November 7, 2006

The Board of Commissioners of the City of Lawrence met in regular session at 5:30 p.m., in the City Commission Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Amyx presiding and members Highberger, Hack, Rundle, and Schauner present.

It was then moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to recess into executive session for 45 minutes to discuss the possible acquisition of real estate.  The justification for the executive session is to keep possible terms and conditions of possible acquisition confidential at this time.  Motion carried unanimously.

The regular meeting resumed in the City Commission meeting room at 6:35 p.m.

RECOGNITION/PROCLAMATION/PRESENTATION:

With Commission approval Mayor Amyx proclaimed Friday, November 10 to be “Celebrate Marine Corps Birthday”; proclaimed Saturday, November 11 as “Veterans Day”; proclaimed the month of November as “National Home Care Month and National Hospice Month”; and recognized city employees who served or are currently serving in the Armed Forces.

CONSENT AGENDA

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to approve City Commission meeting minutes from October 17, 2006.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to receive the Historic Resources Commission meeting minutes of July 20, August 17, and September 21, 2006; the Mental Health Board meeting minutes of September 26, 2006; the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority meeting minutes of September 25 and October 17, 2006; the Planning Commission meeting minutes of September 25-27, 2006; the Recycling & Resource Conservation Advisory Board meeting minutes of September 13, 2006; the Board of Plumber and Gas Fitters Examiners meeting of August 16, 2006; and the Uniform Building Code Board of Appeals meeting minutes of June 29 and August 31, 2006.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to approve payroll in the amount of $1,629,442.83 and claims to 403 vendors in the amount of $4,577,489.48.  Motion carried unanimously.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to approve the Drinking Establishment License to Mad Greek, 907 Massachusetts; Phoggy Dog Bar & Grill, 2228 Iowa; and The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts; approve the Class A Club Licenses to American Legion Post No. 14, 3408 West 6th; and VFW Post No. 852, 138 Alabama; and the Retail Liquor Licenses to Linda’s Liquor, 1540 Wakarusa Ste: F, and Harper Liquor, 2220 Harper Ste: C. Motion carried unanimously.     

The City Commission reviewed the surplus vehicles to sale on Gov Deals:  The vehicles were:

Unit                 Make                           Model                         Year                            Points

294                  Ford                             Crown Victoria                        2001                            31.33

963                  Ford                             Crown Victoria                        2001                            35.50

622                  Ford                             F8000                          1983                            37.66

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize the sale of surplus vehicles on Gov Deals.  Motion carried unanimously.                  (1)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to set a bid date of November 28, 2006, for the Phase I development of Sesquicentennial Plaza project.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                      (2)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to set a bid date of November 28, 2006, for the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Program projects at 1140 Pennsylvania Street and 1312 Summit Street.  Motion carried unanimously.                               (3)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to set a bid date of December 5, 2006, for the Alvamar Area Sanitary Sewer Improvement Project.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                    (4)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to set a bid date of December 5, 2006, for the Kaw Water Treatment Plant parking improvements project.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                       (5)

The City Commission reviewed the bids for the uniform rental and bulk facility service for the Public Works Department.  The bids were:

BIDDER                                  BID AMOUNT           

Aramark Uniform Services                             $778.93 wk.

                        Walker Towel & Uniform Service                   $824.14 wk.

                        Ameripride Services                                       $831.07 wk.

                        Cintas                                                           $1,002.69 wk.

                        AAA Uniform and Linen Supply                    $1,026.18 wk.

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to award the bid to Aramark Uniform Service, in the amount of $40,503.84 annually, with option to renew.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                       (6)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize the City Manager to execute the following property acquisition agreements for the Wakarusa Water Reclamation Facility:  1) 244 acres from Ken and Peggy Flaggler in the amount of $650,000; and 2) 191 acres from Norman and Ralph Leary in the amount of $505,000.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                   (7)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger o place on first reading Ordinance No. 8047, adopting the codification of ordinances of the City of Lawrence as authorized by Ordinance 7879.  Motion carried unanimously.                                 (8)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to adopt Joint City/County Resolution (Lawrence Resolution No. 6689) making certain amendments to the Resolution establishing Emergency Management Board as recommended by the Emergency Management Board.  Motion carried unanimously.                                (9)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to approve the Final Plat (PF-08-20-06) for Joyce Addition, a one-lot industrial subdivision containing approximately .977 acres, located at 912 North Iowa Street, and accept the dedication of easements and rights-of-way subject to the following conditions:

1. Provision of the following fees and documentation:

a. A current copy of a paid property tax receipt;

b. Recording fees made payable to the Douglas County Register of Deeds;

c. A Temporary Utility Agreement

Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                           (10)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to approve the Final Plat (PF-09-24-06) for Elaine Margaret Addition, a six-lot industrial subdivision containing approximately one acre, located at the NW corner of the intersection of Haskell Avenue and Anna Tappen Way; and accept the dedication of easements and rights-of-way subject to the following conditions:

1. Provision of the following fees and documentation:

a) A current copy of a paid property tax receipt.

b) Recording fees made payable to the Douglas County Register of Deeds.

c) A completed Master Street Tree Plan in accordance with Section 21-708a.3.

d) A Temporary Utility Agreement.

2. Execution of an agreement not to protest the formation of street, intersection, signal, and geometric improvements for 15^th Street and Haskell Avenue

3. Submittal of public improvement plans for the extension of sidewalks along Haskell Avenue.

Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                           (11)

            As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize staff to apply for Preserve America’s Communities Program.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                           (12)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize staff to apply for Historic Preservation Fund Grants.  Motion carried unanimously.  (13)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize the Mayor execute the Construction engineering Services Agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation for Project No. 36-CP12-704(S) Kasold Drive, Peterson Road to the KTA Bridge.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                        (14)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize FTA Section 5309 earmark of $491,839 to be used towards addressing fixed –route vehicles replacement needs for the Lawrence Transit System.  Motion carried unanimously. (15)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize the Mayor to sign Releases of Mortgage for Edna Campbell, 317 Elm Street and Lois Liebert, 510 Kansas Street.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                        (16)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize the Mayor to sign a Subordination Agreement for Karen Parish, 2712 Bonanza.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                       (17)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to approve as “sign of community interest”, a sign for Centenary United Methodist Church and the Festival of Nativities.  The sign will be placed in the right-of-way at the northeast corner of 2^nd and Elm Streets from December 2 through December 17, 2006.  Motion carried unanimously.   

(18)

As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger to authorize the Mayor to execute a performance agreement for property tax abatement with Packerware Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berry Plastics Corporation.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                       (19)

Vashti Winterburg pulled from the consent agenda for separate discussion the elimination of the current “wave-down” policy for the “T” in favor of designated stops along all fixed-routes throughout the City upon completion of the installation of bus stop signs at proposed stops.

She said she was a member of the committee that first proposed the formation of the transit system and was opposed to eliminating the “wave down” policy.  This was a matter of accessibility and if the “T” had a 95% on-time performance, she asked why worry about the other 5%.  In looking at the report, she did not see the wave down policy as being responsible for the other 5%.  She said they needed to encourage people to use the “T” and if that meant sticking with the wave down policy, so be it. 

In discussions with the bus company’s consulting firm, it was noted by that firm that these were not handicapped issues, but civil rights issues.  She said there was no problem at this point, but if there was a problem in the future, then would be time to discuss eliminating the “wave down” policy.

Mayor Amyx asked Cliff Galante, Transit Administrator, to explain the proposal.

Galante said the recommendation was to eliminate the wave down policy to improve the system and to look at the long term health of the City’s bus system.  The wave down policy was enacted as a way to promote people to ride the bus.  As the system had matured and ridership had increased, the “T” was experiencing a number of multi block stops on busier corridors, such as 6^th and 23^rd Street.  He said their goal would be for people to congregate at bus stops. 

He said staff and PTAC had evaluated 216 existing stops in the city and proposed adding an additional 100 stops. The information was made available to the public to provide comment in which staff received feedback from 15 individuals.   He said staff met to discuss that feedback and made a few additional changes to add two additional stops.  Their effort was to keep busses on schedule and help with traffic.  He thought they were trying to be consistent with transit industry standards because the majority of cities did not have wave down policies. 

In terms of addressing the concerns about the accessibility of the disabled community, staff and PTAC supported that passengers with disabilities be able to continue to wave down a bus, with a stipulation of using some type of reflective placard issued by the Transit Department upon becoming ADA certified through the existing T-Lift process that identified the passenger as being disabled and would assist those bus drivers in recognizing disabled passengers along their route.  He said right now the City did provide complimentary para-transit services, door to door service, for people with disabilities and provided those people with an additional alternative where they could utilize T-lift service, but could also use fixed route service

He said for the long term health of this system, he thought it was appropriate to eliminate the wave down system.  He said the PTAC members were unanimous in their support of eliminating that policy and they also supported taking the stop gap measure in making sure that people with disabilities could still utilize that wave down policy.

Commissioner Rundle asked roughly how many stops were added on those busy corridors.

Galante said there were 216 existing stops and they proposed adding an additional 100 for a total of 316 stops.  Each stop was evaluated on the following criteria:

1. Is the stop located in a highly visible location?

2. Is the stop located in a location that would not create a traffic hazard? (i.e., around the bend or corer in the road)

3. Is the stop accessible? This was particularly a challenge since many roads that transit routes are on only have sidewalks on one side of the road.

