[E-minutes] July 8, 2003 City Commission meeting minutes

[Lisa Patterson]

             July 8, 2003

The Board of Commissioners of the City of Lawrence met in regular session at
6:35 p.m., in the City Commission Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Dunfield
presiding and members Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner present.  
Mayor Dunfield recognized Bijai Jones of Free State High School, Derrick
Newman, Brandon McAnderson, and Coach Dirk Wedd of Lawrence High School, for
being selected participants in the 20th Annual Kansas Shrine Bowl game. 
CONSENT AGENDA
The second reading for Ordinance No. 7660, rezoning (Z-04-08-03) 4.45 acres
from A (Agricultural District) to O-1 (Office District), located west of the
southwest corner of West 6th Street and E. 1100 Road, was deferred until
July 22, 2003.
Resolution No. 6471, establishing the public hearing date of September 9,
2003 to consider the proposed annexation of approximately 2.99 acres,
located at 1241 North. 1300 Road, abutting 31st Street, located south of
31st Street, east of Lawrence Avenue, and completely surrounded by City
boundaries, was deferred indefinitely.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
approve claims to 320 vendors in the amount of $1,798,746.96.  Motion
carried unanimously.  
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
approve the Drinking Establishment Licenses for Pancho's Mexican Restaurant,
711 W. 23rd Street; Zen Zero, 811 Massachusetts Street; La Parilla, Inc.,
814 Massachusetts Street; Longhorn Steakhouse of Lawrence, 3050 Iowa Street
(Contingent upon State License); and the Retail Liquor Licenses for Ray's
Liquor Warehouse, 1215 West 6th Street; and Ray's Wine and Spirits, 721
Wakarusa Drive.  Motion carried unanimously. 
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
authorize and approve the expenditure of $17,000 to Westar Energy for the
relocation of overhead transmission lines along O'Connell Road between 23rd
Street and 31st Street.  Motion carried unanimously.
(1)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
place on first reading Ordinance No. 7661, adopting the 2000 Uniform
Plumbing Code.  Motion carried unanimously.
(2) 
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
place on first reading Ordinance No. 7664, rezoning (Z-12-43-02) 0.51 acres
from RS-1 (Single-Family Residence District) to RO-1A (Residence-Office
District), located at 501 Rockledge Road.  Motion carried unanimously.
(3)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
place on first reading Ordinance No. 7665, rezoning (Z-04-09-03) 1.81 acres
from RS-1 (Single-Family Residence District) to RO-2 (Residence-Office
District), located at 505 & 515 Rockledge Road.  Motion carried unanimously.
(4)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
place on first reading Charter Ordinance No. 35, allowing the sale of
alcoholic liquor on Sundays and holidays, and allowing the City Commission
to establish hours of Sunday sales and restriction of certain holidays by
ordinary ordinance.  Motion carried unanimously.
(5)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
place on first reading Ordinance No. 7666, allowing the sale, possession,
and consumption of alcoholic liquor on September 6, 2003 at Burcham Park for
the Lawrence Mountain Bike Club's "Tour De Fat" fundraiser.  Motion carried
unanimously.
 		      	       (6)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
place on first reading Ordinance No. 7667, establishing Sunday liquor sale
hours of 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and prohibiting retail liquor sales on
Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day, upon the effectiveness of Charter
Ordinance No. 35.  Motion carried unanimously.
(7)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
place on first reading Ordinance No. 7668, renaming West 15th Street from
Iowa Street west to the City boundaries as Bob Billings Parkway.  Motion
carried unanimously.
(8)
Ordinance No. 7658, proposed maximum special assessments for the improvement
of Research Park Drive, was read a second time.  As part of the consent
agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to adopt the ordinance.
Aye:  Dunfield, Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner.   Nay: None.  Motion
carried unanimously.
(9)
 Ordinance No. 7659, rezoning (Z-04-11-03) .31 acres from M-2 (General
Industrial District) to C-4 (General Commercial District), located at
311-317 North 2nd Street, was read a second time.  As part of the consent
agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to adopt the ordinance.
Aye:  Dunfield, Hack, Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner.   Nay: None.  Motion
carried unanimously.	        	        	     (10)
Ordinance No. 7662, allowing the sale, possession, and consumption of
alcoholic liquor on August 23, 2003 from 4:00 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. for a
concert in the park at Burcham Park, was read a second time.  As part of the
consent agenda, it was moved to adopt the ordinance.  Aye:  Dunfield, Hack,
Highberger, Rundle, and Schauner.   Nay: None.  Motion carried unanimously.
(11)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
concur with the Planning Commission's recommendations to approve the Final
Plat (PF-05-10-03) for Moon Place Subdivision, a one-lot commercial
subdivision containing approximately .933 acres, located at 821 Iowa Street,
and accept the dedication of easements and rights-of-way subject to the
following conditions:
1. Provision of a revised Final Plat to extend the existing north and south
access easement (book 198, pages 204-205) to the existing west and west
access easement per staff approval;
2. Provision of a revised Final Plat to provide a 10' utility easement along
the south property line;
3. Provision of a revised Final Plat to update the Planning Commission
Chair;
4. Execution of a Temporary Utility Agreement;
5. Provision of the following fees and recording documentation;
a. Copy of paid property tax receipt;
b. Recording fees made payable to the Douglas County Register of Deeds; and
c. Provision of a master street tree plan. 

Motion carried unanimously.
(12)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
concur with the Planning Commission's recommendations to approve the Final
Plat (PF-05-11-03) for Dahl Subdivision, a three-lot residential subdivision
containing approximately .8359 acres, located west of Crossgate Drive on
Blackjack Oak Drive, and accept the dedication of easements and
rights-of-way subject to the following conditions:
1. Provision of the following fees and recording documentations;
a. Copy of paid property tax receipt;
b. Recording fees made payable to the Douglas County Register of Deeds;
2. Per Section 21-708(a), provide a revised Master Street Tree Plan;
3. Per Section 21-709a.3(b), provide a note on the Final Plat indicating the
book and page where the Master Street Tree Plan is filed;
4. Provide the following note on the Final Plat, "The City is hereby granted
a temporary right of entry to plan the required street trees pursuant to
Chapter 21, Article 7, Section 21-708a of the City Subdivision Regulations";
5. Dedicate utility easements centered on the new lot lines;
6. Provision of a Temporary Utility Agreement; and
7. Add signature line for Cathy Dahl as co-owner of Lot 2.

Motion carried unanimously.
(13)
 As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
approve lease agreement with Verizon Wireless for use of space on and below
the Stratford water tower, located near the intersection of Stratford Road
and Sunset Drive.  Motion carried unanimously.
(14)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to
authorize the Mayor to sign a Release of Mortgage for Cheryl Lincoln, 2111
Melholland Road.  Motion carried unanimously.
(15)
REGULAR AGENDA
The Economic Development Report from Lynn Parman, Director of Economic
Development, was deferred until the July 22nd City Commission meeting.  
Conduct a public hearing pursuant to Resolution No. 5063, concerning the
proposed Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Lawrence and
Lawrence Police Officers Association (LPOA)

Mayor Dunfield called a public hearing pursuant to Resolution No. 5063,
concerning a proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City of
Lawrence and the Lawrence Police Officers Association (LPOA).
Debbie Van Saun, Assistant City Manager, presented the staff report on the
Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Lawrence and the LPOA.  She
said the version of the MOU for 2004 was the same version that was developed
by the negotiating team through the negotiating process this past spring.

She noted that the interest-based bargaining training session started in
January and staff proceeded into March and the latter part of May with the
negotiations.  A version was developed by the LPOA Board members and the
City negotiating team and presented to the LPOA for ratification.  There had
been a couple of changes added subject to a meeting with the Federal
Mediator that was agreeable to all parties.
Darren Othick, Chairman LPOA, said the three issues of concern with the
proposed Memorandum of Understanding were, vacation leave, merit increase
for eligible employees, and health insurance.
He addressed vacation leave.  He said in their proposed MOU, Page 9, Section
4.1, what they had requested was an 8 hour increase in vacation accrual for
City employees who had been with the City for 10 years.  Additionally, they
had asked for another 8 hours for those employees who had been with the City
for 15 years.  He said this was not a new issue for employees.  The Employee
Relations Council (ERC) had studied vacation accruals in the past.  In a
memo dated May 8, 2003, from the ERC to Mike Wildgen, City Manager, it
stated:  "The ERC Benefits Subcommittee found that sick time and holiday
time schedules to be comparable with area cities.  However, the six area
City vacation schedules show Lawrence to be the lowest in terms of vacation
accrual and well from the middle or median ground.  The ERC feels that this
is not appropriate that the City of Lawrence employees are at the bottom of
our market group in this benefit."  He said to put that into perspective, if
someone had been employed by the City of Lawrence for 30 years, they were
going to increase in vacation time, from the time they start out until the
time they leave, 4 days.  They start out with 12 vacation days and end up
with 16 days.  
He discussed the merit pay increase.  In their proposed MOU the language
they included was simple and straightforward.  It stated: "All eligible
employees receive a merit increase in 2004."  He said the reason for that
language was because people want assurances.  He said it was his
understanding that merit increases were not even a topic of discussion among
the Commission, but he could be wrong.  He said an analogy was their
department recruits officers from western Kansas and small cities.  Part of
that recruitment was that if they came to Lawrence, they would make a
certain amount of money, but you were not going to make that amount of money
if you were not getting merit increases.
Detective Dan Ward, discussed the health insurance concern.  He said the
City Commission had been presented with a great deal of statistics and
complicated studies of which the Commission was expected to examine,
understand, and apply.  He said those tasks were not simple, nor were they
without serious consequences.  He said they, as Police Officer, understand
because everyday they were required to make serious decisions that affect
people's lives based on information that had been filtered and presented to
them at the last moment.  He said they recognized that the Commission was
also motivated by selfless desires to make a difference, and see that people
were treated fairly and just.
He said several years ago City employees began to see family health care
premiums rising at an alarming rate.  At first employees were told, and they
believed, the rates were due to increase medical costs.  After several
double-digit years of increase, they began to examine the situation closer.
It was true, over the past several years, there had been 12% to 15% increase
in medical expenses.  However, over those same years, family premium for
employees were increasing at a higher rate. A 2002 survey by the Kansas
Municipalities indicated that of 42 cities surveyed, 38% of those cities
paid 80% or better of the family plan and 17% of those cities reported
paying 100% of the family plan.  The average contribution to the family
plan, by the reporting cities, was 77.8%.  Currently, the City of Lawrence
paid 65% of the family plan.  This issue was brought to the attention of the
Health Care Committee and it was decided that the City share of the family
health care should be increased in order to stay comparable with other
cities.  The Health Care Committee wanted to see the increase occur over a 3
year period, at which time the City would be paying 80% of the family health
care premiums.  The committee drafted a memo to Mike Wildgen on September
17, 2002, outlining the facts that the City's health care coverage for
families was lacking and that beginning in 2004 the City should begin to
increase that percentage in premiums until it reached 80%.  City staff has
known for years health care benefits for family policies were significantly
less than they should be, but yet the City had indicated they were only
going to cover 10% of the 18% increase in premiums in 2004.  That decision
would reduce the percentage the City paid for family health care to 62% and
it would increase the individual's deductibles.  That was 18% less than the
recommendations the Health Care Committee gave in 2002.  According to the
2002 survey only 7 of the 42 cities covered less.  If this were to occur
Lawrence would be comparable to cities such as Garnett, Kechi, and Towanda.
Everyone recognized that cuts had to be made in lean times.  He asked who
was the Commission willing to see hurt the most.  He hoped and prayed that
it was not the hard working employees of the City of Lawrence and more
importantly, their families.  Those increases in family health care would
not affect him personally because he had single-coverage.  He was fighting
this battle of increase family premiums because it was the right thing to
do.  He said as City Commissioners they also had the opportunity to do the
right thing for the City employees and more importantly for their families.
He thanked the City Commission for their time and attention.
Othick had a point of clarification.  He misspoke on the vacation time.
Instead of 16 days topped out it was 18 days.  He introduced Ron York a
professional who spoke at hearings concerning arbitration and mediation.  
Ron York, President of Policepay.net, Oklahoma City, worked for a Consulting
firm that worked for Police and Fire bargaining units.  He said whatever the
City Commission decided about this issue, there was not going to be some
dire consequences by rejecting one side and accepting the other.
He was asked to address the financial impact of the three issues of concern,
but he could not speak in regards to the merit pay increase because he did
not know what that increase was and therefore, he could not quantify that
issue.  
He said based on the City's current employment which was approximately 728
employees and giving every employee 8 hours additional vacation pay, that
would be the equivalent of hiring 3 1/4 employees.  Based on what the
typically employee made, including roll up cost associated with pension and
health insurance, was a total cost of approximately $164,000 if you were
going to pay for that or measure the implicit loss.  He said for a typical
employee that would be a one half percent pay raise if they looked at the
total wage package divided by the number of hours you worked to come up with
an hourly rate for each hour you were on the job.  
He said they did a similar type analysis for the health insurance plan. He
understood that it was projected that the health insurance costs would go up
$980,000.  The City's portion that they would pickup if a status quo was
maintained was approximately $607,000.  The difference between what the
Police Officers were asking the City Commission to do and what they would be
doing if their was no change, was approximately $373,000.  Assuming there
were 738 employees that cost would be approximately $500 per employee.
Again, if you take the total wage package that would be an increase for the
average employee of about a one percent increase in total hour compensation.
If you put those two items together, the total annual costs were
approximately $537,000.  For the employee, that would be a 1.5% for a total
compensation package.  
He said a management group called the "Conference Board" conducted a survey
for all employment in the United States.  He said the management group said
for 2002, the average pay increase was 4% and they projected that for 2003
the average pay increase would be about 3 1/2 percent.  Taking that
percentage and comparing it to the current rate of inflation which was
approximately 2.4% based on the last 12 months from the Bureau of Labor
Statistic, they were projecting that the typical employee in the United
States would make approximately a 1% gain after inflation was taken out.  
The increase that the LPOA was asking for from the City, equated to
approximately 1 1/2 percent.  If the City Commission granted their MOU
request at same rate of inflation, they would take about a .9 percent
decrease in net benefits at the end of the year. He said what the LPOA was
asking for was modest. 
He talked about that increase and where that money could come from.  He
issued a report in January which covered 5 fiscal years ending December 31,
2001 to the City Commission.  He said Ed Mullins, City Finance Director,
sent him an Audited Financial Statement and since then, he had updated his
report with that information.  He said the general fund had an operating
loss last year of approximately 1.5 million. The reason the general fund had
an operating loss for that amount was not because revenues declined, in fact
revenues increased in 2001 about 2.5 percent.   The big change was that
expenditures went up over 11 percent in 2002 over the previous year and that
was being seen as a trend since 2000.  In addition to the general fund, the
City had many other funds such as the enterprise fund.  In the enterprise
funds, the primary fund was the utilities systems.  For every year beginning
with 1997 through 2000, the utilities fund had a profit of approximately
$9,000,000 per year which was substantial.  He said the general fund was
approximately $37,000,000.  
He said when looking at trends, revenues were going up, but they were not
growing as fast a rate as they had in previous years due to a downturn in
the economy.  He said this was not a permanent condition because we were
coming out of that downturn.  
When looking at net worth of this City or total equity, it had gone up
considerably including this latest year.  The total net equity of the City
went up from $100,000,000 at the beginning of 1997 to $181,000,000 at the
end of the latest fiscal year.  He knew that a lot of that equity was tied
up into fixed assets, but it certainly showed that this City was not
liquidating its assets to fund its on-going operation. When looking at this
issue and taking the totality what it would cost to fund those to items
which was the vacation, citywide and the additional health insurance costs
which was approximately $500,000 there was certainly adequate money in this
City's operations.    
Commissioner Highberger asked about a graph in York's report entitled
"Funds/Equity."  He asked if that included fixed assets.
York said yes, but it also had a deduction for long-term debt.  In other
words, included were the fixed assets, but they subtracted the long-term
debt.  He said every indicator that he looked at, for the City of Lawrence,
was positive.  The only issue he found was that the health insurance fund
was not adequately funded and it had been operating at a loss.  
Commissioner Highberger asked how much of those numbers were cash or cash
equivalent.
York said the total cash and investments at the end of 2000 was $90,000,000,
buy he was not suggesting that $90,000,000 was out there to be spent.  
Commissioner Schauner asked about the actual amount for the enterprise fund
under 2002 showing an amount of $119,890,367.  He asked if that represented
unencumbered funds.
York said no.  It was total equity.  He said there were 2 items that went
into that fund.  One item was retained earnings and the other was
contributed capital.  He said a lot of the contributed capital was mostly in
the form of cash contribution transfers that were made into those utility
funds.  He said retained earning was the net profit from the time the fund
was started, profits and losses.  
Commissioner Schauner asked if York's investigation determined what the
current unallocated cash available in the enterprise funds amount would be.
York said the enterprise fund had unrestricted cash of $675,000 and
$32,000,000 in unrestricted investments.  Those investments were not sewer
plants, they were liquid assets.
Commissioner Schauner asked if York's work made any attempt to determine how
the City's enterprise funds as a percentage of general monies available for
operating the City compared with other cities this size.
York said he did not do a comparison to another city.     
Commissioner Schauner said health insurance premiums for not just City
employees, but anyone who wanted to buy insurance these days had escalated
to double-digit numbers.  The cost of medical inflation was significantly
greater than the costs of inflation generally.  He asked York if he did any
work to try and compare the increase premium costs for LPOA as compared to
other police forces that might be in comparable geographic area or size.
York said no.  The aggregate number of 18% was not unreasonable.  He said to
effectively control your health insurance costs, there needed to be more
emphasis placed on restraint of using a service versus shifting the costs.  
Commissioner Schauner said that York indicated a total health insurance cost
increase for over $300,000 if the cost sharing arrangement remained constant
from last year.
York said those number were given to him.  It was his understanding that the
City had told the Police Officers that the costs were going to go up
citywide approximately $980,000.  The City was typically paying
approximately 62% of those costs.  
Commissioner Schauner asked whether that $300,000 plus was a reflection of a
maintenance of split costs for all City employees, not just the police.
York said all the estimated numbers given were for all City employees.
Othick asked the Commission to look at the totality of all those issued
discussed.  He thought the City could fund those costs.  He asked how
responsible the City of Lawrence wanted to be as an employer.
Commissioner Schauner asked if it was Othick's concern that if the merit
language did not remain in the MOU that there would be no merit available
for the 2004 contract. 
Othick said the concern was that without that language in the MOU that it
could.
Moved by Rundle, seconded by Hack, to close the public hearing.  Motion
carried unanimously.					
Vice Mayor Rundle clarified some of the ground rules that the City
Commission was under.  He said Resolution No. 5063 prescribed that the
Commission chose between the two proposals.
Wildgen said that the Commission needed to have a hearing, but they did not
have to choose a proposal at this time. 
Vice Mayor Rundle said that the Commission could defer this decision.  
Commissioner Highberger asked if there was a deadline in terms of approving
the MOU.
Wildgen said the Commission had a study session on July 16th concerning some
of these matters and he hoped it was the concluding study session, but it
did not need to be.
Vice Mayor Rundle said since the Fire/Medical Department had worked under
this resolution and conditions, he thought anything the Commission did that
deviated from the resolution meant that the Commission would need to revisit
their negotiations with the Fire/Medical Department.  He also said that
whatever they did for the Police, they would need to do that for other City
employees which meant the Commission needed to study the budget
implications.  He said this issue was something that the Commission could
come to terms with at this time.  He might accept some parts of the points,
but not all of them.  He said the Commission was painted into a corner by
their own resolution.
Commissioner Schauner commented on the process.  He shared Vice Mayor
Rundle's concern about one position or the other being what their resolution
permits the City Commission to do.  He said the feeling behind that was to
cause the parties to put their best proposal on the table and try not to be
overstating what they would accept.  However, he did not think that made
this decision any easier and he would prefer an opportunity to visit about
the costs implications and have a better chance to look at the work that the
Police's expert had provided the City Commission concerning budgets,
enterprise funds, and other related material.  He did not think there was
anyone in the community that he had spoken with that would feel badly about
providing everything they could provide to the people who provided public
health, safety, and welfare to this community.  He was in favor of deferring
any action until the Commission had a chance to address this issue in more
detail.
Commissioner Hack said there was a lot of good information presented, but
she needed more time to digest it.  She said the Commission needed to look
at the total program because it had been a concern of this Commission in the
budget process in that they had addressed this issue, but they had not dealt
with the issue.  She suggested earmarking part of the Commission's time, at
their next study session, to talk about this issue.
Vice Mayor Rundle said both of those proposed MOU's provided for revisiting
benefits and compensation if there were changes in finances.

