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Planning Staff |
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November 28, 2007 |
The development of a Southeast Area Plan began in 1997. The primary issues at that time were: timing of development (land uses), connectivity of the major street network, the location and timing of the eastern leg of the South Lawrence Trafficway/K-10 Highway (SLT/K-10 Highway), and the timing of city sanitary sewer and water lines to the planning area. Planning staff created a draft land use map and text for the planning area and it was presented to the Planning Commission on August 13, 1997. The Planning Commission forwarded the Southeast Area Plan to the County Commission for direction on SLT/K-10 Highway access points. The County Commission deferred the discussion because of issues related to an ongoing study of the eastern alignment of the SLT/K-10 Highway. After this deferral, the plan was not approved or adopted by any of the three Commissions.
The planning process continued in 2004 with various drafts of future land use maps and text. Two future land use maps were given as options but a consensus could not be reached by the commissions. Since then, various things have changed. The ECO2 Commission has completed the first phase of their plan, development has occurred within the planning area, and the Wakarusa Water Reclamation Facility is tentatively set to be operational in 2011, south of the planning area, which will provide additional sanitary sewer capacity to this area.
A joint city/county study session was held May 22, 2007, and at which time the draft plan was sent back to the Planning Commission with the direction of using the land use concept provided by the Peridian Group dated May 22, 2005 as a starting point.
A property owner meeting was held on October 11, 2007 to introduce a draft of the plan to property owners and interested persons in order to gather feedback. Comments regarding the draft were collected and a revised draft was completed that incorporates a number of the comments given at the public meeting. The second draft was posted on the Planning Department website October 30, 2007 to allow for the public to view the document and the draft is now ready for commission action.
The planning area is bounded roughly to the north by E. 23rd Street/K-10 Highway; to the west by O’Connell Road; to the south by the north side of the Wakarusa River floodplain; and to the east by E. 1750 Road (Noria Road).
The draft Southeast Area Plan includes an introduction section, an existing condition section, and a recommendations section. The introduction section provides the background and purpose of the plan, a description of the planning area, and the policy framework for the plan.
The existing conditions section of the plan provides a snapshot of the conditions when the plan was drafted. This section includes descriptions and maps of the current land uses, current zonings, current infrastructure, environmental conditions and public services/facilities.
The recommendations section of the plan provides a description of each of the recommended future land uses, future land use map, policies, and implementation. The future land use descriptions explain the intent of each future land use, identify a density range and intensity, identify where the applicable parts of the planning area are located, recommend zoning districts for the land use category, and identify the primary uses within the land use. These descriptions are accompanied by a future land use map and should be used in conjunction with the land use descriptions to obtain the entire picture of the intent of the recommendations.
The recommendations section of the plan also provides policies for the planning area. The policies are grouped into the following categories: residential land use, commercial land use, public facility/open space land use, gateway, transportation facilities and corridors, and general.
Since the October 26th draft was posted, comments have been received from the Utility Department. The changes suggested were a spelling error and a clarification in Section 2.3, paragraph 2 of the draft plan. These changes were made and posted on the Planning Department website with a date of November 7th. Also it was commented that “the proposed land uses that required sanitary sewer capacity is still within that being designed via the current county benefit district project”.
Action Requested