August 8, 2006

The Board of Commissioners of the City of Lawrence met in regular session at 6:35 p.m., in the City Commission Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Amyx presiding and members Highberger, Hack, Rundle, and Schauner present.

CONSENT AGENDA

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to approve the City Commission meeting minutes of July 18, 2006 and July 25, 2006. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to receive the Historic Resources Commission Action Summary of June 15, 2006; the Planning Commission meeting minutes of June 26-28, 2006; the Mental Health Board meeting minutes of June 27, 2006; Sisters Cities Advisory Board meeting minutes of June 6, 2006; the Convention & Visitors Bureau Advisory Board meeting minutes of June 27, 2006; the Board of Electrical Examiners meeting minutes of June 12, 2006 and July 19, 2006; and the Recycling & Resource Conservation Advisory Board meeting minutes of June 14, 2006.  Motion carried unanimously. 
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to receive Downtown Lawrence Inc., second quarter report. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to receive the Biosciences Authority, six month progress report. Motion carried unanimously. 
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to approve claims to 464 vendors in the amount of $3,973,568.59 and payroll from July 23, 2006 to August 5, 2006 in the amount of $1,660,525.08. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to approve the Drinking Establishment Licenses to Plum Tree, 2620 Iowa; Cadillac Ranch, 2515 West 6th Street; and Stone Creek, 3081 West 6th Street; the Retail Liquor Licenses to University Liquor, 3300 Bob Billings Parkway B3; and Spirit Liquor, 600 Lawrence Avenue. Motion carried unanimously. 

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to concur with the recommendation of the Mayor and appoint Rick Marquez to the Community Commission on Homelessness which will expire December 31, 2006. Motion carried unanimously.

Mayor Amyx deferred indefinitely, the consent agenda item regarding the Planning Commission’s recommendation to approve the Final Plat (PF-06-15-06) for Mercato Addition 1^st Plat, containing approximately 49.995 acres, located at north of Highway 40 and East of Highway K-10. (1)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to approve change order for the downtown waterline contract with Nowak Construction Company to deduct the mill and overlay and striping from the project this year. Motion carried unanimously. Motion carried unanimously. (2)

The City Commission reviewed the bids for the replacement of the gym roof at the Community Building for the Parks and Recreation Department. The bids were:

BIDDER BID AMOUNT

Midwest Coating $33,865

Huttinger Construction Co. $35,420

J.B. Turner & Sons Roofing and Sheet Metal $39,796

Burris Roofing $40,940

Premier Contracting, Inc. $56,142

Boone Brother Roofing $62,451

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to award the bid to Burris Roofing, in the amount of $40,940. Motion carried unanimously. (3)

The City Commission reviewed the bids for construction improvements to three pump stations in North Lawrence. The bids were:

BIDDER BID AMOUNT

Engineer’s Estimate $2,450,000

BRB Contractors $2,215,000

Garney Companies $2,239,000

Wolf Construction $2,597,430

Barge-Turley Construction $2,969,000

Young’s Inc. $3,380,348

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to award the bid to BRB Contractors, in the amount of $2,215,000. Motion carried unanimously.(4)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 8025, adopting the National Electrical Code, 2005 Edition, with amendments. Motion carried unanimously. (5)

Ordinance No. 8023, designating as a landmark on the Lawrence Register of Historic Places the structure located at 820 New Jersey Street, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (6)

Ordinance No. 8027, adopting the 2003 Uniform Plumbing Code with amendments, as recommended (and approved) by the Plumbing Board, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (7)

Ordinance No. 8022, establishing Speed Limits on 6^th Street as follows: from 430 feet east of Lawrence Avenue to Monterey Way the speed limit shall be 40 MPH, and from Monterey Way to the west City limits the speed limit shall be 45 MPH, was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to adopt the ordinance. Aye: Amyx, Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner. Nay: None. Motion carried unanimously. (8)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to adopt Resolution No. 6671, approving a special warranty deed and related documents for Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Motion carried unanimously. (9)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to adopt Resolution No. 6670, authorizing issuance of general obligation bonds for the addition of a six foot sidewalk on the N. Michigan Street Bridge over the Kansas Turnpike for $20,000. Motion carried unanimously. (10)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to approve the site plan (SP-06-50-06) for a new 32’ x 60’ church office/classroom building as an accessory use to an existing church located at 445 Lyon Street, subject to the following conditions:

1.Execution of a site plan performance agreement per Section 20-1433.

2.Provision of the following modification to the site plan:

a. Correct the scale to read 1” = 20’.

b. Show the location of the bicycle rack.

c. Reference the BZA file number on the site plan [B-06-20-06].

d. Provide for landscape screening of the parking lot along the west side of the property per Section 20-14A04.8(d).

3. Execute an Agreement Not to Protest a Future Benefit District for street and sidewalks improvements for Lyon Street and for N. 5^th Street.

Motion carried unanimously. (11)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Mayor to sign Memorandum of Understanding with the American Institute of Architects for participation in the Sustainable Design Team Project. Motion carried unanimously. (12)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Mayor to sign a Subordination Agreement for Barbara Wiseman, 1032 Lawrence Avenue. Motion carried unanimously. (13)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Mayor to execute form for the Kansas Department of Transportation certifying property acquisition procedures and utility arrangements for Kasold Drive, Peterson Road to the KTA Bridge. Motion carried unanimously. (14)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Interim City Manager to enter in an Engineering Agreement with Landplan Engineering in an amount of $106,980.50 for the engineering design of Overland Drive from Stoneridge to Queens Road, including water main. Motion carried unanimously. (15)

As part of the consent agenda it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Interim City Manager to enter into an Engineering Agreement with Landplan Engineering in the amount of $109,291.50 for engineering design of Stoneridge Drive from 6^th Street north to Overland Drive, including water main. Motion carried unanimously. (16) As part of the consent agenda it was moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to receive a memo from the Director of Public Works deferring the reconstruction of the alley in the 1000 block between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Motion carried unanimously. (17)

CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:

During the City Manager’s Report, David Corliss, Interim City Manager/Legal Services Director, said a public meeting would be held in the City Commission Chambers, August 14^th, 2006, regarding staff’s and the consultant’s recommendation on the location for the new Wakarusa Water Reclamation Facility.

He said other items included staff’s continuing efforts to notify the public concerning project submittals to the Planning Office; and efforts in installing tree grates Downtown in the 600 Block of Massachusetts.

Also, during the City Manager’s Report, Margene Swarts, Neighborhood Resources, updated the Commission on the Section 108 Loan Guarantee and New Markets Tax Credit Programs. She said the program was backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government and it was secured primarily by community CDBG funds over the term of the loan and additional security might also be required. She said there was a broad range of applications for the program including real estate, user business, public facilities, mixed use, loan funds, and housing (rehabilitation, not new construction). Commonly, the uses were economic development activities, acquisition of real property and associated construction or installation of site improvements, or the rehabilitation of public land property that was not used for the general conduct of government and associated construction or installation of site improvements, or housing rehabilitation.

Section 108 activities had to meet a national objective for the CDBG Program which was generally either to benefit persons of low and moderate income or the elimination of slum or blight along with other inherence to Federal Regulations that was followed by the CDBG Program. The program required both programmatic and financial underwriting and the training stressed the financial aspect was an important component of a successful project.

The New Markets Tax Credit Program was operated through the Community Development Financial Institution Fund and it was an economic development tax credit program that provided investors with a credit against their federal income tax liability for a qualified investment. The program was designed to spur investment, promote economic development in rural and low-income communities, and was administered through a community development entity that must be qualified by the Community Development Financial Institute. She said allocations were awarded to the entity and not to a particular project.

The most common eligible projects were real estate deals such as loans/investment to operating businesses located in low income areas, development of commercial, industrial, or retail real estate that was in low income areas, or mixed use projects (commercial income must be at least 20% of the gross income of the property).

All the projects must be located in a qualified low income area that was also identified as service area by the Community Development Entity. She said, because the program was quite sophisticated and highly competitive, if the City was interested in participating in this program, they recommended partnering with an entity, such as a Community Development Entity that was familiar with the program and had a good track record.

She said there were no Community Development Entities in Lawrence, although there were seven entities in Kansas and it was possible Lawrence could look at one of those entities to see if they might want to expand their service area. In Lawrence, there were approximately six census tracks that were defined as low income areas for the purpose of this program.

David Corliss, Interim City Manager/Legal Services Director, said one of staff’s next steps was to continue to learn more about this program and try and find a way to see if those programs were tools that staff could use. One of the issues that would be discussed in the budget was the Economic Development Coordinator and a person with that background in that level of training, could also be of assistance with staff to see if they could maximize those resources. One of the trends with the Federal Government, in its financial assistance to local governments, was increasingly targeting their resources. He said the Block Grant Revenue sharing type programs were thin and more of those types of programs would be specifically targeted and become more sophisticated. In some cases more difficult to understand at one level, but if staff could find resources in time to drill down, they certainly wanted to take advantage of those resources.

Mayor Amyx suggested as staff learned more about the program, that they schedule study sessions for the City Commission in the fall. (18)

REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:

Consider the following items related to the 800 Pennsylvania Redevelopment Project:

CPA-2005-05: Hold public hearing on Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA) to Horizon 2020, Chapter 6, to address mixed use development in redevelopment areas.

Consider adopting findings of fact; approving rezoning requests, and authorize drafting of ordinances for placement on future agenda:

Z-12-80-05L Establishment of a Zoning Overlay District for the 8^th and Penn Neighborhood Redevelopment Zone, generally described as being located between 8^th & 9^th Streets and New Jersey and Delaware Streets.

Z-01-01-06: A request to rezone a tract of land approximately .541 acre from M-2 District to C-5 District, and 4.0 acres from M-3 to C-5 District, generally being described as being located between 8^th and 9^th Streets and New Jersey and Delaware Streets.

Consider accepting dedication of easements and rights-of-way on the following plat:

PF-01-03-06: Final Plat for 8^th & Pennsylvania Redevelopment. This proposed redevelopment contains approximately 4.541 acres, generally described as being located between 8^th and 9^th Streets and New Jersey and Delaware Streets.

Consider request for City assistance for infrastructure improvements related to this proposed redevelopment.

Mayor Amyx asked David Corliss, Assistant City Manager/Legal Services Director, to explain to the City Commission and public, the issues at hand related to the 800 Pennsylvania Redevelopment Project.

Corliss said the first recommendation dealt with an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan that responded to the desire for mixed use development in that area. The next set of recommendations were a zoning request that dealt with both conventional zoning and a zoning overlay district along with a plat and a request for financial assistance from the City in order to respond to some of the infrastructure needs for this project. This was the evening staff designated the City Commission to receive the Planning Commission’s recommendation. He said there had been extensive discussions between individuals in the neighborhood, neighborhood representatives, and the developer. Staff was trying to keep the City Commission in pace with some of the correspondence they had received.

The City Commission’s actions were to receive the recommendations. He said to keep in mind that when the City Commission received a Planning Commission recommendation for both a Text Amendment to the Comprehensive Plan and also a rezoning, the City Commission, by majority vote, could approve the recommendation, or by majority vote, send the recommendation back to the Planning Commission with specificity as to why they were sending the recommendation back. In order to overrule the recommendation by the Planning Commission, on both of those items, the City Commission would need to overrule by a super majority vote which was four or more votes.

Mayor Amyx called a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA) to Horizon 2020, Chapter 6, to address mixed use development in redevelopment areas.

Lynne Zollner, Planner, presented the staff report on the Urban Conservation Overlay District project at 8^th and Pennsylvania. She said the City only had one Urban Conservation Overlay District which was Downtown.

She said there were specific items set out in the City’s code regarding when an Urban Conservation District should be established. This type of district was intended to help with a zoning overlay for areas that had been developed, and not for use with new development. The process started with the Historic Resources Commission. The Historic Resources Commission, City Commission, or Planning Commission could initiate a UCO or 51% of the property owners within that area could also initiate a UCO. She said this particular UCO was initiated by the Historic Resources Commission because of the historic assets located within the Urban Conservation Overlay District that was proposed.

The HRC conducted a public hearing on this issue and identified this was an historic area that met the criteria established in the code for a UCO District. In addition, while the developer was going through this process, he identified the historic district that had been approved by the Kansas Historic Sites Board of Review and was now pending National Register nomination and was listed on the State Register at this time.

She said the Planning Commission must hold a public hearing to take into consideration the findings of fact from the HRC. The Planning Commission must also find their own findings of fact regarding planning/zoning issues and that report would be forwarded to the City Commission for final determinations.

She said when staff discussed with the developer, the criteria for this particular development, several things came into play that could not be accomplished because they did not have that type of parallel code for urban redevelopment that was sensitive to historic properties, things that needed to happen in order to make this project go forward which was in addition to the UCO, a comprehensive text amendment to the City’s Comprehensive Plan.

The next issue identified was zoning issues in addition to the overlay. The overlay simply adjusted the specifics of a zoning area and the base zoning for the uses stayed the same. The overlay identified things such as setbacks, height, and massing density, but the uses were for the base zoning. She said staff recognized the industrial zoning of the property was not appropriate for a project such as this type of project. She said staff tried to identify a zoning that would be the best for this property, but staff did not have a great deal to work with and staff was currently working at trying to look at zonings that would be more sensitive and useful for this type of mixed use redevelopment. In addition, the property had to be replatted. Therefore, a preliminary and final plat had to be submitted.

She presented a map to the City Commission depicting that in 1905, the area was an industrial area. There were vacant lots on the west side of Pennsylvania, but it was mainly single-family residential area as was the south side of the Pennsylvania/Delaware blocks. By 1905 to 1927, the patterns started to change with infill of residential areas on the western side as well as commercial. She said the boundaries of that district were now listed on Kansas Register of Historic Places and was pending National Register Nomination. She said in addition to the Poehler building which was a significant structure, they also had several smaller structures that were contributing. The National Register Nomination identified that a certain space, in that area, for some time, had been vacant and had been used for a holding place for materials and other different uses. She said that area had been identified in that Historic District Nomination as an open space that was contributing to the district.

She said one of the important issues when staff started working with this district, was not just to include the area that was designated as historic, but to include part of the industrial piece that intended to stay industrial because of the importance to that historic district and the reason that was nominated and listed along with the area directly to the north which was still industrial.

The report from the HRC indicated the project met all the criteria established by code. Items considered by the Planning Commission required a Text Amendment to Horizon 2020, the Conservation and Zoning Overlay District, the rezoning of those two pieces, the preliminary plat, and the final plat.

Michelle Leininger, Planner, presented a brief overview of the Comprehensive Plan Amendment. She said it encouraged redevelopment of areas where existing structures were under utilized, experienced high turnover rate, or remained vacant for an extended period of time.

The mixed-use centers would not be any larger than six acres to keep it neighborhood oriented and included a mixed use of residential, civic, office, small-scale commercial and open space.

The center should also maintain the character of the surrounding neighborhoods by providing transitions between uses through alleyways and landscaping; incorporating existing structures wherever possible; and, maintaining general structure spacing, massing, scaling, and street frontage relationships when incorporating new structures.

Finally, the centers should provide multi-modal services to include pedestrians, including pedestrian-scaled street furnishing, planning and gathering spaces; bicycle, including bicycle parking; vehicular; and transit, if available.

Lisa Pool, Planner, presented information on the rezoning requests and final plat. She said there had been a rezoning request from M-2 and M-3 industrial districts to C-5 zoning district and that was to allow for the mix of uses. The associated Urban Conservation Overlay District and Design Guidelines supercede the C-5 zoning regarding lot area, setbacks, density, maximum commercial space, and other C-5 standards. Additional areas within 8^th and Pennsylvania Neighborhood Redevelopment Project would need to be replatted and rezoned as necessary as only the southwest corner and another area were being rezoned with the request.

