They don’t want to water down floodplain development restrictions.

But during nearly three hours of discussion Wednesday night, Lawrence-Douglas County planning commissioners recommended changes to proposed regulations that would dampen their impact on existing homeowners.

“They’ve made an investment,” Commissioner Myles Schachter said. “It makes sense … to protect those people and allow them to use their property.”

The changes came in the wake of public hearings at which many property owners said the new regulations would lower their property values and cast a stigma on their property.

To alleviate that concern, commissioners recommended removing existing residential lots altogether from the expanded floodplain the proposed regulations would create.

The result would be a complicated map with hundreds of holes cut out of its edges.

“I have a hard time with the idea of a map that looks like Swiss cheese,” Commissioner David Burress said.

Planning staff said the option was feasible, however, and it and other recommendations will be added to the proposed regulations so commissioners can review them again before they vote. That vote won’t take place until at least Aug. 28, when the commission is next scheduled to meet.

The current version of the rules would expand the floodplain to include areas that would be affected if the elevation of the 100-year floodplain designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were raised 2 feet. The expanded floodplain would include 1,200 additional properties not designated by FEMA, officials have said.

The proposed regulations also would allow building in the floodplain only if a property owner could produce a hydrological study showing the new structure wouldn’t change the floodplain’s elevation or contours.