Wildgen said that was true to the extent that you could do that in the
budgeting process.  He said it would be hard to decide to work with finances
when you had adopted a budget for the year.  He said you would need to have
a budget that was approved in August.
Mayor Dunfield said there were 3 distinct issues to address.  He asked if
the vacation policy was consistent throughout all City employees.   
Wildgen said the Fire/Medical Department had a different system, although
those hours were generally, for most employees, were consistent.  He said
staff could provide that information to the Commission.
Vice Mayor Rundle said it was critical to be responsive to compensation and
benefits concerns for all City employees.  The cost of turnover and other
problems had to be factored into this issue.  He said the Commission needed
to make sure the City remained competitive.
Mayor Dunfield said it was important to mention for the sake of the public
that they were talking about a one year agreement.  He said everyone would
like to have longer agreements, but because of the uncertainties the City
was facing in this particular budget year, they recognized that generosity
was not what this City Commission was known for.  
As he looked at York's report and thought about the budget process, it
struck him that this report was largely looking back at the history over the
last several years and yes, the history over the last several years has been
good in Lawrence and those increases in the City budget had, for the most
part, gone to City employees.  As the Commission had been looking at the
budget, they had seen projections looking forward and those projections were
not particularly rosy.  In part, what the Commission was seeing was a
difference in view point.  He did not have any problem with getting more
information and looking at the impact.  This Commission was looking to try
to reduce the impact of the budget by another mill, so anything they did in
looking at increases in salary and benefits, they would needed to double in
cuts in terms of cuts elsewhere. 
Commissioner Hack suggested that if they address this issue at next week's
study session they could place this issue on the July 22, 2003 City
Commission agenda.              
    (16)
Consider approval of Ordinance No. 7650, establishing requirements for
traffic impact studies.