The Planning Commission had recommended approval of that rezoning with an 8-1 vote. She said while this application was being reviewed under the old City zoning regulations, the new code allowed for conditional zoning which meant certain uses could be restricted from the C-5 zoning category. The preliminary plat, which the City Commission did not consider, was approved by the Planning Commission by a 9-0 vote and the Final Plat the City Commission was accepting easements and rights-of-way, conformed with the preliminary plat and it included the extension of Delaware Street to keep with the grid street pattern that was already established in the area.

Zollner said the Planning Commission also made a determination on the Urban Conservation Overlay District which was a 9-0 vote. The Planning Commission had some conditions they had placed on that approval and accepted the findings of fact in the staff report as their explanation of the planning and zoning implications related to the designation of the proposed conservation overlay district. She said it was important to note the Planning Commission had some concerns about the parking that staff had recommended and the developer had a different idea about what was appropriate parking for this area. Staff’s direction from the Planning Commission was that before this issue came before the City Commission, that Planning Staff’s recommendation be investigated versus the Smart Code recommendations for parking for this type of development versus the developers proposed parking in that area. There was also an adjustment to the lighting and the Planning Commission asked staff to make sure that issue of lighting was clarified as a condition.

She said the developer’s standards for this development required 177 parking spaces, City’s staff’s original standards were 347 spaces, and the Smart Code would require 211 spaces.

Mayor Amyx said it seemed that most of those people in Zone 1 were in support of that part of the project. In discussing Zone 3, which was the west part of Pennsylvania Street, the City Commission wanted to give the developer and neighborhood the opportunity to visit about starting the process over. He asked if the City Commission could condition the zoning to give them the time to work on starting the process over.

Zollner said the items before the City Commission such as the zoning request, other than conditioning that zoning if there was a change in that zoning, needed to go back through the process. The main item was the Urban Conservation Overlay District and any substantial changes made to that document which included not only the outlined map area, but that design guidelines document, needed to back through the process. Substantial changes from an historic resources point of view would be things that changed the density, height, massing, layout, and other types of issues and needed to go back through the HRC as well as the Planning Commission before they came back to the City Commission for final determination.

Commissioner Hack asked what Zollner thought about the State regulations regarding massing.

Zollner said one concern was the area referred to as Zone 1 which was already listed as a State district and therefore, came under the protection of the Kansas Historic Preservation Act. She said anything that took place in Zone 1 or within 500 feet of Zone 1, needed to be reviewed for its impact on those buildings. She said they looked at, in environs review, height, setback, and massing. The design was an issue and they looked at ways to keep that historic fabric around that designated property, along with the use of the lots that were traditional so they did not negatively impact that historic district. She said by Zone 1 being listed as a historic district, those were issues that had to be considered from this point forward for that west side of Pennsylvania Street and issues like height were very significant.

Commissioner Schauner asked Zollner what the term “considered” meant and asked if those were hard and fast rules or was there a level of subjectivity with respect to setbacks, height, massing, and so forth.

Zollner said those were standards and guidelines and did not indicate that no building would be constructed that was more than 2 feet taller or 2 feet shorter than the principal building. She said what those standards and guidelines did say, was to look at a way to protect those historic structures so that new development or redevelopment would not be an impact in a negative or adverse way. If things moved forward, those appeals would end up before the City Commission because the City of Lawrence had an agreement with the State Historic Preservation Office that staff would conduct those State law reviews on a local level. The HRC would conduct that review and if an applicant was not satisfied with their answer, the applicant could appeal to the City Commission.

Commissioner Schauner said in this case a plan was set out for the west side of the street and had been altered, at least in discussions, with the various stakeholders. He said if that rearrangement and change in massing and height were to somehow be incorporated by the City Commission as the way they wanted this site to appear when it was completed, he asked if that would require going back through the HRC network for approval and review and ultimately back to the City Commission.

Zollner said that thinking was correct and that was mainly because the design guidelines set out a height maximum. One of the key issues on that height maximum was its relationship to the Poehler Building. She said if the City Commission chose to alter that height maximum or density it needed to go back through the public hearing process with the HRC as well as the Planning Commission so they had opportunity to comment on those types of significant changes to the document.

Mayor Amyx said the City Commission heard much discussion and negotiation on what the density and block should look like on the west side of Pennsylvania Street. He said if the City Commission approved, but also permitted time for the neighborhood and developer to negotiate a good plan that would start the process over again, he asked how long that process would take.

Zollner said the time was judged on what type of changes were made. If the City Commission approved the Urban Conservation Overlay District with the Associated Design Guidelines there would be height maximums and density issues that were established in that document. In order to amend that document, in the future, the same process would need to be followed that started at the HRC level, moved forward to the Planning Commission, and then to the City Commission for final determination.

Commissioner Hack said with the draft agreement, the City Commission would be asked to amend Horizon 2020, Chapter 6, come up with the overlay district, and then immediately amend it.

Zollner said the City Commission would amend the Overlay District piece. She said the amendment to Horizon 2020 would not be affected. She said this was not a development plan, but set out the guidelines for development in that district and was not designed specific so that if it was approved with the standards that were identified in the document, it would still leave a lot of time, depending on the developer on how much time he could or wanted to spend on the actual design of the structures. The design of the individual structures must go through the process; it must go through the Historic Resources Commission, they have to do site plans, and eventually the rest of the area would have to be replatted. She said those issues were still outstanding.

Commissioner Rundle asked, in reviewing the Historic District Redevelopment Proposal, from the Historic Resources Guideline’s perspective, would they look at the project as a whole or would they look at each particular component on its own.

Zollner said they would look at a combination of those two ideas. Because it was nominated as a district, they looked at the entire Zone 1 and how to protect that area. If they were just talking about the development on the west side of Pennsylvania and that one multi-use building, then they looked how that building would directly affect the historic district. They would not be considering whatever else would go on that block, but look specifically how that building would impact the historic district.

Commissioner Rundle said he understood the tallest component that was in question was not in Zone 1, but in a neighboring area.

Zollner said that was correct.

Commissioner Schauner said in looking at those design guidelines for the proposed Urban Conservation Overlay, it was recommended that retaining the quonset huts in an adaptive reuse would be economically feasible. He said every plan he saw scrapped Quonset huts because they were not used again. As an example of a way the ultimate plan would be able to answer that question, would that require going back through the Historic Resources group or who made the decision whether it was economically feasible.

Zollner said there was concern by the Historic Resources Commission that those buildings were a significant type of building although they could not list those buildings individually because of their condition on the State or National Register. One thing to keep in mind was the document was not looking at specific development although some of those pages might include what would look like, but they would not know exactly how that land developed until the developer brought back a site plan or elevations or how he was going to develop that land. That item was included so when it came time to develop those pieces of property, those questions had to be asked at the Historic Resources Commission.

Commissioner Schauner said each stage as it would be developed would have to go through some independent and segregated discussions about the removal of quonset huts.

Zollner said that was correct.

Mayor Amyx asked if the request for rezoning was the only mechanism to make this redevelopment project come together, rather than an entire development plan for the area.

Zollner said there were multiple options, but she did not attend those initial meetings where it was decided the area should be rezoned to C-5 and the conservation overlay district were the options. She said there was probably some discussion about rezoning to a Planned Commercial Development or some other type of zoning.

Stogsdill said staff discussed with the developer and representatives about a number of different options, such as a Planned Commercial Development which needed waivers from every standard in the Planned Unit Development regulations because of the size of the property and the block configuration. They also discussed potentially rezoning to a Community Commercial Centers District at the time, which was the C-3 zoning in the downtown district, but staff had significant reservations about C-3 zoning because that was the designation for downtown and that would have involved amending the same chapter to redefine what was downtown. Staff did not feel that this many blocks to the east was where the community was in terms of the definition of downtown. C-5 was the only district that allowed residential, commercial, and some light industrial uses which currently existed on the east side of Pennsylvania and some tenants in that zoning category wanted to be able to stay. C-5 zoning was the only zoning district that allowed all of those uses.

Bo Harris, Harris Construction, said Sally Schwenk, Historic Consultant, would comment further regarding some of their hurdles with amending the east side (Zone 3) and the massing and heights of those buildings.

Sally Schwenk, Historic Consultant for Harris Construction, said she was charged with helping to develop a set of design guidelines that would anticipate the use of the Kansas Environs Law because they would be nominating the square block of that property onto the National Register of Historic Places.

In addition to the considerations that Zollner had discussed, part of that pre-planning process when they scoped out what would be necessary for this development to work from a preservation standpoint because they were creating a National Register District and part of the economic viability of this project was utilizing federal and state rehabilitation tax credits that could be applied to that block was also the anticipation of use of tax credits and the same guidelines that would anticipate a review for Kansas Environs Law would also anticipate tax credit guidelines and federal money reused in this development, Section 106 of the National Preservation Act, which would also require an environs review. Theoretically, all of this would be done by following the Secretary of Interior Standards, which included standards for rehabilitation of historic buildings, but also for new construction, infill construction, and project areas. They developed a set of guidelines that anticipated the Kansas Environs review which was Section 106 of the National Preservation Act and compliance with state and federal rehabilitation tax credits.

She said she had seen a sketch of some of the issues discussed previously as an alternative. She said after staff’s reaction, she discussed her viewpoint with Harris which was the “redesign” of this area did not meet the Secretary of Interior Standards and did not meet the guidelines that specifically were outlined and in which they worked with the Historic Resources Commission on size, scale, massing, height, and rhythm of the street. The simplest way to explain, was the new construction, in all aspects, would need to be subservient to the National Register District. Therefore, the Poehler Building would remain and they adjusted the height of what would be the allowable height of new construction both within the district and in the environs review area, which was placed into the guidelines. Also placed into the guidelines was massing, which would be subservient to the size of the buildings across the street in height, massing and scale, so that the west side of the street would be subservient. Also, that there be a rhythm. Whether this had single family residents in 1905 or whether it had new construction, there was always a street wall of a finished street. She said the rhythm of the buildings, and use of large, open spaces for parking, created gaps that interrupt that rhythm seen across the street in the historic district.

She said those were some of the issues she looked at along with her associate Kerri Davis and they went back over their guidelines the prior day, and she would have to concur they would have to go back through the whole process and re-amend. They would still need to come up with guidelines that would met the Secretary of Interior Standards about size, scale, massing, rhythm and all of those issues because they were always going to have to be address in an environs issue. She said she wished she could say there was flexibility in size, scale, massing and pattern, but they could not redesign it and hope it would pass the environs law or would not impact the ability to get tax credits or federal funding in the future. She said they would have to go back to the drawing board. She shared some staff concerns on whether it would go through the environs review.

Commissioner Highberger asked if the environs review was merely considering the impact of the western side of Pennsylvania Street, Zone 1, or the entire neighborhood.

Schwenk said ideally, under Section 106 of the Federal Government, anything that was eligible for listing on the National Register in the neighborhood around it would be good.

Zollner said notification boundary was 500 feet from a protected property. The environs could be as far as the state or the reviewing body deemed as appropriate. What often happened was when looking at protecting the environs of a historic district that had been designated like this area it was actually the character of the neighborhood they were trying to preserve by protecting the environs of the historic district. In a small way it was only 500 feet, but when the Commission looked at those issues, they needed to look at the entire neighborhood.

Commissioner Rundle asked if this was going to affect the tax credits or impact a future nomination.

Schwenk said when tax credits were reviewed, one of the things the tax credit reviewer would look at was the environs or the site. While they could get tax credits for the Poehler Building, the site work was not included. What went on in the site as part and consequence of that development was reviewed. If the state or federal staff wanted to draw a conclusion based upon all of this being submitted throughout this whole process, that Zone 3 went with Zone 1, then it could enter into whether or not the tax credits were issued because of the impact of the surrounding site and site work. From the very beginning, they wanted to make sure that anything they did in this development project would follow the Secretary of Interior Standards for new construction and new development, which included Zone 3.

Commissioner Rundle asked if there were future nominations proposed as part of this project that had not already gone through for historic designation.

Schwenk said for the area covered on the zoning overlay, there were no other areas eligible for National Register. In the adjacent area of the neighborhoods, they had historic residential neighborhoods and had one pending nomination outside the development, but adjacent to it.

Commissioner Rundle said he talked to someone with the State Historical Society about the tax credits and they could not make a definitive statement without much more information, but the person from the State Historical Society was more optimistic than Schwenk’s looking at the entire project.

Schwenk said it depended on how it was legally structured and how the federal and state reviewers wanted to interpret it.

Commissioner Schauner asked if the federal or state reviewers would give deference to the decision of either the local historical resources group or the local governing body on a final decision.

Schwenk said in compliance with Section 106 where they would anticipate the impact of Historic Resources, there was a public participation component and the findings of the City agencies or boards would be taken into consideration and would be heard and part of the record, but it would not have a finite influence on the decision.

Commissioner Schauner asked if it would be another part of the record and not one given additional weight by the federal and state reviewers.

Schwenk said it would be considered, for example, in the development of the National Register District, federal funding was sought, and the impact would then be to look at what the rest of the development’s impact was on this resource because there was a federal undertaking. She said what would probably occur was a judgment that there was an adverse impact if it did not follow the Secretary of Interior Standards in Zone 3. Then they would look at what would have been the public testimony and ways to mitigate that impact. She said the development between the City, state, developer and federal agency would be to look at other alternatives and new construction in Zone 3 that met the Secretary of Interior Standards.

Commissioner Schauner asked if those standards related to what Zollner spoke of earlier.

Schwenk said they were the very same standards, which was why they had written the guidelines to meet the Environs Review, Section 106, and tax credit, anticipating that if any of those review process started at the federal, state, or local level, they would be consistent from the very beginning.

Zollner said to clarify for the tax credit purposes, the decisions by the Historic Resources Commission, Planning Commission, and City Commission had no bearings on whether or not those credits were issued. The projects must meet the standards of the reviewers of the park service and the State Historic Preservation Office who made the determination if the standards were met or not.

Commissioner Schauner said the reviewers or State Historic Preservation Office essentially did not care about the City Commission’s comments.

Zollner said for the tax credit purposes, that thinking was correct.

Harris said he thought Zollner had an extremely important point to get on the table at this time. He said both the East Lawrence Neighborhood and the applicant felt it was important the public understood some of the discussions that had taken place over the past couple of weeks in an effort to make the project more palatable to all parties.

Janet Good, President East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, said she thought they ought to explain where they were in this process not only to the City Commission, but to other people in the neighborhood who were not aware of what was going on because the ground had been shifting pretty rapidly. She said it had been a contentious subject in the neighborhood. There were people who thought it was the best thing to happen to East Lawrence ever, and people who thought it was the worst thing ever. Out of the process, a group called the Old East Lawrence Preservation Alliance was founded based on some old timers in the neighborhood and people who were directly impacted in this process. Most of the concerns of the neighbors on this project were based on density. She said in discussions with the Preservation Alliance and with the neighbors, they came to the conclusion that they could come to a compromise on the density number that was a contentious issue with Harris if they could have some long term mitigation plan in the neighborhood. She said she understood those points were not on the agenda and not being voted on at this time, but it was important to get those points in public record because they had gone back and forth between Mr. Harris and those two groups several times over.

She said to mitigate meant to make less severe or painful. They understood that the items were not on the agenda tonight and not being voted on, but personally the strife between neighbors and friends over this issue would have been worth while if it created a sense of purpose and urgency and caused immediate, concrete, and sustainable efforts between the neighborhood, the City, and the developer to stabilize and preserve East Lawrence. They saw this development having a leap-frog effect through the neighborhood because they had a lot of encroaching development issues.

