After a year of wrangling and research, the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission voted Wednesday to approve new regulations that restrict floodplain development.

The regulations now go the Lawrence City Commission for consideration; that discussion is expected sometime in the next few weeks.

And the debate isn’t over. Planning commissioners said they would discuss more specific (and more restrictive) regulations for North Lawrence seen by officials as especially flood-prone in September.

Commissioners Roger Schenewerk, Dennis Lawson, Sue Pine, Tom Jennings, Jane Bateman, Ron Durflinger and Ernie Angino voted for the regulations.

Commissioners John Haase, Myles Schachter and David Burress voted against the proposal. They had favored a different version they said would be more restrictive and offer more protections.

The rules, when discussed by the commission last month, would have expanded 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 whole area would have been called the “floodplain overlay district.”

The proposed regulations also would have allowed 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.

During their July meeting, commissioners told planning staffers to revise the rules to remove all developed property from the expanded 2-foot area. They also said undeveloped property in residential areas should be given a five-year exemption from the rules.

It was that version commissioners approved Wednesday.

But planners came to the meeting with an alternative proposal that failed.

The alternative would have called the area within the extra 2 feet the “drainage protection overlay district,” in an attempt to answer concerns the “floodplain” label would place a stigma on properties in that zone.

The alternative revisions also would make it easier to rebuild a damaged house in the floodplain zones. Undeveloped residential lots would still get a five-year reprieve under that option.

Commissioners rejected the alternative along the same 7-3 lines.