Lawrence lands on national list of cities that love to volunteer; City Hall set to impose new restrictions on payday, title loan companies

You know what they say about Lawrence: We’re a town full of do-gooders, which explains why there are people in the street jousting with snow shovels today to win the privilege of shoveling their neighbor’s sidewalk. Well, maybe that hasn’t quite been the case, but there is a national ranking out that does show Lawrence residents are more volunteer-minded than most.

The huge professional networking site LinkedIn has been studying the data of it is millions of users to find out how many of them list volunteer activities on their LinkedIn profiles. Come to find out, Lawrence has one of the higher percentages of LinkedIn members who identify themselves as active volunteers.

Lawrence had the fourth-highest concentration of volunteers of any city in the country. Based on a blog entry from the company, I think that means LinkedIn looked at the number of users it has in each community, and then calculated the percentage of users in each city that listed activities under the “Volunteer Experience and Causes” section of their profiles.

College communities seem to do well in the ranking. That makes sense because the study also found that millennials were the group most likely to have volunteer experience listed on their LinkedIn profiles. The complete list of communities in the top 10 are:

1. Bloomington, Ind.

2. Fort Collins, Colo.

3. LaFayette, Ind.

4. Lawrence

5. Madison, Wis.

6. Corvallis, Ore.

7. State College, Pa.

8. Austin, Texas

9. Minneapolis-St. Paul

10. Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

In other news and notes from around town:

• UPDATE: Upon further review, I need to correct a couple of statements about the proposed regulations for title loan and payday loan businesses. After re-reading the city memo, a special use permit isn’t proposed as part of the regulations. The League of Women Voters had asked for such a requirement, but it isn’t included in the proposed code changes. Instead, the regulations create definitions for payday and title loan companies. They also spell out which zoning categories the businesses would be allowed to locate in. It appears that there are still 14 zoning categories where the businesses would be allowed to locate, so I’m not sure it will create many restrictions on the businesses. My apologies for suggesting otherwise. I simply misread the staff memo.

Original post:
One area that Lawrence evidently is not feeling too charitable about is the idea of payday loan or car title loan businesses. City commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday are set to approve new regulations that would place additional restrictions on where such businesses could locate in Lawrence.

City commissioners as part of their consent agenda will consider new code language that will require future payday loan and title loan companies to receive a special use permit before being allowed to open an office in several zoning districts in Lawrence. Normally special use permits are required for businesses that have some noxious land use impacts. Bars are required to have special use permits in some situations, like when they are part of a mixed-used development, for example. Businesses that have large amounts of outdoor storage, like recycling centers, sometimes are required to get special use permits too.

As the code is written now, payday loan and title loan businesses can locate about anywhere a traditional bank would be allowed to locate. But planning staff has noted that several neighborhoods have raised concerns about the businesses, and some zonings in the past have had conditions added that would prohibit such businesses.

What is mildly interesting is that the information being presented to the City Commission doesn’t really get into any detail about what problems the businesses are creating. Are repossessed cars being stored in the parking lot? Are they creating traffic problems? Are there noise problems?

Certainly, there have been concerns raised about some of the lending practices and whether such companies are taking predatory actions against their customers. City Commissioner Jeremy Farmer even has suggested creating city regulations regarding how the companies can operate. But a quick legal review found that creating city regulations that would fit into the state framework of regulations may be difficult.

I’m not sure that a special use permit will give the city much leverage in regulating how payday loan businesses operate, such as regulating the interest rates they can charge and such, but the new regulations will create a new hoop for such businesses to jump through before they can open in the city.

Commissioners meet at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.