photo by: Nick Krug

A view looking southeast shows the overpass where Bob Billings Parkway meets the South Lawrence Trafficway on Thursday, April 14, 2016. A residential development is being proposed for the farmland area southwest of the interchange.

Vice Mayor Leslie Soden on Tuesday signaled her disapproval of a request to annex nearly 160 acres west of Lawrence for a proposed apartment and residential development.

She made her position known during a City Commission meeting when the annexation request appeared on the agenda for the first time. Commissioners were being asked to formally accept the application and send it to the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission to start the process of reviewing it.

Soden said her discomfort about the annexation came from the kickoff of 2017 budget talks, during which City Manager Tom Markus has said there must be cutbacks in spending.

“I’m not comfortable with entertaining the idea,” Soden said. “We’re talking about reducing services, so the idea of expanding them… I feel like the City Commission has goals and priorities, and I’d rather be working on those.”

The proposed development, dubbed Clinton Farms, would be the first major development west of the South Lawrence Trafficway. Plans call for 2,000 apartment units near the intersection of the SLT and North 1500 Road, with 600 single-family homes proposed for future phases.

An ownership group led by Douglas County landowner Don Hazlett is behind the idea.

The city’s West of K-10 Plan shows the area as being the future site of high- and medium-density residential uses.

The property is not currently served by city water or sewer service.

photo by: Nick Krug

A view looking southeast shows the overpass where Bob Billings Parkway meets the South Lawrence Trafficway on Thursday, April 14, 2016. A residential development is being proposed for the farmland area southwest of the interchange.

In projects such as Clinton Farms, developers pay for traditional infrastructure costs. The city pays when the infrastructure must accommodate more users, such as the cost of making a residential street into a thoroughfare or a waterline into a large water main.

In January, city commissioners rejected plans for a new shopping center in south Lawrence, saying the city was not yet prepared to push its boundaries south of the SLT.

Commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday to send the annexation request to the Planning Commission, which will study it and vote on recommendations for the annexation, as well as a request to rezone the tracts that would house apartments.

The issue will come back to the City Commission for a final decision.

In other business, commissioners:

• Voted unanimously to award a bid for the 19th Street and Ousdahl Road reconstruction project to R.D. Johnson Excavating Co. for $685,629. The 19th and Ousdahl intersection will become the main entrance to Kansas University’s under-construction Central District. With Tuesday’s approval, the area will soon be closed to traffic and will remain closed until KU classes resume in August.

• Approved the addition of a crossing guard to the intersection of Sixth Street and Schwarz Road starting in the 2016-17 school year.