Linda Finger, Planning Director, presented the staff report concerning the
requirements for traffic impact studies.  The traffic impact study that
staff was proposing is an interim policy.  She said what staff was asking
was to have some steps to provide guidance procedures so they did not look
subjective when asking for information.  The City entered into a contract
with TranSystems Engineering and they were preparing a summary document for
the City for traffic impact studies.  Staff would bring that information
back to the City Commission as a guideline document with Access Policy
Management recommendations.
Finger said right now, the authority for traffic impact studies were
different depending on what project was before the Commission.  On a site
plan it would be in Section 20-1428, et seq., which was the Code authority
for approval and review of site plans.  If it was a study for a subdivision
or development plan, most of that authority would be drawn from Horizon 2020
which was a policy document.  Staff's implementation tools would be the
codes which were not up-to-date, but with the new development codes, the
Commission would see the authority in the regulatory codes part of the
documents.
What was before the Commission at this time was a two part process.  To
clear up some confusion as identified by staff, staff would recommend some
wording changes to Section 2 and Section 3.  In Section 2, the document
calls for a "traffic impact study" in the description, but it what was
really wanted was "data collection on traffic and transportation", in the
first 7 steps for development with 11 or more lots.  In Section 3, the
criteria changes to 100 trips in the peak hour and that involved development
of an actual traffic impact study, which was a much more detailed process.
Staff would like feedback from the Commission if they thought 100 lots,
which would generate 1,000 trips and 100 trips in peak hours was too high a
standard to set.  The reason for those 1,000 trips was because if you were
looking at a residential subdivision which was approximately 100 lots, each
residence was projected to generate 10 trips which would result in 1,000
trips per day from that subdivision.  She said they did not see a lot of 100
lot subdivisions because Lawrence was not at that level within their
industry.  She said the Commission might need to drop that number to touch
any type of residential development.               
Commissioner Schauner said in the May 13, 2003 City Commission meeting
minutes it stated: "Selk said 11 dwelling units would generate roughly 110
trips per day and if you were trying to set a threshold of 100 trips in the
peak hour, it would translate to 110 dwelling units."  He asked if that was
what Finger was trying to say.
Finger said what staff looked at as the standard was per lot of a
residential subdivisions-10 trips per day.  If you had 100 lots, then you
would generate 1,000 trips.  In the peak hour it would factor out to 100
trips in a peak hour which meant anything that was 100 lots or greater, they
would need to do a full traffic impact study.  Anything less than 100 lots,
the applicant would only need to do the first 7 steps.      
Commissioner Schauner asked what would staff call something that did not
meet the impact study threshold.
Finger said it would be data collection on traffic impacts.
Commissioner Schauner said when this issue was discussed in May, his concern
then was not just in single in-fill development, but rather the aggregation
of traffic from the variety of users of a particular street whether it be a
collector, arterial, or a residential street.  He said his interest would be
in having an ability to collect and aggregate impact on streets from all
in-fill developments and not have to trigger it by some peak hour number
which might not accurately reflect the true day-to-day impact on the
neighborhood.
Finger said staff would be achieving that if they set a threshold for peak
hour, but 100 lots was probably too high a threshold for Lawrence.  She said
staff would not require the full-blown study for 10 or 12 lots because it
was too expensive of a process and incrementally was where you saw the
impact, not individually.  She thought Commission Schauner was concerned
with the incremental or the additive factor.  What the consultant,
TranSystems was looking at was to give staff a set of criteria that would
allow the City to collect that type of information they needed to place into
their transportation model and the City would keep that aggregate number to
update and watch what the impacts were on our public streets.
Commissioner Schauner asked what peak hour number was reasonable if 100 lots
was too much for peak hour triggering.
Finger did not know a standard right off, but Lexington, Kentucky used 75
lots and Olathe used 100 lots.  Staff had not done much research on that
issue.
Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, said when the Villa Woods Project was
brought before the Commission it had 37 lots.  He said it appeared that the
City Commission desired to have more information on traffic for that
project.  That was not done because staff did not recommend that a traffic
study was necessary.  The AGD sorority house was a 60 peak hour trip
generation and a traffic study was required.      
Finger said Soules pointed out exceptions the Commission would see to any
rule and the Commission might want some of those exceptions written in to
their policy, if you had a residential subdivision that took sole access to
a collector or arterial street, then that would trigger a traffic impact
study because you would be intruding upon the flow of the network.  She said
local streets were created to carry subdivision traffic to a collector.
Another exception would be a known traffic problem in an area that the
Commission might want to ask for a traffic impact study.  She said there
were some exceptions where the Commission might want to look beyond a peak
threshold.
Commissioner Schauner thought it was reasonable too.  He asked how they
could adopt a policy that gave some indication to the builder or developer
of what those triggers might be.  He was interested in uniformity and
predictability for everybody.  He said the data collection and impact
studies would be an important part of that policy.  He did not know what to
suggest in terms of a peak threshold number.  He asked for more information
from people who know more about this subject for some direction.
Soules said this Ordinance was a stopgap measure to provide a standard that
the builders and developers could look toward for the next few months.
TranSystems was developing the standards and staff would bring them back to
the City Commission for discussion.  This Ordinance, for an interim period
of time, would give direction on this issue.     
Commissioner Schauner said the motion that was on May 13th was to direct
staff to draft an interim policy concerning transportation impact studies.
He said the Commission voted on an interim policy, not one that would be
considered to be permanent.
Commissioner Hack asked if TranSystems would develop questions 8 through 14.
Finger said yes.  TranSystems would develop those guidelines.  
Commissioner Hack said the interim policy said anything greater than 11 or
more dwelling units would trigger questions 1-7.  She asked Finger to
indicate the answers to those 7 questions.
Finger said the information in 1 - 4 was available because you needed to
know things like: was your site developed; what did the development plan
say; was it next to an arterial street; and what was the functional
classification of that street.  She said question 6 talked about estimating
traffic flows and looking at site distances and that would take some
assistance from the City.  She said question 7 would take assistance from
City staff to see if there were any issues.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if the proposed ordinance should alert the builders
or developers that this was an interim policy subject to revisions.   
Corliss said it would be good to alert the citizens.  Most of the
development community would be familiar with those requirements.  He said
there could be a section that would indicate that the governing body
considers this ordinance to be an interim measure until the full
requirements of the traffic impact studies were developed which would be
anticipated by a date.  
He said eventually the Commission would need to incorporate this ordinance
into the zoning chapter of the City Code.  The current zoning code required
the general traffic analysis in the findings of fact for site plans and
other things.  Essentially what was being done with this ordinance was
putting more flesh on that skeleton.  He said Vice Mayor Rundle's suggestion
would be valuable to the general public and perhaps to the development
community as well.
Ron Durflinger, Lawrence, addressed three points concerning the traffic
impact study ordinance.
First, if an analysis was required, that they have some type of objective
criteria upon which to determine whether something was appropriate or not.
He did not want to gather data, just to throw it out into the subjective
public forum once again to be debated.  
Second, he encouraged staff to look at our planned traffic areas.  He said
they could easily identify the densities and the trip generations through
our planning documents and get the major areas taken care of.  When it came
to individual developments, for those studies to have any value, they had to
have something by which that person knows that he was shooting at a fixed
target rather than a moving target. His concern was always the
micromanagement of those issues where you have information and yet you were
not getting any real benefit from it, yet it still cost.
Third, he encouraged the City in its transportation planning to look at our
prospective land development uses and get a lot of this work done well in
advance so there was a good database upon which to work.  He said one of the
things that discouraged him about the process, was that everyday it was a
new battle.  If we had objective ways to determine whether something was
appropriate or not, we could save the Commissioners' time and the public a
lot of money, in both of the savings of tax dollars as well as less
expensive pricing on the housing and development product that we get.  If we
could look forward and do long-range and area type planning, a lot of those
questions would be answered.  He was pleased to see that staff was heading
in a direction that he thought was appropriate                
Bob Suderman, Lawrence, said 31st Street and Iowa, Louisiana, and 27th
Street, that square mile had been their area of primary concern for a number
of years.  One issue was that between Louisiana and Ousdahl along 31st
Street on the south side the projected land use was to be zoned POD. POD
allowed for office uses or relative intense apartment uses up to 15 units
per acre.  He said there would be a strong argument for making an estimate
like that.  When you have multiple use office use should be relatively low
density by comparison.  Apartment use could be high density.  He said you
could have 3 bedrooms per apartment or roughly 7,000 apartments which could
generate 3.3 trips per individual which would end up over 22,000 trips
coming out of that area.  If you used an office assumption, you would end up
with a different kind of number.   He said items 1 through 7 did not take
raw land of that kind into account, land that wasn't even in the City.  He
suggested that item 1 would include the following: "Where multiple uses are
allowed for undeveloped land abutting the property or across the street.
The projection should be completed at the maximum potential volume and rate
that the projected zoning of the site allows."  He said most people thought
that they were well saturated with office space.  
He said in conversations he had with developers and with people who were on
both sides of the issue, the prudent thing would be to say what was the most
intense level of development that an undeveloped piece of property could
take.  That should be the number that was used until it was known what was
going to go in there or until that use was narrowed down.  He said items 1-7
were his primary concern.
Brian Kubota, did not have any problem with the wording of the ordinance,
but he had trouble with the big picture.  He said it was required to do area
transportation comprehensive plans.  He said in doing those plans you
establish land uses and also Horizon 2020 showed land uses.  He said the
bottom line was that this type of an ordinance was an ordinance that said
"Capital improvement upon demand."   He said there was no planning aspect
other than to correct situations that were immediate.  He said there should
be better land use planning.  This type of an ordinance was better utilized
on any changes within the land use.  Once you establish a land use plan, you
basically establish through a transportation plan a network of streets in
which you know what the density was and how it moved throughout the city.
If there was any change in those land uses, those traffic patterns would
change.  If the density was higher, it would be changed from residential to
office.  There were several situations in the city because the land uses
should be established so it could be defined what the transportation demand
was.  If you vary from that, then this type of study was needed to see how
far you varied from what you had planned.  
He said on the southeast corner of the SLTand 6th Street land use had not
been defined.  The State was ready to improve the highway and the City's
under contract to improve George Williams Way, but they did not know what
that land use was.  He said if they could get that area zoned which was in
compliance and if the land use was established it was easier to determine
the traffic patterns.  
He said the City was planning George Williams Way at this time and the State
was planning highway 40, in terms of that facility, he asked how did they
determine the number of lanes, the vertical alignment on both streets
without knowing what the traffic load would be.  He said it was not
established, especially on the southeast corner, what that traffic load
should be.  He said Horizon 2020 was a plan of policies.  In terms of land
use you would need to follow within those policies to get zoned, the
adjoining land uses, the traffic in front of the subjected property under
consideration, and you would need to meet all the criteria.
William Dann, Lawrence, said Commissioner Schauner had called for an
ordinance which would require most developers a traffic study for a project.
He said Commissioner Schauner had pointed out that traffic congestion could
discourage activity.  He said it was logical for this Commission to greatly
expand our public transportation system while creating no parking areas
around the high school and university and this would be a large step in the
direction of solving those traffic problems.  
Gwen Klingenberg, Lawrence, said her neighborhood was concerned about
capacity.  She said if a big business or several businesses came into a
center where there was a lot of traffic led into a neighborhood the
neighborhood would be forced to install traffic calming devices which
benefit district were formed.  She said the businesses that caused that over
capacity should have some consideration in taking care of the neighborhood
that was around them.  She said she would like to see more traffic studies
done and area residents notified about what was taking place.  She said
there was a concern about who was going to pay and setup the study.  She did
not think a business should do the actual study, but she thought the
business should pay for it.
Carol Bowen, Lawrence, said her first experience with traffic impact was not
Home Depot, but Target.  She worked on the Citizens Advisory Transportation
Committee for Transportation 2025 and one issue they tried to address as
they were developing the plan was that you could not separate land use and
traffic.  She said capacity needed to be built in conjunction with
transportation and land use.  She said that intersection on 6th Street
needed to have the land use decided and the capacity established so they
know where that growth would be.
Caleb Morris, Lawrence, said the ordinance was a great idea, but he was also
in agreement with former Planning Commissioner Durflinger that objective
criteria should be set that could be met by developers.  There was a nagging
concern about the way the ordinance might affect infill and redevelopment,
which was an important issue that needed to be pursued in this city.  He
agreed that in-fill structure was needed to accommodate new development.  He
said this ordinance would have a disproportionate affect on in-fill and
redevelopment because of the high traffic volumes and traffic capacity.  He
asked the Commission to consider that this ordinance did not have the effect
of discouraging in-fill development.   
Commissioner Highberger agreed with Brian Kubota, that the land use planning
should occur with the transportation planning and that zoning should give
background information on traffic levels.  He did not think it could tell us
the type of information that we were looking for in the traffic studies
because any zoning category was going to have a wide range of possibilities
before a specific project was proposed.
He said there was a concern about infill development, but it was needed to
quantify the impacts of what was proposed so the compatible infill
development with the incompatible infill development could be sorted out.
He agreed with the issue of considering the impacts on side streets or
collector streets.  He would like to see that issue addressed in the
ordinance.  He was in support of the draft ordinance as an interim.   He was
going to suggest changing the number in section 3 to 75 trips.
Finger said they would have that study by the end of September. She renewed
her suggestions for rewording section 1, "Traffic impact studies are"
striking that and say "Collection of traffic impact date is."  In section 2,
deleting the third word "studies" and replace with "data collected" which
would read:  "Traffic impact data collected shall include the following
minimum 7 items."  To clarify in section 4, a traffic impact study shall be
"required and completed for developments that generated 75 or more trips in
a peak hour."  She said that would be followed by "A traffic impact study
shall be prepared by a qualified..."
Commissioner Hack asked Finger if she changed section 3 to read "the
required and completed."
Finger said Commissioner Highberger suggested 75 trips in place of 100
trips.  She changed section 4 into two sentences so it was clear that the
traffic impact study was for those developments that were 75 or more trips
and that they would need to be prepared by a qualified individual.
Commissioner Highberger said if staff was going to move on this issue by
September, it (trips) did not need to be changed.  He also commented on
William Dann's suggestion concerning "no parking zones" around the schools
and thought it was a good suggestion.
Commissioner Rundle asked if any of those suggestions were appropriate for
the permanent policy.  He though of the idea of making the study relate to
the maximum possible development rather than the lowest intensity.  He said
the idea about infill development and wanting to foster that rather than
hamper it and could that be addressed in a different policy or integrated
into this policy.      
Finger said yes because the Commission was first looking at City
infrastructure being capable of supporting what was there and certainly what
was shown in the land use and what the policies were.   She said in-fill
development would be addressed so that the City could deal with those
situations where there was high intensity development.
Vice Mayor Rundle wondered if they should have "redevelopment" in the
policy.  Right now it said "new and expanding developments."  He asked if
expanding development included infill development.
Finger said when you are expanding you are going above the density, but the
Commission could clarify that by using "redevelopment."
Commissioner Hack said as TranSystems looked at the full impact study that
those issues would be taken into consideration.  She thought it was
important that we develop a policy that was fair and consistent.  She said
to make sure that we don't do things that had an impact on affordable
housing.  She appreciated the point concerning infill development.  She
supported the interim policy with those suggested changes and to clarify the
first trigger as differentiated from the second trigger.           
Commissioner Schauner supported the ordinance with the amendments by staff.
He said the City was 15 years late with this ordinance.  The true cost to
homeowners was not having an objective, globally applied, both land use
policy and traffic impact ordinance.  The cost to taxpayers to tear up
streets, rebuild streets, expand streets, was significantly greater to the
tax base than adding couple hundred dollars to the price of a $155,000
house.  Those who suggested that adding a couple extra hundred dollars per
house was going to make the house unsellable was a false prediction.  He
said the City needed to look at expanding the area that was studied, when
traffic analysis and traffic impact studies were done.   People would find
the shortest route from point A to point B, which caused the neighborhood to
have some distance from the development and it then became
residential-commercial zoned.  He was in support of the ordinance as an
interim measure and an objective ordinance that became a permanent
ordinance.  
Mayor Dunfield said it seemed that there were 2 different scales of planning
and impact that were being discussed.  He agreed that the City needed to be
doing area plans and comprehensive planning that looked at transportation
impacts on the big scale.  He said the better information received, the more
smoothly the infrastructure would develop in the new areas of town.  He said
looking at existing built areas and the impacts of new growth on the built
areas, in those cases, the Commission needed to be careful regarding what
was being asked.  He said when talking about objective criteria, there was a
nervousness feeling because he thought Louisiana Street was a good example
to illustrate why he was nervous about objective criteria being applied
retroactively.  There wasn't a traffic engineer that could be hired who
would not tell us that Louisiana Street had a traffic load that did not
merit four lanes.  
It was important we continued the development of the traffic impact study
policy, that we recognized that we were gathering was another piece of data
that went into the mix of all the other values and pieces of data and that
we were not creating something that forced decisions on the basis of only
one factor when there were so many other factors that went into determining
the value of a project and how it was going to work.  
Commissioner Schauner said Mayor Dunfield had a good comment about infill
development, but it was much easier to be objective in a more literal way on
new developments.  He said to that extent, perhaps there would be slightly
different criteria for new developments as opposed to infill and recognizing
that infill street capacity was not so easily altered or expanded.  He took
to heart about how George Williams Way was being planned for capacity as
well as the expansion of 40 Highway for that one-mile stretch.  He thought
it was a comment that was worth more than a little reflection in terms of
how we develop that nodal plan for example at 6th and the SLT taking into
consideration the planned capacity for George Williams Way, Queens Road,
Fenceline and all the other infrastructure that was being planned and built.
The Commission should be looking at both land use planning in direct
relationship to transportation capacity. 
Vice Mayor Rundle said even in new areas we want to foster mass
transportation and we don't want to simply have bigger streets and more
cars.  He said somehow integrating the creative planning to create a city of
our character would be a balancing act that we would have to face.
Commissioner Schauner said there might be a way to do some creative parking
restrictions around major facilities such as window stickers for residents.
He said this could encourage further use of the Transit System. 
Mayor Dunfield said there should be an additional modification to the
ordinance to indicate that it was an interim measure.
Moved by Schauner, seconded Hack, to place on first reading, Ordinance No.
7650 as amended, establishing interim requirements for traffic impact
studies.  Motion carried unanimously.
(17)
City Commission discussion and direction concerning the proposed
Sesquicentennial Plaza/Amphitheater.

