Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Planning & Development Services

TO:	David L. Corliss, City Manager
FROM:	Scott McCullough, Planning & Development Services Director
CC:	Diane Stoddard, Assistant City Manager Cynthia Wagner, Assistant City Manager
Date:	January 25, 2011
RE:	IL and IG Impacts

This memo provides a response to Vice-Mayor Cromwell’s question:

If you hypothetically had an IG zoning with a restriction against Intensive Manufacturing, Mining, and Explosive Storage would there be any "off site impacts" allowed.  It is my understanding that IL does not allow off-site impacts but IG does... would a restricted IG allow this?

A brief review of the code follows.

Mining is permitted in IG with a Special Use Permit and is not allowed in IL so if removed from the IG district through a condition of zoning, this particular use would not create any off-site impacts in either the IL or IG district.

Explosive Storage is permitted by right in IG and not permitted in IL.  Removing this use from the IG district through a condition of zoning would not create any off-site impacts in either the IL or IG district.

Intensive Industrial is a use permitted in IG but not permitted in IL.  The Intensive Industrial use can contain nuisance conditions, including:

· continuous, frequent or repetitive noises and vibrations;

· noxious or toxic fumes, odors or emissions;

· electrical disturbances; or

· night illumination into residential areas.

The General Industrial use is permitted in both districts.  By definition, the General Industrial use cannot have the above nuisance conditions but could have temporary off-site impacts, such as noise, vibration, and odor related to temporary construction, vehicles or trains entering or leaving the site, noise and vibrations occurring less than 15 minutes per day, and noise detectable only as part of a composite of sounds from various off-site sources.

Removing Intensive Industrial from the IG district would place it on par with IL in terms of the potential off-site impacts associated with industrial uses, though by their very nature, industrial uses carry the potential for greater off-site impacts than other land uses – diesel engine noise and odors, large parking lots and associated lights, 24-hour activity, etc.

So in brief, a restricted IG district would mitigate many of the off-site nuisance conditions associated with the Intensive Industrial use.  However, something to consider if the Intensive Industrial use is removed from IG is the administrative process for determining whether a specific use is intensive or not.  As applications are submitted staff would need to make a determination on whether any of the nuisance conditions are present in order to determine if the particular use is permitted in the conditioned IG district.  This may result in challenges to staff’s determination as the application is processed.  This challenge also exists with IL under the current code, but in practice has not been an issue since there are relatively small amounts of IL zoning in the City.