Lawrence-Douglas County planning commissioners can bend development rules when they think it’s proper. But they and their critics don’t often agree about when that’s the case.

That could soon change.

Commissioners said Wednesday they might change ordinances to clearly define an ambiguous phrase in the codes that allows them to grant “variances” to developers who want an exception to subdivision regulations. Critics complain the planning commission too easily grants variances.

“I’ll make a motion at the next meeting,” Commissioner Myles Schachter said at a Wednesday study session.

Regulations say variances are permissible when following the rules would cause “undue hardship” to property owners. The problem, Assistant City Manager Dave Corliss told commissioners, is that there is no hard-and-fast definition of “undue hardship” on the books.

The result, Schachter said, is that the commission sometimes grants variances to help developers make their property more profitable. He cited a November variance that allowed Maple Grove Industrial Subdivision to build a private rather than public road, so developers could add an extra lot and configure others to be more marketable.

That variance prompted a critical letter in December from Douglas County Commissioner Charles Jones to planners.

“The subdivision regulations are adopted policy, and there should be very clear reasons for deviating from those policies,” Jones said at the time. “But today, there seems to be an attitude that it is inconvenient for the developers, so let’s ignore the policy.”

Planning Chairman Ron Durflinger said Wednesday he didn’t think the commission had been too liberal with variances.

“We’re accommodating a special set of circumstances in most cases,” he said. “We have not been capricious.”

Still, the topic has polarized the commission in recent months. Schachter and commissioners John Haase and David Burress have vocally voted against nearly every variance request to come before the 10-member board.

Wednesday, Corliss told commissioners profitability concerns probably don’t rise to the level of undue hardship.

“Can you (grant such variances)? Yes. Should you? No,” Corliss said. “That’s stretching the words to where they don’t mean anything.”

He suggested commissioners propose an amendment to the regulations, offering a definition of “undue hardship.”

“That’s your best way you could get your result,” Corliss said. “Sometimes you’ve got to clarify your code especially when you have 160 pages of very active law.”

The commission next meets at 6:30 p.m. May 22.