Bill Crowe, Secretary of Sesquicentennial Commission, said he was seeking
support from the Commission to move ahead with the planning process for a
Sesquicentennial Plaza with an attached Amphitheatre.  He noted that the
plaza was not dependent on the Amphitheatre.  He said the community had
grappled with something that reflected the future commitment in community
building without distracting from places such as South Park or other
gathering spots that the community valued.  The chance to start the planning
for this project was very important.     
Clenece Hills, Lawrence, asked the Commission for direction.  She said the
Sesquicentennial Commission had a responsibility to leave something behind
that was evidence of Lawrence's 150th Anniversary.  She said the
Sesquicentennial Commission was prepared to raise the money for the Plaza,
and it would be an easier sell if they could say that there was an
Amphitheatre attached.  She said any direction from the Commission would be
accepted gracefully and appreciatively.  
Commissioner Schauner asked what were the projected costs of providing
access to the Sesquicentennial Plaza.
Fred DeVictor, Director, Parks and Recreation, said it was estimated at
$300,000 for the plaza, and $100,000 for the parking and the roadway leading
to the plaza.  He said that did not include utility costs.     
Mayor Dunfield asked if the 27th Street extension estimate of approximately
$400,000 was correct.
Wildgen said the estimate was $425,000, which was called the pilot channel
to the SLT entry.  The pilot channel onto the Plaza area or dam area would
cost twice as much.  There was approximately $600,000 to $700,000 to extend
27th Street.  He said that was a chip and seal road cost.  
DeVictor said there was a lot of infrastructure development that needed to
be done to support an Amphitheatre, and that would cost nearly $900,000 with
roadways, sewers, etc.
Commissioner Hack asked Hills if the Commission could look at the
Amphitheatre separately from the plaza, allowing the Commission to give
direction with the plaza and not necessarily commit to a future
Amphitheatre. 
Hills said the Commission could look at the plaza and amphitheatre
separately, but it would be a harder sell without the amphitheatre.  The
plaza would be an interesting place to go, but it would more likely to
attract more people with an amphitheatre.  She said there had been a lot
support for the amphitheatre because of the need of its performance space.  
Vice Mayor Rundle said an amphitheatre in the community would be utilized
and would be a good resource.  However, he was uncomfortable with going
forward with fundraising for it at this time.  He said all of the amenities
that were part of the master plan, needed to be placed in the context of the
Capital Improvement Budget.  He said visiting the site and looking over the
Wakarusa Valley was a beautiful view.  He said with the history captured in
the plaques in looking at the spread of history that had gone down that
valley with the civil war events.  
He encouraged the Sesquicentennial Commission to proceed with fundraising
for the plaza and put the amphitheatre discussion into the larger context of
planning the whole area. 
Commissioner Highberger concurred with Vice Mayor Rundle.  He encouraged the
Sesquicentennial Commission to go forward with the fundraising for the
plaza.  He was intrigued by the Amphitheatre proposal.  He said there was no
way to commit ourselves to that sort of expenditure given the current
funding situation.  He also had concerns regarding potential noise and
traffic impacts and he would like to see more information before giving
approval of any planning or engineering.  He suggested that the Commission
could address this issue next year.   He was in full support of the plaza.
Commissioner Hack would hate to see the Commission shut down the idea of the
Amphitheatre completely because of the fact that the plaza and Amphitheatre
were connected.  She said this was a difficult time for the City Commission
to spend that amount of money. She said this was something that they needed
to keep in the forefront in conversation in terms of the big picture.  She
concurred with the idea of the plaza with the understanding that the
Amphitheatre idea was not dead.
Commissioner Schauner was in agreement with most of what has been said.  The
plaza was a worthy way to remember the City's past and to look at that
future.   He was concerned about the 1515 acre master plan at Clinton Lake.
It was a great dream, but under current circumstances it was unaffordable.
He would like to see the Sesquicentennial Commission to be successful in
raising money for the plaza.  He would like to disconnect the Amphitheatre
from the plaza in terms of future thinking, and look at either downsizing
the Amphitheatre concept or perhaps relocating it away from Clinton Lake.
He was in support for the fundraising of the plaza.  
Mayor Dunfield said if the development of the plaza was $405,000 and the
development of the Amphitheatre was $1.27 million, that totaled up to $1.675
million dollars, in addition, the road funding would be needed, raising the
cost to $2.5 million dollars, and the operation and maintenance cost of
$121,000 a year; suddenly the cost was up to $4 million dollars that the
Commission would be asking the Sesquicentennial Commission to provide to do
the full project and made sure it was maintained and sustained over time and
clearly that was not possible.  Therefore, the reasonable thing to do was to
support the fundraising for the plaza, and the Amphitheatre would have to
remain a dream for now. 
Moved by Highberger, seconded by Hack, to authorize the Sesquicentennial
Commission to proceed with the Sesquicentennial Plaza fundraising.  Motion
carried unanimously.
(18)
The City Commission recessed for 5 minutes.
Consider the historic review, land use approvals and parking amendment for
the proposed development at the northeast corner of 8th and New Hampshire.

