LJWorld.com

Colt45 (Anonymous) says…

$251K to tell the city commission what they should know? I have an idea for them, grow a pair and make a decision based on common sense and save the money for things we really need like better sewer systems or road maintenance. That is free consultation. Listen to the people and work here.

smitty (Anonymous) says…

Fingerlings eliminated:

The fire circle with tables, maintained hiking path, restrooms were given up for the gay(male) sex park off TeePee junction. A real attraction for the out of towners who need a secret get away. Funny though, no money is brought into town on this hidden resource. Wonder how this park site benefits Lawrence?

The FREE camping sites(family friendly) at the spillway for the golf course were eliminated. Oh excuse me it is the dog park as if there were no other areas in Lawrence appropriate for the dog park and more centrally located; like the gay sex park.

**Instead, Lawrence and other cities should start writing codes that allow cities to expand outward in nodes or narrow fingers that would be connected by green space and agriculture.**

Kookamooka (Anonymous) says…

Lawrence grew west on the back of a golf course developer. We have a string of golf courses that lead to Clinton Lake. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised when a Mountain Lion shows up in West Campus. He just had to follow the yellow brick golf course into town.

average (Anonymous) says…

Always twenty years behind the times around here, aren't we?

This is the same garbage pattern you see in, say, JoCo. I-35 is a 'fingerling' of development toward Gardner and Edgerton. Horse farms between there and the 'finger' of fast-food-nation on 69 Hwy. Open space, then Grandview-Belton-Raymore.

I-94 is basically car dealerships from Minneapolis to Saint Cloud.

I-25 south from Denver to Springs.

And they're *suggesting* this?

It means millions of additional vehicle miles driven, because you have to go a long way up or down your “finger” to get to anything. No route between “fingers” except a major freeway.

City is city, country is country. Encourage infill and strip all the stupid zoning laws that prohibit mixed-use properties.

gontek (Anonymous) says…

Linda Finger resigned a while ago, not they are telling us that we shoud grow like her?

Joking aside, the idea that planning can define growth patterns is a novel one, however idealistic. Unless the developers spending development money sign on there is no point. Developers like Billings, Compton, Harris, and others are the ones who make the city grow according to their visions. Whether that vision is West Lawrence, Jefferson Commons, or Hobbs Taylor depends on the individual developer.

In reality, planning sits on the sidelines and watches for fouls or out of bounds calls. Developes are the ones who compete and play to make the city what it is. Money is power here, and developers have the money, not the planners. Developers build the infrastructure, then the City adopts the life costs, and that becomes the city.

I am sure this study probably technically correct and a great idea for the city, but just like h2020, t2025, w/ww mp, it is an idea. Albeit probably a good one, but just aonther idea to put into the planner heads, so that when a development doesn't fit the idea, it costs that development more money.

Wild idea, maybe the money would be better spent on the city's personnel training budget.

Reality_Check (Anonymous) says…

“The consultants will make an opening presentation to the community at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 31 at City Hall. ”

I wonder how many of The Usual Suspects will bother attending? I'd guess ZERO, as it is much easier to just post inflammatory, “don't ever regulate growth, you Commie” comments at LJworld.com. How sad. But that's exactly why we don't listen to you guys.

Reality_Check (Anonymous) says…

How hard can it be? You use zoning to restrict what kind of growth goes where. Example: you restrict residential growth along major highways and airports, either by requiring large amounts of acreage per home or only allowing non-residential uses. You require schools and parks for every X new homes built…to be paid for by the developers (along with roads, sewers, fire stations).

You decide NOW where you want the town to grow over the next X years, and use zoning to do it.

Only problem is, the developturds will control the process, and the city staff will be unwilling to stand up to them, so either there will be variances granted or the whole process will be corrupted from the beginning.

bevy (Anonymous) says…

When I saw “finger-shaped” my first thought was “which finger?” But once the giggling stopped, I thought back to my experiences as a mapper for rural counties implementing 9-1-1 service. What we saw most of the time was “fingers” of city-annexed (and zoned) property reaching out along major streets/highways. Cities do this in order to collect the property taxes when these areas develop for business or housing.

The cities were not interested in “filling in the gaps” because doing so would require them to provide services to those areas not immediately along the highway.

Made for some very interesting city limit maps, I can tell you that. Most city government folks are more interested in filling the coffers than listening to their constituents.

