PC Minutes 7/23/07 DRAFT

ITEM NO. 3:        PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR 6TH & WAKARUSA; NW CORNER OF 6TH ST & WAKARUSA DR (LAP)

 

PDP-06-02-07: Preliminary Development Plan for 6th & Wakarusa, located at the NW corner of 6th Street & Wakarusa Drive, North side of Highway 40. Submitted by BFA, Inc, for 6Wak Land Investments, LLC, property owner of record.

 

STAFF PRESENTATION - Items 2 & 3 were heard together

Lisa Pool presented the item.

 

APPLICANT PRESENTATION

Bill Newsome, 6Wak Land Investments, said that he and Doug Compton had owned this tract for quite a few years now. The item would require a rezoning and a development plan. He thought he could say with no reservations there probably had not been another tract of land in the history of Lawrence that had come under more scrutiny than this one.  He said the plans for this tract have been analyzed fully by the City in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006 and now in 2007. He said the plan carried a staff recommendation. He said there may be speakers tonight who would ask to delay this decision, but relative to the standards in place, this application received both a thorough and a satisfactory review by staff; otherwise it would not have carried a recommendation. He said in his opinion, it was ready to be moved to the City Commission for consideration in August. He said while Wal-Mart was a national name, the ownership and development of this site are local. The jobs, sales tax, property tax all stood ready to be put in place in the last five years and would provide local benefits.

 

Angie Stoner, Public Affairs Manager of Wal-Mart Corporation for the State of Kansas, said she was present to answer any additional questions that were specific to Wal-Mart. She said Wal-Mart had been a member of the Lawrence community since 1983 and were proud of some of the economic benefits that they provided to the community as far as job opportunities, the way they allowed families to save money, and some of the charitable contributions they delivered to the Lawrence community. She said Wal-Mart had a local presence in Lawrence and that was important to them. They currently employ over 19,000 associates in the State of Kansas, 400 of the associates being employed at the current Wal-Mart in Lawrence. They also worked with local suppliers in the State of Kansas.  She said in 2007 Wal-Mart spent over $1.7 billion with 973 suppliers in the State of Kansas. She said through these partnerships, Wal-Mart supported over 35,000 jobs in the State of Kansas.  She said it was important to recognize the partnerships they had throughout the entire state.  She said they believed in giving back to the local community and over 90% of their charitable giving was done at the local level. Their store associates and store managers made those decisions. Each Wal-Mart Super Center on average gave $30,000 - $50,000 per year to their local community. Last year they raised and contributed over $4.4 million in the State of Kansas. She said being a part of the Lawrence community had been very important to them since 1983 and appreciated the Planning Commission taking the time to listen to the proposed sites at 6th and Wakarusa.

 

Todd Thompson, attorney, said this plan was different from the plan submitted last fall and the rezonings now tabled at City Commission were previously recommended for approval by the former Planning Commission; there had been a tie vote on the preliminary development plan. They took the comments made at that meeting to heart and made revisions to the plan which are reflected in the plan before the Planning Commission. He said he wanted to note that in the upper left hand corner where the detention basin is shown, there had previously been approved a 24 unit apartment complex. In terms of density, they were reducing the density of the development in this quadrant by 24 living units with the new proposal. In addition, the existing zoning for the site called for 154,000 square feet of commercial space and this proposal was for 128,000 square feet of commercial space. They reduced the existing approved square footage by roughly 24,000 square feet. The amount of green space that was required for this particular site was 28,938 square feet and this plan provided for almost 44,000 square feet.  He said that this figure did not include the detention basin; in terms of green space in this quadrant, it was dramatically above what was required by code. He said the trees that have been committed to this project were much larger than the required. He showed a picture of a tree that was reserved for this project. In addition, the number of trees exceeded the requirements of the City. The entry drive had been moved to the south from the previously approved plan. He said the previously approved plan and other approved plans had the entry way come right in front of the building, which resulted in conflict between the pedestrians going in and out of the stores and the traffic. By moving the entry way south, they eliminated that conflict and allowed the traffic to flow into the site and disperse off of what was a frontage road into the various parking lots of the Wal-Mart store and the out lots. He said Ray Frankenberg had some elevations and perspectives to show the Planning Commission and would go into a little more detail about the plan. The condition that staff had mentioned in terms of having the utility hook up plans approved was all that they have not resolved with staff.  He said staff had recommended approval of this plan and asked the Planning Commission to approve the rezoning to Open Space in the upper left hand corner, approve the rezoning for the PCD zonings on the rest of the quadrant, and approve this particular plan as recommended by Staff. 

