Plans for development of a site near 18th and Haskell for a temporary modular home village for people experiencing homelessness have come to a halt, a developer says.
Tony Krsnich, one of the owners of the site at 800 Lynn St., said Wednesday that he was in discussions with the city, but “those discussions are now over.”
“We look forward to continuing to work with with the City of Lawrence. (We) absolutely love Lawrence, and continue to stand behind all ranges of housing, affordable and market rate; historic preservation,” Krsnich said. “And we had a very positive end to these negotiations, and negotiations like this are always difficult. This had absolutely nothing to do with price or anything like that.”
Multiple sources had confirmed Monday that the property was planned to be the site of the temporary shelters.
It’s not clear what happened between then and Wednesday morning, and Krsnich did not elaborate. However, the Lawrence City Commission had two executive (closed-door) sessions Tuesday evening “to discuss the possibility of acquiring real property in the City” and “to discuss privileged legal communications from the City’s attorneys regarding the terms of a contract and a city policy,” according to the agenda.
City staff members have aimed to have the shelter village operational in June, in a site that had not yet been identified as of City Manager Craig Owens’ memo to the city commission last month. City staff will bring the commission a contract with Pallet “soon,” that memo stated, but the contract has not yet appeared on a commission meeting agenda.
With negotiations for 800 Lynn St. coming to a “mutual impasse,” it’s unclear where the Pallet Shelter Village could wind up.
We’ve reached out to several sources and will update this article if we get more information.
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Chansi Long (she/her) reported for The Lawrence Times from July 2022 through August 2023. Read more of her work for the Times here.
Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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