Go west, Lawrence, go west.

That seems to be the mantra of the city when it comes to building new homes, offices and businesses.

“It’s all west,” said Barry Walthall, code enforcement manager for the city of Lawrence. “There’s a little bit on the southeast and east, but nothing significant compared to the overall pattern.”

The trend is not new.

“It’s been going on as long as I’ve been around, that just seems to be the way the city is going,” Walthall said.

2001 also saw some growth on South Iowa Street, with the addition of a Holiday Inn Express, 3411 Iowa, Old Navy, 3240 Iowa, Famous Footwear, 3230 Iowa, and a few restaurants, he said.

Ron Durflinger, chair of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning and Zoning Commission, said the westward trend of housing and businesses was dictated by existing infrastructure that made growth possible.

For example, the cost of putting sewer lines across the Wakarusa River makes southern growth prohibitively expensive.

Durflinger, a homebuilder, said the Lawrence housing market had changed dramatically in recent years.

“We are currently unable to provide a product that’s affordable for the vast majority of entry-level buyers in a single-family home,” he said. “Consequently, there’s a transition to where the entry-level product will be a townhouse or duplex.”

Though the planning commission is an advisory body, Durflinger said he’d like to initiate a dialogue about what affordable housing means to Lawrence, especially for people on fixed incomes.

“That’s probably the most critical area that government could be involved in, because that would require some changes in our conventional thinking about types of housing and zoning,” he said. “It’s possible that the planning commission could assist in that way.”

Durflinger also said that he expects to see more applications for commercial growth in Lawrence, even though there is a dwindling supply of land.

“The planning commission is currently working on trying to help identify future growth areas for that type of commerce,” he said.

But that doesn’t mean Home Depots or clothing-distribution plants will be popping up overnight.

“We continue to struggle with the problem of trying to develop good comprehensive planning in a community of diverse ideas, which have totally different concepts of how this community should evolve,” Durflinger said.

Right now, Lawrence is at a critical period for planning, he said, citing heated debates about projects such as the South Lawrence Trafficway, the American Eagle distribution center and the Home Depot project planned for Iowa and 31st streets.

“We’re faced with some major decisions, and we’ve been ineffectual in resolving major decisions in the past,” he said. “Consequently, we’re way behind the curve as far as community planning. We’re creating tomorrow’s crises today by our inability to reach a compromise.”