 

Ray Frankenberg, site engineer, said Mr. Thompson pretty much covered a lot of the changes but there were a few things he wanted to present to the Planning Commission. He said he was going to go through and show the various areas. There was an entrance from Wakarusa Drive that was a right in, right out only. There was a full entrance on Overland Drive. There was another full entrance on Congressional. He anticipated all of his service traffic to come in and out of the service area entrance and exit.  He said they could go through the lots, but it would be a longer route. He said on the original approval of the 135,000 square foot box many years ago, the drive that went in front of the store accessed Congressional. They tried to avoid it and staff wanted them to avoid it. He thought it was a great plan because then they did not have people coming off of Congressional with their mind on driving on a public street as they went into pedestrian traffic. Every customer that he had going into the Wal-Mart store would be crossing it and thought it was a real safety aspect of this layout and were proud of it. All cars leaving would go to a “thru” drive on the shopping center as a whole. He showed where they could enter and exit, and showed where commercial buildings were. He said what would be built on opening day of Wal-Mart and possibly opening day for many more of them would be the drive thru and the parking lot to connect from Congressional to all the rest of the area they were looking at.  He thought they had considered the vehicle traffic very well and blended it well with the pedestrian traffic.  Every drive had a pedestrian walk way along it. Customers could get to the front of the store; walk through pedestrian walk ways to any of the other buildings on the site. He said there were drive thrus on the east side of one building and a drive thru on the west side of another building.  He said they had the stacking lined out for each of the drive thrus, so that if it backed up it was impacting an internal drive isle. They were also away from any public street.  It would be an internal traffic issue if it impacted any traffic. He said a couple of unique things they did at the site was to combine small landscape islands into three very large islands in the front of the site.  Many of the islands had been scattered out in the parking lot.  It made maintenance of the parking lot much easier, it made less of a burden on the customers and operators of the store, and it provided landscaping berms that softened the view from the street.  They also concentrated the landscaping along the streets, along Congressional, 6th Street, and Wakarusa to soften the center. He said they were using many mature trees and those tree sites were included on the plan. Each tree had been identified and they had done this three times and each tree had to change each time because the ice storm last spring took a lot of them out. He said when they were using the large trees, the nurseries did not care to keep them around. One large tree of 10 inch diameter was shading an area that could have 10, 15 or maybe 20 small seedlings going.  He said when they sold a lot of the inch to inch and a half caliper trees it took up a lot of area. Some of the trees died from the ice storm and some were cut down as they waited for this project. The ones on the list were available and held at this time. He said another thing he wanted to point out on the landscaping was the area around the store.  He said the area around the service area was a retaining wall. The retaining wall could be seen from inside the service area, from outside the service area it was retaining the soil that was piled up against it at a three to one slope and would have the landscaping on it, native grasses, forbs and so forth in that area. This area would not require irrigation once it was established, but it would be irrigated to get it established. The goal of zeriscape type landscaping was to turn irrigation off after a few years and the native plants would then be established. They could go as native Kansas habitat. They would have the grasses and trees that were native to Kansas. He said at the bottom of the detention basin they would see wetlands. They had several eight and ten inch birches at the bottom and would have wetland grasses so they could stand to have their feet wet during the storms and should thrive very well. There were three detail sheets that covered three major areas of the site that covered the entire site. 

He showed the preliminary development plan which had a lot of detail on it which staff used to review and approve to make sure they had all the facets they wanted.  He said the sewer line that was missed was the sewer line that crossed Congressional and the final disposition of that sewer line would be worked out with staff in the public improvement plans, which were a condition of this approval.  He said the reason it was not worked out in detail right now was there were three possible scenarios that would work.  He said the next sheet of the preliminary development plan was more detailed about how much parking they had, how much green space they had, etc. The utility plan had more details on the sewer, the storm sewer, and how the detention was going to work. The plan also showed the drainage areas that would drain toward the site. He said there would be plantings in front of the store. 

He said the conditions were that the sewer connections would come with the public improvement plans and there was an entrance radius issue on the service entrance drive that would be on the public improvement plans. There was also an agreement not to object to any development districts for signals and road improvements that would be part of the final submittal. The site detention approval would be approved by staff as long as it looked as it does now. The dedication of easements was for the lot that  would become a detention area for Wal-Mart, the pad sites, and some of the surrounding properties.

 

PUBLIC HEARING

Kirk McClure, 707 Tennessee, said he was speaking to the issue of the market’s capacity to absorb this space.  He said the Planning Commission’s role was to ensure a net beneficial effect of each and every development proposal.  When they make findings of fact, they were saying that this proposal conformed to the plan but had a net beneficial effect.  He said this project did not and what he was asking of the Planning Commission was to protect the community from the over building that was going on.  He tried to summarize the degree to which this community had been overbuilding for a long time. He showed a visual of “comparing growth in supply of retail space with growth in demand for retail space”. He said the supply was growing at 3% per year and the demand is growing at less than 1%, which was a long term problem going on for 12 years. They were are adding 160,000 sq ft of retail space each year and the growth of retail spending suggested they could only support 50,000 sq ft per year. There are over 300,000 square feet of empty retail space in the City that was adding to the blighting influence of this community. They have a six year supply of excess space in this community.  He said if they looked at the pipeline of projects that have already been approved, including the subject property and they had over 800,000 square feet of excess space. With over 300,000 square feet of space, six years of surplus space already in the stock, they have approved 16 years worth of space. Communities that do that to themselves end up like Topeka.  The White Lakes Mall killed downtown Topeka and what killed the White Lakes Mall was Wanamaker Road.  If they continued to make the market grow unchecked, they would end up with an enormous amount of blight. They could already see that in North Lawrence, over 40% of the retail space was vacant in North Lawrence. The only other places they would find that were places like ghost towns in Western Kansas and declining urban areas like Kansas City, Kansas.  What the community was asking of the Planning Commission was to make the appropriate finding of fact that the community could not now absorb this space. They already had a surplus of space and given that inability to absorb that space, they needed to delay this particular development plan for an indefinite time because the community could not absorb it.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn inquired if one was to buy a building that was blighted for a reasonable cost, when would in fact be the best time to buy that building so it could be turned into something more pleasing.