Finger said she was going to present the items one at a time so it reduced
the chance of confusion.  The first item "A", was an appeal from the
Certified Local Government that stated that the development project
Hobbs-Taylor Loft would encroach upon, damage or destroy, which was the
statutory finding that must be made on the Eldridge Hotel, and on the old
Post Office.  She said the Historic Resource Commission had the ability to
make the determination through an agreement that was entered with the State.
The agreement was just renewed in March.  She said what this body did when
reviewing an appeal was that it looked at different criteria than what the
HRC did.  The HRC looked at the Secretary of Interior Standards, trying to
evaluate the impact of this on an historic landmark or a listed property,
and they also used their guidelines for review that were adopted as part of
that analytical agreement between the City and the State.  
When it comes before the City Commission, if the Commission found
differently from the Certified Local Government, two determinations must be
made.  The first determination was that there was no feasible and prudent
alternative to the development proposal.  Financial considerations or
economic concerns had been used in the past.  There had been no direction
that they had on them being excluded or not being included, but they cannot
be the sole determination or the sole factor to determine feasible and
prudent alternatives.  
The second determination that needed to be made was that in the proposal
itself all possible planning to minimize harm to the historic properties,
Eldridge Hotel and the old Post Office had been completed in the development
proposal process.  Those were both outlined in the State Statutes, KSA 2002,
Supplement 75-2724.  The Commission's determination would be sent by
certified mail to the State Historic Preservation Officer within 5 days.  No
permits could be pulled until the State Historic Preservation Officer had
received the determinations and had time to concur or overrule. 
The Section "B" part of this agenda item was considering the applicant's
appeal from the ad hoc committee's finding about the downtown design
guidelines and about compliance with the adopted document, the Downtown
Urban Design Concept Plan.  She said specifically what the Commission needed
to make as the determination, was to find that the developer's proposal to
use angled parking along New Hampshire Street was an acceptable alteration
to the Downtown Design Guidelines.  She said the Commission needed to amend
the guidelines or initiate the amendment, in staff opinion, a policy
document prior to approving a plan that showed a conflict with the adoptive
policy document.  The other criteria being appealed was not having a zero
setback along New Hampshire.  The angled parking required the building to be
pushed further east.  She said that is an 8-foot setback.  If the Commission
chose to approve those two revisions, then staff needed direction as to
amending the downtown design guidelines so there was not a plan in conflict
with the policies.  An exception was approved which was Downtown 2000
project.  She said expectations generally come one at a time, rather then
two or three.  If you do this again, it was no longer an exception.  She
said it discussed how New Hampshire and Vermont Streets had parallel parking
and did not replicate or have the same type of angled parking that occurred
along Massachusetts Street so an amendment needed to be initiated or occur
at this time.  She said those were the findings and the actions that the
Commission would need to take on item "B".
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if the setback exception was the first time it had
occurred. 
Finger assumed since there was angled parking at the north end of the
Downtown 2000 project, that there would also had been a setback variance
granted to allow the building to setback so there could be a sidewalk.
Mayor Dunfield said the angled parking necessitated moving the setback. 
Commissioner Schauner said if an exception was not granted, there would be
an 8-foot requirement from the curb line of those developments.
Finger said if Commission did not grant an exception it would be a zero
setback, but if the angled parking were granted then the setback exception
would have to be granted.  
Dan Sabatini, Architect, presented drawings which showed the west and east
perspectives of the project.  
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if this building was to scale with what was opposite
of the street.
Sabatini said yes.  
Commissioner Schauner asked what the width of New Hampshire Street was
compared to the width of Massachusetts Street, curb to curb.  He said if he
stood on Massachusetts and looked across the street at the UMB Bank
Building, how much further was he away from that building then he would be
if he was standing on the west curb of New Hampshire and looking at
Hobbs-Taylor at 78 feet.
Sabatini did not know the comparison.  He said as far as the back side, if
you were standing on Rhode Island looking at the US Bank Building would give
you the idea of the distance.    
Finger estimated that New Hampshire Street was 58 - 60 feet wide, and
Massachusetts Street was 100 feet wide.
Commissioner Schauner asked if Massachusetts Street was twice as wide as New
Hampshire Street.
Wildgen said no.  He said from 7th Street to 11th Street there were two
driving lanes, which is basically 24 feet on Massachusetts Street.  He said
if you go to the side streets, they had been able to get 2 lanes versus 3
lanes which were 36 feet versus 24 feet roughly. 
Sabatini said if the right-of-way was 100 on Massachusetts Street, it was 80
on New Hampshire.
Bo Harris, representing the 8th and New Hampshire LLC, Hobbs-Taylor Loft,
presented the results of what they considered an open and honest effort to
work through a tri-party agreement.  He said their market research was done
in 4 different cities and influenced their existing design.  
He said the findings of the HRC, found that this project was encroaching or
destroying the environs of two important structures in Lawrence, which were
the old Post Office and the Eldridge Hotel.  He said the letter from Dan
Simons that was presented to the BZA was a good letter in support of this
project.  He said this project kept in the mindfulness toward the historical
patterns of downtown and the architectural feel of the project they tried to
continue to present a view from those historic structures instead of
destroying the environs. 
It was important to point out that the elevation of the building was a big
issue.  He said the scale of the building in height was similar to the
Eldridge Hotel when the rule of measurement for the two projects was evenly
applied.  He said this project was approximately 78 feet and the height of
the front portion of the Eldridge Hotel building was 63 feet at the front
elevation; both buildings have similar heights.  The HRC was certainly not
an objective view in an extremely subjective opinion on whether this project
was going to destroy the environs of the old Post Office and the Eldridge
Hotel.  
Many of the requirements had been met regarding the downtown design
guidelines.  The developers were asking for the increase in the scale of the
building and also for the angled parking. He said angled parking would
enhance the retail portion of the project and keep it attractive for the
potential tenants.  He said at this scale, do to the mixed use of the
project, it was stated that there wasn't a feasible block with the
limitation and they chose to step up and make this project happen at an
economically feasible scale.  He said they were willing to work with staff.
He said a traffic study has been completed.  
The Tri-Party Agreement stemmed from the development of Phase 1, which was
the Border's Bookstore.  This put several requirements on Phase 2, which was
currently being addressed.  Those issues had to do with public parking,
height, and scale of the project.  He said some of the issues that were
driving the project at the time were pertinent to the point in time, but
issues had changed as the times had changed.  He said they had worked with
both parties to that agreement, and in particular with the City and the
real-estate of Border's Bookstores to come up with an agreement that
continued to protect the rights of the City of Lawrence for their
contribution of a $100,000 toward public parking on the project.  
He spoke about the project history and the importance of the project.  He
said research was done to look at newly constructed loft-condominium
buildings.  Some of the conflicts found, which were set forth from the
guidelines of the City which were the higher the building the better the
buyer liked it.  The higher floors were always the floors that go first.  He
said secured private parking was a requirement of this kind of project.
Parking in the basements was installed to solve that problem.  The windows
were of a different size then of the typical patterns in downtown Lawrence.
There had been numerous meetings with the project partners in an effort to
address all of the issues that could be addressed so a feasible project
would still remain.    
He presented images of the building to the City Commission to explain the
elevation.  He said they had the general support of the Planning Staff with
the recommendation of approval with conditions.   
He said the project should generate taxes in the range of $3 million dollars
over 10 years.  He said the market research and the economics of the project
were driving cause of the height of the building.  This was the height
needed to provide the mixed use of the building to be feasible.  He said
they had comparable ceiling to floor heights that they found in the
residential condominiums where ever they visited which were 13.4 inches
floor to ceiling.  The first floor was at 16 foot in the back, which was
being driven by the slope of the ground so they were handicapped accessible
with the project.  There was a different elevation for floor levels in the
two sections of their building so they could match the floor levels from
there on up.  That was what drove the 16-foot height in the bank as opposed
to the 14 feet in the retail.  He said they felt that they needed to
preserve the floor to ceiling heights.  They were trying to sell an upscale
loft condominium and if they drove the floor to ceiling height down too low,
they would be selling a different product and it would be simply a
condominium as opposed to the loft feeling. 
He said if we wanted downtown to remain viable that they did need to build
up.  He said at some point in time there would be a great scarcity of ground
to build on in downtown.  He said this was probably the largest bare piece
of ground that was available.  From here on we would be talking about
redevelopment of structures that were non-complying when looking at the
downtown guidelines.
He said they talked about their desire for angled parking and they thought a
precedent had been set and saw no negative effects of that angled parking at
the Arts Center.  He said it would be easier and less disruptive to traffic
to have angled parking.  He said it strengthened New Hampshire Street and
made it more a part of downtown Lawrence instead of being a side street.  He
said the traffic study indicated minimal impact supporting angled parking.  
He talked about why this project deserved the Commission's support.  He said
they had good communications with the neighbors.  He said they tried to meet
all the needs of the neighborhood, but they were not able to address all of
those needs, but the felt they were half way there relative to the height
issue.  He hoped the Commission would allow the height for the reasons they
presented.
The compromises that had been made were more mature landscaping, the
maintenance of the existing stone wall and maybe more importantly the steps
that would actually lead to a destination as opposed to just being steps and
a retaining wall that went no place at this time.  The use of better
material on the east side was a non-complying issue with the downtown
guidelines.  The guideline recommended this similar on the rear elevations
of the building.  However, through their discussion with East Lawrence found
out that the east elevation was more important than the west elevation on
this building so they tried to comply with that and applied a new set of
materials there.  
He said they made historical references in the architectural methods they
had used.  They kept the alleyway pattern in which there was a substantial
difference from the residential neighbors on this project and they were not
directly across the street, but in fact, facing the other street and not
quite to a full alley depth.  
He said there would be 32 loft condominium homes for sale and they thought
it would bring a new feel to downtown Lawrence.  He said this had given them
the opportunity to take an expensive piece of ground and instead of seeing a
Borders or a Wal-greens Drug Store on a corner which were two of the types
of modern day retail outlets that could afford that type of ground, but they
were placing a structure that was very much Lawrence, Kansas.  He said they
were setting a great precedent for downtown and what might come in the
future.  He said there was going to be a drive for more density.  He said
they were in a mode where they were decreasing urban sprawl and they were
using the existing infrastructure.  He said they were un-taxed supported and
they had asked for no tax increment financing (TIF).  This was a private
process that made economic sense they way it stood.  He hoped the City
Commission would give their support to this project.             
Vice Mayor Rundle asked how the developer "went halfway" in meeting the
height concerns.  
Harris said as they conducted their meeting with the East Lawrence
neighborhood and other interested parties, he believed they came halfway
with their support from neighborhoods.
Commissioner Schauner asked what other groups opposed the project.
Harris said those who were opposed were generally interested in the
preservation of the historic buildings.    
Commissioner Schauner asked what role did the office space on the second
floor, of the south building, play in the physical viability of this
project.  He said there have been a number of comments in the past about
commercial space being overbuilt in town.  He asked how those allegations
play a role in the proposed second floor, in the south building, for office
space area. 
Harris said it started with the investors themselves.  The current committed
tenants to the office space happen to be Lawrence businesses and investors
that do not currently have offices in the downtown area.  He said fiscally
the driving force was if the developer filled the building with retail on
the first floor and office space in all the remaining floors and disregarded
the residential, then that was what would drive the best return on the
project, considering there was a market for it. 
Commissioner Schauner asked if the office lessees would be moving from a
current location in town to the project.
Harris said yes.  He said approximately 60 percent of the building would be
from local businesses and investors relocating their office, and where the
other 40 percent come from was purely speculation at this point.
Jim Roberts, rural Lawrence, said he and his wife had made a commitment that
they were going to move into this proposed project building if it was
approved.  He said when they lived in Denver, Colorado they considered
moving into a loft, but ended up moving to Lawrence due to a job offer.  He
said the notion of the loft and the height issue was very important for what
lofts were about in that they were a distinct way of living.  He said they
were excited about this concept and they thought it was fantastic for the
downtown area.  He was in favor of old historic buildings in downtown, but
this was a tremendously important opportunity for the future of the downtown
area.  
Vice Mayor Rundle asked why the height was important to the loft.
Roberts said the architectural designing made it appealing and it would
cease to be a loft without the height.   
Tony Peterson, Lawrence, presented a model to give the City Commission an
idea of the scale of the building in relationship to the neighborhood.  He
said the issue with this project had always been the height and not the
issue of mixed use or the commercial aspects.   
Pat Kehde, Lawrence, co-owner of a house in the 700 block of Rhode Island
which was directly across from this project said when she bought her house
on Rhode Island, it was under the knowledge that the property for the
proposed project was zoned C-4.  She said C-4 zoning only allowed for the
maximum height of 45 feet for buildings.  She presented a drawing to the
City Commission showing the scale of the project to the residential area.
The reason for zonings was so that consistency and expectations could be
met.  She said this was going against three codes and guidelines developed
by citizens over a long period of times.  If the guidelines were ignored
then the Commission is setting a bad precedent, and this would be followed
by more proposals of higher buildings.     
KT Walsh, resident on Rhode Island Street, stated that her house was built
in 1863.  She stated her house along with another resident on Rhode Island
house was listed on the Historic Register and they were surrounded by
historic properties
She stated that in the East Lawrence Neighborhood Plan, they talked about
this area as an area of shared concern.  They approached the plan from the
perspective of the neighborhood, but also from the perspective of downtown.
She liked the project a lot, however she hated the height.  She worked with
Harris and his staff for a year and a half and she had attended all meetings
but one.  It had been a hard and fruitful process.  Harris has never budged
on the height and they had talked about it and the residents had
reservations about it all through the process.  Not everyone had
reservations about it, but some of the people attending the meetings.  She
thought the building needed to come down to 4 stories.  She could live with
that.  
This building did not conform to the downtown design guidelines.  The
premise of that being that the highest buildings would be on Massachusetts,
then the side streets would have lower buildings which would slope down to
the 2 story houses in the neighborhood.  She thought it created a canyon
effect on New Hampshire Street.  It would be a dark, urban type of feeling,
which was more proper for a really large urban center like Kansas City.  She
did not feel that this city had reached that position yet.  
The other issue was no enforcement of maintaining the plantings. The
neighbors have complained for years to Border's and the City that the trees
and plantings that they (Border's) have put in had died and the fences had
been broken down and no one was repairing those fences.  She thought that
the City needed to somehow make sure all the promised greenery would stay
there.  
Ardys Ramberg, Lawrence, had spent a great deal of time with the East
Lawrence Neighborhood Association and the neighbors in general.  She felt
concerned about the height issue and the precedent it would be setting for
the remainder of New Hampshire Street.  She said Austin, Texas, started out
as a town like ours and then suddenly it was different.  
Moved by Hack, seconded by Rundle, to extend the meeting until 11:00 p.m.
Motion carried unanimously.              
Jason Fizell, resident on Rhode Island Street, member of the Board of Zoning
Appeals, and also on the Board of the East Lawrence Neighborhood
Association, had conflicting feelings about this issue.
He stated that he had the opportunity to visit Austin, Texas and he had the
same sense as Walsh about that City in that they were building a lot of
lofts and there was a canyon-like effect.  There were other cities that he
had visited that had detracted from their downtown.  Those other cities did
not have a central street like Massachusetts Street.  
He said the height was not a big issue, but felt that the City should limit
the height to 75 feet, which was 3 feet less that what they had asked for
variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals.  That kept them at the limit for
C-3 Downtown Zoning, otherwise, they were crossing two thresholds, both for
C-4 at the 45-foot and the 78-foot crossed the C-3.  He thought the
applicant could easily cut 3 feet off of the height.  He had been
disappointed in the unwillingness to come down on the height according to
neighborhood concerns.  However, he did recognize that there might be some
economic issues to this project.  
He had a concern about affordable housing and he knew that this was not
going to be a part of this project.  He said what they were talking about
was condominiums 1000-2500 sq ft. which would be priced at $150,000 -
$400,000, if not more.  Other cities had made it so that could be provided
through an agreement.  He thought the projects that Harris was involved with
on Pennsylvania Street, needed an affordable housing component.  He thought
there could be a possibility of working with Tenants to Homeowners elsewhere
in the neighborhood to provide affordable housing to off-set some of the
harm that the neighborhood was going to visit from having this large of a
development there.  
Again he stated that he did not have a problem with the height of the
project, but if they did get to build this development with this height,
then they needed to provide an off-set in terms of providing affordable
housing elsewhere around the City.  He suggested that the Commission hold
off on making a decision on this tonight and direct staff to look into
affordable housing provisions.  
He stated that as part of the BZA variance process they had to declare this
a special case, because it was a unique instance.  He urged the Commission
not to alter the downtown guidelines because they get that canyon-like
effect.  He stated that there was a whole history of the zoning that he
looked into before the BZA zoning of the area.  He appreciated the
Commission taking the time to look into this issue and asked that their
judgment not be rushed on this issue.
Ed Tato, President of the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, said this
project had been a long process and it was not going to make it any easier
because he was representing the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association
Board.  He stated that the two issues were height and affordable housing.
There were some on the board who were not going to support the height
regardless and there were some on the board that would.  Neither one forms a
majority of the board opinion.  There were some "swing" voters on the board
who would be willing to concede on this height given that something was done
about affordable housing.  He wanted to address this issue in that the
property taxes were going up in East Lawrence just like everywhere else.
However, the valuations were going up faster in the East Lawrence
neighborhood.  
When you put a project like this in, it was going to increase East
Lawrence's property values.  The residents were not doing anything to their
houses that were going to appreciate their values.  He stated that they were
already a low-income neighborhood and a lot of the neighbors did not have
great jobs and struggled to make ends meet and there were many seniors in
this neighborhood, but he thought that was not a reason to stop development.
The thought they should deal with this issue and correct it.  
He would like to know if there was anyway for Harris Construction, the
neighborhood and others to provide some stability for low-income housing in
this neighborhood, not on this site, but as part of this project.  He
thought that there was no commitment to do anything yet, but the City needed
to be a part of anything that went on there and help the neighbors protect
the neighborhood.  
He said it did not matter if the height went from 5 stories to 4 stories
because either one was going to have an effect on the desirability of the
remainder of East Lawrence as a place to live and consequently on the
property values.  He acknowledged that there was going to be more
development in East Lawrence because there were vacant properties and
properties that were prime for redevelopment.  
He stated that there were people there who want to live there.  They were a
low-income neighborhood who supported and encouraged low-income housing,
affordable housing in their neighborhood and they wanted to keep it that way
for the people who were there and for people to come there.  He stated that
the bottom line was that the support of the board basically hinged on
whether or not there could be some affordable housing done in conjunction
with this project.  
Janet Gerstner, Lawrence, member of the Lawrence Preservation Alliance
Board, said she had been active in the Oread Neighborhood.  She said there
were a lot of similarities between some of the issues at stake in this
project and some of the issues that they have been and were currently
experiencing in the Oread neighborhood.  
She said there were designs that had been approved for scholarship halls in
the 1300 block of Ohio and she thought after a difficult process that they
had all been through in losing historic homes on that block, there was a
real attempt to work together with the University to reach out to the
community and the neighborhood and come up with designs that would be the
best that could have in the situation of having institutional buildings on
the edge of a residential neighborhood.  She thought that was interesting
because on Ohio Street, the University coming down the hill as institutional
buildings, now faced residential areas.  In the designs that were approved
by the HRC last week, there was a real commitment in trying to blend those
with the neighborhood, as well as they could, given their scale.  To do
that, the height was a main concern.  They measured the tallest structure on
that block with a house that still existed and tried to match that and keep
the level to 3 stories with the top being embedded in the roof to achieve
that.  Those attempts were greatly appreciated by the neighborhood.  
She thought this situation was interesting in that on the edge of downtown
there was an abrupt change with smaller scale, residential homes on a narrow
street, Rhode Island, backing up to the downtown.  She had concerns for that
historic block and neighborhood, if they did see tall structures that
impacted those residents.  
She thought it was important to maintain Massachusetts Street as the tallest
point downtown, in an attempt to taper down, especially on the side where
there was such a dramatic change into the residential neighborhood.  
She thought there were wonderful designs and she appreciated the efforts
that had gone into this project.  She hoped that we did not lose sight of
what made downtown successful, and that was the human scale of it.  Perhaps
some other downtowns that were more urban were doing okay, but she thought
that in Topeka you would see blocks where there was more of the human scale
retained and she felt that those were much more appealing to pedestrians and
shoppers.  For instance, the block that has Wolfe's camera or the newly
redeveloped Tucker's Bar on the second floor and an art deco building.
Where you really lose that feel was as you get into the developments that
were taller downtown in Topeka.  
She thought that downtown Lawrence needed to grow and it was important that
the downtown stays the major shopping area.  She hoped that there could be
some compromise there.  She stated that if this project was allowed to go
forward, we should be looking at trying to limit this so we were not setting
a precedent and creating a 75 foot or 78 foot expanse downtown that did
negatively impact the East Lawrence historic neighborhood, and perhaps
detract from downtown in the long run, if we create a scale that was too
extreme and bring a sort of darkness to the downtown.  She thought there
were a lot of good issues about this project, but she hoped it was possible
to reduce the scale somewhat.
Virgil Dean, Historic Resources Commission, was not at this meeting as a
representative of the commission.  He was there to defend that body and to
remind the Commission that any time you apply rules or guidelines, there was
some subjectivity involved.  Anyone who objectively analyzed or applied
those standards and guidelines, he thought, as the Historic Resources
Commission unanimously did, that this project did not comply with those
guidelines.  He stated that although there were many things that he liked
about the project, it clearly did not comply with the standards and
guidelines that they applied as a Historic Resource Commission and as City
staff had pointed out, it violated the downtown guidelines.  
He could not believe that there was a compromised position here and a good
project could come out of it.  He also believed that there were feasible and
prudent alternatives. He believed that we should comply with the 2-year old
downtown design guidelines or prior to approving this project or making
another exception, open up the dialogue again because that was a long,
extended discussion.  He thought that we might want to make an exception but
that should be down the road.
Carol Van Tersch, Lawrence Preservation Alliance did not want to repeat the
comments of the speakers before her, but she wanted to present a visual
image.  She said when thinking of the corner of 8th and Ohio Street, on that
corner was large Victorian house and to the south was a one story
flat-roofed property. When she first moved to Lawrence, she drove down Ohio
Street and thought that was the most jarring thing she had ever seen.  She
wondered if Lawrence had any design guidelines when that kind of structure
was built because the scale of the buildings was so jarring.  She had a
feeling looking at this project showing the streetscape with the buildings
on the West side of New Hampshire that was just as jarring to see that
height difference.  She thought that if the Commission approved this
project, that the design guidelines had been nullified.  She requested that
the Commission carefully consider that because that would be as jarring as
the 8th and Ohio situation.  
Maria Martin stated that the Hobbs-Taylor Loft project generated much
discussion among the Downtown Lawrence Board Members, as well as the DLI
membership.  The consensus of downtown Lawrence was that this project was
excellent for the growth and development of downtown.  
In the Comprehensive Downtown Plan, it stated that multi-purpose, mix-use
developments should be encouraged and this project fit that description.  It
was the consensus that having inhabitants downtown would have a calming
effect on downtown as those individuals take ownership and pride in their
immediate neighborhood and help keep the community healthy and vital.  
Downtown Lawrence Inc. realized that the downtown area would benefit from a
project of this nature and they would agree with Harris, that his proposed
project should improve the ambience of New Hampshire.  In doing so, this
would benefit downtown Lawrence.  DLI had supported the HRC guidelines since
its inception and as such, the DLI board supported compliance with those
guidelines.  She stated that the decision ahead of the Commission was a very
tough one.  
Jolene Anderson said this project was what she had wanted to happen in this
block for a long time.   She understood the pros and cons and she had a lot
of respect for her neighborhood's opinions.  She remembered this block
because she had lived in Lawrence a long time and had been part of the East
Lawrence community for a long time.  She remembered when there was a cabinet
shop before Border's went in.  She said the overall block, at that time, was
full of broken glass, construction debris and weeds.  She thought it had
been improved since Border's had moved in.  
Whenever discussing downtown and what downtown means, everyone always talked
about retail.  No one wanted another bar, restaurant or entertainment, but
retail and mixed uses.  They hoped in discussions that they could get a
mix-use project that not only had retail, but also office and residential.
What they were looking at was not student housing.  This project was nice,
upscale living quarters for people who wanted to buy into, belong to, live
in, and possibly work in downtown Lawrence.  This was a project that would
help.  She said that when we look at the pressures on downtown with
potential urban sprawl, all the issues with South Iowa and now all the
issues with 6th and Wakarusa, a pocket park or a vacant lot did not anchor
downtown.  This kind of development did.  
Again, she felt for the neighbors and she understood what they were saying.
To her, she thought it looked wonderful.  She hoped there could be some type
of compromise, such as the lofts being lowered by 6 feet or 3 feet would be
helpful.  She knew that the decision before the commission was going to be
difficult, but overall, if it was that easy to come up with an economically
viable plan that had mixed-use, retail, office, and permanent residential in
downtown and was only 3 or 4 stories tall, it would have been done by now.
She said that people had waited a long time and one of the reasons they had
to wait, was because of meeting the economic challenges.  She believed that
only a project of this scale would be viable enough to meet those
challenges.  She urged the Commission to think carefully and support the
project.
Marci Francisco, Lawrence, was not a resident of the neighborhood, but she
owned the empty lot on the northeast corner of 8th and Rhode Island and
owned a house in the 700 Block of Rhode Island.  She was concerned about
process.  One of the reasons that people were there tonight was to talk
about the height of a building because City staff suggested that he ask for
a variance on the height for this project.  
She served on the Board of Zoning Appeals and Dave Corliss, Assistant City
Manager/Legal Services Director, said the role of the Board of Zoning
Appeals was to make findings and one of those findings was that the request
was not made because of an action of the owner, but of the property.  It
might have even been not a good situation to say this was not appropriate to
discuss or ask for a variance because it seemed it was the height, a
decision of the property owner, and not a result of the property.  At this
public hearing, a lot of things have been mixed together.  She hoped they
did not lose part A of this public hearing regarding the appeal to the
finding of the certified local government or CLG that the development
encroached upon, damaged or destroyed the Eldridge Hotel and the Post Office
based on those standards.  That was a finding that could only be made by the
HRC and the Commission's role was to find that there were no feasible or
prudent alternatives and that all possible planning had been done.  She said
this was an important process in terms of how Lawrence was going to handle
historic resources.  She thought that they might not have given as much help
as a community to the developer in letting the developer know that those
were the issues that the community needed to address in this hearing. There
was not discussion in the presentation of alternatives or possible planning.
There were the same reasons why this might not encroach upon, damage or
destroy, but that finding had been made and now they were looking at
possible planning.  
She implored the Commission to seek written information for alternatives or
response to the request for alternatives and possible planning.  
She said in regards to the issue of angled parking, this issue was discussed
when she was serving on the City Commission from 1979-1983, and it went back
and forth whether or not angled parking made sense on Vermont and New
Hampshire Streets.  She commented that it would change the speed for traffic
on those 2 streets and right now, they were using Vermont and New Hampshire
to miss the parking lot that was part of Massachusetts Street and they might
not want to change that and if they did, they should do that carefully.  
In the case of the Arts Center traffic, the traffic was already being slowed
down in that block.  She said in the review of the commercial chapter of
Horizon 2020 that the City did need to go back and update the downtown plan.
Here was another opportunity to address angled parking. 
The City was also looking at other issues in the site plan.  She appreciated
the efforts that were being made to maintain and repair the stone wall along
the east side.  She appreciated the comments that the developer made about
materials on the east side of those buildings.  In that case, the
development was different from a building that would have another building
behind it because they were looking at the parking lot being the space
between the residential and that wall.  It seemed that we would want to do
something different with that east wall and those materials seemed
appropriate.  
Marty Kennedy, Lawrence, said he owned a business on New Jersey Street for
approximately 50 years.  He thanked the Historic Resource Commission for the
appropriate position needed for the State and the City for this project.  He
said it was time to step forward as a community to allow a project that
might take this community to the next element.  He said they had a plan for
downtown that did not appease everybody, but everyone wanted the best for
this community.  
He said the development downtown to create a benefit district and a
conservation district for the community downtown, was a focal point.
Downtown needed to be maintained as a strong and retail living community and
they had a chance to do that now.  If you go through all the Historic
Resources policy issues, it would never conform to the Eldridge or a number
of other elements both in East Lawrence and downtown area.  Now it was time
to step out of the box to make a statement for our downtown.  It was the
best thing that could happen for our downtown and that was what our district
had been planning for a long time.  
Bob Schumm, downtown property owner, supported this project and he had no
financial interest in this project.  In fact, Harris told him if this
project was successful, he could count on new competition. So, he had
nothing to gain from this project except for the advantage to downtown.  
