LJWorld.com / City Commission slows down on annexation issue

City Hall

January 17, 2007

City commissioners agreed to slow down on adopting a key planning document after receiving a flurry of comments that it may create an unofficial moratorium on efforts to expand the city limits for new development.

Commissioners at their meeting Tuesday night were scheduled to act on a new planning resolution that contains language directing commissioners to generally reject future annexation requests until larger area plans are adopted.

"My question is whether this is creating a de facto moratorium on new annexation and thus new development, and that it would be a moratorium that doesn't have any type of timeline attached to it," Douglas County Commissioner Bob Johnson said Tuesday afternoon. "I don't know the answer to that. I just know I sure have the question."

Johnson asked commissioners prior to their meeting Tuesday to delay any action on the resolution until it has been better explained.

City Commissioner David Schauner, though, said the city's not trying to do anything to slow development. Instead, he said the idea of asking for area plans prior to approving annexations is an attempt to get the city's planning process ahead of development. Area plans generally show where streets and other important infrastructure would be located not only for the piece of property seeking annexation but also for potentially hundreds of acres surrounding the property.

"I can tell you that is not our intent to create a moratorium of any kind," Schauner said. "Our intent is to better coordinate the build-out of the community. We want to create a process that will cause those areas to be developed in a way that is most economical and efficient for the community and the landowners."

Commissioners on Tuesday all expressed support for the general concept behind the resolution, but agreed to defer the item for at least several weeks. Commissioners directed City Manager David Corliss to either send the resolution to the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission for a full hearing or convene a community meeting to answer questions.

Corliss said he had received e-mails from several community members questioning what the resolution's intent was. He assured commissioners that it was not meant to stifle development, but rather was an effort to list all the various planning efforts underway in the community. Corliss said the main thrust of the resolution was to ensure that all the different planning efforts work together rather than contradict one another.

"I really want us to follow through on this because if we don't, I'm concerned that we will end up with a number of different planning studies and that we won't implement them," Corliss said.

Johnson said he's in favor of the city getting in front of development. But he said he is concerned that if the city requires area plans to be adopted before accepting new annexation requests, that developers may be asked to wait too long for those plans to be finished. He pointed to work on an area plan for the property south and east of Kansas Highway 10 and O'Connell Road as an example of how long those plans can take. That plan, known as the Southeast Area plan, has been in the works for more than two years and is not yet complete.

Johnson said the proposed resolution also doesn't spell out that the county commission would be a partner in creating those area plans. He said that was essential because the area plans would have an impact on property owners who live in the unincorporated parts of the county and thus aren't represented by city commissioners.

"It clearly could be akin to taxation without representation," Johnson said.

Schauner said the city wasn't looking to cut the county out of the process. He noted that the county has significant ability to block annexations that aren't consented to by property owners.

"Even if we wanted to, we could not choose to leave the county out of the process, and that's not what we want to do anyway," Schauner said.

The resolution also attempts to address the concerns about the process taking too long by saying the area plans will be "accomplished in a diligent manner."

Discussion

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17 January 2007
at 4:44 a.m.

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lunacydetector (Anonymous) says…

these guys will think up anything to stifle growth.

…i love the lawyerly b.s.

these guys won't be happy until lawrence has a population of 40,000.

it's just like the late 60's and early 70's man, during those far-out times, man, i can't stop having these wild flashbacks from when i was young, man. remember timothy leary? that guy was righteous. he was one far-out cat. these crazy trippy feelings started hitting me when i was in my early 40's. let's declare a free love day, and make everything beautiful. we already got $90,000 in flowers for the springtime. when will they bring back the VW microbus? i wonder if we could have a woodstock type of thing going in this town - out in the country? yep, we must stop this annexation thing at any cost. some fat-cat will get rich off of this at our expense man. it's about keeping the haves from getting even more. bring back the communes. that's what it's all about baby. those were some good times back then. it's kinda hazy but i get good vibes when i think about how it used to be and how we were going to change the world. what a beautiful thing - we are finally doing something, man. they should start growing hemp in the green spaces out in the country….and bicycle lanes for everyone. there's so many people who ride and it isn't my money that pays for all these bike paths, it's the city's.
17 January 2007
at 9:03 a.m.

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merrill (Anonymous) says…

Hopefully this move will stifle property tax increases to some degree. Green space does not cost taxpayers one thin dime until infrastructure goes in and housing dots the landscape.

We need elected officials who will consider the taxpayers more frequently over the real estate industry. At the moment taxpayers are not happy that we constantly see our tax bills increase over and above the normal cost of living levels.

It is better to to move along at a slower methodical pace.

Considering gasoline prices walkers and cyclists need safe lanes for travel. Gasoline will only become more expensive.
I have seen estimates of 15.00 per gallon for todays cost of gasoline. Sooner or later bike travel lanes will actually connect riders to all sides of town and downtown.

http://www.iags.org/costofoil.html

http://www.progress.org/gasoline.htm
17 January 2007
at 9:46 a.m.

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lunacydetector (Anonymous) says…

what does your 'cost benefit analysis' say regarding the millions spent on bicycle lanes for the 1/2 of 1% of the population who uses them?

a stagnated city is a dying city. i can buy a house in johnson county (specifically, overland park) for $50K less than what it costs me here. something is seriously wrong, especially when some of our commissioners say they want affordable housing. actions speak louder than words.

i cannot wait for the next new city commissioners overturning most of what these sitting commissioners have passed. that will be a precedent i look forward to seeing.
17 January 2007
at 10:24 a.m.

