Advocates in a Lawrence group protesting a proposed development south of town believe developers have added subsidized housing to the project to distract from its environmental and other consequences.
About 50 community members gathered Saturday at the Lawrence Public Library to hear updates and information from folks with the Save the Wakarusa River Valley movement.
The group is opposing the New Boston Crossing development, which is proposed for land southeast of the Kansas Highway 10 interchange at Iowa Street. The land is in the floodplain, directly west of the wetlands and north of the Wakarusa River.
One key concern advocates have voiced is that the development would use the “fill and build” method, which elevates land that’s in the floodplain by filling it in with dirt from elsewhere.
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In this project, updated plans include digging a pond and using that soil to fill in part of the area, where developers would then build subsidized housing.
Melinda Ball told the crowd that’s a concern for structural integrity.
“Fill and build” developments are sometimes marketed as “floodproof,” but they aren’t, and they can contribute to worsening flooding issues elsewhere.
A FEMA advisory council last year recommended that FEMA “Consider prohibiting the use of fill as an elevation technique for residential and commercial structures” in flood-prone areas, both coastal and riverine, and to prohibit fill as a floodproofing technique in floodplain areas.
“Climate change is telling us we’re going to have increased precipitation events, we’re going to have increased cycles of drought, and we’re just going to have this area flood again — but now it’s OK all of a sudden,” Dominique Sexton told those in attendance. “And then on top of that, what we’re looking at federally is we’re having not only the federal government, but sometimes the state, too, dismantle environmental protections.”
Sexton said the community needs to push for local environmental protections as the “last bastion of hope.”
Previous versions of the development plans focused on market-rate housing. With the addition of affordable housing, “we could see that this was clearly their way of enticing their next approval that they want to have,” Ball said.
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Sexton agreed, saying she sees the affordable housing addition as a red herring and a way to get through city processes.
Lawrence’s housing shortage is a big issue, she said, but the group’s concern is location: “It’s not a good idea to build on that floodplain.” They’re encouraging more infill affordable housing rather than as part of a project that is not pedestrian-friendly or close to existing resources.
The area also holds deep historical and cultural significance for many tribal nations. Haskell Indian Nations University was once a boarding school where Indigenous children were sent, taken from their families and forced to assimilate into white culture. Many were abused, and Haskell has a cemetery on campus where 103 children are buried.
“During the assimilation years, many children would want to run away to the Wakarusa Wetlands to meet their families, partake in prayer ceremony, meet with their friends, speak their Native languages, to reconnect with Mother Earth,” Courtney King, Peoria and Miami, told those in attendance. “And they would utilize the corridor, actually, to run home to their homelands.”
Advocates have raised concerns that there could be more children buried in unmarked sites, and they’re pushing developers to complete ground-penetrating radar studies rather than dig and potentially disturb the deceased.
Sexton said non-Indigenous people should ask themselves some questions.
“How many times do we have to ask our Indigenous community and the students and the faculty and the staff at Haskell to constantly bring up this wound?” she said. “How many times do we have to ask our community members to plead and beg that we don’t continue to destroy the environment, which holds potentially very important cultural and historical and spiritual essences?”
So far, the Lawrence City Commission has approved annexing the land into city limits and rezoning requests for the project, though the rezoning was for a previous iteration of the plans.
The project is not yet on an agenda for the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission to consider its next steps, but it could be as soon as June, the advocates said. No one involved with the project appeared to be in attendance at the meeting.
The group has launched a change.org petition that has more than 1,300 signatures, “Urge the City of Lawrence to Deny New Boston Crossing and Save Our Wetlands.” That can be found at this link.
Learn more about the group on its website, savethewakarusarivervalley.org. See the group’s presentation from Saturday at this link.
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Nathan Kramer (he/him), a multimedia student journalist for The Lawrence Times since August 2024, is a junior at Free State High School. He is also a video editor for Free State’s student publication, where he works as a videographer, photographer and motion designer. See more of his work for the Times here.
Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