I also saw many areas where developers bought rural property, built whatever they damn pleased on it, then expected the city to annex it and provide the necessary services. Letting developers control growth is putting the inmates in charge of the asylum - and paying them for their work!

frwent (Anonymous) says…

The mere fact that commisioners paid this huge sum of money for “consultants” (who verifies that these people are competant, legal, non-agendaed, or just plain sensible) tells us what we need to know about our elected officials. But no one cares about higher taxes, reduced services, or general decay and lack of maintenance, we must have our glowing consultant reports. What a crock!

smitty (Anonymous) says…

frwent, not so much to do with the commissioners as the undue influence of past city managers. It takes a while to clean up the mess as we pay for the ways of dirty politics. How long ago has it been since the criticism was over the way the c of c ran the city movers and shakers? Well, we are still fixing the dirty politics/policies of that era/error.

Jamesaust (Anonymous) says…

“Lawrence and other cities should start writing codes that allow cities to expand outward in nodes or narrow fingers that would be connected by green space and agriculture.”

That's stupid - we already have this. Its everywhere.

In Lawrence, we call these “rivers” and “floodplain.” Lawrence is bounded on the north and south by these and, therefore, has grown in an east-west pattern. Duh.

Many towns in the Midwest have this too. They're roads from “old” town to new big highways. Drive west across Kansas on I-70 and that's the pattern for most of the towns.

Where we do practice this process (putting the TO in the “A” to “B”) we call this “sprawl” as in land development that not only encourages but requires extensive automobile use just to carry out typical daily activities. For example, instead of having Wal-Mart within 5 miles of my house, its instead 15 miles away, and requiring a journey reminiscent of Homer's Odyssey.

Essentially, the only useful part of this study is a reminder to insert greenspace within development planning and zoning. Lawrence needed to be told that like we needed one more hippie at Art in the Park.

jonas (Anonymous) says…

“Posted by Jamesaust (anonymous) on January 6, 2007 at 12:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)

For example, instead of having Wal-Mart within 5 miles of my house, its instead 15 miles away, and requiring a journey reminiscent of Homer's Odyssey.”

You own a boat?

Ragingbear (Anonymous) says…

Actually, a spiral is the best way to go for expansion. It allows a higher amount of nature around it to be preserved as it's location would place it as a low demand property anyways.

Godot (Anonymous) says…

Why do we pay the planning staff professional salaries? If they cannot “plan,” if we have to hire outside consultants for a quarter mill per project, we should bump all planners down to clerk III, which more accurately reflects their level of responsibility.

snowWI (Anonymous) says…

The interstate highway system has allowed for the “finger shaped” growth patterns that we see on the landscape. A textbook example of the “finger shaped” growth is along interstate 35 in Johnson County. I have never seen such an explosion of development occur in such a relatively short period of time. I guess population growth follows the interstate highways quickly beyond the “original” city limits. A good example of this would be Olathe Kansas. It may be true that other cities are growing faster, but the “finger shaped” development theme holds true. I completely agree with average and the other points he has made.

Reality_Check (Anonymous) says…

If the city had let the planning department do it all and didn't hire an outside consultant, you same people would be complaining that the locals can't be trusted and they should have hired an outsider!

snowWI: They're trying to AVOID development the JoCo way. THat's the whole point of this exercise.

just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…

I agree with almost all of what you are saying, cool, but a minor spelling quibble— I think the word you want is “arable,” not “agrable.”

snowWI (Anonymous) says…

Reality Check,
I realize that they are trying to avoid the JOCO way. I was only pointing out an example of the “finger shaped” growth pattern that I have observed on the landscape in other areas. Hopefully, Lawrence will find a way to manage growth effectively in the future without completely giving in to the sprawl-like development patterns. Parks and green space are important in any city.

Godot (Anonymous) says…

Housing in Lawrence is not unaffordable, unless you are comparing Lawrence housing costs to those in rural Kansas.

This mantra of “affordable housing” is getting old.

snowWI (Anonymous) says…

Godot,
You bring up an excellent point about housing costs in rural areas. Many of these houses are affordable because of the continued out-migration of younger people out of the rural areas. This means that there are more houses that are available to buy as well as many abandoned properties that you commonly run across in rural plains counties. Another reason why these properties can be had for less money is because the local economy might not be very strong; therefore the prices of houses are not usually expensive.
For example, in McPherson County South Dakota the median price of a house was around $20,000 in the year 2000. However, the population in this county decline 10% in the last 5 years between 2000-2005 and over 28% of the population is over the age of 65. Non farm employment also decreased by 17.5% according to the census data. This county is just a sampling of what continues to be a strong trend of out-migration in the plains states and the very low housing prices.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/…