Some of the issues have been discussed for almost 30 years, but Douglas County leaders said they think they are closer now than ever to improving the way rural development is planned.

County commissioners Bob Johnson and Charles Jones met Thursday with a Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission committee to discuss the two panels’ differences on rural development.

“I think we have similar values, similar goals and just a few differences in how to get from point A to point B,” Jones said after the meeting.

“We at least need to know where we are on the separate issues,” said Grant Eichhorn, chairman of the Planning Commission committee.

Jones and Johnson said they were willing to drop provisions in the rural development plan that would allow large 80-acre platted subdivisions outside the urban growth area around Lawrence.

At the same time, commissioners were reluctant to go along with the planning commissioners’ recommendation that a parent land parcel divided by the owner into two smaller parcels be increased from 20 acres to 40 acres.

County commissioners spent months revising rural and subdivision regulations that were completed earlier this year and sent to the Planning Commission for review. The regulations will eventually be sent to the Lawrence City Commission for approval.

The Planning Commission established a committee to work out its differences with county commissioners. The committee will meet again with county commissioners July 6.

“We’re actually closer now than we’ve ever been to actually doing something about improving the development scenario,” Jones said, noting he thinks there will be compromises.

Eichhorn agreed.

“I think we’ll come up with something,” he said.

– Staff writer Mike Belt can be reached at 832-7165.