 

Mr. McClure said there was never a good time to buy if there was no demand for the services he was trying to provide.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn asked what if someone brought in a service that did not exist.

 

Mr. McClure stated you could do that on Minnesota Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas for a nickel. If the market was blighted, they could not support space for which there was not latent demand existing in the community. The actual retail sales were telling how much they could support and they could not support the space right now. 

 

Commissioner Finkeldei asked Mr. McClure if he thought there would not be new folks to come to town to shop at Wal-Mart.

 

Mr. McClure stated that was correct.  People would not leave their towns to come to Lawrence to shop at Wal-Mart because they already had one.  The unique aspect of Lawrence was that people come for Downtown Lawrence. They had a slightly declining number of retail vendors of the City and had declining numbers of retail employment. This will draw folks from other stores.

 

Commissioner Finkeldei asked if he had an opinion of whether Wal-Mart was going to fail or draw people from other businesses.

 

Mr. McClure said it would definitely be the latter. Wal-Mart was in this for market share. They knew there was very low growth in retail spending and carefully made the calculation of how much market share they could capture. They specifically want to put in a Super Center. This community is already at capacity of grocery stores. There is a benefit to Wal-Mart, low prices.

 

Commissioner Finkeldei asked if he would also agree that if there was no new retail spending, there was probably no increase in traffic for the City as a whole.

 

Mr. McClure replied, no. Retail did not generate traffic; people generate traffic.

 

Commissioner Finkeldei said there might be a redistribution of traffic within the City.

 

Mr. McClure said they would be pulling into Wal-Mart. 

 

Commissioner Moore inquired what the definition of retail entails in Mr. McClure’s graph he used.  What was included in that square footage?

 

Mr. McClure said the vast majority is made up of general merchandise, but includes banks, restaurants, etc. Any space in the designated retail district was in that total. The situation is worse if we take out the banks, restaurants, etc. If they looked at just general merchandise, the vacancy rate was higher and the capacity to absorb that space was worse. 

 

Commissioner Hird asked if Mr. McClure had indicated a 16 year supply of retail space.

 

Mr. McClure said 16 years were on the books right now, and 6 years that was oversupplied present in the community. They had a 6 year over supply in the ground, and 16 year in the pipeline to be developed.

 

Commissioner Hird asked if it would be his suggestion to have moratorium on commercial developments for a period of time.

 

Mr. McClure said he has seen communities adopt moratorium and they do not work. It should be a case by case basis. The easiest example would be for the Prairie Park area. When a set of subdivisions come together, they have to have a community center like everyone else. They have to have a convenience store, a grocery store, etc.  In fact, even in an overbuilt community, there are going to be numerous times when it would be advisable for the City to provide approvals. A moratorium did not provide for that. They needed to think these developments through on a case by case basis. This particular case was indefensible.

 

Commissioner Hird asked what Mr. McClure’s response would be to the fact that the plan complies with the Comprehensive Plan.

 

Mr. McClure said that the Planners in this community practice 1960’s style of planning. They fall into the trap of thinking that planning is to facilitate development. He had no doubt that this project met the criteria. Good planning should have been analyzing this information on growth of city versus need. Back in 1999, the then Planning Commission instructed staff to not do this kind of work and staff have been scared to pick it up since.

 

Bogdan Pathak, 2100 Heatherwood Dr. #C12, a student in community, pointed out what he’s seen in development since he moved here. He noticed the larger stores did not fulfill significantly large sections of the student’s needs. They could take care of little details, but they would be looking for additional things that would make their lives more interesting. They would always go back to downtown for that. Wal-Mart would not draw people to Lawrence or to other parts of the City. If the design included 7, 10, 15 different local businesses that could take up shop there, it would attract people from Lecompton and the outlying areas between Topeka and Lawrence to Lawrence. Right now, they had the incentive to head to Topeka as opposed to Lawrence. The time it would take was similar and the reason was because they had K-10. If they put a stop light there, the traffic was better to come to Lawrence. Building it with a bunch of smaller businesses there would make perfect sense for Lawrence as a niche community.  Building it as a Wal-Mart really did not address the core needs of the economy to make the economy grow. It subdivided the economy as to where they got their consumer products and not where they get the products that drive growth. 