4. How far is this stop located between other existing or proposed stops? (i.e., what is the approximate walking distance?)

The transit industry standard indicated there be a bus stop located in more densely populated areas, such as downtown would have a bus stop every other block.  Once getting out of the more densely populated areas, the standard was to have a stop every quarter mile.  He said they tried to make sure there was a stop, at minimum, every quarter mile, but some routes had stops where the distance was that amount of distance.  Also, they tried to have stops at major destination points, such as the hospital, major retail centers, schools, and public facilities.   

Commissioner Rundle said Galante stated that a number of those wave downs were on those busy corridors and hoped the additional stops were on those same routes.

Galante said those additional stops were on those routes.  He said stops were installed at major destination points, which would attract people and were placed at those locations at the request of the bus drivers or passengers.  He said even though they had a wave down system, they still had stops located along the routes.  He said they were trying to fill in those gaps and make sure stops were consistent on all routes.  He said the policy could not be implemented until those signs were installed.  He said there would not be any immediate change with that policy. 

Mayor Amyx asked if the T-lift certification process was a fairly simple process to go through.

Galante said yes.  He said some cities required a physician’s certification, but in Lawrence, the policy was to list out disabilities and your doctor’s contact information which complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  He said Lawrence’s policy, compared to a lot of other municipalities, was lenient. 

Mayor Amyx said at the time of the formation of the Transit system, the wave down policy was to establish ridership.  He said the concern by Winterburg was very important.  He said if they were not adding a number of new proposed stops to the system, changing the policy would not be the right thing to do.  He said adding additional stops, on major traffic routes, was reasonable and they needed a fixed route system.

He said he wanted to make sure the T-lift certification process was reasonable and easily completed by anyone in need.  He said he supported the recommendation of the current wave down policy.

Commissioner Rundle said it would be nice to keep the wave down policy until it was absolutely necessary to eliminate.  He asked Galante to let the City Commission know when that implementation would take effect.  He said some of the riders who were concerned about the wave down policy might have their concerns addressed by all the additional stops.  He said he would be supportive of eliminating the wave down policy.

Galante said before it would be implemented staff would make sure the public was notified well in advance.  He said he anticipated some confusion by the public and would provide a grace period. 

Commissioner Rundle said again, he would like to be notified when those stops were in place, that way the Commission would know whether to expect people complaining or say it was great.

Commissioner Highberger said he was concerned about the policy when he first heard about it, but he was happy to see the accommodation made for people who might have disabilities.  He said it seemed like it was a fairly reasonable way to address this issue.  He said it was less complicated than getting a handicap parking permit, for instance, and thought it was a good way to balance both those needs.  Obviously if it had a dramatic impact on ridership or negative impact, it could be reconsidered by the Commission.  He said he supported the recommended change. 

Moved by Hack, seconded by Rundle, to authorize the elimination of the current “wave-down” policy for The T in favor of designated stops along all fixed-routes throughout the City upon completion of the installation of bus stop signs at proposed stops.   Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                                 (20)

CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:

During the City Manager’s Report, David Corliss said the gift donated from Roger and Rhonda Brown of the firefighter statue, located in the interior of the fire station administration office at 1911 Stewart, was a nice addition to that facility.

Also, he said he wanted to highlight the work of the Information Systems Department in receiving the grand prize in the public sector for the Cisco Growing with Technology Awards 2006.  He said the City had great reasons to be proud of the accomplishments of that department as recognized by that vendor who was a major player in some of the high technology fields the City was involved in.  He said they were proud of the work that Ron Hall, John Williams, Jim Wisdom and others in that department had accomplished.

Casey Liebst, Finance Analyst, presented the 3^rd Quarter Financial Report.  She said staff had begun work on implementation of the new management system that was based on a set of performance measures and a balanced scorecard. 

Recently, staff sent out an RFP for the development and conducting of a citizen satisfaction survey and on October 24^th the City Commission authorized the City Manager to enter into negotiations with ETC Institute for that survey.  Staff was meeting with ETC Institute and hoped to have a contract back for City Commission approval very soon.  The City Manager’s Office had also begun monthly meetings with the department heads to review their measures and their data collection efforts and had heard good reports and would bring more information to the City Commission as it was available.

She said with three quarters of the year complete, the general fund revenues were just above 85% of budget or 6% as compared to the same period last year.  The increase was partly due to an increase in property tax revenue, sales tax distributions, and interest continued to be more than they had budgeted.  Their general fund expenditures were less than 75% of the budget, with 75% of the year gone, but she noted those expenditures were higher than last year.  A number of divisions had exceeded the 75% point on their budgets, however, as discussed in previous quarters that was often due to the timing of large encumbrances, such as the Street Maintenance Division that had large encumbrances for their overlay and crack sealing programs.  She said those were expenditures that the funds were encumbered and would be continually spent throughout the remainder of the year. 

She said she wanted to note that Risk Management was listed on the report due in part to the timing of payments of insurance premiums.  Another part of that increase was due to some of the relocation costs their division faced moving over to the old Fire/Medical Administrative Offices.

Concerning special revenue funds, their recreation fund revenues were at 83% of the budget, which was primarily due to the timing of the outdoor pool revenues that made up a large percent of that.  Expenditures were only at 69% of budget and anticipated coming in below budget in that fund; and Public transportation fund expenditures were also only at 53.5% of the budget which included the encumbrance to MV Transportation, the service provider for the Transit Department. 

In the enterprise funds, water and sewer fund revenues did exceed expenditures and were an increase of 16.8% over the 3^rd Quarter of 2005.  Expenses were down from prior years due to the decrease in the transfer to cash finance some of the City’s projects and operating expenses were just over 70% of the City’s budget; In the sanitation fund, expenditures to date, exceeded revenues to date, however, this was due to a large encumbrance for landfill charges; and In the golf course fund revenues exceeded the third quarter of 2005 and they were at 84.4% of budgeted expenditures for 2006.  The expenses in the golf fund were at 84.8%, so hopefully they would continue to have excellent weather into the fall months and would anticipate finishing out the year very well in that fund.

Commissioner Highberger said the substantially lower revenues over expenditures at this point this year compared to the same time last year jumped out at him.  He said at this point in the 3^rd quarter they had 852,343 revenues over expenditures and at the same time last year they were 4,147,000.  He asked if that was a result of tighter budgeting.

Liebst said she thought it was in part because of tighter budgeting, but also the property tax mill levy holding stable.  

Ed Mullins, Finance Director, said last year, the City ended up with an increase in the fund balance and general fund, but this year they were likely to decrease, in the neighborhood around $3 million.  He said by the end of the third quarter, they were good, but over the last quarter they would be spending more than taking in.  He said by the end of the year they were looking at a $3 million draw down, which was projected in the budget.

Commissioner Highberger asked if the draw down was on target.

Mullins said yes.  He said on the revenue and expenditure sides in the general fund, they were about where they expected to be.                                                                     (21)

REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS: 

Consider approving, subject to conditions and use restrictions, PDP-08-08-06, a Preliminary Development Plan for Mercato.  The plan proposes a mixed use development containing 337,700 square feet on 10 lots and approximately 45 acres.  The property is generally described as being located North of Highway 40 and East of Highway K-10. 

            Mary Miller, Planner, presented the staff report.  This preliminary development plan was reviewed under the 1966 Zoning Ordinance and the Commercial Design Standards and Guidelines.  The area was currently undeveloped, but there were several projects pending.  She said to the east was the Oregon Trail Addition and the Locust Addition which were residential subdivisions that had been platted, but the plats had not been recorded.  She said to the south was Diamondhead or Northgate, which was a planned commercial development and the preliminary development plan had been approved. 

The preliminary plat for the Mercato subdivision showed the arrangement of the development.  She said to the east across the extension of George Williams Way would be Oregon Trail, which included duplex and multi dwelling residences next to the planned commercial development.  The submitted preliminary development plan for the commercial development included three interior buildings.  One building was 175,000 square foot, a 50,000 and a 60,000 square foot building and 7 smaller perimeter pad site buildings.  Access to the individual lots was prohibited from George Williams Way and West 6^th Street, but access to the site would be taken off of the extension of George Williams Way by Mercato Way and also off of Overland Drive.  An interior access drive, called Mercato Drive, would serve the development.  She said this would be extended on to the west with future development to the west.  She said with the original submittal, the City Traffic Engineer indicated that Mercato Drive would be three lanes due to the anticipated traffic volume and the number of access points.  The applicant had submitted revised plans showing three lanes on that drive.

The revised plan also included a note stating there would be an access easement provided on the plat for those three lots that share access from Mercato Drive up to Overland Drive. 

The City Traffic Engineer recommended that all driveways be offset, even though it was not very clear that on the original plan, two driveways were directly opposite and on the revised plan they were offset. 

She said this was a CC 400 commercial center as recommended by Horizon 2020 and the West 6^th Street/K-10 Nodal Plan.  She said 400,000 square feet of commercial space was allowed with this node, with 95% of that or 380,000 square feet being allowed on two corners.  The development to the south, Northgate, was utilizing 195,360 square feet, which left 184,640 square feet of commercial space for the Mercato development.  Horizon 2020 defined commercial uses as retail businesses that sell goods and services on site for which a sales tax was collected.  This definition did not include offices or similar uses. 

