Look out western Douglas County. Here comes Lawrence.

The city may annex land west of the intersection of Sixth Street and the South Lawrence Trafficway to control development there, city and county commissioners said Wednesday during a joint meeting.

“We’re talking about an intersection that’s someday going to be a major entryway into the city,” Douglas County Commission Chairman Bob Johnson said, “and there’s going to be development pressure on all four corners.”

There was some concern, however, that the annexation would encourage the city’s sprawl.

“My concern is, once we break on through the SLT, where do we stop?” City Commissioner David Schauner said. “This is not where we planned to grow. I don’t want this to become the impetus for unplanned growth west of the SLT.”

The discussion came during a wide-ranging discussion between the two commissions about Lawrence’s future growth — a discussion that also included calls to intensively plan the “urban growth area” where the city is expected to grow in coming decades.

Lawrence’s western city limits along Sixth Street now end at its intersection with the trafficway. After owners of the intersection’s southeast corner proposed a commercial development there in 2002, the City Commission initiated a “nodal plan” to guide future development on all four corners.

Because the western half of the intersection lies under county jurisdiction, the plan required the approval of the Douglas County Commission. County commissioners, however, declined to weigh in on the plan and instead said the city should annex the western half of the intersection.

“That intersection is like a knot that you can’t cut in half,” County Commissioner Charles Jones said.

6News video: Westward growth faster than anticipated Sixth and SLT plan too short on details to pass official muster (9-4-03) 6News video: Development plan at 6th and SLT delayed Sixth St. and SLT pegged as latest ‘gateway’ (6-14-03) 6News video: City planners want to guide development Nodal plan for intersection of 6th Street and the South Lawrence Trafficway (pdf document)

Officials said development pressures for the area would be limited by the city’s ability to extend services to the area. Water service ends near the Hereford House at Sixth and Wakarusa Drive; sewer service is available all the way the southeast corner of the Sixth and SLT intersection but not on the other three corners.

“There are still limits on what can and can’t be done,” City Manager Mike Wildgen said. “Just because we could get a water line out there doesn’t mean we have the pumping capacity.”

City commissioners said they would initiate the annexation, with the western boundary likely to end a half-mile west of the South Lawrence Trafficway. In return, county commissioners said they wouldn’t approve any rezoning requests for the area while the annexation is pending.

City officials did not say when the annexation process would start.

Growth plans

Also Wednesday, county commissioners urged the city to create detailed plans for the future of the urban growth area surrounding Lawrence — rather than let the area develop with little oversight and create expensive retrofitting problems for the city when it is annexed.

“We need a drawing of what the city’s going to look like: Here’s the residential neighborhoods. Here’s the roads,” Jones said. “Then we need to think about what policies we need to get us where we’re going.”

City Commissioner Sue Hack agreed.

“We’ve never been ahead of it,” she said. “We’ve always been playing catch-up.”

County Commissioner Jere McElhaney was concerned.

“I think we need good planning … but I think we need to realize the property we’re talking about, we don’t own,” McElhaney said. “We have to let the individual citizen try to get the maximum value of what they can get out of the land.”

Johnson tried to allay McElhaney’s fears.

“The map that we’re drawing is not going to be a land-taking,” Johnson said. “It’s going to be conceptual. But from a planning standpoint, that’s how we get roads built, that’s how we get infrastructure built.”

Looking ahead

Bill Yanek, representing the Lawrence Builder-Realtor Coalition, said developers would welcome the planning process if it didn’t tread too heavily on private property rights.

The urban growth area, Yanek said outside the meeting, can be “merely a line on a map, not where the city really plans for the infrastructure and growth to follow. It looks to me like the city and county commissions are ready to take the next step.”

Johnson said the plans should be complete by October 2004.

“If we’re able to do this, we won’t do anything but add to the value of people’s property,” he said. “It will be gangbusters.”