 

Brianne Hanna, 1908 E 19th St., a student in community, said at least two of the Planning Commissioners ran on the subject of bringing jobs to Lawrence.  Many of the people drive to other communities for jobs.  They had to go many miles and spend a lot of money for gas to find a job that did not equate to  the money they spent to buy consumer products.  She asked why they were trying to put in a place for jobs, but that money those people end up earning went directly back into that store or to other consumer based products.  She asked why they were not trying to commit this space to a business community that would help build an income for this town so people did not have to leave Lawrence to work all the time. People leave the community to work, but they lose a sense of community when people have to leave that community to do their daily lives. If people were going to be leaving town to go to work anyway, why not stay there to eat dinner and pick up a few things from the mall.  A Wal-Mart would not have people stay in the community to spend their money.  It may provide a few jobs for high school students, adults and college students, but that was not what this community needed to grow. It would not draw in people from other places to live here permanently.  It would make this town still stay a college town instead of a town with a college in it.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn stated the Planning Commissioners were all appointed and did not run for office and were all students also. The current Wal-Mart employs around 400 people.

 

Ms. Hanna stated that if you put a business district there instead, it would employ more people and draw more outside people and keep students in Lawrence.  Many students leave Lawrence because there is no chance to get a job in Lawrence because there is not a lot of industry or businesses other than retail.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn said he was trying to explain the background and was not trying to be combative. 

 

Ms. Hanna felt that this space could be used in a much better way than more retail space that had already been shown not to be effective any way.

 

Richard Heckler, 1217 Prospect Ave, said Mr. Thompson presented an elegant show.  He said all the green space was great, except for one thing. They have been advised that Lawrence was over saturated with retail. He said a good looking store, no matter what it was, and as big and powerful as Wal-Mart, was more than likely to have a negative effect on surrounding businesses.  Wal-Mart could not succeed in Wal-Mart fashion unless it did so. He said it made him think of a term that came to him many times, usually surrounding Wal-Mart but mostly any big box store, and it was the term economic displacement. How long could Lawrence withstand economic displacement?

 

Commissioner Finkeldei asked if he had the same concern when Home Depot came in, that Westlake would go out of business and they would lose all their hardware shops.

 

Mr. Heckler said not necessarily because Payless was here before Home Depot came in.

 

David Swift, Grass Roots Action, said he thought it was clear that ultimately the decision was whether or not this was a good idea and whether or not it was responsible for the community to go forward with this plan. The design specifications, technical compliance, and legality were all important. He said the question was whether this would benefit Lawrence. He said it was not about the location or technicalities, but rather how the public itself felt about building the second Wal-Mart at 6th and Wakarusa. This had been on the agenda for Lawrence for a number of years. They have been discussing and debating the issue of Wal-Mart for a long time.  The public had a lot of exposure and a lot of time to think through what matters and how they felt. They decided in Grass Roots Action to try and do a scientific test. They did a randomly generated list of voters and called people to find out how they felt. They talked to 205 people and asked if they had heard about the debate of the 6th and Wakarusa Wal-Mart. If they said they had heard about it, they asked if they were for or against it.  53.2% said they opposed the second Wal-Mart, 26.8% said they wanted a second Wal-Mart, and 20% had no opinion. They found three main reasons against building the second Wal-Mart. The most serious concern was acute traffic congestion. Many people were also concerned about the impact on other stores in Lawrence. He said that brought him to the third concern which was the issue of low wages. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest corporation, was famous for providing low wage jobs compared to most other retailers and famous for providing an insufficient base in terms of health benefits. They did not prompt the people with whom they were speaking. They rattled off a list of potential pros and cons without elaborating. People had heard these issues discussed and knew people who had worked at Wal-Mart.  People knew a lot about this issue and were simply prompted by the phrase traffic congestion or enhanced tax revenues or bringing customers in from out of Lawrence. They found that the people they spoke to did not favor the second Wal-Mart. He said if they added together the 20% who had no opinion and the 26.8% who favored the second Wal-Mart, it did not reach 50%.

 

Commissioner Finkeldei inquired if the poll question was about whether people would shop at Wal-Mart or are opposed to it being built.

 

Mr. Swift said it was essentially the same question that the Planning Commission and City Commission were being asked; did the community favor building this proposed Wal-Mart at the proposed site.

 

Commissioner Blaser said he did not know if Mr. Swift had been present at the beginning of the meeting for the traffic presentation, but as he heard, the traffic was not going to be a problem.  Commissioner Blaser asked Mr. Swift if he had any idea of what percent of the “no’s” were for traffic.

 

Mr. Swift said that a couple of them actually favored building the store at 6th of Wakarusa because they lived near the other Wal-Mart and would prefer to have less congestion where they lived and more congestion somewhere else.  Mr. Swift said he lives near the proposed project and knows how high school students drive. They will be directly next to this site with high volumes of traffic.  That was a concern of his. When he spoke to people he heard a lot of different concerns. 