She said during this presentation in the staff report and in the conditions of approval, the term commercial had been used to mean what Horizon 2020 defined it as.  Anytime the words “retail” or “non retail” were added, it was only for clarification. 

Three buildings would make up the commercial use for this site which was the 75,000 square foot building and the two smaller pad sites on the perimeter.  The rest of the buildings would be for non retail commercial uses and a note had been added to the plan restricting those uses. 

She said it would be a phased development, Phase I would be the largest building; Phase II would be the other two commercial uses; Phase III would be the other smaller pad sites; Phases IV and V would be the other, larger buildings; and Phase VI, the lots bordering 6^th Street. 

The Commercial Design Standards covered some items that would only pertain to the final development plan and the applicant was notified those would be dealt with at the final development plan stage even though they were mentioned in their report.  The Commercial Design Standards and Guidelines stated the degree to which each standard and guideline applied to a development would be evaluated on a case by case basis in order to achieve an overall design that met the purpose and intent of the guidelines and standards.  The purpose and intent of the standards and guidelines were listed as, to create a sense of place, visual interest, and provide pedestrian connectivity. 

The applicant indicated the central pathway would be continued on with development to the west and would eventually link up to the pathway along the bypass.  She said staff had two suggestions for improvement.  One improvement was to add a 10 foot bike path to complete the access and the applicant agreed.  The other item was the pedestrian path in front of a building stopped because of a grade change, and asked the applicant to continue it on so that it would link with the center pathway.  She said the applicant said they would if the grade change allowed them to.

One of the primary strategies of the Commercial Design Guidelines and Standards was to create a pedestrian friendly atmosphere to eliminate the large expanses of parking.  She said there was excess parking on lots 1, 2, and 3; however, the buildings broke up the parking.  On lot one, most of the ex-parking was located in one area and it was a large, expansive parking lot.  In order to meet the goal of pedestrian friendly and visually break up the parking lot, the applicant was asked if he was going to move the center pathway or if he would add a second pathway and increase the size of the landscape islands.  On the revised plan provided, the applicant moved the pathway down more centrally and also increased the size of the landscaping island so there was more than one tree per island. 

The applicant provided common open space and enough public space as required in the Commercial Design Standards.  The common open space was just open space that was designed and intended for the use of everyone and the public space was space at a focal area, such as an entry to a building or the entry to the development where people could gather. 

The plat would be revised.  In the original plat there were three areas of raised surfacing in order to slow traffic.  However, the applicant moved the central path, two areas became joint, and those would be changed back to three separate areas to help slow traffic in that area. 

Staff was recommending approval of the preliminary development plan based on the findings in the staff report and subject to the conditions of approval in both the staff report and the commercial design standards.

Mayor Amyx asked Miller to explain how many total square feet of commercial space was between this site and Northgate (Diamondhead) to the south.

Miller said the applicant was allowed 385,000 square feet, 95% of the 400,000 could be on two corners, so that was how much they could share. 

Commissioner Highberger asked Miller to identify the location of the 21,000 square foot public space.

Miller said the public space was located at a central pathway at the entrance of the commercial development.  She said the common open space included green space in various places.

Commissioner Highberger said he understood that public space was still private property. 

Miller said it was space provided to allow people to gather.

Jane Eldredge, attorney for the applicant, said they were asking for approval of the preliminary development plan.  In the circulation plan pedestrian access could be seen that was added and the bike path along George Williams Way was moved from the east side to the west side, but it was entirely up to the City where they wanted that path.  There had been a recent discussion that Anderson had been part of with Corliss and staff.  The suggestion was made the bike path be moved and which ever side the City wanted that path on was fine with the applicant. 

She said this project was very unusual in the Lawrence area.  She said because of the 50 foot green space setback along 6^th Street, there was an extraordinary amount of landscaping followed by street trees, and then Mercato Drive which was a public street so it had two sides of street trees in addition to the trees that were throughout the parking area.  She said when looking at the project from 6^th Street, toward the west end of where businesses were located, it was a campus and park like setting.  She said this was a site that was located at the intersection of three arterials which was quite extraordinary and the South Lawrence Trafficway was to the west of the site, US 40/6^th Street to the south, the east side George Williams Way which was a minor arterial going north, and Overland Drive would be a collector.

This project had been planned essentially by the City of Lawrence for 10 years.  The City started planning for this particular corner in the Northwest Area Plan in 1997.  She said following that plan, the City adopted the 6^th and K-10 Nodal Plan, adopted the standards for widening 6^th Street which included a whole new service for anticipated commercial development.  The commercial development that was anticipated was 2.3 million square feet of commercial development.  As a result, the City annexed the property on the north and south side of that street.  This property had carefully been planned during each one of those steps which was a 123 acre mixed use center.  The commercial part of the plan was the first preliminary development plan to come before the City Commission.  There would be site plans on the multi family areas and the City had the entire preliminary plat so City knew how it was all going to fit together which was very important.  The plan was limited and restricted to 184,600 square feet of retail and as Miller pointed out that was contained in the large 175,000 square foot building to the back of the site and in some of the pad sites along George Williams Way.  This was a recommended location in Horizon 2020 for a commercial 400 center and with the help of the planning staff it had developed into that center. 

She said all the planning had been done and it was time to start the implementation.  She said there were aesthetically pleasing focal points, the Commercial Design Guidelines had all been adhered to.  The staff report received by the City Commission indicated staff had received the revised preliminary development plan that was included in the City Commission’s packet.  It was recommended by the Planning Commission on a 9 – 1 vote at that meeting.  She said it was the most pleasant Planning Commission meeting she had been to.  She said not only was there lots of well deserved praise for the staff who had done an extraordinary amount of work on this project, particularly Miller and Sheila Stogsdill, Acting Planning Director, but there were even some compliments for the project.  She said she did not know if the City Commission noticed in reading the Planning Commission minutes, but Commissioner Haase told them it was well designed and a compliment to the community.  Planning Commissioner Harkins told them this project was a first class development that was good for the west gateway and stated that he was impressed.  No one from the public spoke against the project.

She said there was a question raised as to whether a market retail study and traffic study had been done and both studies had been done and approved.  The retail market study was not only done and approved by the staff, but the city’s own consultant reviewed the study to make sure the market study for the Mercato, Northgate, and Bauer Farms would all be compatible and there would not be too much retail market space coming on line.  She said that market study assumed amounts of retail commercial that had not come to fruition and assumed there would be over 750,000 square feet of retail.  In fact what the City Commission had approved to date without the Mercato was just over 250,000 square feet and if they approved Mercato tonight they would be at just over 400,000 square feet of retail commercial.  She said that included the Northgate approval of approximately 195,000; Bauer Farms a little over 60,000; and then Mercato was just under 185,000.  She said that should not be a problem in terms of approving this project. 

She said she would be remiss if she did not say she was asking the City Commission to do the right thing.  The staff had done the right thing enforcing all of the rules, all of the requirements of the plans of the zoning ordinances and the applicants had done the right thing in following those requirements.  The plans had been followed explicitly, the ordinances have been followed, and it was now time to move to the implementation stage.  She said she hoped after 10 years of good, long range planning, three years since the nodal plan, the recommendation of staff, the strong recommendation and compliments from the Planning Commission, the City Commission could join and support this project unanimously.

Mayor Amyx called for public comment.

Gwen Klingenberg, Lawrence, said she was present because a couple of weeks ago the Mayor had a question about the 2.3 million square feet of commercial that 6^th Street was supposed to handle.  She said the 2.3 million square feet of commercial was included in the application that the City submitted to KDOT in 1999 for the System Enhance Program.  KDOT prepared a traffic forecast at the time, evaluated all the system enhancement applications and determined the commercial development should be a whole lot less.  She said this was a VISSIM because a CORSIM did not allow for traffic patterns around a roundabout. 

She said after talking to the developers, KDOT came up with 1,207,084 square feet.  KDOT recommended the commercial be cut in half to 603,542 which was in the report.  She said she was told when they were discussing commercial; they did not differentiate between commercial, non retail, and retail commercial.  She said this was total commercial. 

She said as usual, the neighborhood had a concern about traffic.  The other issue was the concern that it was okay to place that amount of traffic on 6^th Street because it was done on south Iowa Street.  She said 6^th Street was very different from south Iowa because there was a neighborhood next to the street.   

She said the neighborhood was asking the City Commission to tread very lightly when dealing with any projects that had a large amount of commercial.  She said she appreciated the non-retail and the two larger boxes and hoped that would stay that way. 

Commissioner Rundle asked for the date of the submission for the system enhancement and the comments from KDOT.

Klingenberg said the year was 1999 and the year KDOT did the VISSIM was last year.  She said she asked KDOT if there had been any updates or improvement to this document and what they were concerned with along 6^th Street and KDOT said there had not been any updates or improvements and that was the final document and the 603,000 square feet was what KDOT recommended.  She said she knew the City Commission had a discussion with Public Works that if the street failed, it was still a usable street just like 23^rd Street and Iowa Street, but it was a street that had too much traffic unfortunately.  Unlike south Iowa Street, there was a place for people to get through on the entrance to Harvard and a future entrance into the neighborhood which would be used as cut through traffic.  In the September 2001, KDOT report, cut-through traffic was already happening.  She said they needed to be careful and tread lightly with the amount of square footage of commercial on those corners.