The issues that were put forward, as part of this compromise proposal, were:

1. For the City to assist the neighborhood with creation of their own urban conservation district based on the East Lawrence Plan that would help protect the neighborhood from encroaching development pressure and help preserve the historic nature of East Lawrence;
2. For the City to assist and Harris not-to-protest the addition of 12 new residential listings and an additional vernacular architecture historic districts to the Kansas Register of Historic Places for the protection of the neighborhood and the long term stabilization of the neighborhood;
3. The creation of a fund based on the City’s property tax revenue of the completed proposed redevelopment proposal would be deferred until the property would change hands;
4. To assist East Lawrence of what she called a traffic summit to address the traffic impact on 11^th and Connecticut Streets and identify options for alleviating some of the traffic concerns. Traffic had been a big issue with the density number that was on this proposal;
5. Creation of a district eligible for incremental tax rebates through the Neighborhood Revitalization Act and for the City to support the acquisition of the sale barn lot on 11^th for the Boys and Girls Club facility. This had been identified by the neighborhood as the best use of the property currently zoned intensive industrial that was immediately adjacent to the neighborhood and the City park. She said that area was the last piece of the neighborhood that was open to infill development and zoned completely inappropriately at this time; and
6. Creation of an historic marker or monument outlining the National Historic significance of Old East Lawrence.

She said in this ongoing process and as part of the compromise, the Preservation Alliance came up with the Compromise Plan and that plan addressed several issues the neighbors had concerns with which was the buffer zone along the residential piece on the back end of the west side of Pennsylvania and also the fact they would like to see the retail and commercial massed on the north end of Zone 3, not on both ends. She said it seemed to be the consensus of the consultants and historians that this was not a workable plan going forward for the tax credits that made this project financially feasible. They would like to hear that from the agency itself, especially from the Preservation Alliance people who put forth that plan.

She said they found out yesterday afternoon, before her board meeting, that if the UCD moved forward for the stakeholders, the City Staff, neighborhood and the developer would take part in a charette and iron out some of the issues and come to a compromise position. There had been a lot of discussion over this issue about what motivation the developer would have if the UCD would be approved, to come out of the charette with something that addressed their concerns. She said the reason she personally could see a charette working was because this project was still a moving target and still involved, even if the UCD went forward, many phases over many years and many site plan approval processes. Mr. Harris was still going to be seeing a whole lot of them and the neighborhood had proven they could make his life difficult and it was in his best interest in the charette process to address those concerns to alleviate some of their issues on how the density and retail was massed. She believed the charette process probably could have a lot of value to the stakeholders.

Mayor Amyx told the neighbors of East Lawrence that Janet Good was a great representative and the neighbors were fortunate to have someone who worked so hard for the neighborhood. He said, regarding Mr. Harris, Harris was trying to make sure his project was of the highest quality and met the expectations of the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association.

Harris said he thought it was important to reiterate that each one of those projects individually would be brought through the entire process again with public input at the HRC, the Planning Commission, and the City Commission levels. He said it was important to note they were discussing four zones in the urban conservation district. Zone 1 was the historic district; Zone two was the public right-of-way and street and alley patterns that were being maintained and enhanced with the extension of Delaware Street and the retention of off street parking in that area; Zone 3 had been the contentious area on the west side of Pennsylvania Street and through the UCD document and currently the way it stood, they had 12 units on each corner above 3,000 square feet of retail and 30 townhouse units in between those; and Zone 4 was an area where rezoning was not being asked for and it was currently a commercial use and commercial use north of the project.

He presented a PowerPoint presentation of the area to the City Commission. He said important issues to the neighborhood were traffic issues, C-5 use limitations, parking, density, and funding of an infrastructure and gentrification. He said plan changes that had taken place regarding traffic were the parking lots at either end emptied into the alley and there was more density because of additional residential.

Nathan Bergman, Traffic Engineer, Bartlett & West Engineers, said he was not the person that performed the traffic study, but he had reviewed the study. He said according to ITE, based on discussions with the City and the developer, traffic estimates were projected based on the usage of the property as the developers saw fit. It was estimated at 1,850 vehicle trips per day, which meant those were trips coming to and leaving the proposed site. With that, they looked at the peak hour traffic volumes that would be generated by this site. It was approximately 230 in the morning peak hour and 232 in the evening peak hour, which included the residents and people leaving to the businesses in that site.

He said when performing a traffic study and looking at the intersections involved, there were 7 intersections that were looked at and 5 intersections directly around the proposed site and then the intersections of 9^th and Connecticut and 11^th and Delaware as being major traffic generations points of people going into the site from the major streets and leaving the site which would be affecting those turning movements. He said Bartlett & West took daily and peak hour traffic counts at those intersections and quantity based on the Institute of Transportation Engineers. He said all the movements of the stop controlled intersections were a service level C or better. He said that was broken down in level of services from A-E and based on how long they would wait at that intersection. The through movements had a service level A because they virtually would go through and never need to stop or slow down for any body unless making a left turn. The main levels were service level service A was 0-10 seconds, B was 10-15 seconds and C would be waiting at that intersection for 15-25 seconds. He said all movements were level C or better and looking at what traffic would be generated at the site, the 230 vehicles per hour, they were looking at approximately 4 vehicles a minute and an increase of wait time for 2-4 seconds per vehicle as they would go to the intersections. Existing levels of service C or better continued to be a service level of C or better after the proposed improvements. He said there were some movements at the intersections of 11^th and Delaware and 9^th and Connecticut that in 2025 might become a problem that would be further looked at by the City. He said it was not based on the development, but based on the growth within the City over the next 20 years.

Harris said with the C-5 use limitations, they had never had much of any concern about the meeting of the minds with the neighborhood and the limitations of uses in the neighborhood. He said those should be mutually beneficial to both the developers and the neighbors. He said they needed to continue to note they had a UCD document that would guide them throughout the process and he thought it was a very well done document. They had a homeowners’ association in its broadest sense including the entire area. They would have some common area maintenance charges, both with the living units and commercial space that would allow them to maintain the area on a broader and more consistent basis than they might have with individual ownerships in the neighborhood. They would have covenants and restrictions in their lease terms and in their sales contracts as part of those contracts with condominium ownership. He said one specifically to address use restrictions in the C-5 deed or site plan restrictions could be used for that.

He said the second neighborhood concern was parking and he reviewed the parking calculations for the Smart Code standards. In the project the parking that was provided, in Zone 1 was off-street parking on 154 spaces; 75 spaces on the street; in Zone 3, 40 spaces in the covered lots; 30 spaces in garages behind a townhouse unit; 42 spaces in front and along 8^th Street in the street; Zone 4, easterly section, had off-street parking at 45 spaces and on-street parking at 49 spaces. He said the developer provided spaces off the street with 269 spaces and on the street with 166 spaces; for a total of 435 spaces.

He said would like to create more green and open space and putting a stop to the over parking. He said this was not something they were asking for, but they thought it was an issue they should take a hard look as they continued to develop in what happened in Zone 3. He brought up the density issue and what type of density was in East Lawrence. He said Polk Oil Company had 14 employees coming and going to work at that location at one time. Also, there were 26 coming and going from 832 Pennsylvania, which was Rhode’s Heating and Roofing. He did not have any numbers for the TNT Popcorn facility. There was a retail establishment at 810 and the SRS was located in the Poehler Building. He thought they had as many cars coming and going back in that area before the area had to turn down and they get it redeveloped.

He thought it was important they were being allowed to do some planning on a scale that would enhance the East Lawrence Community in the City of Lawrence. He thought they had all been through the plan changes enough and he did not want anyone to forget their commitment to affordable housing and the letter of agreement between Rebecca Buford and Tenants to Homeowners and themselves. He said again, there would be a homeowners’ association, covenants, restrictions, and a mixed income level in the neighborhood, particularly with the affordable housing product that would be offered.

He said some amenities were the open space where they hoped to bring in some rail cars and set on a track to be used by small users and hopefully a venue for some people who could not find a home anyplace else. There were covered shelters that were replications of the freight houses that once existed on the maps which were between the parking lots and Delaware Street. He said they had a green space where they had not pushed their parking to the right-of-way. They would be pulling out the concrete between the two Polk Oil Buildings which would be used for additional green space. He said all of those areas would act as passage ways for pedestrians that might park in that lot and attending some type of function in the living units.

He thought it was important to note that this was the appropriate location for an infill project where the density was important to the vitality because they had so many amenities in a five or ten minute walk. He said a quick review of those amenities were Lawrence Arts Center, Hobbs Park, New York School and its attached playground, South Park, the Rails to Trails, Lawrence Aquatic Center, and the Public Library. He said the density created vitality to enhance Zone 1 which was important to the other zones to make this project a success and the project was located appropriately where it should be in the City of Lawrence. The open spaces were there and available with the five to ten minute walks and what would be created in the neighborhood kept the activity and money downtown, brought kids to the neighborhood schools, enhanced the existing cross class neighborhood, and the vitality would enhance the creativity and enhance the neighborhood.

He said the final concern was gentrification, which he did not have much comment on that concern, but they were bringing a project to the neighborhood that would enhance property values and there was only one other way to go which would decrease property values and he thought that would be less desirable. It would enhance some catalyst toward some gentrification that he believed that was going to happen in the neighborhood in the course of time if left alone. He said their offset to the gentrification was their contribution to the affordable housing.

He said the enhancements they were making to the neighborhood were the elimination to the existing street scene as they saw it, the infrastructure improvements which would follow, the public uses that they could use their open spaces and shelters for would bring additional services to the neighborhood with their retail and office components, they would create jobs in the neighborhood with those components, and would have an affordable housing stock in place. He said they would create the additional cross class benefits, would enhance the neighborhood’s vitality, enhance the property values, restore the existing historic building stock, and have a new vital and attractive street scene for the neighborhood.

Corb Maxwell, Polsinelli Law Firm, representing Harris Construction, spoke about the Neighborhood Revitalization Act. He said it was important to remember all of the things they had discussed in that this was an infill project and out of that was many of the items they had been discussing such as the historic components, zoning code, the zoning issues they had to handle, neighborhood concerns, but also the raw financials of this deal and being able to pencil it out and make it work as a developer. He said that would become incredibly difficult in those infill projects when buying land at high values, not out in green field sites, deferred maintenance on some public infrastructure that had to be improved and brought up to new standards and codes, problems that they had seen and had to address, and blight remediation issues. The normal way to pay for those types of costs, as a developer, was to try and increase density and in that higher density the additional costs could be spread out, but that was not an option given the concerns and hard work done with the neighborhood to try to use more density. Instead, they would need to come up with other means and possibilities to pay for those additional and heightened costs. He said they began the process many months ago of working with City staff to identify tools that could be used and a possibility of ways that could be done. He said Kansas Statute provided only 5 different ways that a City and a developer could enter into a public/private partnership to end up providing for financial assistance.

One tool was tax increment financing, but after discussing and working through that idea, they thought that might not be the best mechanism to use. The second tool, was Transportation Development District, which was a tool used in projects with a large retail component, but they had a small retail neighborhood commercial retail component and that would not be appropriate. Other tools were general obligation bond issuance by the City or a possible special benefit district, but the problem with those types of tools was they required additional taxes to be placed on the development through the special benefit district.

He said instead of working through all of those tools, they came up with a final component which was the Neighborhood Revitalization Act which was a program initiated and legislation put forward by the City in the Kansas Legislature in 1994. The purpose of that act had 2 principal components. One component was when looking through the purpose statements of what would be allowed and why the NRA was created was to remediate blight. The way it was encouraged to remediate blight was by encouraging and allowing property owners to make improvements to their properties and through those improvements to their property recoup some of the tax rebate or additional incremental taxes that would be provided by those improvements back to the property owner.

The other component was that it was there to encourage preservation and restoration of historic assets. He said they had seen it used in several cities and communities throughout the Kansas area such as Salina, Topeka, Fort Scott, Lansing, Olathe, Shawnee and the Unified Government had all enacted this program. He said Lenexa was currently working on a NRA. He said this was another on of those development tools in the City’s toolboxes on how to make projects work. The NRA act was very open to allow the City and communities and the other property tax jurisdictions to find the right program for the project they were trying to work on. He said those were items at the City’s discretion along with those other taxing jurisdictions that they would ask to be involved with in this project. He said that it was an important point that this program would not be done by City feats. It was a program that would need to be worked through with the County and School District and they had a choice on whether or not they wanted their appropriate mill levy to be rebated. He said for the numbers and size of the project, they were going to need to ask for that and they would like to work with both the City, County and the School District to come up with a program or document they all could live with that would set the ground rules of how this program would move forward.

He said it seemed the 8^th and Pennsylvania area and redevelopment project absolutely fit the purpose of the statute. They had both historic preservation that would happen if the project was approved and blight remediation. He said some of the pieces in the benefit that Mr. Harris had described, was they were restoring those historic buildings. They were improving the streets, lighting, sidewalks, parking, sanitary sewer system, affordable housing component, single family housing component, the public park, and providing the retail and office space. The way the Neighborhood Revitalization Act would work was they would do the upfront financing; they would build the buildings and provide the infrastructure components. What they would look to was the NRA tax abatements in the future years to be able to finance those improvements they did on the upfront side.

Commissioner Highberger said he liked the idea of using the Neighborhood Revitalization Act for financing. He asked if there would be any difficulty in the fact that a lot of the units were condos and the developer would not be in ownership of those condos and he asked if it could be restructured.

Maxwell said he did not think it could. He said it was important to note the only true benefit to Mr. Harris and his development group was the part that he would be able to hold, the commercial and the office. He did think it was a great benefit if provided also to the condos and those row homes, in that they would be able to use that as an incentive to increase the desirability of those units and that actual property owner or tax payer would pay their tax bill if this program was approved, and would get back that tax rebate to them individually.

He said they did not bring any numbers because they thought it was a little too early in the process and he knew there were a lot of other people present with a lot of other issues to handle. He said the reason they wanted to put this idea out there was because it was something that was coming, something they would like the governing body to consider, review, look at, and give them some policy direction on if this was something the City Commission was comfortable moving forward with and then allow them to start working with the City Staff, County and School District so they could go forward and start figuring out how to finance the project.

Mayor Amyx asked how long it would take to establish the NRA.

Maxwell said the statute was relatively short and not a lot of notice provisions, but a lot of work between the developer and City staff to put together the application and the coordination between all of the different entities. He said the ideas of the NRA needed to be approved by the County, School District, and the City. He said he did not think there were any true statutory hurdles to moving it quickly, but simply the coordination issues. He said he thought it was approximately a four to five month process.

Mayor Amyx said under the plan Maxwell outlined, he asked if the NRA had to be put in place prior to any development occurring.

Maxwell said whenever they had the NRA plan approved, that approval would set the base and base year. They could move forward with building and construction without NRA approval, but what they would do is raise their assessed value. He said it would be a question of the circumstances of the development between deciding when they wanted to start the development and what impact it would end up having on the assessed values. He said it would be nice if they could get it done in this tax year, but he was not sure that would be possible. He said they would set that as a goal and try to work through getting it done in this tax year.

Commissioner Highberger said depending on where the boundaries were drawn, it could be of some benefit to some surrounding property owners.

Maxwell said absolutely. If the boundaries were drawn larger than the 8^th and Pennsylvania Redevelopment Project that had been laid out, it would be a true incentive for any neighbors or property owners, in that area, to improve their properties and end up being able to pay for some of those improvements through that captured or returned increment to the term of years out there.

Mayor Amyx called for public comment.

Caroline Proudfoot, Lawrence, said there were several parts of the project she found disturbing. She said there were no concrete facts presented. She said the developers talked about affordable housing, but what did that mean to those developers because she had heard that the developers were planning on building $900,000 penthouses which did not sound affordable. She asked about the price ranges for those duplexes and what was the affordable housing they were looking at providing. She looked at tons of paperwork over the last few days and had not seen any concrete plans, which was a concern.

