League of Women Voters of Lawrence-Douglas County

P.O. Box 1072, Lawrence, Kansas 66044

July 24, 2005

Dr. Terry Riordan, Chairman

Members

Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission City Hall

Lawrence, Kansas 66044

RE: ITEM NO. 10b: A TO RM-1; 11.165 ACRES; SOUTH OF WAKARUSA AND EAST OF EISENHOWER Dear Chairman Riordan and Planning Commissioners:

We urge the Planning Commission not to zone this large lot to RM-1.

The Land Use Committee supports the kind of development that is governed by clear regulations that can be implemented to bring about a predictable outcome. This is why we have historically supported Planned Unit Development for large lot development intended for multiple family and non-residential uses rather than using conventional districts for development of these large lots. Our reason is that a PUD has rules and regulations that are designed to accommodate more than one building on a lot. This is not the case for our current conventional districts. Please see the Attachment for our explanation of why this is true.

Because of the lack of regulation and lack of predictability of design in our conventional districts, as contrasted with the use of PUDs, we urge that you not zone this lot to RM-1, but rather, if you concur with large-lot development for this area, zone it to a an equivalent PUD district.

Thank you for your commitment and concern.

Sincerely yours,

ATTACHMENT

EXPLANATION OF REGULATORY DEFICIENCIES IN OUR CONVENTIONAL DISTRICTS WHEN USED
FOR LARGE LOT DEVELOPMENT
July 24, 2005

Conventional districts in our current zoning ordinance, Chapter 20 of the Lawrence City Code, are regulated by rules that are designed to place only one building on a lot. Because of this, regardless of the requirement for site planning, a large conventional lot intended for more than one building does not have regulations which govern the placement of individually separated buildings on the same lot.

To illustrate this difference between conventional districts and PUDs we cite as examples: Our conventional residential districts do not have regulations that require space between buildings that are not surrounded on all sides by a yard. The only required standard for building separation is in our fire code (which allows three feet between buildings). This becomes a critical issue in conventional multiple family districts where more than one building on a lot is intended. Furthermore, our conventional districts do not have standards that regulate the access to individual buildings within a lot where there is more than one principal building (except for parking standards) or have standards for buffering between incompatible uses.

Our current conventional large lots proportionately have less required open space than PUDs as the size of the lots increases. In our conventional districts the only open space requirement is based on the peripheral yards. These peripheral yards increase in size only on a linear basis but lot areas increase exponentially. In contrast, the open space requirement of a PUD increases proportionately to the area of the lot; i.e., on a percentage basis.

Large-lot development in general is popular with developers because it allows higher gross densities. For example, in large-lot development the buildable area increases exponentially as the linear dimensions of a lot increases, thereby allowing the actual effective density to be greater than would be the case in the same tract area covered by minimum-sized lots permitted by the same district. The buildable area and permitted density of an equivalent tract of minimum-sized lots is proportionately even less in conventional districts because public streets are subtracted from the allowable density.

Tree requirements are another example where large lots in conventional districts are lacking regulation in our current ordinance. Our conventional districts allow only driveways, not private streets. Street trees are required only in the right-of-way of public streets and at the edges of private streets, not driveways. Therefore, when the access to buildings in the interior of a conventional district is only by driveways, all of the required trees, by default, are at the edge of the lot except for the parking lot trees.