photo by: Bremen Keasey

A for sale sign on the lot of 5015 Legends Drive, with the building of Lawrence Montessori School in the background. The Lawrence city commission approved two requests to rezone the area Tuesday night, which could lead to an affordable housing development.

Lawrence city commissioners have voted to rezone about 6 acres of land in west Lawrence that could help pave the way for affordable housing developments by the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority.

At its meeting Tuesday, the commission voted unanimously to rezone two adjacent sites — 5015 Legends Drive and 1311 Research Park Drive — from the “Industrial Business Park” category to “Multi-Dwelling Residential.” The properties are located near the intersection of Bob Billings Parkway and Wakarusa Drive, and while it’s early in the process, the Housing Authority hopes to create permanently affordable housing for families and seniors on the sites.

Shannon Oury, the CEO for the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, said the need for more affordable housing in the city is “well established.” She said about 100 people in the west Lawrence area were already using Section 8 housing vouchers for assistance.

“This project will provide affordable housing so they can focus on raising their families and children in a place they already call home,” Oury said.

Sandra Day, a planning commissioner with the City of Lawrence, said the two sites had been zoned for industrial use in 1988 and had been undeveloped since. But during earlier phases of the process, some neighbors of the properties had voiced concerns about things like an increase in traffic and a potential decrease in their property values. Those concerns came up when the Planning Commission recommended the rezoning request for approval in April, and some commenters raised them at Tuesday’s meeting as well.

Oury acknowledged that some neighbors had concerns. She said that the Housing Authority had begun having conversations with neighbors about some of the traffic concerns, including changing the design to add multiple entrances in hopes to ease traffic. She also said that there hadn’t been effects on neighbors’ property values from other affordable developments by the Housing Authority.

Some public comments came from supporters of the project, too. One commenter said he lived in the Alvamar neighborhood and had supported affordable housing projects in eastern and southern Lawrence before. Some people had asked him if he would continue to support these developments when they were proposed on the west side, he said, but he thought this project checked the boxes for the city’s priorities of equity and creating more housing.

“Here’s an opportunity to be on the right side of this issue,” he said.

There are no specific plans yet on what any developments on the property would look like, but the Housing Authority did show a concept plan, which is required to make rezoning requests, of seven “four-plex” buildings and six “eight-plex” buildings to serve as permanently affordable housing for families and seniors. The concept plan would include about 76 housing units in total.

The commissioners agreed that the project was a good idea. Mayor Bart Littlejohn said that he understood the concerns about ensuring the project would be right for the community, but that the fact that the concept had already been modified was a good sign in his mind. He said that things like traffic studies and stormwater studies would still be needed before any project could be fully approved, but that this was a good start.

“We need housing of all types and housing for all people,” Littlejohn said.

In other business, commissioners:

• Approved the development of concept designs for two potential sites for a downtown Lawrence bus station.

The Downtown Transit Station Steering Committee has been working since January to find a suitable site for a bus station downtown, since the city’s transit office has been working from a temporary hub across the street from the Lawrence Public Library for about a decade.

City commissioners were asked to weigh in on five potential sites, but they wanted to move forward with just two of them: city parking lot #9, on the west side of the 900 block of Vermont Street, and the current bus transfer area and city parking lot #14, in the 700 block of Vermont Street.

The sites not chosen were city parking lot #5, on the east side of the 900 block of Vermont Street; city parking lot #8, on the east side of the 800 block of New Hampshire Street; and city parking lot #4, on the west side of the 800 block of New Hampshire Street.

Multiple public commenters urged the city not to use parking lots #8 and #4 on New Hampshire Street, which are currently locations where the Lawrence Farmers’ Market sets up.

Lori Trojan, a vendor at the farmers market and member of the market’s board, said lot #8 is “where our home is” right now, and lot #4 provided parking for vendors and shoppers. She said if those sites were chosen, it would impact 70 local businesses and be a “radical hit to (their) incomes.”

The two sites advanced by the commission will now receive design concepts and a cost analysis, and that will be presented to the commission in November. The commission is expected to vote on the final site in December, with the hope that construction could start in late 2025.

• Received an application from a local group to redevelop a parking lot in downtown Lawrence into a mixed-use project that would feature a grocery store, hotel, apartments and parking garage.

The proposed development would be a 400,000-square-foot, seven-story structure on 826 Vermont St., just west of Massachusetts Street. According to the proposed designs, the first floor would feature a 20,000-square-foot grocery store and lobby to the hotel. It would also have two floors for condos and apartments as well as a parking garage connected to the building.

Now that the commission accepted the application, the development group, Rise Up LLC, can explore potential financial incentives.

The proposal came about after the city published a request for information in November 2023 for proposals to redevelop three downtown parking lots — 711 New Hampshire St., 836 Vermont St., 825 New Hampshire St. and 1020 Vermont St. — into mixed-use buildings, as the Journal-World reported.

City Manager Craig Owens said the city has received multiple proposals to redevelop all three of the city lots. He said he expects development proposals from all three sites to come before the commission in the next few months.