City faces growth woes

Commission still digging for solutions

City commissioners Wednesday expressed optimism that several proposed building projects in the northwest area could proceed once the first phase of a sewer study is completed next month.

But at a study session on the topic, several commissioners said they still had heartburn over the issue.

“This should be running much more smoothly than it is,” City Commissioner Mike Rundle said. “We should be much further ahead of the curve than we are. I can’t imagine that city commissions in Johnson County are having to spend their time looking at what they can do tomorrow. As a commission, we should be looking out 25 years from now, not doing this.”

But some commissioners heard enough good news to leave the session convinced that proposed developments put on hold by city planners will be allowed to move forward once a study is completed in late December.

“I actually expect that to be the case,” said Mayor Boog Highberger.

Construction crews begin shaping an extension of Monterey Way north of Stetson Drive in northwest Lawrence. Wednesday commissioners expressed more optimism that several proposed projects in the northwest area for the city will be allowed to move ahead once the first phase of a sewer study is completed next month. City commissioners now believe plans for a 6 million sewage plant planned for completion in 2011 may need to be accelerated.

Staff members overseeing the study stopped short of promising it would produce good results for proposed developments. But they told commissioners a similar study earlier this year for an area south of Sixth Street produced results showing the area’s sewer system wasn’t as strained as once thought. That could happen for the northwest area, too.

Conditions imposed

Staff members in late September began placing development conditions on northwest projects working their way through the planning process. Specifically, planners began placing conditions on plans that would stop projects from receiving building permits until further sewer studies were completed.

City managers said the conditions were necessary because of evidence that population in the northwest area was growing faster than anticipated and might strain the system, leading to raw sewage backing up into basements. Staff members commissioned a study to place “flow meters” on specific sections of pipe to determine whether the capacity problems that were showing up on paper actually were occurring in the pipes.

That’s the study that is expected to be done by the end of the year.

Developers have said the slowdown threatens to severely hamper the city’s construction industry, generally considered one of the prime economic engines of the community. They’ve also expressed concern that if projects are delayed too long, the result will be fewer building lots, which will increase the price of housing.

After Wednesday’s meeting, Phil Struble – president of Landplan Engineering, which has worked on many of the proposed developments – said he thought the system was capable of handling the proposed projects. He said he hoped they would be allowed to move forward, but also that commissioners would ask tough questions about whether the city’s planning process was comprehensive enough.

“I hope commissioners will focus a little bit on how we got here,” Struble said. “I love Lawrence. We’re a great city, but I’m wondering how a city of Lawrence’s caliber and stature can supposedly run out of sewer capacity nearly overnight.

“I want somebody to point to a project that came out of the dark. We’re not working on anything that hasn’t been in the works since at least 2000.”

The bigger picture

City Commissioner David Schauner said he was “cautiously optimistic” that next month’s report would show the situation isn’t as bad as once thought, but that he plans to ask those tough questions.

He said he was leaning toward having an independent auditor study the city’s planning process.

“The fact that we don’t know whether we have a problem is a problem,” Schauner said. “That tells me that what we have been doing has failed us.”

Construction crews begin shaping a new road off Monterey Way north of Stetson Drive in northwest Lawrence. On Wednesday, commissioners expressed optimism that proposed projects will be allowed to move ahead once the first phase of a sewer study is completed next month.

Schauner said he thought commissioners had gotten caught up in a “tyranny of incremental decision making” that forced them to decide about individual developments without knowing how they would affect larger issues.

City Manager Mike Wildgen said he was adding more individuals to his staff to oversee the effects that growth has on various infrastructure systems. The utilities department has a new engineer who will start soon to help review the effect that proposed developments would have on the city’s sewer and water systems. A new engineer also is being added to the public works department to review effects on street systems and other infrastructure.

Wildgen also told commissioners that although developments may be allowed to move forward following the results of the flow meter study, it seemed certain the city would have to speed up some improvements to the system to ensure problems don’t occur in the future.

Wildgen said the city was assuming a pump station near Sixth and Kentucky Street would have to be enlarged in 2006 rather than as planned in 2007. That project is estimated to cost $1.6 million.

Specific plans for how to pay for that project and others haven’t been developed. Wildgen has said other planned projects in other parts of the city might be able to be delayed to help offset the cost. Debbie Van Saun, assistant city manager overseeing many of the sewer efforts, said developers also may be asked to help defray the cost of a project to move it up the list so a development can move forward.

Highberger said he was confident commissioners wouldn’t need to consider raising sewer rates to pay for the improvements.