She said the developer talked about how the high density zoning in this area was a good thing, but from her research she did not know if it was legal or necessarily a good thing. East Lawrence did not have super high density, so why would East Lawrence think it would be okay to slap 54 condo units on one block.

She said the other issue of concern was the developer kept proposing the residential and commercial areas within the proposal, which she understood there was quite a bit of that already in existence in that area. She said Lawrence had experienced a boom in the last few years and there were many houses for rent and sale which was alarming. Also, there was already a giant building downtown in which the bottom half of that building was to be used for commercial and retail, but that part of the building was vacant. She asked if they built more, would those buildings be vacant as well.

She said this project would increase property values, but for some low income families, that was not a good thing because they were already struggle to pay their taxes. Single moms or dads who owned their homes and having taxes go up because someone built giant condo units was not a positive or good thing for those single mothers or fathers. It was going to cause those families to be pushed out and where would they be pushed to.

She said the City Commission made decisions and were the people they elected to help its citizens improve this city. It was projects like this that needed to be seriously looked at. She was not saying development was bad at that location, but it needed to be done in a positive way to see what would work in that neighborhood.

She asked the City Commissioners to thoroughly look through the proposal and use their judgment.

James Dunn, Lawrence, said one of the most important amenities to this project was the proximity to the AmTrak Station. If they ever had commuter rail service in the area, it would probably be at that location and that particular site was within walking distance of that station. He said the idea of being able to walk to the station was incredible when he had heard how many times other people had to drive hours to even get to a station. He saw this project as an opportunity for Lawrence to jump into the future to have higher density in this area because it would be closer for transportation as gas price changes, as the Kansas legislature looked at inner city services this would be a location that people would want to live for those kinds of services.

Gotfred Beardshear, Lawrence, said the application of the proposed zoning with condominium development as the goal was not appropriate. Their neighborhood was a traditionally working class, single family neighborhood. Any restructuring or restrictions did not seem to make a difference. He said a live, work, and play zone three blocks from their wonderful existing downtown, he asked how that would serve the community at large in any kind of recognizable way. He said the suggestions made to not seem to justify the adoption of the C-5 zoning or a UCD.

Rebecca Buford, Tenants to Homeowners, said she wanted to speak to the affordable housing component of the project. She said after a lot of meetings with the neighborhood, City staff, and Harris Construction, Harris Construction had committed to very specific 10-20% affordable units and it was a good question brought up on what that meant. She said they had lined that out in a specific definition to mean that those units would be affordable to people under 80% median income annually determined by the federal government, which were the people Tenants to Homeowners helped and those that they could use additional federal funds for. She said that would be available to them no more than 30% of their monthly gross, which was the standard front end ratio that lenders use. She said Harris Construction did commit to a specific definition of affordability. She said there was no question that redevelopment would lead to increased gentrification, a pattern that was already happening and a pattern that the neighborhood and Tenants to Homeowners and the Lawrence Community Land Trust were working very hard to address. Part of that was they needed the City Commission’s commitment to ensure that a commitment like that from Harris Construction and other commitments that Tenants to Homeowners, Land Trust, and the neighborhood were asking for. They needed developers, the City, and the neighbors to be a part of that commitment. They were seeing federal funding being decreased for their programs and the only option was to look at some other funding sources like the Neighborhood Revitalization Act and perhaps allowing some of the considerations in that act to look at how they could ensure that affordable housing was provided in this neighborhood to keep it diverse and interesting.

She urged the City Commissioners if they supported the plan and zoning, to ensure they have an ability throughout the rest of the approval and zoning process to help Tenants to Homeowners and Harris Construction in assuring they were doing in what they committed to do in the East Lawrence neighborhood.

A member of the public living in the 800 Block of Connecticut said all he heard from the community was the negative part of the project. He said he would like to see East Lawrence develop to a standard of bigger cities. He said he supported the project and found many things positive about the project.

KT Walsh, Lawrence, said she had ten minor items to raise about the design guidelines. She said concerning the redevelopment zone, in the environs overview for 800 Pennsylvania mixed use zone, two neighborhoods were described adjoining the redevelopments. She said those were not neighborhoods, but areas. She said she was nervous when people broke their area up into mini-neighborhoods because they were one cohesive neighborhood and she would like the verbiage to reflect that idea. She said the only reason she was making those points was because it was going to become law and it needed to be right.

She said in that same sentence they referred to neighborhoods west of New Jersey Street. She said it actually started at the alley between Pennsylvania and New Jersey Street. She thought it was important that the half block be included as part of the neighborhood and not a twilight zone.

She said in the general guidelines regarding pedestrian linkages the word “should” was used throughout that paragraph. She said David Corliss, Interim City Manager/Legal Services Director, explained the difference between “should” and “shall” in a legal document and she felt that paragraph should be full of “shall”. It talked about accessibility, shelter from wind, rain and snow, and all sort of things they should guarantee to the pedestrians in the new development.

Under demolition, should that occur in this area, in third paragraph, in demolition there was also another “should” and in order to reflect the Historic Resource Commission’s procedures, she thought that “should” also be a “shall.” It required that if there was going to be demolition, that they provide documentation about the proposed elevation and an explanation why they could not save the building and what they proposed to put there.

On page 45, Zone 1 (industrial zone) they described the common materials as being “weeds”. She said because they were in a transition period where they were adjusting to zero-scaping, lack of water, native grasses, not spraying herbicides in the parks, etc, she asked that word be changed to “grasses” because it was a looser word and it depended on how they were going to describe vegetation in the future.

She said on page 46, the Planning Commission indicated the people who were responsible for putting up cell phone towers would be responsible for taking those towers down when those towers were not needed. She said everything she read, told her that in 10 years they might not need those towers anymore. She said she wanted some type of language that those towers were taken down because personally she thought they were ugly.

On page 56, regarding recommending a sheltered bus venue, they had it over by the parking lot behind the industrial zone. She said she would appreciate that it would be changed to “establish a sheltered bus venue” and not say where the bus venue would be. She said it was obvious that it needed to be where the most people were in that area.

Regarding Commissioner Rundle’s earlier question about environs review and what needed to be considered in the future in terms of environs, she wanted to thank the City Commission for placing 828 New Jersey on the Historic Register, but it broadens the environs of the project because it was next door to the project. She felt that the paragraph on page 61 under Neighborhood Context described the project as an “island” and everything in the project should refer to other things within the project. She said it seemed crazy to her when putting in a wonderful, historic neighborhood that some of the project did not refer to the residential around it.

On page 62, it was recommended not using brighter pastel colors. A basic tenant of historic preservation was not to do anything to obstruct landscape or accessory building that could not easily be changed back to the original. She said this would not affect the character of the neighborhood. She said during the Depression no one could afford to remodel, so they painted over and over again.

Lastly, page 71, referred to Zone 4 as the new construction zone which was north of 8^th Street where the Aquila buildings were currently. She said from 1869-1905 there was a gas plant operated at this site. They produced coal-tar as a waste product and contained benzene, which the EPA classified as a known human carcinogen, if there was long term exposure. She said the gas company signed a cover note with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in 1999 restricting the land because of the benzene and dirt and could never be used for residential uses. She said it could be used for businesses, she supposed, and there were some interesting things being done around the world with brown field sites; growing plants that draw the chemicals out of the land. She felt that under the architectural characteristics and materials recommended in the 3^rd paragraph, she thought it should not say “new mixed use residential commercial development”, but should simply say “continuing building patterns established in zone 3” because it eliminated residential from the document about the zone that was polluted.

Benjamin Winters, Lawrence, a resident of the area, spoke in favor of the project. He said as a homeowner in that area this project would bring a new revitalizing aspect to the entire neighborhood that despite the outcry from a vocal few in the neighborhood, he believed the benefits far outweigh any detractions in this project. He said while gentrification was a concern, he believed the proposed NRA with tax abatements made sense and would certainly address that along with the fund Ms. Good proposed for elderly homeowners to help pay the increased tax bills. He believed those proposals would offset any possible gentrification issues to a very large extent and this project would make a boom for this community long into the future.

Janet Good said she had a couple more comments on specific items on this project. She said she knew the infrastructure costs of the project were substantial and were a concern to the City, neighborhood and developer. She was trying to figure out the NRA for the developer and how that would interact with the fund that was very important for the neighborhood and city to explore in terms of some tax relief to people who would be negatively affected. She said if they were giving back the property taxes, where would the fund come from. She said it was an interesting question and conundrum and something she wanted to be considered as the City Commission went further in looking at the NRA as an option.

She said in terms of the perpetually affordable units had been on the table from day one. She said the fact they had come to an agreement, at this point, was very good news, but she asked that City staff find a mechanism, perhaps it was not the UCD, to guarantee those affordable units be part of this project if Mr. Harris suddenly decided not to do Zone 3, or did not finish Zone 3, as a mechanism to protect the neighborhood if it were to go forward under a different developer or if things were to change down the road, that those affordable units would be part of the package based on where the UCD was located.

She said she was sure the City Commission was aware of their concerns with the C-5 zoning and Mr. Harris said they had concerns, too. She thought that was pretty accurate, but thought things could change down the road. She said Planning Staff had their complete list that was based on sitting down with the neighborhood association and going through everything listed under C-5 zoning. The big concerns were: they did not want liquor stores, they want bars to have to meet the 55% food sales requirement, as per downtown, no loan offices such as pay day loans, and they were already bordering an entertainment district and they saw some of the downside. They want some solid and firm commitment that they could have some control going forward of how this live, work and play zone developed. She said they had a quiet, residential neighborhood and they were very concerned about the wide open or C-5 and what it would bring into the neighborhood. Staff had said there were various options in dealing with that issue, but her preferred option would be to tweak the new development code right off the bat because it was not addressed in the development code. It was the only type of development that did not have a way for the neighborhood to say they did not want some things included.

She echoed what KT Walsh said about the UCD guidelines. She said she was very concerned about Zone 4 on page 75, the covenant because they did not put something on a piece of property for no reason saying they should not have residential. She thought that language would need to be addressed before it went forward.

Phil Collison, Lawrence, said he did not support the UCD in its current form and he recommended the vote be put off because it would be back very soon for revamping because of the debates going on at this time. He said the debate surrounding this project had evolved from a philosophical debate around the design and quality of the design of the project to what had become a political debate of having to swallow a bitter pill to perhaps get some protections put in place that would prevent future developments of this nature in their neighborhood. He recommended that they see how the continuing discussion would go between the neighborhood and the developer, which he thought were going well and had the opportunity that they could come back with consensus on a UCD rather than a desire for consensus.

He said he lived at 933 Pennsylvania and he walked downtown six blocks, not four blocks as others referred to the distance from this proposed site to downtown. He said they have had meetings with ELNA over the course of the project, which had gone back to 2002. Each time the Zone 3 was discussed, that side of the block was not ready for discussion yet. Everyone has been a strong supporter of the east side, but the west side was always been nebulous.

He said they had been talking about single family residences in this development and that was what they hoped the discussions would be, but right now that development was all one or two bedroom condos. He said he did not see there would be a lot of single families and would be following the latest trend of real estate which was having people retired in college towns and living close to downtown, and he saw single professionals and retired people move into those condos, which would not bring many families.

He said the Old East Lawrence Preservation Association sent out one letter asking for support from the neighborhood, and they sent it to 300 people. 50 of those letters came back undeliverable with bad addresses and 150 signed the petition that they brought back on their own volition based on one request. He said that demonstrated there was broad support in the East Lawrence neighborhood that demonstrated there was a whole lot of concern about what was happening and they wanted to move forward with a good quality project and the concerns raised were widely recognized throughout the neighborhood because they did get 150 responses back without having to go door to door and without having to ask people face to face.

A member of the public said she did not know all of the particulars about this because it was incredibly difficult to understand. She said she thought the most important concern was the lack of guarantees. She said she thought another important aspect of this project was the commercial aspect. They kept talking about mixed use and where they were going to have residential and commercial. She thought they needed to take a walk downtown and through North Lawrence or Hobbs Taylor, and ask where the commercial was coming from. She asked how many businesses stood empty on Massachusetts Street and shopping centers in North Lawrence. She asked if there was a commitment from commercial businesses to move into the area or was it going to be a different kind of blight, such as empty shopping centers, which would not be affordable for anybody, including the developer.

She said she thought the main concern with a lot of the neighborhood was that there was no guarantee for what was going to happen. She said they were living in a neighborhood where someone was coming in and saying they were going to develop and the neighborhood could talk about what they would like to see and decide what they would like to see, but they were going to develop it and that was going to be the end of it. She said it was an uncomfortable position to come from, especially from a position she was in where she was a renter and wanted to own a home eventually in East Lawrence, and would be completely impossible in the next few years. She said perpetually affordable housing was great, but as Ms. Good brought up, there were some discrepancies in terms of funding. She asked how they were going to fund low income, senior citizens and all the folks in East Lawrence who would like to stay if they were giving huge tax abatements to people who were paying a large amount of money for single family condos. She said it did not make sense.

Moved by Hack seconded by Schauner to close the public hearing. Motion carried unanimously.

Mayor Amyx said as they looked at the overlay district, if they wished to move ahead with this project that would be all that was because every improvement had to come back before the City Commission.

David Corliss, Interim City Manager/Legal Services Director, said that was correct except for the existing structures.

Zollner said under the new code, site plans were now administrative and Sheila Stogsdill, Acting Planning Director, could speak more toward that issue. She said for the design review portion, all the things that would have to go through the Historic Resources Commission would only come back to the City Commission only if they were denied and appealed. She said they did not automatically come back to the City Commission with each individual building that happened to be built.

Corliss said there was a requirement, for an individual site plan, for each one of those projects.

Commissioner Schauner asked if this project would be handled under the new code or the old code.

Zollner said each individual project that would come forward from this would go under the new code.

Commissioner Schauner asked if the public had an opportunity to comment on the site plans.

Sheila Stogsdill, Acting Planning Director, said the new development code actually required site plans to have posted notice in addition to mailed notice. She said there was a process for input, but the actual approval process was administrative and if someone were to disagree with that administrative approval, there was an appeal process to the City Commission on those actions.

Commissioner Schauner asked if an applicant with a site plan disagreed with staff or the group that was notified either side could ask the City the Commission to review the plan.

Stogsdill said yes.

Commissioner Rundle asked if staff was ready with the processes for conditioning zoning.

Corliss said yes. Staff was ready if the City Commission affirmatively approved the commercial zoning, then they needed to work out those conditions on that use.

Mayor Amyx said Walsh brought up the tweaks in the design guidelines.

Corliss said staff needed to discuss those tweaks in the design guidelines with Ms. Walsh. He thought they should get the document factually correct if there were substantive changes to the document then staff should have part of the review process as it went back to the HRC.

Commissioner Rundle asked if any of the changes were substantial so it would have to go back to the Planning Commission.

Corliss said he thought staff needed to talk to Walsh and others. He said the document was a guideline document. It did use the word “shall”, which was mandatory, and in other cases it used the word “should”, which was discretionary. He thought they should make sure those were conscious choices as to whether or not they were making something a requirement or whether they were indicating a preference. He said one of the tasks as he saw it with a guideline document, was that they would want some flexibility as the property owner attempted to meet a goal for the property as opposed to having a specification book as to what they were actually detailing. He said they would need some flexibility and people would want to speak as to how much flexibility was too much flexibility. He said that was where they would get into the “should” and “shall.”

Commissioner Schauner said it sounded like an amendment of substance.

Corliss said if they made enough of those amendments, it would be of substance.

Commissioner Rundle asked how much of the document was advisory and how much was actual law.

Stogsdill said there were certain things that were definitely law in terms of a density cap, a height limit, setbacks, and lot area sizes. She said when getting in to the “should” and “shall” was when they were in the design guidelines. Those design guidelines was where flexibility was needed so they were not hamstrung and unable to meet those “shalls.” She said there had to be some ability through the review process to determine what the important components were for that particular site plan.