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salad (Anonymous) says…

No, you cannot buy an equivalent house for $50k less in johnson county. We were very suprised to find that prices in JoCo are just as inflated as in Lawrence. It's a myth that's it's cheaper JoCo, but what IS here and not in Lawrence, are good jobs. We left Lawrence, because you just can't make a living there.
Affordable housing will have to depend on the market I'm afraid.
17 January 2007
at 10:55 a.m.

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conservative (Anonymous) says…

Salad, The 50,000 difference will be in direct relation to the type of houses being compared. A 1 story ranch won't be 50,000 cheaper in Johnson County, but many 2+ story houses easily fit that description.
17 January 2007
at 11:18 a.m.

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just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…

“A 1 story ranch won't be 50,000 cheaper in Johnson County, but many 2+ story houses easily fit that description.”

But that is determined by the marketplace, not by anything in the power of local government to affect to any significant degree.

Judging by the number of unsold houses in the Lawrence market, that differential may be disappearing soon.
17 January 2007
at 12:31 p.m.

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Jamesaust (Anonymous) says…

“…to generally reject future annexation requests until larger area plans are adopted.”

The rule should be the opposite:

The City should generaly approve future annexation requests unless the City has made specific and material objections to larger area plans.

We all know and see every day the aspect of bureaucracy that Lincoln referred to as “the slows.”

If the City has objections then fine! But just because the City is slow moving chaos doesn't mean that the rest of the world can just stop and wait. I'm always amazed that the same voices that decry the Bush administration as “incompetent” find our City government a model of efficiency and clear-thinking.
17 January 2007
at 1:16 p.m.

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Reality_Check (Anonymous) says…

enough growth. We're big enough. I don't want more cars or people.

How does a bigger city help the average working man?
17 January 2007
at 1:32 p.m.

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just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…

“The City should generaly approve future annexation requests unless the City has made specific and material objections to larger area plans.”

That will almost certainly mean that no plans will be in place before significant development takes place.

“I'm always amazed that the same voices that decry the Bush administration as “incompetent” find our City government a model of efficiency and clear-thinking.”

The incompetence, or clear-thinking, of one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. And examples of bad government in no way justify the notion that we can live without it. If you get a case of food poisoning, does that mean you just stop eating?
17 January 2007
at 5:58 p.m.

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Jamesaust (Anonymous) says…

“That will almost certainly mean that no plans will be in place before significant development takes place.”

No, there are already plans. The City also now wants in addition is the luxury of sitting on those plans as long as they wish. It not acceptable and as we see here the Commission has begun to recognize that adding a “molasses” phase would be disasterous.

“And examples of bad government in no way justify the notion that we can live without it.”

Who is inventing this strawman of living “without it.” I believe a certain someone calls such irrelevant points 'filberts.' (Goodness, if SRS seized your kids based on some vague allegation of child abuse and then delayed in completing their investigation for a decade before they concluded there was no basis for the charge and returned the 10 year older kids would we say “no harm, no foul”?)

Refusing to hold the world hostage until bureaucrats have twiddled their thumbs according to their own sense of time is a value-neutral position and has nothing to do with growth/no growth or any other substantive point of view. In other words, bureaucrats will take all the time given to them - and more. Put the burden on them to make their objections known by a certain time.

Of all people to refuse to see the problem with this! Just how many environmental regulations for example are delayed, delayed, delayed, just because their is no requirement for the bureaucrats to act in a timely manner and the political bosses don't like the issue?

I'm almost inclined to believe that some people try to pick the result they want and then argue any side of a position necessary that gives them their chosen result. The only issue here is what the legal people call “due process” - government is not free to place projects into a Kafkaesque limbo because the City staff is busy taking a break.
17 January 2007
at 6:53 p.m.

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cowboy (Anonymous) says…

please , all small townships, get legal as a municipality , and Baldwin , start annexing ground and tell Lawrence to go to , well you know where , as one of my childhood friends stated ” your not the boss of me ”
18 January 2007
at 12:20 a.m.

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just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…

“No, there are already plans.”

Really? What are they?
7 March 2007
at 7:41 a.m.

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logrithmic (Anonymous) says…

Concretin,

They have gone head to head with the growth-at-any-cost county commission and have tried to establish rules governing growth and annexation. These rules would permit the city to plan to accomodate growth instead of permitting willy nilly growth to push outward from the city limits without planning adequately for the infrastructure to meet that growth.

It's called Smart Growth… but then you wouldn't understand it anyway….
7 March 2007
at 8:26 a.m.

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Marion (Marion Lynn) says…

I see that Merrill is back to hs “The sky is faling!, The sky is falling!” in reference to his lawed and pitiable “Peak Oil” theories.

How will Merrill make a living with his supposed $15.00 per gallon gasonline?

It should be remembered that Merrill's income is derived from the use of a number of small internal cumbustion engines so his dire predictions and his expressions of concern for the environment ring hollow!

We will not “run out of oil”.

We will not “run out” of gasoline or comparable fuels.

Very much as one of Merrill's icons predicted in the 1970s that we would all be standing shoulder to shoulder due to overpopulation, these predictions have as much validity.

Thanks.

Marion.