David Bailey, front, stains some boards while Aaron Phlipot and Diana Bailey, fellow workers at Krizman Carpentry and Construction, do some finish work on a new bar to be called Dynamite Saloon at Buffalo Bob’s, 719 Mass. Renovations to downtown buildings can require thousands of dollars worth of surveys, a process that has been brought to city commissioners’ attention.

In the commercial real estate business, some deals go down the toilet. In downtown Lawrence, though, it seems some deals get threatened by the toilet itself.

Lawrence city commissioners and members of the development community are expressing concern over the amount of city regulations that potential small business owners are facing to move into existing buildings in downtown.

“I think we’re losing business over this,” said Kelvin Heck, a longtime commercial real estate agent with Grubb & Ellis/The Winbury Group.

Heck tells a story — he withholds the name of the business because the owner hasn’t given him permission to talk about the deal — where a single toilet almost cost downtown Lawrence a new business.

Heck’s company was working with a small, new retailer to move into space along Massachusetts Street. As part of the remodel for the business, a single bathroom needed to be added to the store.

But before the bathroom could be added, city regulators required the potential business owner to conduct a “downstream sewer analysis” to conclude whether the new toilet would create capacity issues for the city’s sewer system.

“That’s an example of a regulation I have to really seriously question,” Heck said. “I mean, whose sewer system is it anyway? The city ought to know its capacity better than questioning whether one bathroom is going to put us over the limit.”

Some city commissioners are agreeing. The idea of revamping the city’s development code to make it easier for businesses to go into existing spaces across the city was a significant topic of discussion at the commission’s goal-setting session last month. Concerns were expressed that the development code was contributing to vacancy rates in downtown.

“This is not a code that is beneficial to infill development,” Mayor Rob Chestnut said. “It has no sense of scale. Whether you are a business of $50,000 or $50 million, it seems you have the same process to go through.”

City Commissioner Lance Johnson — who as the owner of the Lawrence-based engineering firm the Peridian Group conducts several of these studies — said a sewer analysis could add $1,000 to $2,500 to a project. But he said that is often just one of many costs that the city adds on to a project.

Since 2006, the city’s new codes have required businesses wanting to go into a downtown building to file a site plan with the city if one doesn’t already exist, which is the case for the majority of downtown buildings.

That means, for example, if a cell phone store wanted to move into a building that previously housed a bookstore, the new retailer would have to file a site plan showing such things as lot lines, building footprints and utility locations, even though nothing but the interior decor will change.

Johnson said such a site plan generally will cost at least $5,000 and take 90 days for an engineering firm to complete. In strip malls outside of downtown, the costs can be even greater — sometimes up to $30,000 — because a new business move-in could trigger a review of parking requirements, a traffic analysis, and sometimes stormwater improvements.

“I’m really afraid that things like this are a quick signal to people that we are business-unfriendly,” Johnson said.

Changes considered

Scott McCullough, director of planning and development for the city, said his department is open to looking at regulation changes. He said the department likely will present to the Planning Commission and City Commission an idea to remove the site plan requirement for downtown businesses, unless a physical expansion is being proposed for the building.

He also said a review of the city’s relatively new parking standards for strip centers already is underway.

But he also points out that not every project has to go through a lengthy process. Some projects, depending on the situation, can move forward with a simple letter from the new business owner describing the type of business that is going into a space.

McCullough, though, said the city does try to ask for enough information to ensure that a project isn’t going to have an adverse impact on an area.

“Our code does recognize that not all development is good development,” McCullough said. “You need enough time and information to study the project to know that it is good for the community.”

The city in the past has been criticized for not keeping a close enough eye on some development issues. In 2006, the development community heavily criticized City Hall over a perceived sewer crisis. The city temporarily had to deny some building permits in northwest Lawrence because there was concern that the city’s sewer system could not handle the new development. Frequent downstream sewer analyses are one way to guard against such scenarios happening again.

McCullough said the city definitely could go too far in relaxing regulations.

“We always have to balance the public’s safety and convenience and with an owner’s desire to change a use and modify a site,” McCullough said. “We demand good quality projects in this community, and this is a code that helps us get at that.”

Lost business?

The concern city commissioners are expressing is that the regulations are making it tougher for Lawrence to draw new businesses into the community.

McCullough said he hopes that is not the case.

“I’ve heard stories about that,” McCullough said. “It is unfortunate that they (potential business owners) don’t come in and talk to us about what the process entails. I think we do a good job of taking the mystery away from the process.”

City commissioners also said they recognize that there’s always going to be a certain amount of process — and cost — that new businesses have to endure to get through City Hall.

“You can’t go to the other extreme,” Johnson said. “You have to have rules because there has to be some protection for everyone.”

But commissioners said they’ve heard from enough business owners, who have gone through the process and been disappointed, that they are concerned.

Count John Gladman in that category. When Gladman recently went through the process to convert an existing North Lawrence building into his photography studio, he has surprised at how long it took to work with the city.

Based on other remodeling projects, he expected to have his studio up and running in 90 days. Instead it took nine months.

“I think the city is losing business over stuff like that, because I can tell you that I would never do it again,” Gladman said.