Note: The Lawrence Times runs opinion columns and letters to the Times written by community members with varying perspectives on local issues. These pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Times staff.
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Over the past two-plus years, there has been a lot of thought and effort directed toward revising the city’s Land Development Code.
In shorthand, the LDC sets out the ground rules that guide what sorts of development and redevelopment uses can occur and where within the city these uses are permitted and not permitted. When it is completed and adopted, the new code will be a massive legal document — 500 plus pages of specialized “codespeak” fully interpretable only by those steeped in the language.
Good news: The finish line is in sight. The Planning Commission appears close to completing their review with recommendations to be forwarded to the Lawrence City Commission. The latter will have the LDC on its agenda Tuesday, Oct. 15, perhaps direct further changes, and ultimately adopt it, tentatively on Nov. 12.
The new code is based on currently in-vogue prescriptions advanced by academics and professional planning types. Grounded in this thinking, the Lawrence formulation mirrors efforts underway in large and small communities across the country. In considerable measure, this activity is motivated by the pressure to greatly increase both the number of housing units and the range of housing choices available to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse citizenry. In shorthand, it is the local frontline response to the affordable housing crisis.
Make no mistake. Going forward, this new growth blueprint will impact practically everyone in the community — development, commercial and institutional interests, homeowners and renters alike.
If its influence plays as intended, one of the major on-the-ground results will be greater housing unit density. In our traditional or established neighborhoods, this means redevelopment activity favoring conversion of single-family homes into duplexes, construction of new duplexes and townhomes as well as rowhouses containing up to four attached dwellings. The new code also offers possibilities for more innovative housing forms such as tiny homes, accessory dwelling units and cottage courts. New modular homes — not your grandparents’ trailer — may even figure into the evolving housing mix.
As residents of an old established neighborhood, we are generally on board with the new code prescriptions. We certainly recognize the importance of sensible and measured redevelopment.
However, based on our reading of the new code in its proposed form, we contend that in some important ways, it fails to include necessary safeguards to help ensure the continued livability of our community’s traditional neighborhoods.
This failure is best exemplified in its approach to minimum parking requirements for redevelopment. It is a fairly complicated subject but put simply, although the code is set up to encourage greater housing unit density, at the same time it imposes only minimal requirements for additional off-street parking to accommodate the increase in vehicles that “naturally” will occur with the increase in housing units. In other words, if redevelopment takes off, it likely will produce a lot more on-street parking demand.
The arguments supporting this approach vary. Some proponents say that many people who will occupy these new units don’t have vehicles so that street parking pressures will not be any real problem. Others use the popular notion that the “market” will efficiently regulate parking supply.
In the real world, if we are talking about truly affordable housing, then one way you achieve that is by the combination of putting more units on a lot and then reducing the space devoted to and infrastructure costs associated with parking. In other words, shift the cost burden of parking from the developer’s lot to the public street space.
If you’ve done us the courtesy of following this torturous note, and if you’re concerned about the impacts that denser form redevelopment will have on our established neighborhoods, we urge you to contact members of the Planning Commission and the Lawrence City Commission and give explicit voice to your concerns.
Our goal should be sensible redevelopment that accommodates increasing density while maintaining the livability of our neighborhoods. We should not settle for anything less.
Again, appreciate your attention.
Phil and Peggi Englehart, Pinkney neighborhood, Lawrence
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