 

Alan Black, 2011 Jenny Wren Rd., said Mr. Smith made reference to Free State High School being very close to this site and said that the effect of the store on the school had not been discussed. He did not find anything in the staff report about it.  He expected that a lot of the students would go to the Wal-Mart, which was good for it.  He could imagine some students would skip classes to spend time at the Wal-Mart.  He imagined some students would park in the Wal-Mart parking spaces.  With those effects, there was probably going to be a lot of pedestrian traffic between the high school and Wal-Mart which could create a safety problem.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn pointed out that pedestrian traffic was usually preferred instead of cars.

 

Mr. Black stated he did not want pedestrians crossing major streets. He thought that a lot of teenagers would cross the street mid block instead of at the crosswalks.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn stated that if high school students worked at Wal-Mart, wouldn’t it be the perfect job for them to walk from school to work as opposed to having them drive somewhere else to work for four or five hours of the day.

 

Mr. Black said, yes, that was probably true.

 

Bangere Pumaprajna 2605 Blue Stem Drive, said he lived 3 minutes from the current Wal-Mart and would live 3 minutes from new Wal-Mart if it was approved.  He said it was great to see a democracy in action and was sure a lot of people respected it. He thanked them for a brilliant presentation and could see why Wal-Mart was doing so well.  He asked about Wal-Mart’s employment and low prices.  He asked what kind of employment it employed and what does low price mean. He read statistics. Over ½ of the Wal-Mart workers fell through the company safety net.  Few of the employees were covered.  According to Wal-Mart’s own web site, in January 2006 the number of associates covered by Wal-Mart health insurance increased to 46%, which was well below the national average of 63% in large firms, 200 employees or more.  For instance, Costco has health insurance for 80% of its workers. The health care that was provided for the associates was neither affordable nor accessible.  He said the moral question was if people said it gave employment, they should be asking what kind of employment it was giving and would they send their own children to work there for 20 years.  Wal-Mart offers health care options to the employees and families that have a deductible of $1,000 for individuals and $3,000 for the families. Employees have to wait too long to qualify. The Wal-Mart average for full time workers to qualify for benefits was 6 months compared to the retail average of 2.7 months and the average waiting period for large firms of 2 months. 

 

Student Commissioner Robb asked if the statistics Mr. Pumaprajna referred to were for full time employees or part time employees.

 

Mr. Pumaprajna said they were referring to associate employees.  He did not feel that any person would want a loved one working in such conditions as Wal-Mart. 

 

Commissioner Eichhorn stated that the Planning Commission’s purview was not healthcare and it should not be in their discussion to ask the applicant.

 

Mr. Pumaprajna said that when a group was making a decision for a community, he would like to know what kind of stores are being let in.  He felt it was a moral issue.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn said that without going into a debate, they were good questions but as a land use committee it was not in their purview to address the healthcare issue. Healthcare discussions would probably need to happen with Wal-Mart, not the Planning Commission.

 

Alan Cowles, said he lived out on the west side of town. He wanted to let the Planning Commission know the concerns on the west side of the city were just as intense as they were four years ago and the biggest concern was still traffic. He said no matter what the traffic predictions seemed to say, he would have them stand on Congressional Drive with no building on the north side of that intersection, on the northwest and northeast corners. Currently there is a lot of cut through traffic without anything even built yet on that corner. The cut through traffic was already there without the predictions. He said they needed to be very careful in their decisions because whatever they put on that corner will probably be there for 50 years or so.  He hoped they would not want to create the kind of problems they have on 23rd Street. 

 

Gina Spade, 1118 Rankin Drive, said she and her husband moved to Lawrence in September with their two year old son from Washington D.C. Her husband works in Overland Park at a law firm, she works from home.  They could have lived closer to his job in Kansas City, but chose to live in Lawrence because Lawrence is not full of big box chain stores. The downtown is thriving and special. They are concerned that if Lawrence began to look like Overland Park, they would have to reconsider why they chose to live in Lawrence instead of Overland Park.  She asked the Planning Commission to consider the overall effect of this development on the city.  When residents in the surrounding area could drive less than 10 minutes to currently shop at a Wal-Mart, if they so chose, what was the development already adding to Lawrence that they did not already have.  More importantly, they needed to consider what this development would take away.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn asked if Ms. Spade felt that Wal-Mart directly competed with downtown.

 

Ms. Spade stated that she personally does not shop at Wal-Mart, so she was not really sure if people would choose to shop at Wal-Mart over some of the downtown businesses.  Any time you start concentrating development on the edges of the City, it is going take away from the downtown because it is 2 minutes away instead of 10 minutes away.

 

Mike Treanor, said he represented the buyers of the property of Bauer Farm Development. He thought the Bauer Farm project is seen by most people as the kind of project that Lawrence would like to see.  It is mixed use, has a strong residential base, and retail that had been identified over time as being appropriate for that location. Wal-Mart is controversial for its generation of traffic and for some of its employee practices.  What interests people that are potentially going into the Bauer Farm Project is that Wal-Mart offers that other shopping experience, which is the comparison shopping as compared to the specialty shopping across the street. Together they worked well together. Bauer Farm would have restaurants and pedestrian shopping. Across the street will be perhaps the kind of every day items that people want to get from Wal-Mart. Wherever Wal-Mart is placed, people were going to shop there, but they would also go to the places that were fun to go to.  It was fun to go downtown because it is the arts, entertainment and shopping area in Lawrence and has great history. 6th & Wakarusa is a small community center for that surrounding area.  If they gave more opportunities in Lawrence for what they were doing at Bauer Farm in conjunction with the kind of project Wal-Mart was going to do, he thought it would attract people there and would generate more people and traffic, which was what they needed for their own vibrancy. 

