junction.  In the 1970’s the Corps of Engineers put in a new levy with a gate.   He had concerns about those gates being shut in time.

Commissioner Rundle said he appreciated the comment and wanted to apologize.

Mayor Highberger said he would talk with the City Manager and get information back to the City Commission.

Wildgen said staff would give a report to the City Commission on what happened in that area.                                                                                                                                               (24)

Consider a motion to recess into executive session for consultation with an attorney for matters which would be deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship.  The justification for the executive session is to maintain the attorney-client privilege.  The open meeting will resume in the City Commission meeting room in 15 minutes

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Amyx, to recess into executive session at 10:17 for 10 minutes for consultation with an attorney for matters which would be deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship.  Motion carried unanimously. 

The Commission returned to regular session at 10: 27

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Rundle, to adjourn at 10:30 p.m. Motion carried unanimously.

APPROVED:

_____________________________

Dennis Highberger, Mayor

ATTEST:

___________________________________                                                                       

Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk

CITY COMMISSION MEETING OF JUNE 14, 2005

1. Bid Date Set – Rehab at 1526 W 22^nd on June 21^st.

2. Bid Date Set – 2005 Concrete Repair Program, June 28^th.

3. Bid – Toolcat Tool Carrier from KC Bobcat for $42,420.60.

4. Bid – 2 Rehab projects to Penny Construction, 2558 Cedarwood for $28,430 & 544 Arizona for $26,023.  

5.  Agreement – Bucher, Willis & Ratliff for $78,280 for Wakarusa Service Ctr Master Plan.

6. RFP – Library Consultant Services.

7. Ordinance No. 7890 – 1^st Read, amend 9-810 & 9-812, smoking ordinance.

8. Ordinance No. 7888 – 2^nd Read, host responsibility & minors in possession of alcohol.

9. Ordinance No. 7889 – 2^nd Read, amend 5-739.2, 2003 Edition concerning sign code regs.

10. Resolution No. 6598 – blight, 800 Connecticut, 20 days to abate.

11. Resolution No. 6599 – blight, 12000 Pennsylvania, 20 days to abate. 

12. Rezone – (Z-01-05-05) deny 8.7 acres from A to RS-2, NW of Clinton Pkwy & K-10.

13. Rezone – (Z-01-06-05) deny 40 acres from A to RM-2, NW of Clinton Pkwy & K-10.

14. Rezone – (Z-01-07-05) deny 4.6 acres from A to RM-D, NW of Clinton Pkwy & K-10.

15. Annex – (A-01-01-05) 54 acres, NW of Clinton & K-10.

16. RFP – 2005 Employee Satisfaction survey.

17. Maintenance Agreement – landscaping traffic circles in Fox Chase S Sub, $1,500 per traffic circle.

18. Economic Development Quarterly Report.

19. Funding Request – F.A.N. Club for $5,000 for art exhibit/community event, Oct & Nov 2005.

20. Agreement – BG Consultants for pedestrian crossing project.

21. Public Hearing – SE Area Plan, N by K-10; W by O’Connell; E by Noria; & S by Wakarusa floodplain.

22. CIP –  2006-2011.

23. Sidewalk Dining Guidelines.

24. Rural Planning Committee report.