Commissioner Schauner asked for where on the east to where on the west KDOT was using those numbers.

Klingenberg said from K-10 to Folks Road.

Commissioner Schauner asked if that area already exceeded 603,000 square feet.

Klingenberg said yes. 

Mayor Amyx asked if that included commercial and non-commercial total square footage.

Klingenberg said yes.  KDOT said they did not differentiate between the two.

Commissioner Schauner asked between all commercial between retail and non-retail.

Klingenberg said yes, they considered that retail as one.

Mayor Amyx asked if this location was potentially the site where a regional type setting should occur.

Klingenberg said since this area was a CC-400 which was a community commercial, not regional, which was what the city passed as a nodal plan, she said “no”.

Mayor Amyx asked even if it was sitting at the corners of 6^th Street and K-10.

Klingenberg said based on the nodal plan the City Commission approved, the CC-400 community commercial, “no” because of the amount of traffic to be added for 6^th Street, but it was also based on the approved nodal plans. 

Mayor Amyx asked what could be placed along that street.  He said it seemed they unilateral annexed property along 6^th Street, and he appreciated that Klingenberg went back and checked on the 2.3 million square feet, but he was a little bit lost.  He said they annexed the property and spent millions of dollars on the development on 6^th Street, and there had to be something that fit along the roadway.

Klingenberg said as they already indicated, it was already over the amount that KDOT pointed out, that was why they were asking the City Commission to tread lightly.  She said they knew that this area had already been zoned and approved, but they wished the City Commission would be careful when making determinations, such as making sure those buildings stay non-retail.  She said there were simple things that could be done at this point.  She said the Northwest Plan had stipulated low density residential, but they were packing them in that residential area.  She said they developed a new term, “non-retail commercial” and added commercial to 6^th Street and Wakarusa in the northeast corner based on what was retail and what was non-retail.  She said when this area started it was all commercial and now there was new terminology that came out of Horizon 2020, but it was not being discussed when KDOT was talking to the developers. 

Kirk McClure, Lawrence, said the approval of any preliminary plan was governed by the golden factors.  Perhaps the most important of those was simply the one that asked the question, was this plan beneficial to the community.  Simply put, this project was not beneficial; it was too big and too soon.  He said the Mayor asked what could be put on this location and the answer was a CC-400, that was what it was planned for, but that did not mean it could be added at any time.  He said right now the community could not absorb that space.  He said the right zoning, the right height, bulk, and use at the wrong time could be detrimental to the community.  The City Commission could make any one of four findings of facts that would show the City Commission that this was not a beneficial. 

First, the market was already saturated and as he had discussed with the City Commission in the past, straight forward market analysis showed space was built at a rate of 4.1% per year and the demand for that space was growing at 1.6% per year.  He said that meant they were growing retail space at 2.5 times the rate of demand for that space.  The new space would be occupied because they would not have built that space if they could not get it occupied, but all it did was throw older space into disrepair, neglect, disinvestment, and eventually abandonment, which created the blight in the community. 

A second finding of fact the Commission needed to make was if it wanted to protect the investment of this community.  He said they made investments all over this community, but most specifically they invested in an $8 million parking garage on New Hampshire.  He said they made that investment in parts and it would be repaid by the development it was supposed to spawn.  He said what they received was one building with a fast food restaurant and the City had to lease some of that space just to keep it occupied, the rest of that space had not come through.  He said $8 million was a big investment for a community of this size.  He said they had stuck the taxpayers for the full debt on that building because they could not produce the retail vendors to cause a development downtown. He said they were not protecting their own investment.

He said this particular proposal violated the plan and was disingenuous at the extreme to start coming up with designations to say non-retail commercial.  When they started doing that, then they had thrown the plan out the window.  They could build a feature building, build a few pad sites, but they could build them when the community could absorb them. He said to start adding 50,000 square foot building and a 60,000 square foot building and saying somehow it was non-retail commercial, KDOT was not fooled by that and knew that space would come onto the tax rolls.  The developers knew that a person could not control the uses of the building downstream and that battle had been fought many times.  He said a person needed to plan well and implement well at the start, but a few years down the road, a person would not be in control of what was in that building.  He said it was a disingenuous property and violated the plan.

He said the market analysis was tragically flawed.  He said they were working on assumptions of population growth that this town had not realized since early in the 20^th Century.  There was no reason to believe that population growth rates were increasing.  He said they had more than ample evidence to show that population rates were decreasing.  He said school enrollments were down, rental vacancy rates were high and rising and home sales were sluggish.  The City Commission’s job was to distinguish between good and bad growth.  He said right now it was the City Commission’s job to deny this project because it was not beneficial to the community.

Eldredge said it was important to set the record straight on a couple of matters.  The first matter was the question of the system enhancement application which was done in 1999.  They had spent a lot of public money planning for the growth, development, and the safety of West Lawrence.  In the service annexation plan that came with the annexation request that was prepared by David Corliss, City Manager, he pointed out that they had spent millions of dollars in the South Lawrence Traffic Way, in the new police facility on the west side of town, the new fire facility on the west side of town, and the planning and growth for all of this area.  This corner had been a part of that area and part of the plan sent to KDOT.  The City was clear 6^th Street was a corridor for economic development, but they were going to stop the strip commercial.  She said nodes were identified along 6^th Street for jobs, businesses, for growth.  She said they identified residential areas and planned a lot for it.  She said it was incredible to believe that those folks who designed the road at KDOT and their consultant to whom they paid a lot of money simply ignored all of the City plans.  She said Thomas Dow, who wrote the e-mail that was a draft, wrote it after the road was designed, after the road was built in 2005.  She said Thomas Dow was an urban planner at KDOT who lived just off Harvard in the neighborhood that Klingenberg lived in.  If this was an official KDOT document, one might have expected it to come on KDOT stationary to be at least be signed and dated, but it had none of those indices of genuineness.  She said that was to be compared with the letter from KDOT received in the Planning Office of December 2005 having reviewed the traffic impact studies for this project.  She said she thought that it was very important they supported the professional judgment of staff and their relationships with state agencies.   They were more reliable than the good will and the good intentions of people concerned about their neighborhoods.  She said this should not be a contest about which person at KDOT said which; they should be using their official and approved documents and abiding by their plans. 

She showed a document from the City of Lawrence that showed a traffic forecast.  She said KDOT had not given any traffic forecast.  She said along 6^th Street between the SLT and George Williams Way, they were forecasted to have 30,000 cars in 2025.  KDOT also provided traffic counts for major roadways in Douglas County. She said based on a recent KDOT traffic count map, they tried to give the City Commission a comparison of Iowa Street with the 30,000 cars predicted for 2025 on West 6^th Street.  Currently, coming down from Clinton Parkway, there was a count of 27,400 cars between 23^rd and 25^th down to 21,700 just south of 27^th Street.  The traffic they were talking about in 2025 would be approximately what they were experiencing on South Iowa now.  She said they had a lot more roadway on West 6^th Street than on South Iowa.  There were more lanes of traffic, double left hand turn lanes at the intersection, fewer places that access it, and the medians.  To suggest this road was not built to accommodate all that, they asked KDOT and hired a consultant to accommodate and had been planning for 10 years, she thought was an error.

She said she would like to address the remarks of McClure.  She thought in this case McClure’s analysis was flawed and wanted to point out a couple of items.  She said Horizon 2020 was the City’s comprehensive plan.  The first six chapters of Horizon 2020 had been revised after it was initially adopted and the most recent revision of Chapter 2 was in 2001.  She said Chapter 2 was the background studies which provided the foundation for all of the planning.  In Chapter 2 they included population forecasts.  She said they could not plan if they did not have any idea about how many people they were planning for. 

She said she had highlighted a couple of comments from Horizon 2020 dealing with population projections.  The projects were based on the following assumptions:  that Lawrence and Douglas County would continue to be a desirable place for new businesses to locate and existing businesses to expand, that they would continue to experience a positive net in migration, that they would continue to extend and expand the necessary infrastructure and that the rate of population growth for the next three years would be similar to the population growth rate the area had experienced in the last five decades.  She said that was part of their planning document.  The revision occurred in 2001 because their first go at Horizon 2020 had underestimated population and continued at the same rate in excess of 2% per year in growth.  The plan stated that all of the Lawrence and Douglas County master planning should be reviewed and if necessary revised to reflect the new population projections. 

