It’s an explosive issue, sure enough.

Officials are revising the city’s blasting codes after west Lawrence residents complained in the spring about the use of explosives to clear subsurface rock for a new housing development there.

“From the looks of it, I think we’re just tightening up some of the ambiguities,” Mayor Mike Rundle said Monday of the code revisions.

But the subcontractor who oversaw the west Lawrence project said Monday he’s unhappy with the revisions.

“I don’t believe I’ll be blasting in Lawrence anymore,” said Russ Pilshaw, owner of Pexco, the blasting company. “They’ve made it impossible to conduct business in this city.”

Neighbors complained in April about the blasting at the construction site, at the end of Harvard Road west of Wakarusa Drive, to make way for 170 single-family homes. Nearby residents said they hadn’t been properly notified, and that blasting was taking place too close to some structures.

City code requires all homes within 1,500 feet of a blast site to be notified before blasting begins. A “pre-blast survey” is required to be offered to all homes within 500 feet of the site, to aid in compensation if damage is found after the blasting.

Revisions to the code would tighten notification requirements — requiring contractors to use certified mail, for example, instead of sticking fliers in homeowners’ doors.

And the new code requirements would force contractors to hire an independent third party, “qualified and experienced in blasting operations,” to be at the site when a contractor blasts within 500 feet of an existing structure.

Blasting to continue despite neighbors’ pleas (4-28-04) Construction blasts shake western neighborhood (4-14-04)

Pilshaw said the city should provide its own blasting overseer instead of requiring contractors to pay the cost. Dan Wilkus, the west Lawrence resident who led the protest against last spring’s blasting, suggested the provision is too vague.

“That should be a registered engineer,” Wilkus said.

But Wilkus says he believes the code revisions will satisfy many neighborhood concerns if blasting were to return to west Lawrence.

“I think it’s a vast improvement (over current codes); there’s no doubt about that,” Wilkus said.

Pilshaw, who said he has overseen blasting for nearly four years, said the new requirements will add to the costs of development.

“It’ll almost double the cost of my operation,” he said. “Any of the western sections of Lawrence will have rock. If we can’t do blasting, or if we have to double our costs, what does that do to the average homeowner?”

Rundle said he didn’t think the code revisions would make development harder. The revisions are based on research into the codes of other Kansas cities, he said.

The city’s Fire Code Board of Appeals will review the code revisions in late August or early September, officials said, after which the proposal will go to the Lawrence City Commission.