Trying to build a project that Lawrence wants often is a moving target for developers.

The Home Depot saga continues. Each time this project seems close to moving forward, new issues arise. It’s not that the issues don’t need to be dealt with, but Home Depot’s pre-construction approval process now has stretched out over three years and illustrates some of the problems of building such a store in Lawrence.

For most of its history, the Home Depot project has focused on property on 31st Street just east of Iowa Street. A mobile home park at that location had been vacated to make room for such development, and Home Depot wanted to move ahead on the project.

However, as plans progressed, concerns were raised about traffic flow at the intersection of 31st and Iowa. Improvements would be needed, city planners said, to accommodate the additional traffic Home Depot would generate. Home Depot and the city agreed to share the cost of improving the intersection, but the city’s share of that cost now has risen to $1.4 million.

Just as resistance to that expenditure was beginning to grow, it was learned that Home Depot also has an option to purchase property at Sixth and Wakarusa for a new store. For various reasons, a number of local residents saw this as the answer to the city’s dilemma. Let Home Depot go to Sixth and Wakarusa and expensive improvements at 31st and Iowa would become unnecessary.

Looking at the problem, Commissioner Sue Hack said the city commission shouldn’t let Home Depot’s option influence it’s decision. She’s right; it’s up to Home Depot officials to make that call. It’s the city’s responsibility to tell Home Depot what it will take to build at 31st and Iowa and Home Depot’s decision whether to pursue that option or move on.

But how much easier would it have been for Home Depot and for Lawrence if a clearer determination of what it would take to develop that property had been on the table at the beginning of the process. According to Horizon 2020, the city’s comprehensive plan, south Iowa Street has all the commercial development it can support. Yet city commissioners let Home Depot proceed with plans for additional development there. The intersection of 31st and Iowa already was a problem, but commissioners let the project go ahead, perhaps with the hope that a development would help pay for improvements there.

Now, after making several accommodations, including reducing the store size and agreeing to pay $1.4 million toward road improvements, Home Depot may be in danger of losing its project because the city decides its share of those improvements will cost too much.

This situation points out the need for the city to make some decisions about where and how it should grow and stick by those decisions so developers can plan accordingly. (This, by the way, certainly is the case concerning the city’s changing position on traffic patterns at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive. Developers have been told many conflicting stories on these requirements.)

If, as the planning staff contends, there is enough development on south Iowa Street, Home Depot should have been told that and encouraged to look elsewhere for a location. If Home Depot or other companies are looking for sites in Lawrence, they need to know what the city wants and what it will approve.

In her comments about the project, Hack also expressed her desire to “look at each project independently.” She probably meant the two potential Home Depot sites should be looked at on their own merits, but the idea of looking “at each project independently,” is part of what gets Lawrence into trouble. City officials look at each proposal for a new business or development on its own and fail to look at whether that project fits with the city’s long-term vision for development. Some would say there is no long-term vision or at least not a vision city officials are willing to enforce.

Getting a clearer picture of that long-term vision would help both the people who set development rules and those, like Home Depot, who try to follow them.