This file photo from July 2015 shows a westward look across Lawrence, including the University of Kansas on Mount Oread, at left, and Ninth Street stretching toward downtown Lawrence, at right.

Years from now, Lawrence residents may live closer together and in taller buildings.

The first draft of a rewrite of the Lawrence-Douglas County comprehensive plan was recently released, and if approved, it would make significant changes to how the city grows for decades to come. The plan establishes three growth tiers that prioritize infill development and limited expansion of the city’s borders.

Douglas County Commissioner Nancy Thellman, co-chair of the plan’s steering committee, said she thinks the plan’s priorities for development send a message.

“It helps send a clear message that our hope is to build in and up rather than out,” Thellman said. “So it helps us concentrate construction and development projects where there is already infrastructure, rather than expanding city boundaries with costs to the city.”

But some in the development community disagree with the plan’s method of arriving at that goal and worry that what the plan ultimately will create is more expensive development.

Paying to develop outside the city

The draft plan would categorize future development in one of three tiers. Development in tier one, theoretically, would have the easiest path to approval, while development in tier three would have the most difficult. To qualify as tier one, the project must be within the city limits and within the range of service of existing fire and medical operations and utilities infrastructure.

City Commissioner Mike Amyx, co-chair of the plan’s steering committee, said that in the past, annexing new areas has been a pretty simple process. He said prioritizing infill development over projects that require expanding the city’s services and infrastructure makes sense financially.

“Because extension of all these utilities, this is an expensive process,” Amyx said. “This is just a way to be able to better manage the public’s money.”

Any project that requires annexation of land outside city limits, even if readily serviceable by existing infrastructure, has to meet additional conditions and “community benefits,” such as affordable housing or land for parks.

Bobbie Flory, executive director of the Lawrence Home Builders Association, said it makes sense to prioritize infill development, but she doesn’t agree that annexations should require developers to pay for a community benefit. She said those community benefits historically have been paid for with property taxes, as opposed to upfront payments by developers.

“It’s going to make the land costs go up even more if they have to start donating land to the city,” Flory said. “It’s just a way for the city to extract some of these things that historically they have paid for through property taxes.”

A three-tiered system

The new plan makes it more complicated for developers who want to leave the city limits with their projects.

Amyx said the tiered system plans better for the future, and being able to prove there is demand for the development is important.

“Under the three-tier system, it gives us that opportunity to look at land that’s already there and ready to go,” Amyx said.

The second priority tier is outside city limits but within the designated “urban growth area” that rings the city. Tier two will only be annexed if the need to accommodate demand is established. Like tier one, tier two is readily serviceable by existing fire and medical operations and utilities infrastructure.

When assessing whether land ought to be annexed, several factors, such as how much undeveloped land already exists in the city limits, the health of the real estate market and other factors will be considered.

Thellman said using the tiers to prioritize infill development doesn’t mean growth outside the city limits would never happen, but that the plan would help codify the priority already in practice. She said infill development helps minimize sprawl outside the city boundaries and maximizes the benefit of the infrastructure that’s already put down and paid for.

“If there is not much development around it to add to the property tax, then you’ve spent an awful lot on infrastructure that will take a very, very long time to be paid for,” Thellman said.

Apart from infrastructure costs, Thellman said infill development provides other advantages. She said infill preserves open space and the rural sense of Douglas County outside the city. In addition, she said getting a denser population in the city boundaries also helps areas such as downtown.

“It’s an area people want to live in, a more kind of urban lifestyle, but also bringing those people to downtown keeps it economically more viable over the years,” Thellman said. “It adds its own assets with more people.”

Beyond tier two, development gets less likely. Tier three is also within the urban growth area but would require major utility additions and added fire and medical infrastructure and personnel. The plan states that tier three would only be considered if the project were the “only way” to address an identified community need and provide additional community benefits.

‘Disproportionate’ costs

The idea of future development needing to provide a “community benefit” before it can be added to the city limits is expected to spark a lot of debate among planners and the development community.

One potential community benefit can be the creation of permanent affordable housing, including donation of land or money toward the city’s affordable housing program. Other benefits can be providing land, amenities or other facilities for a public purpose, such as parks, public safety facilities, education facilities, utility enhancements, or cultural and arts amenities. Preservation of significant amounts of environmentally sensitive lands or creation of primary jobs would also qualify as a community benefit.

Flory noted that developers already pay for many infrastructure improvements to new areas — city policies have provision that require developers to pay for new streets, for example. Flory said she thinks developers will simply pass the cost of providing community benefits on to homeowners who buy houses in the new neighborhoods. She said that runs contrary to the city’s effort to make housing more affordable.

“I think everybody should be concerned about this, because it is going to increase the cost of housing,” Flory said.

Flory said she thinks community benefits such as affordable housing are the responsibility of the city. As it is, she said the plan would amount to new homebuyers in those subdivisions disproportionately supporting affordable housing, city parks or other community benefits.

“If you look at affordable housing from a broader perspective, it’s a community issue and it needs a communitywide response,” Flory said. “And asking the buyers of lots in new subdivisions to disproportionately pay, in air quotes, their share of affordable housing doesn’t seem fair.”

A good debate

The new comprehensive plan will be updated to cover through about the year 2040 and will replace the existing plan, Horizon 2020. The steering committee began meeting in 2014 and the plan will ultimately have to be approved by local governing bodies.

The steering committee is now accepting community input on the draft plan, and Amyx said they need to hear about such questions regarding the community benefit requirement. He said he expects those conversations to continue throughout the review process.

“There’s probably going to be a pretty good debate once this comes to city level,” Amyx said.

Thellman said the plan was a years-long process in coordination with the planning department, and she thinks the plan takes the city into the 20th century. Like Amyx, she expects the community benefit requirement will bring ‘hard discussions.’ She said she is excited to see what the public thinks.

“By no means do we have it nailed down, what the best policies are, but it’s a first attempt to make it clear that we need some policies,” Thellman said. “We need some help from the development community to build an affordable housing stock. So, I suspect that will be a lively conversation as they look at this plan, and that’s a benefit of putting it out for a public comment period.”

In addition to growth and development policies, the 116-page comprehensive plan draft covers neighborhoods and housing, transportation, economic development, natural resources and community resources.

Written input on the draft comprehensive plan will be accepted through Oct. 23. A copy of the draft comprehensive plan is available on the city’s website, lawrenceks.org.