Lawrence Journal-World opinion section

Although neighboring residents want the redevelopment of the Alvamar Country Club and Golf Course to succeed, they also understandably see the need to make sure their interests are protected.

Now, at the beginning of the project, is the right time to make sure those protections are in place.

On Tuesday, Lawrence city commissioners approved a preliminary development plan that incorporated a number of significant changes from the original plans for the property. However, they withheld approval of a rezoning request that would allow the addition of a professional office building on the property and instead sent that request to the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission for further review. City commissioners want the planning commission to consider the appropriateness of the residential-office zoning, as well as ways to place limits on that usage if it is approved.

City commissioners also hope to identify a way to ensure that the area currently being used as a golf course will continue to be a golf course. That issue is of particular importance to residents whose property is adjacent to the course.

One of those residents, former city commissioner and Kansas insurance commissioner Sandy Praeger, urged the commission on Tuesday to be aware of the precedent it might set by allowing residential-office zoning on the property. Such a use might work, she said, “if it’s locked in,” but there is some concern it would open the door to other similar development. She also called commissioners’ attention to land that currently is part of the golf course but isn’t included in the redevelopment plan and urged them to make sure that space remains open. It’s important to look into the future, she said, because “right now is when you make sure the future doesn’t turn out bad.”

Even though future developments would have to go through the city planning process, Commissioner Lisa Larsen correctly noted that “projects like this have a tendency to open that door up if you’re not careful.”

That’s why it’s important for commissioners to be “careful” now. If they approve residential-office zoning on this property without explicit restrictions, it would be all too easy for the commission’s intentions to be misrepresented when someone seeks approval for future changes.

As Praeger noted, Alvamar is “a real gem.” The successful redevelopment of this area benefits not only the developers and the neighbors, but the entire community. It’s an important project, and commissioners are right to make sure all the details get “locked in.”