ECO2 isn’t dead, but it is hoping to get a new shot of life from the Douglas County Commission by year’s end.

Members of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce group, who have been working for the past two years to identify ways to develop business parks and protect open space, hope to have a final report ready for county commissioners to review in December.

The report likely will spell out goals of creating four new business parks within the next 20 years, creating a system of trails to connect important outdoor areas in the county, and protecting approximately a dozen environmental and historical sites in the county, group members said.

But the report won’t include a request for a previously discussed $2 million a year in public funding for the group to carry out its goals. ECO2 members previously had been planning to ask county commissioners to put on a future ballot a quarter-cent sales tax increase that would be used to pay for ECO2 efforts.

Instead members will be asking county commissioners to make ECO2 an official advisory committee of the county commission.

“With the economy going the way it has been, and with the state raising the sales tax, we didn’t think now would be the time to ask the public for money,” Kelvin Heck, ECO2 chairman, said. “But we do want to ask the county commission what they think and whether we can get started without the money.”

ECO2 members will meet at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce office, 734 Vt., to review a draft of the final plan. The meeting is open to the public.

The new ECO2 board, which would have members appointed by the county commission rather than the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, would continue working on when and where the new business parks should be built, and could apply for grants and other forms of funding to do individual projects.

Myles Schachter, an ECO2 member, said the group would look at whether it could accomplish its goals with less than the $2 million a year that a quarter-cent sales tax increase likely would generate.

ECO2, a Lawrence Chamber of Commerce group looking to create economic development, is considering making a recommendation to the Douglas County Commission to build within the next 20 years four new business parks like East Hills Business Park. Construction continues Friday on a new building in East Hills Park Business Park, which is east of Lawrence along Kansas Highway 10.

“I don’t think any of us want to go above that amount,” Schachter said. “The question probably will be whether we can do the job for less.”

Heck said the group would keep its eye on the economy and watch for future opportunities to ask voters to approve a tax increase to fund ECO2 efforts.

“We can go after the money again once we have the plans figured out,” Heck said. “But people want to know what they are getting. They want to know what they are being asked to buy into.”

Heck and Schachter both said there were many details left to work on. But both said the group generally has agreed that four business parks, similar in size and scope to the East Hills Business Park, will be needed in the county during the next 20 years.

“We’re in desperate need of new business parks,” Schachter said. “If we don’t want to become a bedroom community, we need the land. Topeka is killing us because they have a lot of sites to develop.”

Schachter said he believed the ECO2 group should be responsible for scouting out sites for new business parks because the group would be made up of both members of the business community and environmentalists. He said that fact should make it easier for projects to move forward.

“Historically, when we’ve looked for land for new business development it has created high controversy,” Schachter said. “This would give us the chance to skip the fight. It would be more likely the whole community would be on board because you are serving multiple interests.”

As for the open space part of the plan, Schachter said the committee was considering recommending a system of trails that would connect such places as Baldwin, Eudora, Clinton Lake, and Lecompton to Lawrence. It also is working to identify about a dozen “environmental gems,” such as Blackjack Park and pieces of native prairie, that need to be protected from development.

The committee, though, only would use voluntary means to work out deals with landowners of the areas that need protected and wouldn’t try to use any power of condemnation to force the owners to sell the property, Schachter said.