Commissioner Rundle asked where height restrictions fell into in terms of flexibility.

Stogsdill said height was one of the law issues. She said three stories and 40 feet above grade was the maximum.

Commissioner Schauner said if they amended the Comprehensive Plan, Chapter 6, he asked if that act alone was a step in a direction which then must automatically lead the City Commission to approval of that project as proposed.

Corliss said no. He said all it did was amend the Comprehensive Plan to recognize mixed use development was appropriate. He said it got back to the issue of the original request, which was for C-3, and staff did not think that zoning was appropriate. He said all it did was made the legislative action on the rezoning consistent with the policy, which was expressed in the Comprehensive Plan.

Commissioner Schauner said from a substantive point of view with respect to this project a more important action had to do with zoning overlay district and the creation of the conservation overlay.

Corliss said amending the Comprehensive Plan was consistent with good policy making and set the foundation for proceeding with rezoning, but did not mandate the rezoning.

Commissioner Amyx said only if they took the action on the overlay district and rezoning which set the first part in place

Commissioner Hack said the comments from staff were interesting in saying that this was the reality that when Horizon 2020 was crafted the concept of mixed use neighborhoods was not something on their radar and now mixed use was on their radar.

Corliss said staff felt it was important that they had the Comprehensive Plan reflect that if the City Commission was going to proceed.

Mayor Amyx said they could begin with the amendment to the Comprehensive Plan, but before they did that amendment, he asked if they were looking at conditioning the overlay district and the rezoning.

Commissioner Hack said the rezoning, not the overlay district.

Commissioner Schauner said he was not quite sure what conditioning the overlay district meant.

Mayor Amyx said there had been a lot of information and requests that had been brought up from individuals in the public and members of the neighborhood. He said there were a lot of things they did not want to forget if they would consider these items moving ahead. He said if a plan was going to be worked out on the west side of Pennsylvania Street, the City Commission would want to make sure that opportunity be given every possibility to actually happen.

Commissioner Schauner said the C-5 zoning restrictions would simply address the specific uses which would not be permitted within that zone category. He asked if they were going to condition the C-5 zoning at that location, would that amount to spot zoning of one kind or another. He said they were conditioning this C-5 in a way they had not considered conditioning C-5 zoning in other places.

Stogsdill said she believed that Corliss stated the City‘s legal counsel, Steve Chin, had indicated that conditioning zoning was not spot zoning.

Commissioner Schauner said the reason why he asked two or three times was because of the discussion a few years ago concerning the Folks Road Project that led south to Harvard. The neighbors wanted to condition zoning and they were told conditioning the site plan was sufficient because they did not think they could condition the zoning. He said it seemed staff had taken a different position than they took on that particular project. He wanted to make sure they were on something other than test case grounds and would like a higher comfort level, but was not sure he could get a higher comfort level.

Commissioner Hack said they were now under a new development code and staff and consultants had worked with Steven Chin and his folks looking at each project since the Folks Road project. She thought they were in a much better shape now to make sure they were consistent when they placed those conditions on the site plans.

Commissioner Rundle asked if Mr. Chin had indicated this had been in practice, litigated and stood up in court.

Corliss said the issue of being able to condition zoning had withstood tests in Kansas. What had not been directly challenged was whether or not the uniformity language in the zoning and enabling statute somehow could be used to say that conditioning zoning was beyond the authority of the state enabling statute. When they asked that specific question to Mr. Chin, the response was he thought as long as the condition was reasonable, a court was going to sustain the municipality’s ability to do that.

Commissioner Rundle said it was right to be cautious, but this had certainly been a most welcomed interpretation because it did give them some protection to address those people in the future who might come by the property after it was already zoned.

Commissioner Schauner said the ability to condition zoning was a powerful tool.

Corliss said staff had that conditioning expressly in the new development code and they had conditioning in the code as far as Planned Unit Developments were concerned and had used it. He said there was Kansas case law where municipalities had conditioned uses through a special use permit, where they had conditioned it based upon ownership, where they had placed duration on it, or conditions on property which had withstood a reasonable challenge.

Commissioner Schauner said there had been zoning conditions upheld based on reasonableness, but not on the specific question of whether the uniformity requirement and enabling statute permitted that differentiation among the same zones.

Corliss said that was correct. He said he would have articulated it a little bit differently but generally Commissioner Schauner’s comment was correct.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger , to approve the Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA-2005-05) to Horizon 2002, Chapter 6, to address mixed use development in redevelopment areas. Motion carried unanimously. (19)

Commissioner Hack said the City Commission always took a very serious look at issues and were very serious about their jobs. She said this issue was no exception. A lot of time and effort had been spent by staff, East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, along with Mr. Harris and his staff. She thought it was important to realize that infill development or redevelopment of any kind was difficult, particularly when there was a sensitive area as they did in this particular situation. She said when they discussed the Neighborhood Revitalization Act and the revitalization of East Lawrence she would take exception because she preferred the term “enhancement.” She said she believed this was already a vital neighborhood and area that wanted to continue to be such and did not want anything that would be put in place that would cause that vitality to wane.

She thought East Lawrence was asking for help from the City Commission and they, as City Commissioners, had indicated their concern about affordable housing, about preservation of historical areas, preservation of diversity of their community and the celebration of the historical impacts of some of their more precious areas and also preserving the downtown. Her thoughts were to try and put those things on paper and try to find an agreement.

She asked the City Commission to approve the plan in it’s original form as it came through Planning staff and the Planning Commission with overwhelming support. She also asked staff to work on something that could be included in the minutes or part of the conditions. She wanted to put some teeth in the East Lawrence Revitalization Plan and make sure they adhere to that plan was important. She loved the idea of the design charette. She said having participated in one design charette when they started talking about new urbanism and some creative ideas came to the top and some reality checks came to the top as well. She wanted staff to work on proposals for the two items and the property tax loan possibility that she knew had been discussed was different from the NRA; they were two separate issues and one was not dependent upon the other.

She said the loan issue was they, as a City Commission, needed to be thinking about ways to help lower income, fixed income retired individuals who suffer from property tax increases every year whether property taxes increased or not. She said that preserved the diversity of the community. The Revitalization Act could help Mr. Harris and some of the things he proposed to continue to enhance the neighborhood. She said they would also help some of the people who could afford a new porch or add a new room onto the house. The people who were on the fixed incomes that were retired, the Neighborhood Revitalization Act was not going to affect them, but that was where she wanted to see the loan program be a separate issue.

She said she knew that the neighborhood had expressed serious concerns about traffic, particularly at 11^th and Connecticut. She asked what they could do as a community to address some of those issues; the school safety with New York School and the concern with having to cross 11^th Street. She said they could not put kids at risk in those situations. She thought some sort of guarantee for the affordable housing component needed to be included in this. She said the Commission had said affordable housing was important so then they needed to put teeth in those kinds of revitalization programs to move them forward.

She said there were no guarantees in anything they did. She wanted to say there were not offering tax abatements; they were not legal in these kinds of situations and the state did now allow it. She said there were not any guarantees in anything that they do except what were currently zoned were duplexes and she did not think that enhanced, revitalized, or protected any neighborhood with a vitality of East Lawrence. She said she did not know if her conditions were clear, but thought those were some things she would like to see placed on it as they moved forward.

Commissioner Schauner said he echoed Commissioner Hack’s thanks to staff, neighborhood leaders, neighborhood participants, fellow Commissioners in a variety of meetings over this issue the past few months. He said a couple of Fridays ago there was a meeting held among Mr. Harris and some other folks and came up with a list of issues they thought would satisfy the neighborhood. He thought one of the problems was they had several neighborhood groups meeting and it had been difficult to have the same people at those meetings, but he understood there was a list of issues the neighbors and Mr. Harris agreed to, at least in concept. He said the things that he understood in that agreement, many of those things were apparently now not possible or might not be possible, but still get tax credits.

He said those things in that agreement were residential design massed at the northern most lots, four or five story mixed use building, planned and useable green space, and open space on the west side of the block. What he thought he heard earlier was the credits expert talked about that street rhythm and open spaces between buildings would be inconsistent with street rhythm. He did not know how you would put green space between buildings of any significance like the one he thought he heard described last Friday in a conversation with Mr. Harris and Ms. Good and still maintain that street rhythm. He said it seemed to him that they had two things working against each other; what the neighbors thought they agreed to and now they were hearing the tax credits gods might not consider acceptable. He had hard time figuring out what the neighbors did want because it seemed to be a shifting soil that Ms. Good talked about earlier.

He said he viewed this as a business transaction. Mr. Harris was a business man and wanted to make a profit. The City was there to represent another set of interests, the community interests in this arrangement. The City was being asked in one fashion or another to contribute a tremendous amount of money in this project whether it was tax rebates or infrastructure expenditure. He thought they ought to have those items nailed down. He suggested doing the charette and then the overlay. He did not know if neighbors would have any other assurance they felt comfortable with. He said it was not a matter of distrust of any of the parties, but the practical reality. Mr. Harris would not be able to do this project unless he could do it in a way that apparently would grant tax credits. He said Mr. Harris would have some strong restrictions on what that massing could look like on the west side of the street. He said he really wanted to support the project and thought it would be ultimately good for the neighborhood, but if it was built in a way the neighbors felt they got bargained out of what they thought they bargained for It was not going to leave a very good taste in anyone’s mouth and he thought City Staff would come off looking less credible, the Commission would come off looking less credible, and Mr. Harris would come off looking less credible. He thought Mr. Harris had a lot of good work to give to this community. He urged the City Commission to get the cart in front of the horse instead of vice versa. He said they should get the charette completed, get an agreement on massing that would satisfy Historic Resources, and move forward. He thought the neighbors had moved a very significant distance.

He said Ms. Good had a list of things she would like to see the City do in the rest of the East Lawrence area such as traffic counts, NRA area being expanded, and support the purchase of the sale barn, but he did not think it was reasonable to tie Mr. Harris’s project to those conditions. He thought the Commission had the interests of East Lawrence in mind and thought those things needed to stand on their own merits and he would support to do anything they could on that list that was reasonably affordable, doable and accomplishable. He said he would like to focus on the 8^th and Pennsylvania Project rather than extending their discussion into the other pieces of activity. He appreciated the conditions proposed, but thought they should get the cart in front of the horse instead of doing the overlay and then figure out what it would look like.

Commissioner Hack said the Planning Commission approved a certain density with this overlay and it went through HRC and was approved as well. The design that was approved by the neighborhood, as part of the compromise position, would probably fail to receive an HRC approval or the State Environs approval which then would impact the tax credits. She said it was not just the tax credit issue, but the fact that by the way the City was regulated it had such a tremendous affect that the massing of the density and Stogsdill indicated it went against all good planning and all good historic preservation, which was what the whole neighborhood was about. She said while it might then impact tax credits, she thought it was far more serious in terms of the historic preservation of the neighborhood, the way that compromise was crafted. She asked what the City Commission could do to make something work for both parties and bring some outside folks to help.

Commissioner Schauner said lets schedule the charette ASAP and figure out what it could look like that would pass muster, bring it back on the agenda, and move forward. He was not looking for a 6 month delay, but looking to give voice to the agreement people thought they had on a Friday a couple weeks ago.

Commissioner Highberger asked Ms. Good if there was a vote taken at the last ELNA meeting.

Good said there was a vote taken to support the charette proposal with the UCD going forward. However, she would like to qualify that because the vote was taken after a very long meeting and half the people had given up and gone home. She said it was not a representative sample of the neighborhood. She personally thought a charette was a very good idea. She thought it would be ideal if they could do it quickly and move forward quickly with whatever was going to happen. She said had they taken a vote an hour earlier, the vote likely would have gone the other way. She did not know the value of a vote at a board meeting the night before with a compromise position delivered at 5:30. She said it was a difficult situation to be in. She said they thought they had a compromise position and what they were hearing was that a consensus said the compromise position could not go forward but they did not like what was shown up and there was some middle ground.

Commissioner Highberger said they all shared the same goals in that they were dedicated to protect the character and quality of the East Lawrence Neighborhood, but they also supported and encouraged quality infill development. He echoed the comments of the Mayor that Janet Good was a good representative. He really appreciated how she articulated the issues all of her hard work on this. He said Mr. Harris was one of the good guys. He had seen his dedication and work in building projects that were going to last and add value to the community. He thought it needed to be acknowledged.

He also thought they needed to acknowledge all of the people who work so hard to make East Lawrence such a great neighborhood over the years. He said it was a lot of hard work and East Lawrence was a great place to live.

He thought this was a good project and had potential to benefit East Lawrence a great deal. He thought they needed to realize the current zoning on that property was industrial and someone could build a row of ugly 12 duplexes, but there were a lot of unacceptable uses that go under that current zoning. He thought changing it to C-5 was a good idea, especially with the conditions. He realized the property on the other side of the alley and to the west was still a part of East Lawrence that was still zoned for duplex and higher. He said he would be willing to consider what areas needed to be rezoned as single family to maintain the single family housing stock that was there now.

He said the design charette was a great idea and he personally was not pleased with the design that came out of the neighborhood compromise compared with the original for a number of reasons, which he would not elaborate. He thought a charette would help work out a design that would fit the historical guidelines and meets everyone’s requirements. He supported almost everything the neighborhoods asked for and thought that was what they should be doing anyway regardless of the project. He thought it was one of the jewels for East Lawrence.

He said in looking at traffic on 11^th street, he knew 2 years ago they asked for some suggestions on safe street crossing for the school on 11^th street and he was disappointed they had not made a move on that crossing yet, but hopefully they could sometime soon. He said he was not sure how far the new tax revenue was going to relieve the residents. He said he would prefer to cap property taxes for low income people. He said he hoped State Senator Marci Francisco (who was in attendance) would help find a way to cap those taxes.

He said he would support the NRA for financing this project rather than up front tax money; and he was generally supportive of the concept of the sale barn acquisition depending on the price. The historical marker was also a great idea. He said he also agreed with Ms. Walsh’s comments about the design guidelines, especially with the colors.

Again, he supported the adoption of Zoning Overlay District with modifications made by Ms. Walsh; adoption of the rezoning with the restrictions; and supported accepting dedication on the Final Plat.

Commissioner Rundle said he always had a little discomfort when they started talking about the good outweighing the bad or it was a good project and everyone should realize that it could be worse. He said they should shoot for making it the best possible project as long as they did not throw unreasonable obstacles at Mr. Harris and as long as Mr. Harris could make a reasonable profit on this and as long as the timeline could keep moving forward at a good pace. He thought they should aim for that type of thinking instead of settling for less sometimes.

He said he was not convinced the tax credits were in jeopardy. He said if they were going to be applied to the Poehler Building and the historic properties, the new construction might possibly work. He said there was nothing prescriptive as the guidelines say or technical about those guidelines. It did not say that all buildings shall be subservient; it said they should be compatible. He said he might be putting too fine of a point on that distinction and maybe the compromise proposal would fail to meet historic guidelines. He said there were things that said new construction shall be done so that if it was removed in the future, it shall not destroy the integrity of the historic property. He said he could see the professionals shaking their head at the amateur, but he thought it was worth going through the process and let the boards make the recommendation.

He said he appreciated Commissioner Hack’s encouragement for the City Commission to get behind the neighborhood plan and put teeth into it. He thought there was one way they could really put their support behind the neighborhood in general which was to adopt those neighborhood plans. They adopted the downtown plan as part of their former Comprehensive Plan and it was an official neighborhood appendage to that plan and it was their saving grace whenever they wanted to say they did not want to do things in a community that were going to harm downtown.

