May 16, 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 Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner present.
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Bill Mitchell, Lawrence, pulled text amendment (TA-03-02D-06) regarding Accessory Dwelling Units in RS Districts, for separate discussion. He said there was an inadequacy regarding the revisions to Accessory Dwelling Units (20-534). He noticed that “owner” had not been defined as in “owner/occupancy”. He said Sheila Stogsdill, Acting Planning Director, said that staff believed that everyone understood the common definition of “owner.” He said he thought Stogsdill meant that everyone knew what was intended and that one of the units must be occupied by the person who owned the property, but unfortunately there was no common definition of “owner” as they would discover when lawyers get a hold of it. The owner of record could be a person, but it could also be a trust, estate, or an LLP and he urged the City Commission to put a staff attorney to work on a definition of “owner” which would reduce the chances of those Accessory Dwelling Units being owned by LLP’s, turning into de facto rental units. He said if the City Commission would not direct staff to define “owner”, he suggested at least extending the prohibition against Accessory Dwelling Units into RS-7.
Commissioner Schauner asked if there was some difficulty in more precisely describing and defining the term “owner” in the text amendment. He said he thought the speaker made a point, which he was not sure he fully understood, but he suggested the City Commission should make sure they could avoid as much uncertainty and disagreement in the future
Mayor Amyx suggested the item be placed on a future agenda.
Moved by Rundle, seconded by Schauner, to defer to a future agenda, text amendment (TA-03-02D-06), Section 20-534, which concerned revision for Accessory Dwelling Units in RS Districts. Motion carried unanimously