The lack of affordable housing may be a far larger threat to the Lawrence landscape than severe storms.

Lawrence city commissioners recently have turned their eyes toward the sky. Based on a citizen’s suggestion, some commissioners have expressed an interest in a regulation that would require all new homes in the city to be equipped with a basement or “safe room.” The purpose would be to ensure that residents have a place to seek shelter from the severe weather that has been known to swoop down from our Kansas skies.

It is estimated that a safe room would add about $2,000 to the cost of a new home, while a basement could add about $20,000. Those costs are the problem with this well-intentioned idea.

Tornadoes, although menacing, are not the greatest threat to the city’s landscape and character. The rising price of housing is a much more real threat with which we live every day.

City commissioners need not look to the sky to see signs of danger. Instead, they could look at the city’s closed schools that no longer have students from younger, middle-class families to keep them open. They could look at the increasing number of cars that drive into Lawrence each day from smaller, more affordable communities like Eudora, Baldwin and Jefferson County. They could look through the real estate listings and try to find a new home in Lawrence for less than $100,000.

What commissioners shouldn’t spend much time doing is debating a regulation to require safe rooms in every newly constructed home. This is a fine example of an issue that the free market is better equipped to handle than government.

After all, when people buy a home, they know whether it has a basement or a safe room. People are willing to buy homes without such features. The day that enough people become unwilling to buy a home without a storm shelter will be the day that builders start making them a standard feature of new construction. Builders would have no reason to do otherwise.

Claims that some home buyers may not be aware of Kansas’ ability to produce severe weather seem suspect. Surely, The Wizard of Oz has made everyone painfully aware that the state spawns tornados. Many people may not feel particularly threatened by tornadoes or they may know they can seek shelter with a friend or neighbor if necessary. Any new regulation requiring storm shelters would seem to be an effort by government to protect us from ourselves. That should always raise a red flag.

If commissioners want to debate something, they should use this opportunity to seriously discuss affordable housing in Lawrence. As the price of housing rises, the fabric of our community changes. Many in Lawrence long have prided themselves on living in the most diverse community in the state. If lower- and middle-income families no longer can afford to live here, that certainly will be a badge of honor we no longer can claim.

City commissioners and other leaders have long recognized the problem. And, through groups like Tenants to Homeowners, there has been a handful of affordable houses built in the community. But more must be done. It is time for a serious communitywide, solution-oriented discussion on the subject.

Maybe this idea of safe rooms can spark that discussion. At the very least, it might remind us all of what we really need protection from.