He went to several different seminars about urban development when he had
the opportunity of being involved with the City.  The key word at those
seminars was "critical mass."  There needed to be sufficient "critical mass"
in order to draw the people downtown.  As this City expanded their major
commercial nodes, South Iowa Street continued to expand today and there
needed to be a competitive strategy in order to be viable in the eyes of the
consumer.  If expansion was not allowed, which can only go one way and
that's up, then Lawrence became less of an interesting place to be in terms
of shopping, service, and entertainment.  He asked the City Commission to
remember this City was continuing to expand those outlying areas, so they
needed the opportunity to expand the downtown on an equal basis in order to
attract the consumer, tourist, and employees.  
One of the properties he owned was in the 700 Block of Massachusetts Street,
and he lived in the environs of two tall structures.  One was owned by
Southwestern Bell which was quite a bit larger than the structure being
discussed.  He did not have the exact number of feet and height, but he was
sure it was over 100 feet tall.    The Eldridge House's height of that
structure would be similar to this proposed structure. He stated that the
Eldridge did not seem too large and it seemed to fit into downtown Lawrence.
If they were having this same discussion before the Eldridge House was
built, would this pertain to the Eldridge House and whether it should be
built or not.  He said the Eldridge did not seem to be out of character at
all and yet it was at a relative size.    
The third situation was that he had been involved with the development of
downtown since the mid 70's and there were some critical junctures along the
way.  One was the suburban mall and the other was securing a number of
public buildings downtown.  As they move forward, they never failed and
because they never failed in major productions, acquisitions, and
developments, there was still an interest for people coming to Lawrence and
continuity to try and develop.  If a major development failed there would be
a negative stigma that would ride along with downtown in terms of other
people becoming interested in trying to develop and trying to put their
money into downtown.  
Downtown Lawrence was a difficult place to build and it was very expensive.
There had to be a good rate of return otherwise, no one would build in this
area.  If you couple that with burdensome policies to where it could not
realistically happen, then he thought it would never happen again.  
Finally, he said he agreed with most of the comments that were made, but the
point was, if downtown went down, so would the neighbors that were adjacent
to it.  
Phil Minkin, Lawrence, had a concern that if the Commission decided to
approve this project and place this huge square peg into a round hole, then
the Commission needed to disregard two City Commission appointed committees.
He said the Commission would also be disregarding 2 plans for downtown and
the design plan and the Commission would need to radically change the
zoning.    He liked the mix-use of this project except for the size and
disregarding that was not a good way to initiate a process.  He thought
there were feasible and prudent alternatives.  
He asked if 32 living units would trigger a traffic study to see how much
additional traffic would be brought into downtown.  
Mayor Dunfield responded to the issue of the HRC and its role in this
project.  He thought that not approving this project did not imply to any
criticism of the HRC or the work that it did based on what their charge was
and what rules they were following.  The HRC's consideration was not the
only considerations for the community that was why there was the possibility
at looking at feasible and prudent alternatives.  When talking about
feasible and prudent alternatives, a bigger picture needed to be taken into
account and to consider what we really were talking about was the health of
downtown as a whole.  
The Eldridge did not survive without a healthy downtown surrounding it.
They had this discussion recently about the commercial chapter of Horizon
2020 and the question of whether it was appropriate to call downtown the
primary regional commercial center for Lawrence.  He thought if the
Commission denied projects like this and still try to insist that downtown
was the primary regional commercial center, they were fooling themselves.  
The question of "critical mass" was brought up by one of the speakers and he
thought there was truth to that.  If the City continued to say that they
supported downtown and that we want it to be healthy and thrive that we had
to recognize that substantial new development had to occur and that there
was little land available to us for that to occur on.  He said previous
Commissions, in talking about downtown urban plans and design guidelines,
that they were not going to allow downtown to spread into East Lawrence or
old West Lawrence and that they were committed to maintaining a clear
boundary between the two.  This project did that, in fact, by not building
on the east half of the block, it created a buffered zone.  He thought
development like this did protect the surrounding neighborhood as well as
downtown.  
Mayor Dunfield commented briefly on design guidelines.  He said one of the
issues that they kept emphasizing as they went through the whole process was
that they did not expect projects to conform in every particular aspect of
every particular guideline.  He said they knew that it was not reasonable
and did not allow for change and creativity to say that they were going to
have a checklist of design guideline items and if you did not meet every
single one of those items then they would kick you out.  The language in the
guidelines clearly said that they were not intended to be used in that way.
In this design he saw a lot of respect for the design guidelines and a lot
of attention to the kinds of details and articulation that they want to see
in the downtown building and that the design guidelines were put into place
to help bring about.  
There had been a lot of discussion of size and scale and this was a big
building from a downtown Lawrence perspective.  It was a big building, but
so was the Eldridge.  Both of those buildings shared something common which
was that there was a distinction between scale and size.  The scale had to
do with the way the building addressed the street, with the way it responded
to pedestrian activity, and whether or not it was friendly to people as they
walk by.  He said there was a reference made to downtown Topeka and
certainly if you had a reflective glass, purple building that had no sense
of transparency, then that building was going to be unfriendly and it was
going to have bad scale relationships to the street, however large or small
it might be.  This building, like the Eldridge, because of the generous
windows, storefront, and detailing had very good scale relationships in
spite of the fact that its size was large by Lawrence standards.  
One issue that this Commission was going to have to decide was whether
angled parking was going to be appropriate on New Hampshire and Vermont
streets because he did feel that this was an important change in the pattern
and one that they needed to come to grips with one way or another.  He
supported the project and hoped to see it built.
Commissioner Rundle took exception to the comment that there were people who
did not want to allow this project.  He did not hear anyone, even those who
spoke most critically of this project that they did not want to allow this
project.  He thought it was unanimous that everyone wanted to see this
project go though.  It seemed like the height was the key issue.  He thought
that if this exact project did not go forward, that downtown was going to
fail or this project had to fail.  
He said he was a supporter of the expansion of downtown.  This issue was on
the City Commission's agenda that he and Shumm had served on, that they
removed the old buildings on the Riverfront and allowed the Riverfront mall
to be built.  They had contributed the parking deck, the expansion of the
swimming pool and each had an impact on the Old West Lawrence. They
supported the downtown 2000 project including the expansion of the Arts
Center.  The Arts Center proposal was all predicated on reusing the Carnegie
Building, tearing down houses on Kentucky Street and he was among those
people dead set against that project.  
He thought it was significant that they were talking about downtown design
guidelines, the downtown urban design concept, the historic resources issues
and C-4 zoning.  He said they were asking an awful lot to compromise all of
those policies and principles.  He said in his mind there had to be feasible
and prudent alternatives and there could be additional planning.  He thought
the applicant could try to prove that through a little more concrete
evidence.  There was anecdotal evidence from Harris that market research
that those loft apartments were critical.  There was also anecdotal evidence
from a speaker stating that someone from KC was designing lofts without this
height.  He wondered if there could be mixed use in terms of a residential
in which you could include a floor of high loft apartments and the other
floors scaled down.  He questioned that you absolutely had to accommodate
handicap accessibility from both sides by adding several feet of height to
the building.  There had to be a way to do ramps and lifts to make
accessibility possible on the east side as well as the west.  
He said that past commissions intended to contain the expansion of downtown
without having to go over into the neighborhoods.  The health of the
downtown was inextricably linked with the health of the old town-site
neighborhoods.  Until this model was here, he thought that you could not get
the perspective from those drawings.  He hoped height could be addressed the
building height brought down roughly the equivalent of one story and still
have your 5 story building and a viable project.  Commissioner Rundle wanted
to see this go forward, but with modifications.
Commissioner Hack appreciated the amount of citizens participating in this
discussion because it showed their interest.  She also appreciated downtown
as the core retail cultural center and it was important to preserve that.
She did not feel that this project would not be detrimental to the environs
in terms of the historical buildings.  The planning and design had been done
to ensure that that would happen.
Their job as a Commission was to protect the downtown as the core retail
cultural center.   She also thought the Commission's job was not to put up
obstacles that made a project like this financially impossible.  She
believed that reducing the size did that and she thought that was not the
objective of anything that the Commission did as Commissioners.  
This project was going to draw business and most importantly, residents to
downtown, which enhanced the core of this community.  This was infill
development, mixed-use development, and it was the kind of development that
she supported.  It was in the footprint of downtown and it avoided the issue
of sprawl, which the Commission heard a lot of concerns about.  She
appreciated neighborhood concerns over height.  It was nice to have an
architect talk about the difference between size and scale and to clarify
that for those of us who were not architects.  She supported this project.
Commissioner Highberger said the process for downtown design guidelines was
a long process, but those guidelines had set out what we want downtown
Lawrence to be.  He heard from 3 people who helped write those guidelines
suggest that we should not follow those guidelines at this time and he was
unclear what that meant.  
He thought the model that was presented to the City Commission helped make
another comparison between everything that was good in downtown
redevelopment and what was not.  He complimented Harris for bringing forward
this mixed-use project, which was something that was discussed for years.
That was something that made a positive contribution to downtown.  
He was really intrigued about the discussion concerning the possibility of
having this project contribute to affordable housing elsewhere in the East
Lawrence neighborhood.  He thought this project would have an impact on
housing values in the area.  
As long as downtown was thriving, property values in East Lawrence were
going to continue to rise.  He did not know any way to get away from that
dichotomy.  If we were going to have a successful downtown, the property
values were going to go up.  
Commissioner Highberger thought he had his mind made up, but he had been
going back and forth.  This was the most difficult decision he had looked at
since he had been in this position.  He wanted something more than anecdotal
evidence to backup an assertion that there was no feasible and prudent
alternative.  He thought that the fact that the lot stayed vacant for so
long was probably a testimony to that fact.  If a 3-4 story project in that
space had been viable, it would have come forward by now.  He was leaning
toward supporting this project provided that the project could be tied to
affordable housing either in a future project or somewhere else in East
Lawrence.
Commissioner Schauner said in having some experience in the Topeka area and
their abandoning of everything that had historical value in appearance was
one of the things that caused it to lose their downtown soul.  He did not
know what the standard was for determining encroachment and destruction of
an historic property.  He did not know what the HRC used as the standard for
coming to that conclusion.  
He said Harris called him approximately 6 weeks ago to look at the drawings
of this plan.  His first reaction to the project was that it was a great
looking project, but his second comment was the height of this structure.
Obviously the height was a concern to a lot of folks and to him.  
He asked that they discuss a concern that was triggered by something Harris
had said in his presentation.  He said Harris was not asking for special
financing arrangement with the City.  He asked if this project could be
scaled down and become economically feasible if there was some special
financing arrangement with the City.  He said that he was not looking for a
response at that moment, but he would like to explore whether the project
could be smaller, still meet the developer's financial needs to make it
viable, and do that with some tax policy from the City.  
Dave Corliss said he could make a general comment, but he was not able to
make a conclusion to that statement.  One of the issues that the City needed
to know was what the financial goal would be.  If there was a dollar amount
that the development needed to hit in order to make a smaller building
economically viable, then they would need to know that.  The tools were
limited if tax increment financing was done.  One of the key issues would be
what public improvements were being financed.   There might be some
associated with utilities and you could do ground clearance and street
improvements, but he said he did not know if that would be appropriate.
The other issue was the Neighborhood Tax Revitalization Act which looked at
the growth and the property tax on one property, such as this, at time one
which was now a vacant lot which paid property taxes now, but they would pay
substantially more property taxes in the future and you take that increment
and you rebate it back to the property owner.  Those were two ideas that
came to mind that the Commission could explore.  
	Moved by Rundle, seconded by Highberger, to extend the meeting until
12:00 midnight.  Motion carried unanimously.
Commissioner Schauner said he would like to have a discussion about whether
there was a reasonable way to have a discussion about what it would take to
make this a viable project.  He thought it was the type of project that was
great for downtown.  He thought bringing people downtown was a great goal
along with mixed-use.  He would like to do it in a way that was more
sensitive to the Rhode Island neighborhood and the height and design issue
for the downtown area.  This would be a tremendous use for either a tax
abatement or TIF.  He wanted discussion about how they could find a
legitimate compromise between 5 stories on the south and 4 stories on the
north or nothing.  He was not in favor of nothing.  He would like to see a
project built there.  He wanted to see it mixed-use, but he wanted to see it
scaled, be more compatible as a transition from New Hampshire to Rhode
Island.  Ultimately, he would like to see that transition move on to
Pennsylvania, on to the river, and continue that redevelopment across that
part of the City.  He thought that we would make that happen as easily if we
put up a big building as if we putting up some more transitional use that
continued to nourish that East Lawrence neighborhood.  He was not trying to
throw up a roadblock.  He said Harris had been working on this project for a
couple of years and a little more time was not going to make this project go
away.  Once we approve it, if we do, and it was built, then they were
finished with this concept.  He would like discussion on how they might
assist as a City with tax policy to make this a feasible project on a
somewhat smaller scale.  He did not know if there was any support from the
Commission or not with this idea. 
Commissioner Rundle held out the hope that they could get something that was
a win-win situation, but that might be one way to do it.  He asked whether
or not there were any TIF statutes for Kansas that solely pay for the
private side of the development.  It seemed in Kansas City, Missouri, they
were not funding public improvements, but they were funding redevelopment.
He reiterated that this issue was not a question of 3 stories versus 5
stories.  He thought there might be a way to make this a viable 5 story
project by taking resources that Commissioner Schauner had discussed, but he
would like to have that proved instead of making a wild guess or best guess
judgment that they did not think it was feasible.
Mayor Dunfield said asking for proof in this situation was in effect asking
to kill the project.  Obviously, from Harris' point of view it costs more to
build a taller building than it did to build a shorter building.  Again, as
Anderson said, if there were alternatives that were easy to build on this
site, then it would have been built.  It had been sitting there waiting to
build on it for quite some time now.  
He felt this project was a win-win situation.  He said it was mentioned
there was problem with the landscaping behind Border's.  The folks who lived
in those condos were going to insist that the parking lot be cleaned up and
that landscaping was healthy.  There was not going to be any question about
the maintenance of this piece of property if this building was built.  He
thought everyone would gain from this project including East Lawrence
neighbors and he hoped they would find a way to approve the project.
As far as alternate financing methods go, having seen the Downtown 2000
process, that project was a couple of years in the talking stage before it
really even came forward that much in public, so he did not know that there
was a quick alternative.  He thought Harris has done his homework and he has
looked at the possibilities thoroughly in the years that he had worked on
this project.
David Corliss responded to the Vice Mayor Rundle's question concerning the
TIF's statute. It was clear that the redevelopment project costs which
essentially would be the project elements that you would be able to fund
with debt that would be retired by the incremental growth in taxes, both
property taxes and sales taxes.  The statute provided that redeveloped
project costs shall not include costs incurred in connection with the
construction of buildings or other structures to be owned by or leased to
developers.  It did provide a list of 15 different public items which might
or might not be a part of this project. It could include site preparation
including utility relocations, storm sewers, drainage, street grating,
street light fixtures, underground utilities, sidewalks, drives and
driveways within the public right-of-way, plazas and arcades, and public
parking facilities.  Fortunately or unfortunately Missouri statute allowed
TIF to be used for more private costs than Kansas TIF statute which was
primarily public costs.  He was not saying that it was viable or not, but it
provided the demarcation in the Kansas law.
Commissioner Schauner asked if Harris, from the list of public items that
Corliss mentioned, had any sense about whether those costs, if borne through
some tax increment financing approach, would help him get to a smaller
structure.
Harris said he was used to being around Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City,
Missouri.  Harris said they did several things in Missouri that they could
not do in Kansas.  The City could go to the legislature for approval to in
fact grant other tax benefits to a project.   This could be done, but it was
awfully late in the process and no matter how hard they tried, it would
cause a great deal of delay.  Having purchased the property already, the
meter was running on the price of that property, so time was important.  
He said Sabatini worked hard in an effort to see what they could do without
losing the amount of square feet and number of units which obviously was
driving this issue.  He said they heard mention of 10-11 feet loft
condominiums.  Those might be on the board, but the only new loft project
built in Kansas City was 20 foot floors on the first floor so there actually
was a loft in the loft and from there on up, they were at the exact
dimensions that they were.  However, they would be willing to take out some
space. However, he would not state how they would do that, maybe by taking
out some space in each floor.  He believed that they could cut 6 feet off.
He hesitated in mentioning it because it was something that had been
undertaken recently since the BZA and that issue seemed to build more
momentum.  He said that much space taken out of the building that was
something they would be willing to address to make sure it could be done or
else come back to the Commission if they could not.
Commissioner Schauner said 6 feet did a lot for him in terms of how he
viewed the project.  He said whether the project was 6 feet smaller,
ultimately they would get a bang on redeveloping the west side of New
Hampshire.  He thought there was some detriment to Rhode Island, but the
greater good was served if they could get a 6-foot shorter building and the
economic impact that they would see on New Hampshire as well as the rest of
downtown.  He supported looking at angled parking for this project.  
Commissioner Highberger asked if there had been discussions with Tato and
Fizell about using revenue from this project to contribute to affordable
housing to provide affordable housing in future development.
Harris said yes.  He said this project tied to the vision on Pennsylvania
Street.  He said if he could he would have a convoluted TIF included to come
up 7th, 8th, and 9th Street and take in commercial properties at that
location.   
He had hoped that the things they could do for East Lawrence in trying to
accomplish their two projects in the area would be to identify their needs
and try to work toward those needs at the same time.  The idea of assisting
with affordable housing was late in the coming and he had responded the best
he could to that request in that they would immediately start working on
that process.  He did not know enough about what he was committing to and he
did not want to promise that something was going to happen.  He said they
were willing to make an effort to assist with the important issues as the
East Lawrence neighborhood saw them.
Mayor Dunfield said the affordable housing issues were significant policy
issues.  To try and hang a major policy decision on approval of a particular
site plan was too much to ask of this project.  Frankly, too much to sort
out in a reasonable way in terms of what did this say about future
affordable housing policy in Lawrence.  He hoped the City Commission would
address the issue, but he did not think this development should carry that
burden.
Vice Mayor Rundle said someone raised an idea that somehow in making this
exception, the Commission would be making this the exceptional, exception
and no other exceptions would be accepted.  He asked if that could be done.
Finger said those exceptions could be written into a policy document, but
they could not be subjective because you would need a basis for the
exception and all the other policies would apply until you see what the
exceptions said.  There were reasons why you would look at an exception.
She said staff believed that the Commission should write that into the
policy if an exception was going to be done.  Right now there was an
exception that was there that did not have justification which was Downtown
2000.  Nothing happened to the documents that clarified why that exception
was valid.
Vice Mayor Rundle said in order for the Commission to discharge their duty
with respect to the historic guidelines the Commission would need to find no
feasible or prudent alternative.  He sat on a Commission that failed to do
that properly and through litigation the Commission had to come back and
revisit that issue.  He asked what the Commission needed to do in order to
find and provide some basis.
Finger said that the Commission could not use anecdotal information and you
would need hard facts because those would be passed on to the State Historic
Preservation Office.  That officer needed to see that the Commission made
their findings based upon information specifically submitted which talked
about feasible and prudent alternatives and that all planning had been done
to relieve harm to the properties.  At this point, the Commission did not
have that. 
Commissioner Schauner said if the applicant was to affirm that through
market studies and a cost benefit analysis then they had determined in
association with real estate experts that this project as modified was the
only reasonable prudent use for that property.  He asked if that brought the
Commission closer to what was needed.
Finger said yes.  She said to take the Commission through the process of the
elimination of what did not work and why that worked, that gave the
Commission the feasible and prudent alternatives.  She said the Commission
might not want to disclose that in a public forum, but some type of summary
of documentation that staff could forward to the State would provide the
concrete information that was needed.
Commissioner Schauner asked if that would need to come from the applicant
since had had done the legwork as opposed to this Commission concluding
those things.
Finger said yes.
Commissioner Hack said if the Commission approved those things, then the
applicant could work with staff and come back with a document somewhat like
the findings of fact.
Finger said if the Commission approved this proposal tonight, she had five
days to get this documentation to the Historic Preservation Officer.  Staff
and the applicant needed direction from the Commission concerning feasible
and prudent alternatives.  
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if the Commission should defer the proposal until
they had those findings.
Finger was asking the Commission to give staff and the applicant direction
of specific material they wanted to make those findings.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked to meet the five-day deadline, did the Commission
need to defer approval until they had those findings?
Finger said yes.
Commissioner Schauner asked if it would be appropriate for staff in the way
of direction if this Commission were to ask staff and the applicant to work
together to put together the factual background that led the developer to
conclude that there was no reasonable and prudent alternative for the
development and value added use of this property.
Finger said yes.  She asked if the Commission was looking at this issue as
an economic standpoint or downtown stability standpoint.
Commissioner Schauner said the Commission was looking at this issue as a
downtown stability standpoint and a way to bring people downtown to add to
the economic vitality of downtown and continued to preserve downtown,
satisfied the mixed use interest that this Commission had in stabilizing
downtown, and focuses the Commission's interest in causing downtown to
remain the primary regional shopping area.
Commissioner Highberger said it should include financial calculations
indicating a smaller building was not financially feasible.
Commissioner Schauner said if the applicant could make the 6-foot shorter
building work that was the height of the building that he would like to
support as opposed to the original proposal.             
Commissioner Highberger said right now the Commission was talking about the
justification to the Historic Resources Commission and the financial
calculation would need to show that meeting the HRC criteria was not
economically feasible.
Mayor Dunfield asked if it was possible to make the approval of the site
plan conditioned upon the Commission receipt of an acceptable justification
for the historical findings.
Finger said yes it was possible. The appearance of that in court, if the
Commission ended up there, it would not be good.  Finger said the Commission
needed to deal with this issue as one packet and one agenda.
Mayor Dunfield clarified what the Commission's decision was.  He said the
Commission agreed not to take a position until they received a report on the
issue of feasible and prudent alternatives and all possible planning.  The
second part of this issue was the Downtown Design Guidelines, specifically
the angled parking resulting in building setback.  He was willing to look at
an amendment to those design guidelines for angled parking.  He said New
Hampshire and Vermont Streets would need to be developed more intensively if
they were going to invite more people to walk downtown.  
He said there was a concern about traffic and slowing traffic down was a
legitimate goal and that was a major concern with the design of the Arts
Center.
Commissioner Schauner asked if the Commission had to permit angled parking
on both sides of the street.
	Vice Mayor Rundle said no, because there was no angled parking on
both sides at the Lawrence Art Center.  He was not uncomfortable with angled
parking.
Finger said staff's concerns were with the flow of traffic, the capacity of
the streets, and bicycles.
Moved by Dunfield, seconded by Rundle, to consider the appeal from the
Downtown Design Guidelines ad hoc review committee's determination that the
proposed development is inconsistent with the Downtown Design Guidelines;
and directed staff to draft angled parking amendments to Downtown Design
Guidelines.  Motion carried unanimously.
(19)
Finger asked Harris what was his response to the staff recommendations to
the conditions of the site plan.
Harris said the angled parking had been addressed.
Finger said they addressed the parking through directing staff to draft an
amendment. She said that the Commission would look at angled parking on the
site plan.
Mayor Dunfield said a 6-foot height reduction might also be an additional
condition to the site plan.
Harris said it was the 8-foot setback that went along with angled parking.
He said they were willing to accept the exceptions.
Receive West 6th Street and South Lawrence Trafficway (K-10) Nodal Plan.
Brian Dyer, Planner, presented the staff report concerning the West 6th
Street and SLT (K-10) Nodal Plan.  This nodal plan was initiated by the City
Commission in response to a development proposal for the southeast corner of
that intersection.  He said staff had provided a memo to the City Commission
outlining a number of options and what action the Commission could take with
that plan.  
	Commissioner Schauner asked if there was an additional option
available other than the two listed which was to receive the plan and send
it to the Planning Commission for recommendations.
	Dyer said yes. He said it needed to be noted that when the applicant
made his application it was tabled predicated on the idea that a nodal plan
would be forthcoming to the Commission in early spring.    
	Commissioner Hack asked for the procedure in those types of
supplements to Horizon 2020.
	Dyer said the key point was how this plan would fit into the
framework of the other Comprehensive Plans.  He said if it was going to be a
supplement to Horizon 2020 then the appropriate course of action would be to
send it to the Planning Commission for recommendations, and then back to the
City Commission and County Commission.  Assuming there was approval from all
three bodies, it would become a supplement to Horizon 2020. 
	Commissioner Schauner asked if this was a supplement to Horizon
2020.
	Dyer said yes, if it went through those processes.  He said it was
akin to the Northwest Development Plan which this plan referenced.   
	Vice Mayor Rundle asked when the Northwest Development Plan was
developed.
	Commissioner Hack said approximately 1996 or 1997.
	Brian Kubota said this item was deferred last December and he was
told initially that this item would be back in April, but now it was July.
He said the City annexed this site a while ago and Highway 40 and George
Williams Way was getting approved.  He said the City put up a $1,000,000 to
run a supplemental sewer line that serviced the north side of the highway.
The application was applied for 3 years ago and they were told they were
premature so they waited until last year to apply.  
He said they had been before the Planning Commission, this item complied
with Horizon 2020, and they were in general compliance with the nodal plan.
He would like to see this item back on the agenda since a lot of time had
been lost due to the deferments.  
He said the status of the area right now was that the State has filed
condemnation on Highway 40.  There was permanent construction easements and
temporary construction easement being taken off the site, in addition to a
300-foot of right-of-way on George Williams Way.  He said all of the access
was included in the condemnation on the south side which meant that the
property could only be accessed off George Williams Way.  He said there was
no agreement other than if you look at the preliminary plat as to where the
access could be and right now it was 350 feet south of that intersection.
He said it was not only determining what the land use needed to be in order
to reflect or respond to any access situations with the State which was on
George Williams Way.   He said what made this area vitality important was
there were two roads that had dead ends, which were Harvard Road and 15th
Street. 
He said there was only one exit with anything adjacent to 15th Street and
you would need to go out the same way to Wakarusa as well as Harvard Road.
He requested from the Commission to be placed on the agenda to discuss the
more detailed aspects of this plan.  The plan was in general compliance and
there were not many changes.  He asked where he stood and when could he be
placed on the City Commission's agenda.
	John Tacha, representing the Methodist Church, said it sounded like
the process was moving in the direction that they wanted it to move.  He
said the proposal was a beautiful proposition and he hoped the Commission
would look at the proposal favorably.   
	Jane Eldridge, Attorney, said they had the opportunity to look at
this proposal and she wanted to remind the Commission about the Northwest
Plan because the northeast corner of the new plan appeared to be
inconsistent with the Northwest Plan.  She was sure that would be ironed out
whenever it went through the whole planning process.  In general the
proposal looked good, but it needed to go the Planning Commission to have an
adjustment made to that proposal.       
	Vice Mayor Rundle said when talking about Harvard and George
Williams Way dead-ending, he was wondering what else they needed to
incorporate into this proposal in terms of streets and layout.  He thought
the Planning Commission could reconcile those inconsistencies with the
Northwest Plan in completing this plan with more detail.
	Commissioner Hack concurred with Vice Mayor Rundle.  She said this
proposal needed to be addressed as quickly as possible. 
	Mayor Dunfield said it was a situation that the Commission needed to
take the time needed in order to get this nodal plan accepted.  He said the
Commission needed to plan first and zone second.  There were a few points
brought up tonight that should be addressed by the Planning Commission.  He
said the coordination of access issues with KDOT had to be an element of
this nodal plan.  He said a statement needed to made, if it was appropriate
in the nodel plan, that there would not be building permits issued until 6th
Street was completed and he would like that conveyed to the Planning
Commission.  
	Commissioner Hack agreed with Commissioner Dunfield.
	Commissioner Schauner concurred. 
	Commissioner Highberger said when looking at this nodal plan he saw
sprawl.  He said the work complied with the existing plan, but it showed the
need to proceed with more designed oriented guidelines.  He had a problem
with the concept of nodal development.  
Moved by Schauner, seconded by Hack, to receive the West 6th Street and
South Lawrence Trafficway (K-10) Nodal Plan and referred it to the Planning
Commission to initiate supplement to Horizon 2020.  Motion carried
unanimously.     (20)
	Kubota asked when this item would be placed on the agenda.  He said
this item had been to the Planning Commission in regards to infrastructure
and it met all of the Comprehensive Plans.
	Mayor Dunfield said the reason the City Commission tabled this
matter was so they could see the nodal plan.  He said it was his
interpretation that the City Commission was going to wait until the Planning
Commission had reviewed the plans and then it would be brought back to the
City Commission.  
	Wildgen said it would be discussed in August at the Planning
Commission meeting, and it would then return to the Commission in September
if everything was okay.
Discussion of Project No. 53-GI2-901(S), 6th and Kasold Geometric and
Traffic Signal Improvements.

Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, presented the staff report concerning
6th and Kasold Geometric and Traffic Signal Improvements.  The funding, at
that time, was 90% State and 10% City, and the State was capped at a maximum
of $550,000.  The project included: duel left turn lanes on 6th; widening
Kasold, lengthening left turn lanes on Kasold; protected left hand turning
movements; new signals; and, pavement replacements.   
	Last week KDOT accepted bids, and the low bid was received from LRM
Industries in the amount of $911,391.  KDOT was asking for the City's
authority to award the bid.  The City's engineers estimate was $650,000.
KDOT provided their estimate, but their estimate was between the two low
bids.  KDOT felt that the bids were acceptable. 
	The Commission needed to decide if they wanted to give KDOT the
authority to award the project.  He said the project was needed due to
safety issues because it was a heavily traveled intersection.  The
intersection had 41,000 vehicles per day.  During 2002 there were 28
accidents in or near this intersection and in 2001 there were 15 accidents.
Staff recommended proceeding with the project.  
The City's cost for this project had increased to approximately $523,000.
He said engineering staff was going to provide construction-engineering
services for this project.  If the project bids had been at the projected
estimate, the City would have received 90% of the construction engineering
cost back from KDOT.  
An agreement was sent to KDOT requesting $69,200 for construction
engineering services which KDOT deemed reasonable.  With KDOT being at their
cap, the City would not need to pay for that part of the project.  
In addition to the services, the City did not have the capability for some
of the services that KDOT required for this project.  The City needed to ask
for supplemental engineering services.  He said proposals were sent to five
consulting firms and they received 2 of those proposals back.  GeoSystems
was the low bid at $15,263.  He said this was reflected in the construction
engineering cost.  
He recommended that Commission give KDOT the authority to award the contract
with LRM Industries, approve an agreement with GeoSystems for supplemental
construction engineering services, and authorize the mayor to execute an
agreement.  
	Commissioner Schauner asked how come the estimate was so far off
base.
	Soules did not have a good answer.  Staff reviewed the estimate, and
they believed that there was a conversion error.  He said it was
approximately a 30% error in construction costs.  
	He said the City hired George Butler, a consulting firm, to do the
design plans and they also provided the construction estimate.     
Commissioner Schauner asked if it was the City's consultant that made the
error.
Soules said yes.
Commissioner Schauner asked if the consultant had insurance coverage.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if the coverage was closer to a 50/50 now.
	Soules said yes.
	Commissioner Schauner asked where this project ranked in the
hierarchy of warranted intersections.
	Soules said this was one of the highest accident locations for
intersections.
	Commissioner Highberger asked what was the funding mechanism.
	Wildgen said general obligation bonds.
	Moved by Hack, seconded by Dunfield, to extend the meeting to 12:30
a.m.  Motion carried unanimously.
	Mayor Dunfield called for public comment.
After hearing no public comment, Commissioner Schauner asked if staff could
double check those estimates in the future.  He said it was totally
unacceptable for somebody to make a 30% error on a project of this magnitude
and it was not a good way to do businesses.  He wanted his message delivered
to whomever checked the estimates.     
Moved by Hack, seconded by Rundle, to authorize the Mayor to execute
authority to award a contract - commitment of City funds with the Kansas
Department of Transportation; approve the agreement with GeoSystems for
supplemental construction engineering services in the amount of $15,263.00;
and, authorize the Mayor to execute a Force Account Agreement for
construction engineering services.  Motion carried unanimously.
(21)
Discussion of ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) Set-Aside Program
application for:	  6th Street Closed-Loop Traffic Signal System from
Iowa to Massachusetts and Iowa Street Closed-Loop Traffic Signals System
from 6th Street to 23rd Street.

Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, presented the staff report for ITS
Set-Aside Program applications for 6th Street Closed-Loop Traffic Signal
System from Iowa to Massachusetts and Iowa Street Closed-Loop Traffic Signal
System from 6th Street to 23rd Street.  He said the conduit was already
installed and the fiber optic cable needed to be pulled.  
Mayor Dunfield said the justification for this project was that it would
improve traffic flow by coordinating traffic signal operations.
Vice Mayor Rundle asked if this Set-Aside Program limited to this type of
improvement.
Soules said it was limited to intelligent transportation.  
Vice Mayor Rundle wanted to talk about this coordination of the entire
system at a later date.   
Mayor Dunfield assumed that this was a system that they could build on.
Moved by Schauner, seconded by Highberger, to approve the submittal of the
ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) Set-Aside Program application for:
6th Street Closed-Loop Traffic Signal System from Iowa to Massachusetts;
Iowa Street Closed-Loop Traffic Signal System from 6th Street to 23rd
Street; and approve the submittal of KDOT applications for KLINK, Geometric
and Economic Development Applications.  Motion carried unanimously.
(22)
Discussion of KDOT applications for KLINK, Geometric and Economic
Development Applications.

Soules said KLINK was a 50/50 grant from the State and it was for City
connecting links only.  He said Highway 40, Highway 59, and K-10 were
recommended projects for 2006 fiscal year which was a 2005 calendar year.

It was recommended that the City submit 6th Street from Arkansas to
Massachusetts Streets, for milling, overlay and pavement marking
improvements to KDOT.  KDOT would participate at the rate of 80% with a 20%
match by the City.  
He said staff needed direction from the City Commission on which projects
they wanted staff to submit which were:
1. Widening of 6th Street to a 5 lanes between Folks Road and a point
approximately midway between Monterey;  
2. Widening of Michigan Street at 6th Street in order to provide left-turn
lanes for northbound and southbound traffic, including a new traffic signal;
and,
3. Widening of 25th Street at Iowa Street in order to provide left-turn
lanes for east bound and westbound traffic, including a new traffic signal.

Soules said concerning economic development KDOT would participate to a
maximum of $2,000,000.  The City must provide at least 25% of the total
project cost.  
He said staff was recommending access points and acquisition of public
access easements on 23rd Street between Iowa and Louisiana Streets.  The
estimated project cost was $600,000.
Commissioner Highberger asked if staff had any other recommendations for
economic development.
Soules said staff did not have any other ideas.  He said there were certain
requirements to this type of project in that they had to show some type of
economic stimulus.  He said staff's argument would be that they would be
improving the capacity of the street by acquiring access and controlling
those access points to make it more accessible and pleasing for the
traveling public to go to that area.
Wildgen said that the City did not need to apply for that economic
development project.         
Mayor Dunfield said that particular item was especially attractive to him.
He said the City invested quite a bit in 23rd Street Corridor Plan and
Access Management was the issue that kept coming up as the critical element
in that corridor plan.  He said this was potentially a way to start acting
on some planning that the City had done.  
He said concerning the geometric improvements, the widening of 6th Street to
5 lanes between Folks Road and a point approximately midway between Monterey
Way and Eldridge Street was the most logical choice.  
Moved by Dunfield, seconded by Schauner, to approve submittal of KDOT
applications for KLINK, Geometric and Economic Development Applications.
Motion carried unanimously.
(23)
Mayor Dunfield called for public comment.
After receiving no public comment, it was moved by Rundle, seconded by
Schauner, to adjourn at 12:15 p.m.  Motion carried unanimously.

APPROVED:
	
_____________________________
David M Dunfield, Mayor
ATTEST:

___________________________________

Frank S. Reeb, City Clerk



CITY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES - JULY 8, 2003

1. Expenditure Approval - Westar Energy for overhead transmission along
O'Connell Rd between 23rd & 31st . 

2. Ordinance No. 7661 - 1st Reading, 2000 Uniform Plumbing Code.

3. Ordinance No. 7664 - 1st Reading, Rezone (Z-12-43-02) .51 acres from RS-1
to RO-1A, 501 Rockledge Rd.

4. Ordinance No. 7665 - 1st Reading, Rezone (Z-04-09-03) 1.81 acres from
RS-1 to RO-2, 505 & 515 Rockledge Rd. 

5. Charter Ordinance No. 35 - 1st Reading, Sunday alcohol sales.

6. Ordinance No. 7666 - 1st Reading, Temporary alcohol sales, Sept 6,
Burcham Pk "Tour De Fat."

7. Ordinance No. 7667 - 1st Reading, Sunday alcohol sales hours from 11 am
to 7 pm. 

8. Ordinance No. 7668 - 1st Reading, Rename W 15th from Iowa to City
boundaries as Bob Billings Pkwy. 

9. Ordinance No. 7658 - Max special assessment for Research Pk Dr. 

10. Ordinance No. 7659 - Rezone (Z-04-11-03) .31 acres, M-2 to C-4, 311-317
N 2nd.

11. Ordinance No. 7662 - Temporary alcohol sales, Aug 23, Burcham Pk,
concert.

12. Final Plat - (PF-05-10-03) Moon Pl Subdivision, .933 acres, 821 Iowa.

13. Final Plat - (PF-05-11-03) Dahl Subdivision, .8359 aces, W of Crossgate
on Blackjack Oak Dr. 

14. Lease Agreement - Verizon Wireless, Stratford Water Tower. 

15. Mortgage Release - Cheryl Lincoln, 2111 Melholland Rd.

16. Memoradum of Understanding - Lawrence Police Offices Assoc., continued
on July 22, 2003.

17. Ordinance No. 7650 - 1st Reading, Interim requirements for Traffic
Impact Study. 

18. Sesquicentennial Plaza - Fundraising.

19. Historic Review - Land use & parking requirements, NE corner of 8th &
New Hamp.    

20. West 6th ST & SLT Nodal Plan.

21. Kasold Geometric & Traffic Signal - authority to KDOT to award contract,
approve agreement with GeoSystems for $15,263 and execute Force Account
Agreement.

22. Intelligent Transportation System - Set-Aside Program, 6th from Iowa to
Mass & Iowa 6th to 23rd. 

23.  KLINK - Geometric & Economic Development Application approval

 



_____________________________
Lisa K. Patterson
Communications Coordinator
City of Lawrence
PO Box 708
Lawrence, KS 66044
(785) 832-3406
fax (785) 832-3405
lpatterson@ci.lawrence.ks.us
http://www.lawrenceks.org