 

Commissioner Eichhorn asked Mr. Treanor if, being somewhat of a competitor in the area of the new Wal-Mart store, he found it curious that Dillon’s, Westlake and other people were not at the meeting because they are the stores that would supposedly be hurt. 

 

Mr. Treanor said that if Westlake or Dillon’s thought this would be devastating they would be here tonight to oppose it.  He thought if you ask the other owners around the corner, they would see it as a positive development for all the people out there; the specialty retailers, restaurants, and the grocery store.

 

Commissioner Hird stated that Mr. Black talked about Free State High School and kids that might leave the school and migrate into the neighborhood, particular into Wal-Mart.  He asked Mr. Treanor to comment about the issue of the kids and their driving, skipping classes and hanging out in the parking lot since he has a development also.

 

Mr. Treanor said he would welcome the kids if they want to come over for lunch. He has two children who attended Free State High and knows they would leave and drive across the street to go to Arby’s or wherever for lunch and then come back, or do it between the after school activities. He thought that same thing was going to happen with Bauer Farms and Wal-Mart. They will have kids going to their center and go to the burger place or a restaurant. He felt that was a positive thing. As far as kids coming in there during the day, it was certainly possible but high schools were built in urban areas all over the world and it was not going to be the cause for someone to leave school.

 

Graham Kreicker, 1124 Williamsburg Place, lives very close to the corner of 6th and Wakarusa, and said people from Westlake and Dillon’s were probably not here because they might have considered this a land use issue, not a competitive issue. He said if they could think of it as strictly a land use issue there would probably be no reason for them to be at the meeting.  He was concerned that the plan proposed did not include anything at all about pedestrian use and pedestrian consideration should be given top priority. He recalled for the Planning Commission the fact that even before the Wal-Mart Super Center grocery store opened up on the south side of town, that Food 4 Less went out of business and the manager did not make any bones about the fact that it might not have been the best store in their chain, but they were not going to be able to cut the mustard once the Super Center grocery store opened up.  He thought that was a precursor of coming attractions if this program went forward.  He said he was present to listen to the predictions about traffic, and did not have to wait for ten or fifteen years because the traffic on 6th Street was already a problem.

 

Allison Ruepe, 312 Indiana, lives in the Pinckney Neighborhood, and said she chose that neighborhood coming from Kansas City because it had so much individual characteristics and she liked that about Lawrence.  She thought they did a marvelous job restructuring Wal-Mart to look wonderful and integrated into the community.  She thought for a land use they did a spectacular job. She said she still agreed with a few other people that in a sense it was a moral issue. Wal-Mart had already driven other companies out of business all over the planet.  She said they already had one Wal-Mart and did not know if they needed two. They also had a Target and a lot of different kinds of stores that support that kind of business in town. There were a lot of buildings downtown that were begging for someone to lease them, and the prices were going higher and higher, driving people out of the downtown area.  She agreed that bringing in a huge, new Wal-Mart was going to suck the businesses away.  When Best Buy came in, it was impossible to buy a good camera anymore with detached lenses and all the kinds of things you could buy at a local camera store, instead of the three or eight styles Best Buy carriers. She said if she wanted to live in Johnson County, she would go back there. She came out of Johnson County because she was tired of the entire big box look and everything being so depersonalized.  She thought Lawrence was afraid to say no to development. She had been in Johnson County for only six years and had lived in the country for 10 years before that, and did not know how many thousands of dollars Lawrence has spent trying to say no to Wal-Mart and thought that Lawrence had a lot of money issues and other things they should spend money on. She said she knew why they could not say no to Wal-Mart and win, because they have such a huge legal department that they always win. It made her sad for Lawrence because she felt like they were being bullied into taking another Wal-Mart when they already had one. 

 

Commissioner Hird stated that he lives in the country and when he drives into town on 59 Highway he passes the current Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, Sears, and J.C. Penney’s. He wondered why there was such anger toward Wal-Mart instead of the other “Big Box” stores.

 

Ms. Ruepe said that the reason was probably because they were worldwide and they have closed many small town businesses across the U.S. She did some research and was not very fond of Wal-Mart. She was generally against big box stores and thought that they had the ability to go into a small town, put in a Wal-Mart, and all the local businesses would close.

 

Commissioner Hird stated that there was not any moral outrage when J.C. Penney’s and Sears came in.

