1311 Prairie Ave.                                                                                                      10 February 2006

Lawrence, KS 66044

Mayor Highberger & Commission

Lawrence City Hall

6th & Massachusetts St.

Lawrence, KS 66044

re:        14 Feb. 2006 Regular Agenda Item # D-4, Burroughs Creek Corridor Plan

Dear Mayor & Commissioners:

Having served at your request on the Burroughs Creek Area Plan Committee, I want to thank you for providing the east side neighborhoods the opportunity to help shape the future of this part of town.  With this plan, Lawrence comes closer to implementing key provisions of several neighborhood plans, previously fragmented and overlooked.

One of those plan elements that Brook Creek Neighborhood has been struggling to achieve for decades is the appropriate rezoning of industrial properties now rendered inappropriate by the abandonment of the BNSF rail spur.  Those properties are in the area bordered by 19th, the BNSF tracks, and Haskell Ave., all of which could be C-4 instead of M-1A or M-2. 

As the Brook Creek Neighborhood Plan states in “Goals & Policies - General Land Use”:

Ch. 2-A) "Evaluate present zoning classification of land . . .to determine whether it is desirable for the Planning or City Commission to initiate a change of zoning." 

I emphasize that this rezoning goal was one of the most important reasons, if not the most important, for BCNA to request that you create the BCAP Committee.  I personally am very disappointed that such critical rezoning issues have been relegated to a second class status in the final draft plan for the Burroughs Creek Corridor.  And this is the purpose of my writing.

Nowhere in the three-neighborhood letter to the City Commission to form our Committee, nowhere in the year of work by our Committee, and nowhere in the finalized Purpose, Vision, or Goals of the Plan is there any reference for a two-tiered approach to rezoning. 

One member of the Committee had early on proposed deleting zoning issues entirely from Committee responsibilities, but all other members and the Planning staff asserted that these issues were central to the work of the Committee.  Only to placate this same person's unease at the very last Committee meeting, was the two-tiered zoning accepted by considerably less than a quorum of the Committee.

All recommendations for rezoning in the Burroughs Creek Corridor Plan should be initiated by the City Commission in a uniform fashion.  There should be no first tier by the City Commission and second tier that burdens the neighborhoods to file and pay for such requests. 

Amendments:  Therefore, on pages 3-6 and 3-7 under II-A Zoning Consistent With Use, the Second Tier Rezoning Table should be combined into the First Tier Rezoning Table, as well as references in the Executive Summary.  Then all rezoning recommendations would read “to be initiated upon approval of this plan”.  And the sentence “The second tier is recommended to be brought forward by the neighborhood association in the future” would be deleted.

Thank you,

Michael Almon