Planning commissioners on Monday voted 4-3 to recommend denial of a request to annex an additional 177 acres of agricultural land west of Kansas Highway 10 into city limits, yet a majority voted in favor of rezoning requests for the same land.
The requests will go next to the Lawrence City Commission for consideration.
Just last week, Lawrence city commissioners approved requests to annex and rezone 288 acres west of Kansas Highway 10 between Sixth Street and Bob Billings Parkway for a development called Beacon Landing. A city staff member said it was likely the largest single annexation in the last three decades.
Now developers with Landplan Engineering seek to annex an additional 177 acres southwest of Kansas Highway 10 and Sixth Street and southwest of K-10 and Bob Billings Parkway. Combined with the other annexation, that’s 465 acres altogether in the area.
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The requests include rezoning 76 acres of the land for medium-density housing (R-3), which allows for seven to 15 units per acre, and 38 acres for very high-density housing (R-5), which is the city’s most dense zoning and has no upper limit on the number of units per acre.
Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commissioners voted against recommending approval of the annexation request, hinging on a small portion of the land.
Planning Commissioner Jane Eldredge pointed to Plan 2040, the joint city-county comprehensive plan, adopted in November 2019.
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A small portion of the land in the annexation request falls into area defined as “Tier 3” in the plan.
Eldredge said land designated as “Tier 3” in Plan 2040 should only be annexed when it is the only choice to meet the community need, and it was hard for her to believe that this land was the only choice for housing in Douglas County.
“If we undermine our Plan 2040, I think we lose all of our viability as a fair and decent Planning Commission,” Eldredge said.
Eldredge said Plan 2040 is a binding document. Planning Commissioner Gary Rexroad asked Deputy City Attorney Randy Larkin to weigh in on that.
“If you find in this situation that the Plan 2040 does or does not allow for this annexation, you can apply it that way,” Larkin said. “So I mean, that’s what it is. It’s not a statute, it’s not law, but it is a binding plan that informs all of our decisions.”
Eldredge made a motion to recommend denial of the annexation request, and Commissioner Andie Perdue seconded. That motion passed 4-3.
However, the two rezoning requests received majority votes in favor of approval.
Eldredge asked to clarify whether the rezoning votes were necessary since they recommended denial of annexation — land that is not annexed into the city would not be rezoned under city zoning.
“You’re making recommendations to the city commission, so you need to recommend on both of these, so that the city commission, if they decide to approve the annexations, then they have your recommendations regarding the rezonings,” Larkin said. “If they deny — if they accept your or approve your recommendation of not annexing the properties — then the rezonings will be moot before the city commission. But you need to make recommendations to them so that they can see the whole package.”
The Lawrence City Commission will need a supermajority vote of at least 4-1 to reject the planning commission’s recommendation of denial of the annexation request.
Planning commissioners faced some criticism last month after they combined the previous annexation and rezoning items — one presentation and one opportunity for public comment, despite seven individual items appearing on the meeting agenda. On Monday, the commission voted 4-3 to stick with the same process and give one opportunity for public comment on the annexation and two rezoning requests.
However, most members of the public who were present for the meeting left after the commission voted to accept deferral of KU Endowment Association’s request to annex land near the airport. (See this article.)
Developers with Landplan Engineering are seeking tax incentives from the city and sales tax and revenue bonds, or STAR bonds, to help pay for development of that area as well as 1059 (formerly New Boston Crossing), the development slated for southeast of K-10 and Iowa Street. However, the tax incentives were not up for the planning commissioners’ consideration.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
More coverage: Expanding Lawrence
Jacob Rice / Lawrence TimesPlanning commissioners vote against annexation request for 177 more acres west of K-10 in Lawrence
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