He thought the proposals such as trying to establish an additional rehabilitation area were not really directly connected as Commissioner Schauner tried to point out. He said he thought they needed to take each of those, come up with a timeline, identify some neighborhood and development people and everyone who had a legitimate interest and come up with strategies to find out how they could make those happen. He said they should get behind the neighborhood in those goals in general.

He said he wanted to support this project and Mr. Harris had worked hard to deliver a quality project. He said he supported Ms. Walsh’s suggested modifications and wanted to do whatever they could to tweak that language if it was relevant to accomplishing other goals. He asked if it was just a standard amendment.

Stogsdill said the HRC and Planning Commission would need to review any changes that were substantive.

Commissioner Hack asked if they needed to look and see if Walsh’s proposed changes were substantive or not.

Stogsdill said that was what she thought they were talking about and assumed that if the zoning was approved, it would come back for first and second reading and staff could bring back those changes so they could see those changes specifically at that time.

Commissioner Rundle said putting teeth into it to be supportive sounded harsh. He thought what they had not had was a willingness to commit to the relationship. They always wanted to leave the neighborhood guidelines off as a recommendation so they had the flexibility, he thought largely for the development community, to be able to come in and not have to stick to something. He said they needed to get ready to commit and adopt the neighborhood plans as an official part of their Comprehensive Plan and have a wedding of interests. He said after seeing this project, the interests could be mutually satisfied and would both prosper and thrive.

Commissioner Schauner said his biggest concern was that they were going to do the charette and the rest of that after an overlay district. His challenge to anyone in business, including Mr. Harris, was to ask if he would agree to spend his money on a project until he knew that all the “i’s” were dotted and “t’s” were crossed. He thought the answer to that was no, yet they were asking the neighbors to do just that. He said that was his greatest concern. He said this was a business relationship and Mr. Harris had said that he could not make this project work without tax credits, without an NRA, and without all the other pieces, yet they were asking neighbors to essentially negotiate against themselves now for at least a second time. He was asking to leave the neighbors some leverage in this discussion. If they approved the overlay this evening, the neighbors literally had no leverage left, in his view. They would go to a charette and there would be something agreed to, but it would not be one where there were two equal parties working on trying to resolve an issue.

Mayor Amyx said being in business, he thought they had set both sides in contracts that could not be signed because in the case of the neighborhood he did not disagree, but in the case of the developer, they set him out on a track that he had to meet a number of things, and he would imagine they would be asked to place their blessing or input on every site plan that would come up out of this project over time or some member of this body.

He said when he was younger he lived at the corner of 9^th and Rhode Island Street and being a kid at 9^th and Rhode Island, he could tell about all the businesses and people that lived in the East Lawrence area. He said in his own neighborhood, they lived in the upper half of his grandparents’ house. He said one of the things he always remembered when his grandfather talked when he was a kid, East Lawrence needed a grocery store and the only way for them to get a grocery store was for his grandparents to sell their house. He said for whatever reason, they did not have that grocery store anymore, but he thought if there was enough commitment, not only from this body but from everyone that was sitting in the audience, they could make East Lawrence prosper in ways that it used to.

He said Commissioner Schauner and Highberger spent a lot of time trying to put together agreements that would make this all happen, and he thanked both of them. He said the other two Commissioners had a lot of time spent on this issue, but the City Commission had responsibilities. He thought one of the responsibilities was traffic and that was the City Commission’s responsibility and should have been doing for a long time. He said one important issue about the project was the Smart Code regarding parking. He did not want to see concrete in that area and the only way to protect that from not happening was to make sure they had parking that was able to overlap between business and residential.

He thought they must come into an agreement between the City Commission, the neighborhood, and the developer on the limitation of C-5 uses. He thought that was a requirement. He thought it was imperative the affordable housing agreement became part of this agreement. He said whether the design charette happened yesterday or tomorrow, it had to happen. They had to investigate whether or not the massing of the north end of Pennsylvania had to be allowed to go through and that if agreements could be worked out between the neighbors and developer, he thought that would be the only way they could fund it from this point forward.

He said he shared a lot of concerns with the neighbors on the property tax relief. He thought there were many times they had seen those types of developments and thought they were dealing with a pretty fragile part of the city and they needed to find a way to use the increment financing whether it be from the NRA or some other avenue to use for property tax relief.

He said Ms. Walsh made a good point regarding the design guideline changes and a number of things needed to be looked at and changed.

He understood the density issue, for the residential portion was important to make this project happen. He understood the current zoning allowed for those duplexes, but to make it work, he suggested Mr. Harris continue to work with the neighborhood.

Commissioner Rundle said if the City Commission waited to approve this project after the charette, he asked if that would delay the project or would there be a way this project could come back for some process to go on concurrently so they did not lose time.

Stogsdill said if the City Commission held off on any zoning actions until after a charette, and then the charette resulted in some sort of a project that did not conform with the guidelines, the City Commission would need to go back through the process to amend guidelines to allow a project and then still there was no guarantee those projects would be approved through the ultimate process. She said if the City Commission was comfortable with the standards that were in the UCO guidelines, then the charette should be framed within those guidelines and then that charette would lead to the eventual site plans that the City Commission would approve.

Commissioner Rundle said he sent an e-mail to Mr. Harris’s staff notifying them that there was some other person who had a project on the drawing board in town who had tried to apply the Section 108 loans to his project and had found it to be very relevant. He thought his e-mail was for Mr. Harris to be pursuing that loan along this time process because the loan had a very flexible application and floating deadline. He said that might be something that would bring down the density, too.

Moved by Schauner seconded by Rundle, to extend the meeting one hour until 11:00

Moved by Hack, seconded by Rundle, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to adopt the findings of fact and approve the request for rezoning (Z-12-80-05) the establishment of a Zoning Overlay District for the 8^th and Pennsylvania Neighborhood Redevelopment Zone and directed staff to prepare an ordinance containing a final parking plan. .Aye: Amyx, Hack, Highberger, and Rundle. Nay: Schauner. Motion carried. (20)

Mayor Amyx said concerning the rezoning, he read a list of proposed conditions that would be in addition to the Planning Commission’s recommendations which were:

1) Agreement to the design charette;

2) Staff to work on proposals for the loans to alleviate property tax increases;

3) Increase the UCO to the larger neighborhood;

4) Traffic issues on 11^th and Connecticut

5) Safe School issues for New York School;

6) Commitment to affordable housing; and

7) Staff to prepare information to consider the Neighborhood Revitalization Act; and

8) Place a limitation on C-5 uses were to be agreed upon between the City Commission, neighborhood, and developer.

Commissioner Schauner said the use group restrictions would be appropriate to place on the rezoning request. The other thing mentioned by the Mayor did not strike him as being appropriately attached to a rezoning request because those conditions were really other issues that were not germane to the rezoning request.

Mayor Amyx said he was bringing up those items so the City Commission would not forget those items.

Commissioner Schauner said the City Commission could pass a resolution as the will of this body that they were going to do the things on the list and that was a separate issue, free standing, from the conditional zoning.

Commissioner Hack said that list of issues had came up in several meetings and she wanted to make sure they were asking staff to address those items such as investigating that loan opportunity. She said they needed to jump start the NRA process.

Mayor Amyx said if they could incorporate those issues in a resolution that was fine, but he did not want those issues forgotten.

Commissioner Schauner said he thought they should look at rezoning to C-5 with the restrictions that were agreed upon by the different parties.

Commissioner Rundle said he did not think those issues were tied to the rezoning, but the City Commission could make a two part motion to direct staff to add those issues to the City Commission’s calendar.

Corliss suggested as this ordinance came back, the City Commission could then receive an implementation report on the items that were listed. In addition, there was the issue of the Revitalization Plan and its incorporation into the Comprehensive Plan. He said they needed to show how they were going to pay attention to those items in a certain time frame. He suggested that those items come back when the City Commission saw the rezoning ordinance and that everyone had a comfort level that attention was being paid to those items and there would be accountability on their responsiveness.

Commissioner Schauner suggested that Ms. Good submit a written list from the Neighborhood Association.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to adopt the findings of fact and approve the request for rezoning (Z-01-01-06) of approximately 0.541 acre, from M-2 (General Industrial District) to C-5 (Limited Commercial District), and 4.0 acres from M-3 (Intensive Industrial District) to C-5 (Limited Commercial District and directed staff to prepare the appropriate ordinance to include the limitations of the C-5 zoning. Aye: Amyx, Hack, Highberger, and Rundle. Nay: Schauner. Motion carried. (21)

Commissioner Highberger said the plat still left the parking requirement nebulous.

Stogsdill said the parking requirements were in the design guidelines. The plat did not have specific parking requirements. She said there was a memo that explained parking requirements after the Planning Commission did the analysis with the Smart Code for those different requirements. She said staff could bring that information back with the first reading and the City Commission could make a decision as to which requirement they wanted to impose.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Amyx, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to approve the Final Plat (PF-01-03-06) for 8^th and Pennsylvania Redevelopment, and accept the dedication of easements and rights-of-way subject to the following conditions:

1. Provision of the following fees and recording documentation:

1. A current copy of a paid property tax receipt.
2. Recording fees made payable to the Douglas County Register of Deeds.
3. A completed Master Street Tree Plan in accordance with Section 21-7081.3.

2. Pinning of the lots in accordance with Section 21-302.2 of the Subdivision Regulations;

3. Submittal of Agreements Not to Protest Improvements to the intersections of 9^th and Connecticut Streets and 11^th and Delaware Streets;

4. Submittal of public improvement plans for the extension of Delaware Street, sidewalks along both sides of Pennsylvania and Delaware Streets and along the southern side of 8^th Street, reconstruction of Pennsylvania Street to expose original brick, and extension and/or upgrade of sanitary sewer, stormwater, and water mains

5. Prior to scheduling of the final plat on an agenda for City Commission acceptance of rights-of-ways and easements, a downstream wastewater analysis will need to be approved by the City’s Utilities Department. [Note: The Planning Office received notification of approval of the downstream wastewater analysis by the Utilities Department on March 10, 2006. Any change/addition to the type or density of development other than what was submitted with the original wastewater study requires an updated study.];

6. Revision of the plat to include the following:

1. Pedestrian easements should be shown on the final plat along one side of Pennsylvania and Delaware Streets and along the southern side of 8^th Street. These easements are necessary to ensure that sidewalks are constructed with the subject project on both sides of 8^th and Pennsylvania Streets and along the southern side of 8^th Street. These sidewalks should be a minimum of five feet in width.

Aye: Amyx, Hack, Highberger, and Rundle. Nay: Schauner. Motion carried. (22)

Consider request for City for City assistance for infrastructure improvements related to this proposed redevelopment. Receive staff report concerning the Kansas Neighborhood Revitalization Act.

Mayor Amyx suggested referring this item to staff to provide the City Commission information on the establishment of the NRA and any other appropriate and related material.

Corliss asked if the Mayor wanted to give staff any parameters as far as term, rebate amount or were they talking about Mr. Harris’ project for the NRA.

Commissioner Highberger suggested finding out what it took to finance the proposed infrastructure improvements using the NRA, noting they did not have anything allocated for this project in the next item of discussion. He suggested staff give the City Commission a couple of options for duration, percentage and options on boundaries.

Commissioner Schauner said the City Commission should not look at this just for this project, but for the broader area where the statutory authority might apply and set a fixed time for revisiting this matter both as an initial matter and during the life of the rebates. In other communities they went occasionally and redrew their maps changing the area that was affected based on changed circumstances or a change in their area of interest. He said Topeka has a fairly good program.

Corliss said Scott Wagner, Legal Assistant, spent a lot of time drafting a staff report about what other communities were doing. He said he understood the Commission’s direction regarding this project and staff would provide that information.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to direct staff to investigate the Neighborhood Revitalization Act that might be usable for any and all projects that might qualify. Motion carried unanimously. (23)

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to direct staff to investigate the financing of the 8^th & Pennsylvania project using the Neighborhood Revitalization Act. Aye: Amyx, Hack, Highberger, and Rundle. Nay: Schauner. Motion carried. (24)

Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to recess for 15 minutes. Motion carried unanimously.

Conduct the public hearing on proposed 2007 City Budget.

a) Receive staff memo regarding 2007 budget consideration.

b) Conduct public hearing.

c) Commission discussion and direction on 2007 budget.

David Corliss, Interim City Manager/Legal Services Director, presented the staff report. He said a proposed budget had been published with a proposed mill levy increase of .986 mills. Staff further reviewed the revenue requirements for the budget and determined they were going to receive an additional $109,000 in additional revenues in the memorandum. The recommended budget he provided to the Commission approximately one month ago could be funded with a .849 mill levy increase. He said the Commission had a memorandum that responded to some of the information requests the City Commission had regarding to the budget in the past days and weeks. It set out options the City Commission might wish to consider in establishing the budget after they conducted their public hearing. He said those options ranged from the recommended budget, which was the .849 mill levy increase that provided the funding of street maintenance of a little bit over $6 million. He said there were other options, as well, including an option that maintained the current mill levy that provided $5.3 million in street funds. That option had a mill levy decrease that would bring the street maintenance down to a little over $5 million.

There was also information that responded to Commissioner requests in the memorandum. One of the commission items they had discussed in the past was the appropriate funding for Economic Development Partnership and staff needed direction as to what to include in the budget. He said staff who had been part of the budget team were present and could respond to other questions now or during the course of the hearing and deliberations on the budget.

Mayor Amyx called a public hearing on the proposed 2007 City Budget.

Bill Yanek, Governor of Affairs for the Lawrence Board of Realtors, spoke in opposition to any proposed property tax increase or mill levy increase as part of the 2007 budget. He said real estate was already burdened with an excessive share that continually escalated costs of state and local government. They did pay property taxes that fund schools at the state and local level and even if the mill levy stayed current, from year to year Lawrence residents would pay more each year in property taxes due to increased appraisals. He said they did understand the need for making up for infrastructure needs, but did not think it should be done through increased property taxes.

Tammy Lahee, representing HCCI, urged the City Commission to support a $16,000 increase for what her organization did for Lawrence. She said their organization took phone calls on different types of issues from people on a daily basis from people who were concerned. She said those people could find information out in other places, but those people had grown to appreciate and use HCCI everyday as their neighbor. She said she would really appreciate it if the City Commission would consider them as a budget increase of the $16,000 that would make up that difference they lost with the CDBG.

Mark O’Lear, Lawrence, voiced support for the ring park in West Lawrence. He said he liked the park and it was the only park in the neighborhood without crossing a major street and he did also like the fact that it would have a walking trail. It seemed like there might not be enough money to fund the park and a fully paved walking trail, but he requested there was at least a cleared trail around so they could have a walking trail and a park even if it was a minimal walking trail. He said it was a unique park. He said however minimal the park, it would be nice to have that walking area.

Alan Cowles, Lawrence, spoke in support of the ring park. He said he would like to see the bond money allocated to parks. He said it was a matter of great interest out their way and one of the most popular projects they ever had going on out there. He said there was a technical item with the 2007 Capital Improvement Budget, the section impact on City’s operating budget currently was limited to the playground and said design and construction of a park located on Harvard Road adjacent to Langston Hughes Elementary School. The park would include playground equipment, a shelter and a parking area. He said since there was still considerable unresolved discussions on how the funds should be allocated for play ground versus trail, he wanted to suggest something that would leave this issue open for future discussion. He suggested having a public hearing at the elementary school to go into those details. He said in order to leave it open, he suggested design and construction of a circular trail around the Fox Chase South and Fox Chase South No. 3 Subdivisions and a park located at the southeast corner of Harvard Road and George Williams Way. He said for the trail, the clearing of underbrush, mowing and the creation of walkways and related improvements would be required. The park would include playground equipment, a shelter and a parking area. He said they might also add that details would be added at a later date because there was a good deal of discussion as to whether or not that small of a playground area should include a parking lot or not. He gathered that was not the kind of detail they wanted to get into tonight. He said something that would leave this issue open for a future date and to have a public hearing to settle that type of detail would be the fairest sort of process.

