Letter: Design requirements

To the editor:

Overland Park has a form-based code for in-fill additions in its downtown that is currently used to moderate radical changes in the height or massing of new projects. These kinds of code requirements should be implemented here to preserve the original mercantile character of downtown Lawrence. These code requirements are to avoid spot zoning changes at particular locations where corner lots in effect act as signposts in changing the whole shape of a neighborhood.

Individual anarchism has had two faces. For the wealthy or local political elite, it represents the superiority of profit over law and state. Not just because law and the state can be bought, but because even when they cannot, they have no moral legitimacy compared to their own selfishness and profit. For those who have neither wealth nor power, it represents independence and the little man’s right to make himself respected and to show what he can do, as in the example of art in our community of the many artists that surround us.

Let’s require significant projects to conform to better design requirements for historic districts as the Lawrence Preservation Alliance and the city’s own Historic Resource Commission have recommended.