Dear Mayor and City Commissioners:
The Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods supports the staff decision to postpone the addition of the industrial site at K-10 and I-70 to the Industrial Chapter. Industrial sites should not be arbitrarily added without due and lawful notice and public input.
The “intensive uses” that Ms. Eldredge addresses in her letter are commercial uses and are different than intensive uses in an industrial site. Because there has been no discussion on whether a Light Industrial (IL),General Industrial (IG) or Industrial Business Park (IBP) would be the zoning at this particular site and since there are several neighborhoods within one or two miles of this area, a discussion on land use is in order before recommending this area as an industrial site. IBP are presently near residential areas. IL is compatible with commercial land use according to 20-215 of the development codes but does not say compatible with residential and IG states that is “generally incompatible with residential areas…”.
IG being the “intensive” industrial use zoning.
This site could spur truck traffic along 6th street, George Williams Way past a grade school, and Wakarusa and a high school and could cause major traffic problems above the already approved commercial and school traffic if not properly zoned.
“Policy 4.1: Level of Service
Do not permit the expansion of existing or construction of new industrial and employment-related development in areas where, even with street and traffic signal improvements, the additional traffic generated by such development would result in an unacceptable Level of Service
According to the T2030 members Lawrence will be looking at thousands of trucks within a few short years and Lawrence needs to have the discussion about where and how we will handle that traffic and the cost to maintain our roads.
This site is very close to residential areas and schools, as well as almost 1 million square feet of commercial land use. Issues regarding the possibility of major impact on nearby land use need to be reviewed before adding this area to our industrial site map and the Industrial chapter of Horizon 2020. Industrial sites should not be arbitrarily added without due process, notification and public input, because of the possibility of major unintended impacts on nearby areas.
We appreciate that staff is aware that this area will need to go through the discussion process before determining its status as an industrial site.
We ask the City Commission to acknowledge staffs recommendation and ask for public discourse before adding this area to the industrial chapter.
Gwen Klingenberg
Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods - President