Regulations to control development in easily flooded rural areas around Lawrence got the go-ahead Wednesday from the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission.

Unlike adoption of Lawrence’s floodplain development regulations nearly two years ago, Wednesday’s Planning Commission meeting drew few partisans — probably because the regulations leave so much of rural Douglas County untouched.

Instead, heightened floodplain development rules will be enforced only in the city’s urban growth area.

“These proposed floodplain regulations ‘dovetail’ with the city’s floodplain regulations by requiring floodplain development that is adjacent to the city limits be done to the city’s … standards,” planning staffers said in an unsigned memorandum.

That means developers just outside city limits will be required do a hydrological study showing their development wouldn’t expand the floodplain.

The rules apply only to properties already designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of the 100-year floodplain. The hydrological studies, developers say, typically cost between $3,000 and $5,000, depending on the size and location of the lot under development.

One exception to the stricter new rules: most agricultural buildings.

And outside the urban growth area, property owners will see little change in their ability to build.

“In the unincorporated portions of Douglas County, the lack of dense urban development decreases the need for floodplain development standards that are to the higher standards established by the city,” planning staffers said in the memorandum.

The Douglas County Commission should receive the regulations for final approval in early April.