The City of Lawrence had a population in the year 2000 of 80,098 people and in 2010, predictions and forecasts were made based on the same rate of growth, and they had three different forecasts:  a low, middle and a high forecast.  They had initially been told by the U.S. Census what the estimates were for 2005, but just recently those estimates had been revised.  The revised estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau, a credible source on population matters, was 88,664 people for 2005.  She said she measured as carefully as she could the mark for 2000 which would be midway between 2000 and 2010, and the number from the Census Bureau fell between the estimated moderate amount and the high amount of population.  She said she did the same thing with the county population.  They had revised county figures and the county figures had put the 2005 population over what they would have expected based on their forecasts.  They seemed to be growing faster in the county than in the City.  She said she checked those figures with David Guntert in the Planning Office, and Guntert said those figures were also in excess of 2% per year.  She said what Horizon 2020 was based on, in terms of population and population growth, was exactly the same thing they were experiencing.  Furthermore the population figures used by DSI, when they evaluated Mercato, Northgate, and Bauer Farms, were the population figures in 2020; they did not go out and test those figures, they used what they had been given in the comprehensive plan.  She said they determined that if they added 750,000 square feet of retail commercial with those three projects and used moderate population figures, they would easily absorb all of the retail.  In fact, they said if they used the moderate population figures, they would need to have 921,000 square feet of retail.  She said she thought the DSI study was right on population.  She said McClure was caught with the old numbers the Census Bureau had sent, so McClure anticipated population growth not in excess of 2% per year, but 0.6% which made a dramatic difference.  Now that they had the current and accurate population figures, she did not think there was any doubt that retail would be absorbed within the appropriate time period. 

She said she thought it was important to recognize the applicant had followed every single bit of the code, the plan, ordinances, the factors to be considered in the zoning, and the factors to be considered in the preliminary development plan.  She said if they disliked any of it, change the rules, but do not penalize someone who had followed all of the rules. She said she thought the rules had been carefully crafted by all of the City Commissioners and it was a good project, should be supported, and one the community would be proud of.

Commissioner Rundle said it was also difficult sometimes to be at odds with Eldredge because he thought they have certainly been friendly, if not friends, over the years.  He said he thought with the KDOT figure it was a little like comparing apples to oranges.  Eldredge’s memo was for the study of a single project and the figures that Klingenberg referred to were based on KDOT hearing from developers and others about everything envisioned for that area.  He said he thought what they were saying in a more global sense would be different from what they said about the impact of a single project.  He said he heard many people say that Horizon 2020 was just a guide and we should not treat Horizon 2020 like it was set in stone, but he thought there were other factors besides the population projections.  He said in this case it was something like having a map that was outdated.  He said decisions should be based on the current conditions.

Eldredge said she thought one of the current conditions was contained in the City Manager’s Report.  She said sales taxes were up 3.1% so those additional people seemed to be buying more things that sales tax was charged on.  She reminded the City Commission that in April of this year, the Commission had a memorandum from their Budget Manager that pointed out that Lawrence was in the unfortunate position of having its property tax base be 69% reliant on residential.  The recommendation from the City staff from the April 4, 2006 memo, “If a larger percentage of our property tax base was non residential property, more revenue would be generated by annual increases and assessed valuation which would generate additional funds for infrastructure and City programs and alleviate the need for any increase in the tax levy.”  She said there were a lot of reasons why this project should be supported and she thought relying on the proven documents, the plans, the KDOT information that appeared on KDOT letterheads and KDOT stamps, and using correct population data were all things they could do to add credibility to the decisions that were made.

Commissioner Schauner said he understood the 6^th and SLT node was designated as a CC400 which meant roughly 400,000 square feet.  He asked Miller about how much of that 400,000 square feet had been allocated on the east side of the SLT, north and south of 6^th Street if they just included the retail commercial component of the Mercato and Northgate.

Miller said 380,000 square feet would be the total between the two.

Commissioner Schauner said that left 20,000 square feet for the west side of the SLT, north and south of 6^th Street.

Miller said yes, 5%.  She said they did not want commercial on all four corners and they wanted something else on the other two corners.

Commissioner Schauner asked what tools were available to this City Commission or some future City Commission to limit that western side of the SLT development to no more than 20,000 square feet.  He said that would be tools that they did not have when 6^th and Wakarusa was being discussed as a CC400 which they now had significantly exceeded.

Miller said the tool would probably be the nodal plan that limited it to 20,000 square feet because that was all that was left.

Commissioner Schauner asked if the plan itself would be the only tool they had available.

Miller said zoning restrictions perhaps.

Sheila Stogsdill, Interim Planning Director, said there was the nodal plan and the church property was actually part of that southwest corner.  The nodal plan called for industrial or office development on the remainder of that southwest corner.  She said that preliminary plat was approved with that land use proposed.  The northwest corner had some existing county commercial zoning, which was why the nodal plan delegated that 5% to that particular corner. 

She said 6^th & Wakarusa was designated a CC200, not a CC400 and it was designated as a CC200 through the revision of Chapter 6 that occurred in the last two years.  She said they did not have anything called a CC200 when that intersection was first beginning to develop and it was after they had the CC200 that they did the intersection plan, specifically and acknowledged that existing development exceeded it, but they wanted to designate that as a CC200 as opposed to a CC400 because that intersection was the more appropriate location for a CC400.

Commissioner Schauner asked if they had permitted something in the neighborhood of 400,000 square feet of 6^th and Wakarusa and called it a CC200 and believed at the same time, the more appropriate location for a CC400 was at the intersection they were discussing.

Stogsdill said they acknowledged they were over the 200 at the time of that designation.

Mayor Amyx asked Schauner if it was more of what additional tool they might need that would prohibit, sometime in the future, the expansion of that additional 20,000 square feet at that node.

Commissioner Schauner said yes, but he suspected there was no tool.  He said it was much like putting money in a lock box and they all know some future Commission had the keys to that lock box.  He said his concern was this project standing alone without respect to the west side of that intersection.  He thought it was a fair prediction that in the not too distant future they would have proposals to develop a western side of that intersection in a retail commercial setting because it would be a more profitable use of the ground.  He said he was looking for some way to satisfy himself that making an incremental decision about this project would not be just another step in this creeping additional retail growth along west 6^th.  He said he was not hearing they had a tool with which to accomplish that.

Commissioner Hack asked if there was some issue with the grade on the northwest corner of this intersection.

Stogsdill said clearly, the east side of the node was more favorable in terms of topography for the commercial uses.  She said when thinking about being at the extremes of the City limits, designating the east side was consistent with the plan they were going to develop out in that leap across.  She said at the time Diamondhead was first proposed for commercial zoning, it was the Commission’s decision to put that project on hold until a nodal plan was developed because that was the tool that would guide how the intersection was to be developed.  She said that applicant waited until that was adopted and then came forward with the development plan in accordance with that nodal plan as staff believed this applicant had also done.  To follow that path of the nodal plan was the tool and clearly the Commission’s decision to hold to the convictions of that plan.  She said as the City Commission’s staff, they encouraged the Commission to follow those plans.

Commissioner Rundle asked David Corliss, City Manager, when the City annexed along 6^th Street so they could apply to KDOT for the improvements of that road.

Corliss said he believed the City annexed along 6^th Street in 2001.  He said they annexed approximately 600 acres north and south of 6^th Street.

Commissioner Highberger asked McClure if the change in the census population numbers affected his analysis at all.

McClure said no, it did not.  He said he needed to explain the distinction between he said and what Eldredge said.  He said the growth in supply had been 4.1% per year.  He said what he was quoting was the growth in retail spending, which was 1.6% per year.

Commissioner Highberger asked if the 1.6% was actual dollars or adjusted dollars.

McClure said they were inflation adjusted dollars.  If they went with the Census Bureau’s current 2.1%, they were still building space about twice the rate of growth of population.  He said he thought the evidence was there.  The Census Bureau probably had it right their first time.  He said the City protested, which was the fiscally responsible thing to do.  The Census Bureau said fine, if the City wanted they could take their own numbers and go with their own numbers.  He asked if the population was growing at 2.1%, why was retail spending growing only at 1.6%.  He said they knew from the Department of Labor what the wage growth had been, so they could back that out and take a 1.6% growth in retail spending, back out the growth in wages, and that said they had a little less than a 1% growth in population in the last few years.  He said even if they went with 2%, they still had built space at twice the pace of the growth of the population.  He said the market analysis that said they could have enough population, made a set of assumptions.  The first big assumption was they were not overbuilt right now and said that somehow the market was balanced and the new growth in population would magically absorb this space.  He said if that was true, they would not have so many “For Lease” signs around town.

Commissioner Highberger asked if the nature of the proposed use had any affect on McClure’s analysis of how it impacted the downtown.  He asked if a 173,000 square foot box would drive retail sales from downtown.

McClure said probably not from downtown.  He said he did not see how Wal-Mart would hurt downtown.  He said Bauer Farms was in direct competition with downtown.  He said some of the pad sites were going to be in direct competition with downtown.  He said he did not see it with the feature building.

Commissioner Highberger said he had seen some numbers recently on retail square footage per capita in Lawrence compared to other communities.  He asked if McClure had any data like that at the tip of his fingers.

McClure said he did.  He said the T2030 right now showed that the square foot per capita was twice the rate in Lawrence that it was in other suburban communities in the greater Kansas City area.  He said college towns were usually a bit higher, but not higher by a factor of 100%.  He said he did not want to quote the numbers, but remembered that they were better than twice the per capita square footage they found in other comparable suburban communities.  According to the T2030 chart, they were planning for it still to be at a 60 square feet per person, while the national average was around 20.  He said they were still planning to be at 40.  He said he never saw any research that said a college town could be double the national average.  He said they ought to be building in the level of around 20 – 25 square feet per capita and they were building at 60.