 

Z Hall, 3232 Cardinal Drive, said it was unfortunate that Wal-Mart was getting a bad rap, but a lot of media coverage probably lent to that. She said she wanted to know more about the increase in partnerships with local business, what percentage of increase is anticipated in that area, and the nature of those partnerships. She also wanted to know how much of an increase of charitable contributions will come from the new store. She said she wanted to know where they anticipated the human resources would come from.  The teenagers in West Lawrence would not work at Wal-Mart for low wages and hard work because of the lifestyle they were used to. The resources would have to come from somewhere else, in Lawrence or Topeka. 

 

Jolene Bechtel, 3804 Park Place, said as far as why there was not a fear over J.C. Penney’s, Sears and Target was the history of Wal-Mart and the sweat shops that have produced so much of their products and partly because of the insurance situation. She said she was a registered nurse and works at a hospital and knew the millions of dollars they did in charitable care. This was a City hospital, so the money that was being used to pay for the health care of people who could not afford it came out of the Lawrence community. She was also concerned about traffic issues. 

 

Mr. Pathak said one of the things he wanted to address was the question of whether this was a land use issue and whether or not it was technically correct. He said he sat on the Finance Committee at the University of Kansas Student Senate for quite some time. They went through a series of meetings just like the Planning Commission where they have groups come to them and ask for funding. They not only look at them in terms of technical correctness, whether they have done all the proper procedures and have everything in place, but they also looked at them in terms if they had been responsible with the funds they had given them in the past.  He asked if Wal-Mart had been responsible with the land they have given them in the past. They also looked at something called duplication of services; whether or not the group was literally duplicating services that could be found elsewhere. There was an argument to be made for three or four Kwik Shops around town. Those were often times owned by the same company but were franchised so that a local person got a share of the profits.  In this situation, there would be two Wal-Marts owned by the same corporation, duplicating their services, and that was neither here nor there if the market could absorb it. He said if they were looking for reasons to approve this simply because it was technically correct, then they should.  If they were looking to make a decision to a deliberative body, there may be something more to say to that.  

 

APPLICANT CLOSING COMMENTS

Mr. Thompson said that some public comment had suggested that nobody wanted the second store but a lot of the same people saying that traffic would increase; the two were not consistent. The “poll” really has no validity by virtue of reading the question and looking at the answers. He said with regard to traffic and the concerns of high school students, the high school bought their property with the designation of this corner as being commercial. They knew when they bought the property that this was going to be a commercial corner. Two blocks from Lawrence High School is one of the busiest intersections, 23rd and Louisiana. There has not been a history of horrible accidents there. Kids do have accidents. The reality is they had a decade of experience with 23rd and Louisiana generating immense amounts of traffic without any catastrophic results, having a high school two blocks away about the same distance Free State is from the Wal-Mart site. With regard to duplication of services: the market should be allowed to determine that and people ought to be allowed to vote with their dollars and feet. He thought the people had voted at the polls and should be allowed to vote with their dollars.  He said this site had a number of ways to accommodate pedestrians. There were seating areas, more sidewalks, and if they looked at the plans, there had been a great deal of accommodation of pedestrians worked into the plan, both initially and with staff encouragement. He reminded them that the PCD-2 zonings had already been recommended for approval by the previous Planning Commission. The Planning Commission is now considering the plan and the rezoning of the open space area. He said after considering the land use issues that were associated with the plan, which was what really was before the Planning Commission tonight, he asked the Planning Commission to approve the project.

 

COMMISSION DISCUSSION

Commissioner Jennings said it was his understanding that this was a land use commission. He stated that most of what was heard tonight had nothing to do with land issue; it had to do with the occupant. He pointed out that the Planning Commission does not go through this much debate when, for example, a Ford dealership is built; we do not talk about what brand should go there, we talk about whether it is correct to have an automotive dealer on the corner.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn reiterated that it was a land use discussion.

 

Commissioner Jennings said that the Planning Commission asked a member of staff five years ago to look up the distance from the front door of Checkers Grocery to Lawrence High and the distance from the front door of the proposed Wal-Mart to Free State High. The distance between Checkers and Lawrence High is closer than the front door of Wal-Mart to Free State High School. Wal-Mart and Free State High would share an intersection, but he doubted that high school students would park their cars there. He did not see too many kids parking in The Malls parking lot to go to Lawrence High School. He felt there was a misconception that Free State High is the rich high school. He stated that his wife taught there for 10 years and that most of the students were from East Lawrence, North Lawrence, and the area by the hospital. Nobody is forcing people to shop or work at Wal-Mart.  People are acting like it is going to be an indentured servitude of some sort if this building is built there, and if no one wants to go in the front door or the back door then it won’t stay in business. Surrounding businesses were not objecting and previous testimonies from owners on both sides of the intersection were campaigning for this. He stated that he is not pro-Wal-Mart but there are a lot of services you cannot buy in that part of town. If the project is denied there is not a guarantee that Wal-Mart won’t go on the corner. He liked this plan better than the previous plan. He thought that if they had seen the original plan approved for this four or five years ago, there was a good reality that building could show up on that corner and he did not think any one would like that. He felt this plan was much more attractive than the other one the  Planning Commission previously approved. He felt that most of the public comment was an attack on the vendor and not related to the land use issue. He thought they needed to separate that in their thinking.