Commissioner Schauner asked if they had any conversations with anyone from the Parks Department about proposed costs of the ring portion of this proposal.

Cowles said no. He said there were all sorts of possibilities because everything had been envisioned from a 10’ wide concrete strip with big bridges, which could cost a lot of money. He said on the other hand, they were suggesting something much simpler such as clearing the underbrush and putting in a couple of small bridges the water could wash over. He thought that could be much less expensive and for the people who would rather not have the big development sort of trail in their backyard, it would be less intrusive. He saw it as a low cost compromise between the various positions out there. He said clearing under brush, mowing, and a little bit of contouring could be done at a fairly low cost.

Mayor Amyx said Cowles suggested leaving the program open ended and right now in the budget, the only money budgeted was for minimal improvements at the entrance of the park.

Corliss said $900,000 was recommended in the budget for new parks projects and there was $200,000 allocated to what they were calling Harvard Road Park Improvements. He said the focus of the money had been on the property immediately at Harvard and George Williams Way, but there had been Commissioners interest in trying to expand that and do more. There were a number of people that wanted to talk about how they could have a path that did not cost a lot of money, was adjacent neighbor friendly, and also met a recreation or pedestrian need. He said he knew Parks and Recreation staff could work with the neighborhood to come up with good solutions. He did not want to give the impression they had enough money in this selection to do it all, but they would see options and the City Commission could tell staff how to proceed.

Commissioner Schauner said concerning the budgeted amount for the park adjacent to Langston Hughes, he asked if that included funding for playground equipment and parking or for something less.

Corliss said they were talking about playground equipment, a shelter, and parking area. He did not know exactly how it would all work out. He said he challenged staff to see how much they could design in house as far as a playground area. He said he would rather sit down with the neighborhood and have discussions about it instead of hiring someone to do it. He said when they start getting into parking areas, that was something they might need assistance with. He said on the path, he would like to talk to the neighbors to see exactly what they could do creatively without having a lot of design costs. He said at some point, they would probably have to have some design assistance.

Commissioner Schauner said it seemed like they did not need a parking lot immediately because there was parking adjacent across the street and there would be other ways to save money that might be used to provide a beginning of a ring walkway. His suspicion was that clearing brush and mowing ultimately, over the period of a year, would be more expensive than what some envision. He said he supported seeing how staff worked to see how they could stretch those available dollars with this project to get as much bang for the buck as they could.

Corliss said the other comment concerning neighborhood parks and if it was a true neighborhood park, would they need a parking lot. He thought that needed to be part of the discussion as well as they have neighborhood parks and sidewalks on Harvard and how important was a parking lot. He said they should have those discussions and they have not completed any of the design. His suspicion was the neighbors had a better idea on what to put out in that area than staff did at this point.

Commissioner Schauner said he suggested that there was not such a uniformity of an opinion even about what to be in the park itself, such as whether it should be playground equipment or not. He trusted that this was a time staff had good competency in getting the most out of dollars for that project.

Amy Bartle, Lawrence, spoke in support of the ring park. She wanted to emphasize that the final park plan included the trails. Now that they did not have any bus service because the street had been paved through to Langston Hughes, her daughter now had to walk to school. She realized the City Commission did not have control over that issue, but now her daughter was expected to walk or they had to drive kindergarteners up to 6^th grade now. There would be children walking down Harvard to get to school. She said the idea of having this trail was a good alternative path for children to get to school as well as another way for people to get to the park. She said Commissioner Schauner mentioned they did not need a parking lot, but she had three children at home from 3 years old to 9 years old and she was not necessarily an advocate of the play ground equipment because they already had two sets of playground equipment at Langston Hughes. She realized that the families could not use that from 8 a.m.-3p.m. while school was in session nine months out of the year, but at the same time she thought the community would be open to alternative ways to use that space. She said those things could be brought up at the meeting in the fall. She wanted to emphasize that a lot of them were counting on having those pathways, even if they were rustic.

Hubbard Collingsworth, Lawrence, asked if the proposed infrastructure improvement for 2007 was it $5 million or $5.5 million.

Mayor Amyx said it was $6 million on street maintenance.

Collingsworth said to receive that amount it would require the mill levy to be raised to .84.

Corliss said it would require a .849 mill levy increase over the 2006 budget.

Collingsworth said he would love to have a tax decrease even though he would be paying taxes through his landlord, but he did not want their streets to deteriorate anymore, so however funds could be juggled was appropriate. He said he rode the bus to work and knew they were working on the west side of town, but they also needed to work on the east side of town. He said he did not know what the maintenance was going to be with the maintenance of the buses going over the potholes. He said he wanted that on the front burners.

Commissioner Amyx said he appreciated Collingsworth bringing up the comments about reducing the impact on property tax. He said he assumed that if the Commission could miraculously lower taxes, his landlord would pass those savings on to him.

Cowles asked about the traffic calming on Harvard Road. He said about a year and a half ago, they had conceptual approval on traffic calming devices on Harvard and Congressional from the City Commission as well as the Traffic Commission. The neighborhood association did not have any specific proposal at this time, but was hoping they would keep that in mind with the budget process that they might want to start doing something about that during the year 2007.

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to close the public hearing. Motion carried unanimously.

Mayor Amyx said he thought he had read everyone’s comments about the idea of sales tax. He did not think he needed to bring it up in a way that would ask them to consider that item. He thought the plan he had given was a very good plan and a plan that he had thought about over the various terms of public office. He said he thought the City Commission had responsibilities. He said staff had heard the City Commission loud and clear as far as what they thought was the most important part of the City Budget. Staff had given the Commission options on how pavement management could be taken care of in a fairly quick way so they did not have other streets getting to that tipping point. He said staff had given the City Commission various options for street maintenance, but they might not do as much street maintenance as planned, but street maintenance would be done more than what had been done in the past. He said it was a high priority to make sure that streets were going to be made in such a way the traveling public could not have their teeth jarred out. He said if asking the motoring public, staff was doing a lot of street maintenance and he wanted to pass on his special thanks to staff for their efforts.

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Hack, to extend the meeting 30 minutes to 11:30. Motion carried unanimously.

Commissioner Schauner said on the Economic Development funding request from the Chamber of Commerce, last year their request was for $125,000, this year was $175,000, and the recommended budget was $125,000 based upon the Commissioner committee. He said he would like to approve the $125,000 with a caveat they would try to find additional money that would fund a specific plan that could be developed between the new person they were going to have on staff, the Commission and the Chamber. He said not more of the same activity, but perhaps a different way of doing some of that work. He did not have a specific plan in mind, but thought they either needed to settle for what they were doing or ramp up their level of support and have a higher level of expectation on results. He said he was not going to suggest an extra amount, but thought there was enough money in the contingency fund for some additional money to fund that additional activity. He said he would like that idea out there as an idea for the City Commission to consider so it would not come as a surprise when they get a new economic development person on board to begin having that discussion.

Mayor Amyx asked if that amount was up to, but not to exceed an amount.

Commissioner Schauner said up to $50,000 additional dollars, the original request.

Commissioner Rundle asked if the Chamber had responded to any of their information requests like updating the Commission on a specific program.

Corliss said they had the 6 month report on the biosciences activities. He did not know if they received anything more specific, but Beth Johnson, Vice President of Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce, indicated she wanted to come to a future Commission meeting to give them a status report.

Commissioner Hack said Johnson was working on the business retention report as well as the quarterly economic development report. She said Johnson might not have been specifically asked for that information.

Commissioner Highberger said given what the school district was projecting on doing and the given fact that the City’s revenues were increasing, he preferred Option B or D.

He said in terms of the economic development money, he thought it was a good cause and given the other constraints he would prefer not to budget this year and look at increasing it for 2008. He said if they were not going to budget it, he was a little leery about funding $50,000 in a contingency fund somewhere. He said it was his understanding what they were going to do with the economic development planner was substantially different from what the Chamber was doing with their EDB money. He was not quite sure of the plan, but hoped to keep the $125,000 for this year.

He said as far as the park, he would really like to take some of that money they allocated for the Alan Cowle’s park and move some of that toward the trail because it would be the hardest part to develop if they waited until the whole area was built out.

He said as a former board member for HCCI he really thought their work was important and if they could find additional money.

Commissioner Schauner said his preference was Option C because he preferred a flat mill levy for 2007 even though it was going to represent an increase in taxes, especially in the light of the fact the school district was going to see a 3, 4 or maybe 5 mill increase. He said also costs were going up with additional transportation costs for people with kids in school . The bus service would no longer be available for a lot of people who used it before without paying an extra fee for it. He thought they needed to do what they could to not only help the people on a particular end of the economic scale, but everyone. He thought everyone could benefit from a flat mill levy, including the City.

Mayor Amyx asked if the $200,000 from utilities still recommended as one of the transfers to help balance this budget.

Corliss said if the Commission looked at any one of the options, they had a total of $3 million worth of transfers from different enterprise funds into the general fund budget.

Mayor Amyx asked if in the original letter the recommendation from utilities was to be $200,000.

Corliss said no. He said regarding the Utility Fund, one of the recommendations was they use $250,000 worth of utility funds to help pay for infrastructure for economic development prospects as an additional tool for economic development. He said he was not following the $200,000 transfer.

Mayor Amyx said he was thinking Corliss had recommended a $200,000 from Utilities for street maintenance and repair.

Corliss said when looking at the funding plan and any of those different options set out where the funding came from streets. They were transferring money from the enterprise funds, primarily water and sewer, to the general fund. He said in their discussion with that in the past, it had been the recognition that they did not pay a franchise fee for the use of public right of way and that might be an appropriate burden for them to pay and it would go into the general fund. The general fund, along with the gas tax fund, storm water for curb repair, debt work, and capital improvement reserve funds, made up for the funding sources for the street maintenance plan. There were funds that came from the water and sewer fund and utility fund that were transferred to the general fund and from the general fund they set out different funding mechanisms for street maintenance.

Mayor Amyx said he had a hard time raising water and sewer rates to fix streets.

Corliss said the rationale was they were using the streets for the conveyance of water and sewer. When they approved the change order that dealt with repaving Massachusetts Street from the waterline project, the water and sewer customers pay for repaving that street because that was where their utilities were. Most waterlines were in streets and have to tear up streets any number of times to repair water lines and get to sewer facilities.

Mayor Amyx asked about the $700,000 for sidewalks.

Corliss said that amount was no longer $700,000. He said in the Capital Improvement Budget Summary, there was $700,000 allocated for the sidewalk improvements for the bridges over the turnpike. He said they had a study session on that in April or March where they received a request from the Turnpike Authority and the City Commissioners indicated they wanted to do that. He said the number at that time was $700,000 and the Public Works Department informed him that it was $200,000 for the bridge over Michigan Street and there was no City contribution for the bridge over on North Iowa. He said when they went back and looked at the Capital Improvement Budget Summary, they would need to look and see where they were on that. He said one of the issues they needed to look at was what happened to some of their other projects in the mean time or whether or not they have eaten up additional debt capacity on the projects. He said an example would be the Carnegie Library Building. In the Capital Improvement Budget Summary for this year, they had $600,000, but the architect indicated it would be more than that amount.

Mayor Amyx asked if it was not the City’s benefit, rather than borrowing $450,000 for street maintenance, to use that $500,000 to pay for the maintenance rather than bonding it.

Corliss said that could be an option the City Commission might want to pursue.

Mayor Amyx said if they had $500,000, it would make sense not to borrow $450,000.

Corliss said he did not disagree. He said he recommended looking at the entire Capital Improvement Budget Summary to see what they could do with the fact that sidewalk number was different. He wanted the Mayor to see the other cost increases they might be looking at before they made that decision.

Commissioner Amyx asked if it was Corliss’ recommendation to leave $500,000 in there.

Corliss said his recommendation was to adopt the budget as it was. The Capital Improvement Budget Summary was a direction on how to proceed with projects and did not establish a mill levy, but forecasted a future mill levy requirements for debt projects in the future.

Mayor Amyx asked about the new Building Inspector.

Corliss said in this budget they allocated $112,000 for Planning and Neighborhood Resources Department priorities that the City Commission would determine once they received the final report on the development process. He said he thought the Commission was going to look at the need for another historic planner and Matrix would look at the amount of time their inspectors currently had to spend on site and might make recommendations for an additional inspector. He said he allocated $112,000 in the budget knowing that when they get the report back, they might want to hire additional personnel. He said that was the City Commission’s decision on whether or not to proceed with that once they get that report.

Commissioner Hack said she thought the reason that had come up was because they received a couple of e-mails and phone calls from Bobbi Flory about adding a new inspector and what Corliss was saying was they were marking a place for the results of the Matrix study which might indicate they needed two planners, more inspectors, or something else to make their whole process more efficient.

Corliss said efficiency was one of the goals, but effectiveness was also one of the goals. He said one of the things the Matrix report might indicate was if they were inspecting all the things they needed to in the right amount of time. He said building permits were not the only determinate of their workload, it was also what they had to inspect and the time they had to adequately inspect and travel to different sites. He said that was his understanding and one of the things the study was going to look at.

Commissioner Rundle said he was fairly confident they needed that inspector right now regardless of down turn. He said the last time Victor Torres, Director of Neighborhood Resources, requested an additional staff person, Torres gave the number of inspections the inspectors were responsible for and being able to accomplish those legitimately in the amount of time they had was challenging then and the informal discussions with Matrix indicated the City might be understaffed in that area.

Mayor Amyx said one of the things they needed to be careful of was they had very good success in seeing their assessed valuation change go up. He thought they needed to ask staff to visit with the County Appraiser to see how things were going this year so far so they could plan for next year. He thought over the next couple of months as they get caught up staff might want to visit with the County to see if they could expect to have an increase in valuation.

Corliss said that would be an important item to monitor.

Mayor Amyx said the budget process was tough on everyone. He said staff had to be mind readers when it came to what the City Commission wanted and they had to make sure they listen to everyone’s requests and pare them down to make sure the process worked. He said one thing that should be looked at several months before they get to the budget process was if they had a different way to do things and if they were giving direction to staff so that they knew what was going on. If the Commission did not want a mill levy increase, staff needed to be told from day one or maybe a couple of months before so staff could start thinking of ways to be able to meet whatever requirements were on the recommended budget for the City Manager. He thought that would be helpful to everyone. He said he enjoyed going through the process, but if there was a way to make everyone’s lives easier and make more sense out of it, it would make everyone a little happier.

Commissioner Schauner said he appreciated the fact that Corliss went back and provided some additional options because it helped walked through the vagaries of this process. He said the street problem was not created in two or three years and would not be able to fix it in two or three years for a lot of reasons; money was one. He thought if they spent $6 million next year, the motoring public would wonder how they would get from A to B because there would be so many orange barrels in the street. He said he knew Soules laid out what would not happen if they used less micro-sealing, he expected and hoped Soules would use his professionalism in deciding how to best spend that money to get the best value out of a dollar they spend and preserve the quality of the street. He said it seemed like everyone he had been involved with, at the last minute there was a change of some import and he thought the Mayor raised a good point in terms of if they could expect to see a 6, 7 and 8% increase in assessed valuation. He did not think those numbers were sustainable for a lot of reasons. He thought budgeting in future years without being able to rely on that sort of increase in revenue without an increase in the mill levy would be quite a challenge to any future Commission and would require a different and sharper knife that had been necessary in the past.

Mayor Amyx said as much as he believed in his sales tax plan, he realized it was not going to go very far, but he wanted to have discussions about the overall process and the need to look at that issue in the future. He said they might want to go back to the existing county tax and redirect the money.

