MASTER PLAN OVERVIEW

Oread Neighborhood Plan

Origin of Plan

On January 28, 2009 the Lawrence Douglas County Planning Commission initiated the process to update the March 21, 1979 Oread Neighborhood Plan. The initiation of the plan was in response to the City Commission conditioning a resolution for the demolition of a structure on property located within the Oread Neighborhood that no building permit would be issued for the property until the neighborhood plan was updated and approved. The creation of the plan included 15 public meetings. On September 21, 2010 the City Commission approved the Oread Neighborhood Plan. The adopted plan is scheduled to be reviewed in 2020.

Expected outcomes from the plan

The purpose of the Oread Neighborhood Plan is to outline specific goals, policies, and recommendations for the Oread neighborhood to be used for maintaining the character of the neighborhood and planning for compatible development. The scope of the plan comprehensively addresses land use, historic preservation, infrastructure, and neighborhood atmosphere. The plan establishes a multi-year vision with supportive goals, policies and actions.  An implementation priority schedule was included in the plan. This schedule included the parties responsible (Oread Neighborhood Association, City of Lawrence, and the University of Kansas) for the action step and a scheduled timeframe for the action. The implementation schedule was a five year schedule with some steps that would be ongoing.

The four goals of the plan are:

1. Land Use - Maintain a variety of housing types to provide a balance in the diversity of the people living in the neighborhood while maintaining strong neighborhood scale commercial areas. Future land uses identified in the plan were predominantly residential to allow multi-dwelling uses mixed with single dwellings.

2. Preservation – Preserve and improve the character of the neighborhood by encouraging the preservation of existing historic structures and features and by supporting infill development that is compatible with the surrounding neighborhood.

3. Infrastructure – Promote improvements and maintenance of existing infrastructure on a regular basis and upgrade infrastructure when redevelopment occurs.

4. Neighborhood Atmosphere – Promote a healthy and safe living, working, studying, and celebrating environment with a sense of community.

Priorities for the plan included creating overlay districts for the neighborhood, review of the Land Development Code for congregate living uses and permitting detached dwellings in the multi-dwelling zoning districts, support of the rental registration program, and the restoration of brick streets and maintenance funds allocated yearly for street repair and replacement. Actions that were identified to be ongoing included seeking grants for specific needs like grants that will help pay for additional police officer presence in the area during large events. The development of a parking system to help address commuter parking was identified as an action step for one to two years.

Funding

Not applicable.

Status Update

The first priority outlined in the plan was to develop urban conservation overlay districts with development and design standards. These development and design standards, the Oread Neighborhood Design Guidelines, identify specific items to be addressed with development and redevelopment in the urban conservation overlay districts. Specific standards include building setbacks, parking locations, and architectural guidelines.  This process was completed in November of 2016 when the City Commission approved the rezonings for the overlay districts and the associated design guidelines. Other action steps such as the historic resources survey of the area north of Memorial Stadium, have been completed. Some action steps such as seeking grants to provide funding for projects are ongoing.

Future

The plan is included in Chapter 14 – Specific Plans in Horizon 2020. The plan is used to provide guidance on planning applications that could affect the neighborhood. As additional historic resources are identified and listed in the Lawrence Register of Historic Places in the overlay districts, they will be added to the plan.