“Smart growth” appointments to the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission in recent years have produced a board that is increasingly deadlocked on major development issues.

Since 2001, city appointments to the commission have replaced Republicans with Democrats, and architects and builders with former city planners who take a stricter view of Horizon 2020, the city-county comprehensive plan. County appointees have remained unanimously Republican, and generally friendlier to development.

The result: Tie votes on the commission, while not commonplace, were no longer rare in 2003. And participants on both sides of Lawrence’s growth debates say development proposals are receiving a higher level of scrutiny than just a few years ago.

“I think things get a better discussion from a broader range of perspectives,” City Commissioner Mike Rundle said last week. “And I think that’s healthy.”

But there is growing frustration among those on the receiving end of that scrutiny, who say the result is more delays and expense in the development process.

“We can still do business,” said C.L Maurer, senior landscape architect for Landplan Engineering in Lawrence. “But we’re not doing as much — we’re moving to other places.”

How it happened

The Planning Commission is perhaps the most high profile of city and county appointed boards and commissions. Its 10 members — five appointed by the Douglas County Commission, the other five appointed by the Lawrence City Commission — review plans for development and redevelopment in Lawrence and rural Douglas County.

By spring 2001, there were nine Republicans and one independent on the 10-member board. Critics called the commission “profoundly unbalanced” and said the board too easily ignored Horizon 2020’s restrictions on development in Lawrence.

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The changes began in May that year, when then-Mayor Rundle appointed Kansas University economist David Burress and former city planner Myles Schachter, both Democrats, to the commission. And Douglas County Commission Chairman Bob Johnson named John Haase to the commission that same spring; Haase became an ally to Burress and Schachter, a development Johnson later said had surprised him.

Even as a minority on the board, the three made their presence felt. Burress became known for using parliamentary procedures to force the commission to examine alternatives to proposed plans. Schachter initiated the prohibition on department stores at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive that is at the center of lawsuits involving a proposed Wal-Mart store there. And Haase was the driving force in favor of restrictive floodplain development regulations that were passed in 2002.

Still, they were in the minority. That changed after candidates backed by the Progressive Lawrence Campaign swept the City Commission race in April. Soon after, Mayor David Dunfield appointed former city planner Bonnie Johnson and neighborhood advocate Terry Riordan to the commission.

Close votes

Three incidents in 2003 reveal how close the margin has become on the Planning Commission:

l Commissioners in March tied on a vote to allow a new “open” shelter at 10th and Kentucky streets. The tie vote went as a negative recommendation to the Lawrence City Commission, which gave approval.

l The board deadlocked again in October on Commissioner Ernie Angino’s motion to table an area plan for Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive that would block Wal-Mart’s development plans for the intersection. Because the vote tied, discussion continued and the area plan was approved.

l And in December, the commission once again tied during a vote on revisions to the commercial chapter of Horizon 2020, the city-county comprehensive plan. One side wanted to allow “community commercial centers” to be as big as 500,000 square feet; the other wanted restrictions to 350,000 square feet.

Such ties and delays, Maurer said, complicate the already-expensive development process. That’s part of why local builders are looking more to small towns such as Tonganoxie, Baldwin and Ottawa for business, he said.

“There’s more opportunities there,” he said. “The builders are moving there because it’s not as strict. The timeline is shorter.”

But Julia Gilmore Gaughan, chairwoman of the smart growth Progressive Lawrence Campaign, said she was glad for the change.

“The Planning Commission has a lot of influence on what the city of Lawrence looks like,” she said. ” I think it’s exciting to see there are multiple interests being represented there.”

Multiple viewpoints

The Planning Commission is about to undergo more change. The Douglas County Commission will approve a replacement for the departed Sue Pine by the end of January.

County commissioners have said they wanted somebody with an agricultural background to fill the seat.

“It’s a very informal application process, but it’s not a litmus test,” Johnson, the county commission chairman, said in September. “It’s not the sort of thing where we’re going to say, ‘Well, answer these six questions and that’ll tell us whether you’re eligible to be a planning commissioner.’ It’s not like that.”

City Commissioner Sue Hack, the lone commissioner not seen as a smart growth proponent, wouldn’t criticize the changed commission.

“Depending on what side of the fence you’re on, you’re either thrilled or unhappy with their decisions, which is the case for any government body,” she said. “I’m pretty pleased, for the most part, with the way they are representative of a number of viewpoints in Lawrence. I think that’s healthy for the Planning Commission … a variety of viewpoints helps validate their work.”

And Maurer, whose work will take him back before the Planning Commission, was careful not to criticize too harshly.

“I understand what they’re trying to do — they’re trying to make the community better,” he said. “It’s just they have a different way of doing that.”