Commissioner Schauner said they needed to have those discussions and clearly there were people more directly affected by an increase in sales tax than others. He said if they looked at the chart staff prepared, it fell hardest on the lowest income brackets and that in combination with water and sewer increases and increases on franchise fees, did affect people’s ability to buy the stuff they need everyday. He said he was proud of what they did in the last three years. He said if they stayed flat this year, they were down about two mills from about three years ago. He said they had not said, “no” as many times as some would have liked, but there were community interests and people that had good ideas.

His concern about the Mayor’s sales tax proposal was not that they ought not to have the discussion, but when creating a large amount of money, there seemed to be ways of people coming up with good ideas on how to spend it, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but would create a tempting target.

Commissioner Hack said she echoed the Mayor’s comments about the process and staff’s involvement. She said it had been an inclusive process and felt they had gotten good direct input from staff and appreciated the information. She thought it had been a very forward thinking budget because place makers for things they knew were inevitable were a good way than hiring a bunch of people.

She said in the conversations at Fire Station No. 5, she was not only extremely pleased with the number of people that showed up and talked to them, but the conversations they had were probably some of the most substantive ones they had the whole budget process.

She appreciated Commissioner Schauner’s comments about economic development because it was something she had been concerned about. She thought he was asking for a place holder because that $50,000 might not be there at the end of the year, but if numbers come in different and they could be prepared to amend the budget, they still needed to have a conversation with or without the funding. She thought they needed to have the conversation with their economic development partners and put a job description for the coordinator and how they were going to work as partners.

She preferred Option B. She said they had put the pavement management system in place and the Commission needed to give Soules the tools to correct one of the largest issues that faced people on a day to day basis.

She appreciated Cowles and the neighbors from West Lawrence comments and agreed the additional wording on the CIP was good and to the extent they could get the walking trail, she would be one of the users. She thanked staff and Commissioners for being better informed on this issue than she had in a long time.

Commissioner Rundle said Corliss had made it a refreshing process in terms of changing some of the way things had been done such as receiving much more information. He said he was not enthused about raising sales taxes or property taxes. He still felt there was still money on the table and year end balances and felt he would need to get an accounting degree to be able to articulate his case and not get beaten back by the reports that came from staff. He said the Springsted advisor said they should shoot for 20-25% fund balance forward and last year they had 32%. He thought that if 25% was his conservative estimate, then why couldn’t they spend some piece of that 7% which amounted to 3 or 4 mills of revenue. The report that was written talked about spending reserves, but he suggested leaving those reserves and spending the money that was in the City’s check book at the end of the year. He said he would like to find some way to make a similar adjustment and fund HCCI.

Commissioner Highberger said it was his understanding that they were budgeting for the general fund balance at the end of 2007 slightly under 19% which was a real projection.

Mayor Amyx said that was option C.

Corliss said all of the options had projected fund balance at the end of 2007.

Commissioner Rundle asked if the budget used the actual January 1, 2006 fund balance.

Corliss said that was correct.

Commissioner Rundle said he still thought he would find a way to make it make sense. He still thought they were leaving money on the table.

Commissioner Schauner said option C reduced $120,000 out of street maintenance from the general fund and $120,000 from all funds. He did not know if they would get a whole lot of street work done for that kind of money and he did not think they were sacrificing enough on the street maintenance side of the equation. He said he would like to see the message be that they were at least on the mill levy holding the line. He said they were adding several positions: a couple of Sergeants, a City auditor, and some other things. He said they were doing a lot of different things and if they still wanted to do all of those things and be able to hold the mill levy steady because the average person was going to see about 6% increase in their ad valorem assessment which meant a 6% increase in their taxes and most people did not get a 6% raise last year. He encouraged the City Commission to hold the mill levy constant. Next year, if they had a downturn in assessed evaluation, they could deal with that issue then. He said he would rather try to get by with less this year and deal with the facts as they come.

Mayor Amyx asked Schauner what he thought of HCCI.

Commissioner Schauner said he did not feel good about not giving HCCI what they wanted, but he did not feel good about not giving a number of the other outside agencies what they wanted. He said to go back now and revisit those requests piece meal was not a good way to do business. He said he thought HCCI did good work and would love to find a way to provide them more money and provide four or five others that did not get the money they wanted. He did not think it was fair to the others if they give more money to HCCI at the 11^th hour.

Commissioner Highberger said all except for the other two agencies they had already adjusted.

Amyx said they adjusted Health Care Access.

Schauner said they did that as a result of the meeting at the Fire Station.

Vice Mayor Hack said yes, they adjusted Health Care Access as a result of comments about losing some funds. She said the City Commission gave Health Care Access what they had asked for, but not everything that they lost.

Commissioner Rundle said he also thought it was a community service that was needed at the level they had been providing. He said he thought it was like not fully providing some other City service.

Commissioner Highberger said there had been a great deal of effort crafting the outside agency budget and he was reluctant to see any change because he had been through the process. He said having been on the HCCI Board he saw a crucial service provided by having that Landlord/Tenant counseling in Lawrence for more than a few hours a week, but he was not sure how much he wanted to go on the mat about that agency.

Commissioner Rundle said they had informal discussions and conversations about public health department. It was a required function that the City and County provide. It probably should be listed differently than an outside agency. He said they had to provide that public health service. He thought that HCCI was similar to Legal Aid and everyone deserved access to an attorney and the City provided for indigent need for attorneys by that funding. He said it gave meaningfulness to the ordinances against discrimination. The agency served largely a preventative role in providing the educational and mediation functions, but still made the housing and other standards be fulfilled.

Mayor Amyx asked if there was no other organization that provided that service.

Commissioner Rundle said he supposed there might be, but the history was they had asked HCCI to come to town and then over the years they had been continually yanking the rug out from under them to find other funding, but still provide the same quality of services.

Commissioner Schauner said organizations get started because they are a good idea, everything from utility assistance to after school programs. Those organizations get started, many times, with grant money that was designed to be a seed grant. He said those programs that survive were the “survival of the fittest.” The programs that could prove themselves and continue to fund themselves would survive and flourish and though the history, when they lose that grant money they come to the City and ask for additional funding, which was not all together a bad thing, but if they become the court of last resort with respect to all the funding requests and did not have any policy other than it felt good to provide certain services, it was a subjective piece. He said he did not find that very comforting. He said he wished they had a different way of how to provide funding.

Commissioner Highberger said he was not sure about the funding amount. He said his expectation was with $10,000, they could provide increased service to Lawrence.

Moved by Highberger seconded by Schauner to extend the meeting to 11:50 Motion carried unanimously

Commissioner Hack noted while voting in the affirmative in the budget, her vote would reflect an abstention on the part on the section dealing with economic development funding.

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Highberger, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 8026, adopting and appropriating by fund based on Option C and with recommended changes including an increase to HCCI of an additional $10,000; leave the options open on the ring park on Harvard; reduce the sidewalk monies from $700,000 to $500,000; and look for additional funding for Economic Development at the end of the year for the 2007 City of Lawrence Budget. Motion carried unanimously. (25)

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 8032, noting the necessity of appropriating/budgeting property tax revenues for 2007 in excess of that which was appropriated/budgeted for 2006. Motion carried unanimously. (26)

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 8012, establishing solid waste services rates for 2007. Motion carried unanimously. (27)

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 8029, establishing water/wastewater/extra strength wastewater rates for 2007. Motion carried unanimously. (28

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to approve the wholesale water rate for 2007. Motion carried unanimously. (29)

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to place on first reading Ordinance No. 8030, establishing electrical franchise fees. Motion carried unanimously. (30

PUBLIC COMMENT:

Kathy Gragg said she wanted to be placed on the agenda to discuss the animal ordinance. She said it was vague, required law enforcement judges, etc to apply explicit standards that were not outlined in the ordinance at all. She said a person that was a citizen in this community should be able to look at the dog ordinance and know if they were in violation of it. She said when a person went into a court room because they had a dog at large and the judge determined if their dog was dangerous then they needed to know their dog was dangerous based on assessment of the court. She said when a judge made an order, he needed to make it to where it said the dog was a dangerous dog and it needed to outline what happened. She said her dog was on death row right now and she was not happy about it. She said she was going to go to the Supreme Court and was searching a case right now and would go to the United States Supreme Court to fight over this because the ordinance was not outlined. She said the ordinance was arbitrary, a constitutional violation, vague and subjective based on the opinion of an animal control officer and her sister who might or might not like the person they were dealing with.

She said she would like to be able to have more than three to five minutes in the middle of the night to go over the ordinance with the things she felt was wrong with the ordinance and would like to go over the testing policies of the City of Lawrence. She said she found in that Midge Grinstead, Lawrence Humane Society, while certified to do the Stafford test, which was developed by the National Humane Society and was a two day course, had trained one other staff member to do a Stafford test. She said if she were a certified nurse’s aid and she took Dennis Highberger in the back room for two days and said she was going to train him to be a certified nurse’s aid that would not wash with the state board. She found out there was a clear stipulation on the form they submitted as an official court document of a testing standard for a dog that said they must view the videotape and read the pamphlet before conducting each and every Stafford Test. She found out that they did not have the video tape or pamphlet so even as a certified tester, every test conducted in the shelter for vicious or dangerous dog in the City of Lawrence had been invalid and a violation of the Constitutional rights of the pet property owner. She said she was going to say property owner because the United States of America and the State of Kansas consider a pet to be your property. She said that was why she had a very good possibility that she would be able to go to the United States Supreme Court with this because a dog was considered property, but if that was what she had to do to make this point known, she would do it.

She said her dog was tested and stages of the test were skipped, so it was an incomplete test which made it inconclusive and she had been told by the City Prosecutor that her dog was going to be euthanized on Thursday despite the fact she had a valid appeal filed with the Kansas Supreme Court. She said she spoke with David Corliss, Interim City Manager/Legal Services Director and called some of the City Commissioners to discuss it and it was not clear.

She said in 72 hours by the time they picked her dog up on October 22, 2004 to the following Tuesday, her dog went from a vicious dog to a threat to public safety. She said there was a closed hearing without her ever being subject to that hearing and the ordinance said that there should be a notification of hearing and everyone would be told about the hearing. She said her due process rights had been violated. She said she wanted to go over the ordinance because she thought the City of Lawrence could be sued and did not think she was the only person willing to do that. She said she was requesting time on the agenda and asked that other people be brought in to discuss the ordinance and revisit what had happened.

Gragg said she requested from Mike Wildgen when he was City Manager to get on the agenda and Wildgen said she could not do it that way, but Corliss said she could comment during the Public Comment section and if the Commission felt it was appropriate, they could set some time on the agenda. She said she felt strongly about this and wanted to do it the right way, but the only part of this ordinance she ever saw was in relation to her neighbor’s dog barking and noise ordinance about barking dogs. She said it was a one page document and it was not even about her dog. She said she never saw the section of the code in its entirety, but there had been addendums to the ordinance by virtue of the way they were worded changed the general content of what the base ordinance was.

Mayor Amyx said they would get Gragg on the agenda in two to three weeks.

Commissioner Schauner asked if she was doing any work with counsel to get a stay on her dog.

Gragg said she did not know if it was possible because the prosecutor said he was going to do something and had to file everything pro se. She said she was charged and convicted with a 6 month jail sentence and a $1000 fine. She said she appealed, not based on the jail sentence because she would have done 3 times the jail sentence to save her dog’s life. She said when they got to district court then it was assigned to a judge who had to recuse himself because he knew her. She said she was then assigned to another judge and just before they were getting ready to go to jury trial, the City Prosecutor started pulling the criminal charges which took away her right to jury trial. She believed that if 12 people of normal conscience would have heard this or seen the videotape the prosecutor made, she did not believe her dog would be sitting on death row and would have freed her, but it went before a single human being and a lawyer no less. She said sometimes it was not about upholding the law, but about a person’s rights. She said her four month old puppy got out twice in two weeks. She said she did not know how a dog could be determined dangerous at four months old. She received an e-mail saying the only time her dog was exercised was when the City Prosecutor took her out in July to videotape her.

Mayor Amyx said he would get her item on the agenda. (31

FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS:

08/15/06	Consider accepting dedication of easements and rights-of-way on PF-05-13-06, a Final Plat for Lawrence Memorial Hospital Addition (this proposed addition contains approximately 23.860 acres, the property is generally described as being located at the Southeast Quarter and Northeast Quarter of Section 25, Township 12 South, Range 19 East; 325 Maine Street);  Charter Ordinance concerning bidding public improvements 2007 Budget Implementation Memorandum
08/22/06	TA-03-02G-06: Text amendments to 20-1107 of the Development Code regarding Standards for Market Impact Analysis as part of site plan or zoning process.  (Item No. 19G; PC approved 7-3 on 4/19/06.)
09/05/06	Commissioner Rundle absent.

COMMISSION ITEMS:

It was moved by Schauner, seconded by Highberger, to adjourn at 11:55 p.m. Motion carried unanimously.

APPROVED _____________________________

Mike Amyx, Mayor

ATTEST:

___________________________________

Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk

CITY COMMISSION MEETING OF AUGUST 8, 2006

1. Final Plat (PF-06-15-06) – (Deferred indefinitely) Mercato Add 49.995 acres, N of Hwy 40 & E of K-10.

2. Bid- Change order, Downtown Waterline Project.

3. Bid- Community Building gym roof to Burris Roofing for $40,940.

4. Bid – 3 Pump Stations, N Lawrence to BRB Contractors for $2,215,000.

5. Ordinance No. 8025- 1^st Read, National Electrical Code.

6. Ordinance No. 8023- 2^nd Read, Historic Register, 820 NJ.

7. Ordinance No. 8027- 2^nd Read, 2003 Uniform Plumbing Code.

8. Ordinance No. 8022- 2^nd Read, 6^th St., 40 mph E of Lawrence Ave to Monterey Way & 45 mph Monterey Way W City Limits.

9. Resolution No. 6671- Special Warranty Deed, Golf Course Superintendents

10. Resolution No. 6670- GOB, 6 ft sidewalk at N. Michigan Bridge.

11. Site Plan (SP-06-50-06) - Church office/classroom at 445 Lyon Street.

12. Memo of Understanding - American Institute of Architects.

13. Subordination Agreement- Barbara Wiseman, 1032 Lawrence Avenue.

14. KDOT – Certify property acquisition for Kasold, Peterson to KTA Bridge.

15. Engineering Agreement – Overland from Stoneridge to Queens to Landplan for $106,980.50.

16. Engineering Agreement – Stoneridge from 6^th N to Overland to Landplan for $109,291.50.

17. Defer reconstruction of alley - 1000 Blk between Mass & New Hamp.

18. City Manager’s Report.

19. Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA-2005-05) - Horizon 2020, Chpt 6, mix use development in redevelopment areas .

20. Rezone (Z-12-80-05) - Zoning Overlay District for 8^th & Penn.

21. Rezone (Z-01-01-06) - .541 acre, M-2 to C-5 & 4 acres, M-3 to C-5 between 8^th & 9^th & New Jersey & Delaware.

22. Final Plat (PF-01-03-06) - for 8^th & Penn Redevelopment, 4.541 acres between 8^th & 9^th Streets & New Jersey & Delaware Streets.

23. Revitalization Act investigation.

24. 8^th & Penn using Revitalization Act.

25. Ordinance No. 8026 – 1^st Read, 2007 City of Lawrence Budget.

26. Ordinance No. 8032 – 1^st Read, Property tax revenues 2006.

27. Ordinance No. 8012 – 1^st Read, Solid waste service rates for 2007.

28. Ordinance No. 8029 – 1^st Read, Water/Wastwater/Extra Strength Wastewater Rates for 2007.

29. Wholesale Water Rate for 2007.

30. Ordinance No. 8030 – 1^st Read, Electrical Franchise Fees.

31. Public Comment- Dangerous Dog Ordinance – Gragg’s comments.