Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Planning and Development Services

TO:	David L. Corliss, City Manager
FROM:	Scott McCullough, Director
Date:	For January 15, 2013 meeting
RE:	CPA-4-2-12: Comprehensive Plan Amendment to create CC600 District policies and revise area plans to designate the node of 6^th Street and K-10 as a CC600. TA-4-3-12: Text amendment to the Development Code establishing the CC 600 District. Z-4-5-12: Rezoning request for approximately 146 acres located in the NW quadrant of the intersection of West 6^th Street/Hwy 40 and Kansas Hwy 10 (K-10) from County A (Agriculture) District and County B1 (Neighborhood Business) District to the pending City of Lawrence District CC600 (Community Commercial) District.

This memo supplements staff’s memo posted for the January 15, City Commission agenda. 

One issue related to the applications noted above has been whether the allocation of the retail square feet for the proposed CC600 node of 6^th St. and K-10 Highway is appropriate given the change in location of the sports village.  The node is currently identified as a CC400 with 360,000 sq. ft. designated for the Mercato development.  Under the proposed CC600 scenario, 240,000 sq. ft. of retail is left to allocate per the proposed comprehensive plan policies for distributing the retail uses in a node.  The proposed policy affecting the allocation of retail uses states:

A maximum of 90 percent of the commercial square footage, as defined in this chapter, in a new CC600 Center shall be located on two corners of the intersection. The remaining commercial square footage, as defined in this chapter, shall be located on one or both of the remaining corners.

When the sports village was being considered west of K-10, this policy was implemented, assigning approximately 180,000 sq. ft. of retail to the northwest corner in order to support the sports village uses.  This effectively assigned 90% of the available retail sq. ft. to two corners of the node; however, the policy indicates that this is a maximum amount and that a lesser percentage of retail could be assigned to two corners, with the remaining retail assigned to the remaining corners.  Relocating such a high generator of traffic east of K-10 may warrant further review of how best to allocate the retail at and within the node.

The language below could be used to return the applications to the Planning Commission under the scenario whereby the majority of the City Commission supports the concept of the 6^th St./K-10 node for the CC600 designation, but desires that the PC review and discuss the allocation of retail uses at the node.

Under this scenario, the following motion could be made:

Move to return item 2 (a through c) to the Planning Commission recognizing that the City Commission supports the proposed CC600 designation for the 6^th St./K-10 node and directing the PC to discuss appropriate allocation of the 240,000 sq. ft. of retail square feet that is not currently allocated to the Mercato Development.

Adopting this motion would return all of the applications to the PC with specific direction.  The items would be considered at the PC’s February meeting with presumed consideration by the City Commission in March.