Residents of southeast Lawrence will have to wait a little longer to find out whether their new neighbors will be single-family homeowners or workers at a new business park.

The makings of a stalemate between Douglas County commissioners and Lawrence city commissioners began to emerge Monday. They disagree on how 1,200 acres of mostly agricultural property south and east of Kansas Highway 10 and O’Connell Road should be developed.

At a joint study session, commissioners were briefed on two competing plans for the area. One would allow for about 520 acres of industrial land near the area surrounding the Douglas County Jail. The other plan — approved last month by the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission on a 5-4 vote — would allow 680 acres of industrial development in the area.

Both plans left some county commissioners scratching their heads.

“Those two proposals should both be thrown completely out the window,” County Commissioner Jere McElhaney said after the meeting.

Instead, the area should be developed with entry-level single-family homes that would help alleviate the city’s affordable housing problems, McElhaney said. Several developers have pushed for that, as well.

That’s not an idea that seemed to appeal to a majority of city commissioners. Several commissioners said the area could not handle the large number of vehicles a new neighborhood would add to the area. Plus, some commissioners said single-family homes wouldn’t be compatible with current uses in the area.

“The 800-pound gorilla that we don’t talk about is that the Douglas County Jail is sitting right in the middle of this property,” City Commissioner Boog Highberger said. “If we surround it by cheap houses, it will be a slum in 10 years, and it will be irredeemable.”

More talks ahead

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The disagreement leaves neighbors in the area to wait and wonder, said Danny Drungilas, president of the nearby Prairie Park Neighborhood Assn. Drungilas said a business park in the area might gain some support from neighbors if planning officials could guarantee it would be an upscale business park rather than a traditional industrial area.

“It seems like that is what they want, but they haven’t been able to guarantee it,” Drungilas said. “If they could, there would be a lot less opposition.”

All city and county commissioners could agree upon Monday was to talk some more. Select commissioners from both the city and the county will get together to discuss the plans and look for a compromise. County Commission Chairman Charles Jones said he hoped the two groups would reach a consensus sooner rather than later.

“This is important,” Jones said. “We’re sitting on top of a serious, perhaps crippling, lack of industrial space, and we also need affordable housing. We need to address both those issues.”

County objections

After Monday’s meeting, there seemed to be two solid votes against the proposal for industrial development on the three-member County Commission. In addition to McElhaney, County Commissioner Bob Johnson said he couldn’t support the current plan, and he also may fight any city efforts to annex the property into the city.

Johnson said he was particularly concerned that adding 500 or more acres for industrial use in the area would kill the momentum to redevelop the former Farmland Industries plant into a new industrial area. The plant, which is just north across K-10 from the area commissioners are trying to plan for, has been vacant since 2001.

“It is going to be very hard to justify spending taxpayer dollars on the Farmland site if there are 600 acres of industrially zoned land on the other side of the road,” Johnson said. “In fact it becomes almost impossible in my mind.”

Planning Commission Chairman John Haase, though, told commissioners to think long-term. He said there already were estimates the county would need 1,000 additional acres of industrial property in the next 20 years. He said he thought that projection might be too conservative and that a more accurate number could be closer to 2,200 acres.

“We might really be shooting ourselves in the foot if we don’t reserve this land,” Haase said.