$30,000 grant from Kansas Historical Society to help develop zoning districts in Oread neighborhood

The city of Lawrence has won a $30,000 grant to do more planning in the Oread neighborhood.

Kansas Historical Society announced it will award the city’s planning department $30,005 to develop overlay zoning districts in the Oread neighborhood.

Planning director Scott McCullough said the funding would be used to follow through on recommendations made in the Oread Neighborhood Plan, which was approved by commissioners last year. The neighborhood plan recommended that Oread be divided into several zoning districts that each would have their own regulations related to density, parking requirements, building heights and other such matters.

But the neighborhood plan did not spell out in detail what those regulations should be. McCullough said the grant money would be used to hire a consultant to begin gathering public input and creating draft regulations for the district.

McCullough said the city was still examining the grant and trying to determine how quickly the process can begin.

“This will allow us to move quicker than we would be able to otherwise,” he said.