Mayor Amyx asked if any of those numbers took into consideration dollars that might be lost to other communities.

McClure said yes.  He said there had been a lot of misconception about the amount of leakage going on in Lawrence.  He said it had been way overstated.  He said the 40% was a misinterpretation, it was an index.  He said they could not know how many dollars leave Lawrence nor could they know how many people from outside Lawrence bring dollars in.  He said what they could know was the net loss.  He said they knew how many people lived in Lawrence, knew their income, and there was a magic rule that said people would spend about 45% of their income in retail.  He said they could know with near certainty how many dollars should be spent in a town and Lawrence was at .97 which could be translated into a proportion which said they were down about 3%.  He suggested making downtown a destination shopping center, but they could not do that by building sprawling malls that were indistinguishable from malls anywhere else. 

Commissioner Schauner said they were being asked to significantly rework George Williams Way both north and south of 6^th Street.  If they had long range plans that took into consideration the proposals they were currently talking about, he asked why they needed to expand that street to serve this proposal.  He said he assumed the street was built with development they knew about in mind at the time, George Williams Way.  He asked why they had to look at expanding that street to five or six lanes on the south side of 6^th instead of the two and a half lanes it was now.

Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, said back in 2002 was when Diamondhead was platted and zoned commercial, but they did not have a preliminary development plan.  He said at that time, they started on the design work for that road.  He said they did not receive a traffic impact study until after the nodal plan was adopted and the preliminary development plan of September of 2005.  The road was completed in June 2005.  He said the road was built based on the area being commercial, but they did not have a specific traffic impact study so they built it to what a collector street would be typically because of the area that had been approved.  He said because of the preliminary development plan and the traffic impact study, they needed to expand it.

Commissioner Schauner asked if they had approved more square footage at Diamondhead than was anticipated when that road was designed and built.  He said if the answer was no, then they built the road too small and if the answer was yes, then they allowed more development than they planned and he wanted to know which was the right answer.  He said he heard Eldredge talk about long term 10 years worth of planning.  He said if in fact they had been planning this development for 10 years, why were those roads not built in the first instance at a width and capacity that would handle that traffic.

David Corliss, City Manager, said he thought that was the preferred goal and thought they had the opportunity to do things better.  He said when 6^th Street was planned, there were economies made in some of the items and they knew eventually they needed traffic signalization at those different intersections.  He said they did not install signalization at that time for a number of reasons; it was not warranted, there was no connections north and south, and was also a budget item.  He said staff recommended for this road that it be built to the ultimate configuration they thought would be necessary to accommodate the project.  He said he did not know, at the time they built 6^th Street, that they knew the square footages north or south of the road.

Commissioner Schauner said he was trying to understand because he heard Eldredge state two or three times this area was annexed in 2001 as a CC400.  He said they had to know rough square footage of the area and he assumed KDOT had those numbers.  He said now they were hearing the CORSIM study from KDOT from a year or two ago showed that road with backups and significant time travel between the SLT and Folks Road.  He asked if KDOT or the City was using the wrong development figure when connecting the intersecting streets of George Williams Way.  He said he also heard Eldredge discuss George Williams Way as an arterial, but the City had talked about it as a collector street that went right by an elementary school.  He said those were policy questions.  He did not have a very good feel about what the answer was and what he feared was their long range planning about this part of that community were very seriously flawed. 

Corliss said they designated George Williams Way to be a minor arterial north of 6^th Street.  He said it still had its collector street status south of 6^th Street.  He said his view was that given some of the history at 6^th and Wakarusa, staff recommended, and the City Commission followed through on the creation of a nodal plan at the SLT and 6^th Street.  He said he thought that was a major step forward as far as the City’s ability to be more definitive in planning that area.  He said Horizon 2020, the Northwest Plan had done some planning for that because of its location of intersections and arterials streets it made sense, if it was appropriate for the rest of the community, to have more intense uses in that area.  He said they reviewed the square footages after the nodal plan that came after construction began for 6^th Street.  He said staff believed the traffic on 6^th Street that was generated by this project would be handled by 6^th Street with the improvements they were recommended to George Williams Way.

Commissioner Schauner asked if it would also handle the traffic in the next phases of the development.

Soules said yes. He said the next item on the agenda was the discussion of the street infrastructure and they had taken that into account not for just the first phase of the project, but full build out of the facility.  He said this also was applied to Stoneridge Drive in looking at that as full build out of all the area north and south of 6^th Street.  He said staff was looking at it more comprehensively.  He said previously they received a traffic impact study and made those improvements.  He said every year they make improvements to 33^rd and Iowa because it was done incrementally.  He said staff was taking a broader approach at this time in saying they wanted to build to the ultimate capacity once everything was built out.

Commissioner Schauner said he was very much in favor of ultimate build out in the long term bigger picture thinking.  He said he was not sure he was convinced this project Phases 1 – 6 plus the intended other residential was what was legitimately considered by the City Commission as the ultimate build out.  He said his sense was that it was bigger, denser, than what was considered by the City planners when George Williams Way was being designed and built and when they worked with KDOT to expand West 6^th.  He said he recognized putting off signalization for cost purposes and knew they were going to signalize a number of intersections along that route.  He said he was not convinced that this development plan was in fact consistent, in terms of density and square footage, in what they had believed and built upon.  He said otherwise he thought the City’s professional staff would have been making recommendations differently than were made, putting aside the cost factor.

Commissioner Hack said she thought professional staff would admit that mistakes were made and they underestimated some things.  She said it was clear in the information from Soules that this would accommodate the ultimate build out of the area and final lane configuration and would fully develop the intersection operating at an average service level of C with some movements experiencing a service level D.  She said those were not the best grades, but from a traffic stand point, that was where they wanted to be because they couldn’t be an A all the time.  She said she thought they were in a much better position with the nodal plan.  She said Stogsdill referred to that with Diamondhead that the City asked them to wait until it was completed.  She said the enhancements to the intersection reflected that.  She said they knew mistakes were made, but also knew they had a staff that was being much more progressive and much more proactive in looking at what was out there in the future.  She said she was not saying mistakes were not going to be made in the future, but thought they were in a better position now to not make mistakes.

Commissioner Schauner said he did not think that staff made mistakes necessarily.  He believed that what was proposed was a different, denser, and larger development than they believed that was going to take place at that location. He said as a result, they needed to amend, widen and build more infrastructures.  He said you have to come down on one side or the other of that equation, and he did think the staff in the last few years especially have done a much better job about thinking of those things in bigger pieces.  He said he remained concern, because if history was ever a teacher, that 6^th and Wakarusa had been impossible to say in a lot of instances that every proposal that came forward was approved.  He said he was concerned the west side of the 6^th and SLT node they were seeing had only 5% left.  He said that 5% in a couple of years was going to be a lot bigger than 20,000 square feet because that would not be big enough to build anything to make money.  He said that was the reality they had learned the hard way.  He said if they built streets now that would handle what they were looking at on their plate right now with making certain assumptions about what they would not do in the future, but history told him that they want to do it in the future and those infrastructure improvements would not be sufficient that they were talking about doing now.  He said he was forecasting it would be bigger at that node than what they were currently contemplating and building their infrastructure around.

Mayor Amyx said, regarding the application that was made to KDOT for the improvement to west 6^th Street, there was an assumption in the letter that there was going to be approximately 2.3 million square feet of some type of commercial development and the City bought and paid real money from this community and this state to develop a roadway based on that letter and application.  He said whatever information that changed, they were one million square feet and wondered whether or not the City received its money’s worth at all.  He said he thought they paid for one thing, but they received something completely different.

Commissioner Highberger asked if retail phasing and retail absorption were addressed and discussed at the Planning Commission.

Stogsdill said it was not discussed at any length.  She said they had a condition, at the time, to specifically add a note to the plan to more clearly state the remaining phases were non-retail.  She said there was a brief discussion about whether a retail market study had been done and a reminder that came at the zoning stage.

Commissioner Rundle said the items focused on by Eldredge and others to support approval of this plan at this time were persuasive, but incomplete.  He said they were following their plan if they brought in those other policies and things that were part of Horizon 2020 such as taking care to look at the retail market impact.  He said he thought that was the biggest area of concern that he had.  He reminded everyone that when they annexed along 6^th Street, the discussion at that time was whether they were going to stimulate a lot of development they could not handle and the former City Manager was very clear in stating the annexation along the highway and the development of that highway by no means should be a signal to anyone that any of that property along that area would be developed in the short term.  He said if they would look at the Journal-World whenever that intersection was annexed, a similar discussion must have ensued because there were still limits on what could and could not be done.  He said he thought it was very appropriate to say they did not have the retail capacity to absorb that much additional space.  He said on the idea that they were going to have additional regional centers the Mayor brought up, the plan in its recent revisions added two or three more regional nodes for centers.  He said clearly they were not going to be able to add them all at the same time.  He thought that was part of the discussion at that time.  He said they wanted to be prepared for the future, but could not expect that everything was going to be developed at the same time. 

