photo by: Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo

Downtown Lawrence is pictured in this aerial photo from December 2017.

City leaders will soon review the latest draft of the downtown master plan that will shape development in the downtown district for years to come.

As part of its meeting Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission will consider adopting the Downtown Lawrence Plan. The commission’s review was delayed after a community steering committee reviewing the plan raised some concerns, and the commission gave the committee more time to review comments from the community and suggest revisions.

The 120-page draft plan, which has been under development since August 2018, will guide growth and development downtown for the next 20 years. It provides recommendations regarding land use, development, building heights, parking, transportation, infrastructure, streetscapes and public art installations, among other elements. The city hired Houseal Lavigne Associates in August 2018 to complete the plan. Once adopted, the plan will function as a guiding document for policy making.

Last month, in response to public comments, the steering committee called for changes related to historic preservation, equity and inclusion and some of the plan’s redevelopment recommendations, as the Journal-World previously reported. The most debated issue was historic preservation and the city’s related ordinances. Though committee members’ views differed, they agreed to remove a negative statement about the city’s preservation ordinance from the draft. They also took out some specific suggestions to weaken the ordinance and replaced them with a more open-ended recommendation.

As originally proposed by consultants, the draft plan stated that the city “may be stymying reinvestment” by requiring buildings downtown that do not have historic significance or integrity to comply with the city’s historic preservation ordinance, and it suggested three specific recommendations for revising the ordinance.

The updated draft plan removed the statement about stymying reinvestment and the specific recommendations, and instead states: “The City and Historic Resources Commission, with the involvement of all community members, should complete the current initiative to revise the ordinance to better accommodate contemporary challenges when balancing historic preservation and development, including an assessment of the effectiveness of the environs rule and the design review process.”

In addition to concerns about the historic preservation section, residents also expressed concerns that the draft did not adequately address equity and inclusion. The committee agreed that the draft should include specific suggestions for how to improve equity and inclusion downtown, with possibilities including business incubator space or incentive programs for minority entrepreneurs and businesses.

The updated draft plan adds the statements regarding equity and inclusion in several sections. The updated draft states that updating the city’s approval processes for the opening of new businesses to make them more streamlined and user-friendly is one strategy to encourage entrepreneurship and diversify the ownership of downtown businesses. The plan also calls for using public art to “showcase diverse voices” and expanding the types of cultural events and celebrations downtown to “ensure people of all backgrounds feel welcome, invited, and integral to the vibrancy of downtown.” The plan suggests the city establish a business incubator or startup space to support small business development with a focus on women and minority entrepreneurs.

Some residents also voiced concerns about the plan’s recommendations for redeveloping certain sites, specifically the post office, the Replay Lounge and the Red Lyon Tavern. As the city does not own any of those properties, project manager Nik Davis clarified that the recommendations were not intended to suggest those businesses did not have a place downtown, but that they were meant to provide guidance should the sites become vacant in the future. The committee members agreed with Davis’ suggestion to add a disclaimer clarifying the intent to the recommendation for the post office site, and also agreed to remove the Replay and the Red Lyon properties from a list of “opportunity sites.”

The steering committee voted unanimously to recommend that the Lawrence City Commission adopt the plan once the discussed changes were made. The commission will meet at 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St. Residents who want to provide public comment can do so in person at City Hall, in writing or virtually via Zoom, and more information about those options is available on the city’s website, lawrenceks.org.