Lawrence-Douglas County planning commissioners took a step Wednesday night to make the free, wide-open spaces of rural Douglas County a little more controlled when it comes to future development.

Planning commissioners unanimously approved a new chapter to the city-county comprehensive plan that would eliminate the five-acre exemption and make it more likely that landowners will have to go through a more lengthy zoning and platting process before they could build a home.

“I think this issue of rural development is certainly one of the top three or four issues facing the county,” said Planning Commissioner John Haase.

The new chapter to Horizon 2020 still will have to receive approval from Lawrence city commissioners and Douglas County commissioners before it becomes final.

Haase said if the new regulations weren’t ultimately adopted, taxpayers could be facing “serious tax implications for decades to come,” as cities are forced to make costly improvements to allow rural subdivisions to be integrated into growing urban areas.

But if approved, the regulations would implement several major changes in planning strategies for the rural areas of the county. Among the proposed changes:

¢ Elimination of the five-acre exemption, a long held planning policy that generally lets people who have five or more acres located outside a city’s growth area to build a home without going through the sometimes lengthy and expensive zoning and platting process. The five-acre exemption would be replaced with a 20-acre exemption.

¢ Creation of a new transitional platting process that would be required of all properties wanting to develop within a city’s planned growth area. The new platting process would allow people who have at least 40 acres of property within a city’s projected growth path to build a home by going through the specialized platting process. The new platting process would limit the ability of the property owner to develop no more than 55 percent of the land in the near term. The remaining part of the property would be allowed to be developed when the property is annexed into the city limits. The transitional plat, though, would require the property owner to detail immediately how the entire property would be developed once it is annexed into the city.

¢ Creation of new development fees if a fiscal impact of growth study shows that rural residential development is not paying its own way through taxes it adds to the community.

¢ A requirement that the city of Lawrence reopen negotiations with rural water districts on how much treated water is made available to the districts.

Supporters of the plan said the changes were necessary for many reasons, including to ensure prime agricultural ground is protected and that rural residential growth is paying for its fair share of community services.

But opponents of the plan said that many of its requirements were unrealistic for developers and future homeowners. Tim Herndon, a planner with Lawrence-based Landplan Engineering, said the requirement that rural landowners would have to create a plan looking perhaps 25 years into the future to show how their property could be absorbed into the city was “cruel and unusual punishment.”

“It would not be easy at all,” Herndon said. “I would purport that it would be impossible in certain situations.”

People who currently own lots five acres or larger and are now eligible to pull a building likely would be “grandfathered” in so that they could continue with their plans.

Whether the plan will receive ultimate approval is uncertain. Previously, county commissioners have expressed concerns about the new requirements. Planning commissioners said they hoped that if county commissioners did not approve the plan, they would give planners specific directions on how it needed to be changed.