He said the last time they discussed the DSI study that was brought up, Commissioner Hack said she did not like the regional study.  He said when they discussed that when it was presented to the Commission, he asked the consultant about the fact that it did not account for retail space that was zoned, but in other uses that were not in retail at all.  He said it only took into account retail additions for those particular areas on west 6^th Street that was being studied and not any area of town, including the Downtown.  He said at that time the conservative estimate for population was higher than the estimates at that time that were being used and it did not account for the fact that Lawrence had low incomes compared to the rest of the state and were not going to have as much sales tax capacity.  He said it was not that he did not like the study, but clearly they were not the best studies they could have.  He said if he understood correctly, the Planning Commission had recently added some standard for those retail studies in those regulations. 

He said he thought this violated the nodal plan in terms of what they envisioned for the commercial area.  He said it should be distributed around that intersection.  He said they had a long standing goal to monitor commercial additions.  In light of the downtown, they needed to look at the community as a whole, not just downtown, and he did not see how anyone could say there was a basis for absorbing this amount of retail at this time.  He said they had 35% of their retail space in other uses, retail space square footage two to three times of other comparable communities.  He asked why they thought they were different than other communities and needed a higher capacity.  He said he thought it was a matter of timing and thought it should be put off until such time as it was more appropriate.

Commissioner Schauner said this would be a very attractive gateway to the community.  He said there had been a great deal of work and thoughtful planning and design work done in terms of making it an appealing location. He said he was concerned about the excess amount of parking, something approaching twice the required parking.  He said he wondered if that sea of parking was really needed for that square footage.  He said parking requirements were often thought of as too high by people building in town and this one was too large. 

He said he was concerned about the interior road, Mercato Way.  He said George Williams Way north of 6^th, was initially going to be a median street and it would be subject to some traffic analysis.  He said the more important issues were the retail analysis and traffic impact study.  He said he would very much like to see this project go forward.  He would like to see it go forward in a more timed fashion.  He said he did think it would dump a tremendous amount of additional retail on the community.  He said the concern he had went back to what McClure stated.  He said as he drove around town he saw a lot of retail that was not retail anymore, 23^rd and Louisiana came first in his mind.  He said it was used for all kinds of things, but much of it was insurance offices and so forth.  He said what he did know for sure was once it was built, it would be there for a very long time in some fashion or other.  He said he would rather error on the side of having that retail built in a way that did not harm the existing retail rather than building it and hoping it did not harm retail.  He said he thought this was one of the places that did not do much to Downtown one way or another.  He thought downtown served a different function and clientele than this would serve.  

Commissioner Hack said there a couple of things that struck her as she made her decision.  She said first of all was the Planning staff’s recommendation.   She said as they went through the staff report and Planning Commission minutes, staff recommended approval all the way through.  She said everything that staff asked for was worked through.  She said some of the changes staff asked for created additional concerns, those were addressed and she thought from staff’s standpoint it conformed to Horizon 2020, the Northwest Area Plan, the nodal plan, the CC400 plan with Chapter 6 in Horizon 2020.  She said the Planning Commission comments made were about the quality of the project, the location of the project, the design, the connectivity, the flow, all of those kinds of things and how complementary they were not only to the applicant but also to staff. 

She said what struck her the most in listening to comments were from Eldredge when she said it was important to support the professional judgment of staff.  She said staff recommended this for approval all throughout the report and the Planning Commission supported it 9-1.  She said she would be hard pressed to deny this based on those two things.  She said it was her responsibility to take all information and make the best judgment she could at the time, and she believed the best judgment to make at this time would be to approve this project.  She said she thought it would be a beautiful gateway, the designs were terrific.  She said she voted in support.

Mayor Amyx said that this was a gorgeous property and plan.  He said one of the things that made it a gorgeous plan was the amount of regulation they had placed on people trying to do business in Lawrence, Kansas.  He said being in business today was not a fun thing.  He said when looking at the amount of regulations they ended up placing on people on a weekly basis and ask them to meet those regulations, this was the type of plan they got because they believed in what the community stood for, believed what the community demands, and thought what they had done was they had asked people in business to go the extra mile and thought they had done that. 

He said to have someone come forward who had taken the City’s regulations and had exceeded those regulations they should be proud of the work they had done and the amount of regulation out there to make sure that a plan like this would move forward. 

He said the Planning Commission needed to be congratulated on the amount of work they had done.  He said they had taken into consideration not only the plan, but the affect of the intersection.  He said he still had a disagreement on how West 6^th Street was developed and whether or not they got their money’s worth. 

He said he shared some of Commissioner Schauner’s concerns on George Williams Way south of 6^th Street.  He said he would hate to see the City dig up a perfectly good street.  He asked if there was a way that those improvements south of 6^th Street on George Williams Way could be phased in also because it did not make a whole lot of sense to dig up good asphalt or concrete.  He said he thought the regulations they had in place, the Planning Commission and staff brought this plan to them, they exceeded it, and thought it was one that should be given approval.

Commissioner Schauner said he would like to clarify his concern.  He said he thought they all agreed from a physical appearance this was an attractive gateway project, but if approved, perhaps it would be phased in.  He said with respect to the retail impact, he suspected it would fill quickly, if built, when it was built, but he would ask to what costs to the other parts of the community.  He said he could support this project if they had an agreement that it would be a phased development with respect to the retail.  He said he did not know if they had any discussion about that because eventually over some period of time they would be able to absorb this and more retail as they City grew.  He said he was not convinced that based on the objective numbers he heard from McClure the community could absorb this additional retail without harm to the rest of the retail establishment.  He said he was not in business, but was confident that it was not fun to be in business as much as it should be because there was the ever increasing how they drive to a cheaper bottom line and compete with an ever expanding number of people doing the same kind of thing.  He said he thought phasing this development would make a lot of sense.  It would make sense from a retail impact analysis and make sense to comments made about George Williams Way being improved, and in a lot of other ways.  He said he did want to honor the good work done by the planners and developers with respect to try to build a nice project at the gateway.

Commissioner Rundle asked if the designations were restrictions or designations of the non-retail commercial.  He asked when they approved this, were they restricting them to non- retail commercial.

Miller said 353,060 square feet would be for non-retail commercial, which could be offices and banks.

Commissioner Highberger said he did vote for the rezoning on this project because it had been annexed for a number of years and believed it was consistent with the nodal plan and the commercial chapter this Commission adopted. 

He appreciated the pedestrian connectivity, the landscaping and architecture.  He said the applicant had gone to great lengths to make those things work.  He said he still saw a great excess of parking.  He said it complied with all existing zoning rules and if he wanted a different product, he needed to make sure that the rules were different.  He said he thought the applicant met the Commercial Design Guidelines and the zoning for the site. 

He said he had some serious concerns about the ability to absorb this retail at this time.  He said he knew they had a retail study that stated it could be done with no problem and thought that they had raised some concerns in his mind.  He said it was an issue that he still did not feel like he had a thorough enough understand of.  He said he was not prepared to approve this project at this time.  He said rather than vote to deny, depending on how the applicant felt, he would move to defer it for six months to give himself and maybe the rest of the Commissioners time to do further work at the retail market numbers.  He said he needed to understand it better before making a final approval.  He said that was the barrier to his approval of the project at this time.

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Schauner, to defer the item for 6 months.

Before voting on the motion, Mayor Amyx asked Eldredge if her client would support a 6 month deferral. 

Eldredge asked Mayor Amyx to recess for a short time because there were a lot of principals and she did not want to speak on behalf of the owners without having the opportunity to check with them. 

Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack to recess for 10 minutes.  Motion carried unanimously.  (9:10 p.m. to 9:20 p.m.)

The Commission resumed regular session at 9:20 p.m.

Mayor Amyx asked Commissioner Highberger what information he needed over the next 6 month period so that everyone was clear.

Commissioner Highberger said he personally wanted to review the existing market study.  The numbers that concerned him most were the recent numbers he saw on retail square footage per capita and how grossly higher they were in Lawrence than other jurisdictions.  He said there was conflicting information about the pro factor and retail sales.  He said there were different ways in explaining some of those things, but if they were twice as high in terms of retail square footage per capita as other similar jurisdictions, that sent some alarms to him and he would want more fresh input as to what those numbers meant.  He said even if this body made the determination this project could not be absorbed at this time or the projected construction time, they needed to figure out when it would be at some point.  He said one thing he hoped that they could do in this 6 month time frame would be to determine the timeframe in which this kind of space would be reasonably endurable. 

Mayor Amyx said he thought it would be helpful to the applicant to put down in writing exactly the type of information Commissioner Highberger needed for the applicant and staff. 

Commissioner Rundle said it might not be just the applicant providing information, but having someone analyze the information.

Mayor Amyx said that was why he asked staff to receive the same information so that if they needed staff’s professional opinion on this issue.

Mayor Amyx asked Eldredge if she had a comment on the motion to defer the preliminary development plan for6 months.

Eldredge said the applicant would be willing to defer the project up to a 6 month period of time for the opportunity to provide additional requested information and the opportunity to meet with the City Commission in a study session if that would be helpful because they wanted the Commission to have any additional information, understanding the study had been approved, but no question should be left open that was problematic in any way and they wanted to provide everything that they could and looked forward to that opportunity.  She said it was important to have the issue addressed now because she thought everything else had been provided to the City Commission and there were not any additional questions so they did not have to go through this process more than a six month period.  She said they appreciated their candor in explaining some difficulty and not having sufficient information and wanted to be sure Commissioner Highberger received that information.