 

Commissioner Hird stated that he has only been on the Planning Commission for a month and he was learning in leaps and bounds things that were not taught in law school about democracy in action. He appreciated the candor and demeanor of the public who took the time to speak on this issue. He stated that if this was reduced to a land use issue, the plan was in compliance with the rules and regulations. The applicant has made a strong effort to make it much more palatable for the community, both in terms of aesthetics and the technical requirements such as traffic flow, pedestrian use and things like that. The main land use issue that the public discussed was traffic. The uniqueness of Lawrence is very important, but is subjective. It is very difficult within the confines of a Planning Commission to know how to approach that.  He found Mr. McClure’s comments very enlightening; the market capacity to absorb the project and the concept of a net beneficial effect. Commissioner Hird went on to say that what it comes down to is whether this project is in compliance with what the City Commission has determined as the long range plan for that section of town. Most of the comments heard tonight were criticisms of Wal-Mart as a company. He agreed with Mr. Jennings that it is a land use issue. In terms of land use, it is in compliance with what had been laid out as the purpose of this area, which is a tremendously important consideration. He did take the public comments to heart, but the use of the site should be looked at, not what store goes in there. Businesses could change. The Planning Commission looks at the use.

 

Commissioner Finkeldei noted that what was on the agenda tonight was even one step removed because they do not even have the PCD-2 zonings of this property on the agenda, they have the preliminary development plan and no one seemed to oppose that. He has been on the Planning Commission for a year and the Wal-Mart plan came before the Planning Commission 7 months ago with a development plan and they spent a lot of time talking about placement of islands, pedestrian access, location of buildings, and traffic flow. Many members of the public, as well as the Planning Commissioners, were concerned about various items. He went on to say that this preliminary development plan addressed those issues they discussed. There was one comment tonight saying it did not address pedestrian issues, but he felt the plan went above and beyond in that regard. He was pleased that they had been able to address those issues. The second most talked about issue that they considered last time and were still talking about is traffic. There are still traffic concerns and he believed that traffic was always an issue, but they now have more information today than previously. He felt this preliminary development plan was a much better plan than they had before.

 

Commissioner Eichhorn was concerned about rezoning the land that was currently PRD-2 to Open Space and wondered if it was taken out of the plan. Currently it was part of the plan with it being zoned PRD-2. It seemed a bad idea to move it off this plan to its own separate plan.  What was part of something that became a substantial change was now another entity. He had a hard time understanding it being a substantial change when it was being moved off into its own separate area. 

 

Mr. Thompson stated that it was not being removed from the plan. That corner lot had never been part of the PCD plan throughout the history of it. What happened was last fall, based on comments from staff and some of the people who attended the Planning Commission, Wal-Mart acquired that piece of property to turn it into green space, reducing the density on the entire quadrant. It had never been part of the plan. Because we already have a pending zoning under the old code, and yet this piece of property was not acquired after July 1st, they had to proceed with an Open Space rezoning under the new Development Code. In no way had it been taken out, and based upon notes on the preliminary development plan, it was joined at the hip with this particular PCD plan. They had a very extraordinary circumstance with a massive change the Development Code as of July 1st. They were not being separated and had not been separated. They had taken steps to effectively join them at the hip.

 

Commissioner Harkins asked Ms. Stogsdill if there was an area plan for that part of the City.

 

Ms. Stogsdill replied, yes, there is the 6th and Wakarusa intersection plan that the Staff Report includes.

 

Commissioner Harkins asked if the Wal-Mart plan was completely consistent with the area plan.

 

Ms. Stogsdill stated that was the conclusion in the staff recommendation.

 

Student Commissioner Robb felt that a lot of other Planning Commission discussions were oriented greatly around what was better for Lawrence and better for the community itself. She felt it did become a land use issue in the event that what was said was true. If the commercial areas downtown do begin to dilapidate somewhat then there may be a greater land issue later down the road.

 

Commissioner Finkeldei said that what she is referring to is a bigger issue with the PCD-2 zonings that are tabled at City Commission.

 

ACTION TAKEN

Motioned by Commissioner Finkeldei, seconded by Commissioner Chaney, to approve the revised Preliminary Development Plan for Wal-Mart and forwarding the application to the City Commission with a recommendation for approval, subject to the following conditions:

 

1.      Revision of the plan to include the following:

a.      Inclusion of details regarding the site’s proposed sanitary sewer main connection to the existing sanitary sewer stub under Congressional Drive.

b.      City Engineer approval of the curb cut radius for the northernmost curb cut along Congressional Drive.

c.      Remove reference to the existing Block and Lot numbers and include only the proposed Block and Lot numbers on the relevant pages.

d.      Note the existing zoning of PRD [Wakarusa Place] (formerly PRD-2) for Lot 2A, Block 2.

e.      Show at least one 8-foot wide van accessible access aisle within each grouping of ADA spaces.

 

Unanimously approved 8-0, with Student Commissioner Robb in opposition.