Commissioner Highberger said he thought he had too much information rather than insufficient information.  He said he was reluctant to not approve a 9–1 decision by the Planning Commission and staff’s recommendation.  He said there have been enough concerns raised in his mind in order for him to feel like he was doing his job adequately, he needed more information.  He apologized for the inconvenience to the applicant.

Eldredge said there was no need to apologize, but should the Commission take the opportunity to ease their concerns in less than 6 months, the applicant would be happy to come back to the City Commission at a time they would suggest.  He said they would also request deferral of the remaining items on the agenda because it did not seem to be much point moving forward with those other items at this time.

Mayor Amyx said again, he thought it was a beautiful plan and there were positive comments from the Commission on a plan that would be a tremendous gateway to this community.  He said he hoped the Commission would receive the necessary information to make a well informed decision and appreciated everyone’s time and commitment to wanting the best for Lawrence, Kansas.     

Commissioner Rundle said staff might want to be in communication with KDOT about the information in dispute.  He said he hoped staff had an official version of the document that Klingenberg had earlier.  He said regarding the retail study, he was not saying that staff had not done their very best, but he thought the City Manager acknowledged they were going to be gaining complementary skill sets that could help them with their job of this analysis when they hire their Economic Development Coordinator.  He said he thought it was a good reason to take time to absorb this.

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Schauner to defer for up to 6 months, the preliminary development plan (PDP-08-08-06) for Mercato; the recommendation for the proposed construction of George Williams Way north and south of West 6^th; and the dedication of easements and rights-of-way for the Final Plat (PF-06-15-06) for Mercato Addition No. 1.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                                                                (22)

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Schauner, to defer for up to 6 months receiving a staff recommendation concerning proposed construction of George Williams Way north and south of West 6th Street, including intersection improvements.  Motion carried unanimously. 

     (23)

Moved by Highberger, seconded by Schauner, to defer for up to 6 months the acceptance of dedication of easements and rights-of-way on PF-06-15-06 a Final Plat for Mercato Addition 1st Plat, North of Highway 40 & East of Highway K-10:(a proposed residential lot contains approximately 49.995 acres). Motion carried unanimously.                                            (24)

Consider authorization to the City Manager to enter into contract negotiations with PlaceMakers to develop a Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) style planning code.

Dan Warner, Planner, presented the staff report.  He said staff issued an RFP to solicit proposals from qualified teams of professionals in July, to assist the City with the creation of a parallel TND-style development code.  He said four teams responded to the City’s request with their proposals.  A selection committee consisting of Commissioner Hack, City Staff, and Community Design Committee members evaluated each of the proposals and agreed to interview three of the teams.  He said of those three finalists, PlaceMakers received the recommendation of the selection committee as the top firm. 

He said PlaceMakers presented the City with their SmartCode calibration, regulating master plan, and sector plan proposals for Lawrence.  PlaceMakers would provide us a comprehensive charrette process to give the City a code which enabled walkable, mixed use, compact neighborhoods.

He said Place Maker was proposing a 7 day charrette that was scheduled for January 31 through February 6^th and the cost of that project would fall between $200,000-$250,000.

Commissioner Schauner asked if that would require the Mayor to be in attendance at all 7 days.

Corliss said he wanted to emphasize the commitment this was going to require not only of the people in this room, but the people in the community and the development community, and those who had an interest in how Lawrence was going to grow and look because if they did not have that level of involvement, they were not going to get a product that was going to be worthy of time, money, and community.  He said they were going to want to make a commitment.  He said he and Debbie Van Saun, Assistant City Manager, had worked to find the funds, but the good thing was the money commitment was that they were going to work hard to get that level of involvement.  He said he thought they had a great process last week and this was going to be that plus actually writing code in making some arguments and responding to those arguments to come up with the language during that process so they essentially work out a lot of the details and not just the look of the documents.  He said it was a substantial commitment for staff over the next three months to get ready for it.  He said those days in February were going to be a substantial commitment and they needed to recognize that.

Commissioner Rundle asked if there was any sense of some of those days so that if someone could not participate one day, they could participate the next day.

Warner said yes, at the public meeting staff would explain what they were doing.  He said there would be a series of design days that would be set up as a come and go process.  He said there would likely be a point in the middle of that process where they did a pin up session which was showing progress to that point to get feedback and as they finish up, they would do a final presentation.  He said there would be opportunity to join different parts of that process.

Commissioner Rundle said there was no way to get a perfect schedule, but it seemed that for the commitment from all the people that needed to be there for a solid week, maybe they knew this was the best way for this process compared to splitting the process up over a couple of weeks.

Warner said yes.  He said he believed in the accelerated process as a way to hammer this issue out and get it done.  He said they would actually have a series of meetings with this group, the Planning Commission, developers, and others which would be another opportunity to participate.

Commissioner Highberger said he assumed this process was going to address street design and street network.

Warner said yes.

Corliss said one of the consultants that would be available for the length of the process was a transportation engineer who specialized in that area.  He said it was not just architects and land planners, they were engineers. 

Warner said they hoped to schedule the City Commission’s meeting with that group at one of the City Commission’s regular study sessions, that way the Commission could meet with them in a format they were familiar with.

Commissioner Hack said she wished she would have brought the Stapleton book that was a result of what they did outside of Denver because one could really see what the product was, but she thought that covered a minimal portion.  She said PlaceMakers would work with some local people the Commission was familiar with using such as staff, land use attorney, transportation experts, people from all over would gather to make this the very best thing for this City and it was looking at not just infill development, but specific growth areas in the UGA.  She said it was an expensive product, but having sat in interviews, this was the group of consultants that knew what they were doing and if they were going to do it, they needed to make sure they were going to do it right. 

She said Warner had been a tremendous asset in this entire process and thanked Warner for everything he had done to this point.  She said she knew that this had been Commissioner Highberger’s dream and thought they were just real close to seeing it happen.  She said without people like Warner, she did not think they could have pushed as hard and as fast and as well as they did.

Commissioner Rundle said it was reassuring to hear the full description of the process and the preliminary work. 

Mayor Amyx asked if this item would be back on the City Commission’s agenda once the negotiations were completed.

Corliss said he, Warner, and others were working on finalizing the contract and they wanted to hone down on a number of other items to make sure they received deliverables that would work.

Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to authorize the City Manager to enter into contract negotiations with PlaceMakers to develop a Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) style planning code.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                                  (25)

FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS:

TBD	Future land use items include: The 800 Penn. Block; Salvation Army site plan and rezoning; and The unincorporated subdivision regulations
TBD	Train Horn Quiet Zone

                                                                                                                                         (26)

Moved Schauner, seconded by Hack, to adjourn at 9:45 p.m.  Motion carried unanimously.                                                     

APPROVED   

___________________________________

Mike Amyx, Mayor

ATTEST:

___________________________________                                                                        

Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk

CITY COMMISSION MEETING OF NOVEMBER 7, 2006

1. Bid - Surplus vehicles on Gov Deals.

2. Bid Date Set – Nov 28^th, Phase I Sesquicentennial Plaza.

3. Bid Date Set – Nov 28^th, 2006, Comprehensive Rehab Program, 1140 Penn & 1312 Summit.

4. Bid Date Set – Dec 5, Alvamar Area Sanitary Sewer Improvement Project.

5. Bid Date Set –Dec 5, Kaw Water Treatment Plant parking improvements.

6. Bid- Uniform rental/bulk facility service for Public Works to Aramark Uniform for $40,503.84.

7. Property acquisition agreements –Wakarusa Water Reclamation Facility.

8. Ordinance No. 8047- 1^st Read, Codify Ordinances of City of Lawrence.

9. Resolution No. 6689- Joint County/City Resolution for establishing Emergency Mgmt Board.

10. Final Plat – (PF-08-20-06) Joyce Addition, .977 acres, 912 N Iowa.

11. Final Plat – (PF-09-24-06) Elaine Margaret Add, 1 acre, NW corner at intersection of Haskell & Anna Tappan Way.

12. Application – Preserve America’s Communities Program.

13. Application – Historic Preservation Fund Grants.

14. Construction Engineering Services Agreement – KDOT, Kasold, Peterson to KTA Bridge.

15. Transportation - Fixed-route vehicle replacement, Lawrence Transit System, $491,839 earmark.

16. Mortgage Release - 317 Elm for Edna Campbell & 510 Kansas for Lois Liebert.

17. Subordination Agreement, 2712 Bonanza, Karen Parish.

18. “Sign of community interest” - Centenary United Methodist Church & the Festival of Nativities at 2^nd and Elm from Dec. 2-17, 2006.

19. Performance agreement - PackerWare Corp tax abatement.

20. Transportation - Eliminate current “wave down” policy for The T in favor of designated stops.

21. City Manager’s Report.

22. Prelim Dev Plan – (PDP-08-08-06), Defer up to 6 Months, Mercato, 45 acres, N of Hwy 40 & E of Hwy K-10;

23. Proposed construction of GWW – Defer up to 6 Months, N & S of W 6^th

24. Final Plat (PF-06-15-06) – Defer up to 6 Months, Mercato Add No. 1.

25. Contract negotiations – PlaceMakers to develop Traditional Neighborhood Design style planning code.

26. Future Agenda Items.