photo by: Bremen Keasey

Lawrence City Commissioners had lengthy discussion and debate on setting the maxmium occupnacy limits for the least dense residential zoning districts. Eventually, they voted to set the maximum occupancy at four unrelated adults.

After a change that the City Commission made on Tuesday, Lawrence’s new Land Development Code will be a bit more restrictive on how many unrelated people can live together in certain places — but not as restrictive as what planning leaders had advanced.

At their meeting on Tuesday, city commissioners voted 4-1 to change the code’s maximum occupancy in R-1 and R-2 zoning districts — the least-dense residential zoning in the city — from five unrelated individuals to four.

The commissioners had to come up with a supermajority of votes, because their proposed limit differed from the Planning Commission’s recommended limit of three unrelated people. And they heard from dozens of commenters with a variety of views on the limit and how it would affect affordable housing, student rentals, even equity for LGBTQ+ and disabled residents.

It’s a debate that’s been going on with the code for quite some time, and no matter how the commission voted, Commissioner Brad Finkeldei said he was “guessing someone on either side will bring this back” to discuss further later in the year.

Originally, the Land Development Code — which passed in November and goes into effect in April — would have increased maximum occupancy for all residential zoning districts to five unrelated individuals across the board. But many residents and neighborhood groups, during the drafting process, thought the increase would have unintended consequences. They expressed concerns that with the higher limit, developers would be more likely to buy up houses and convert them into rental apartments for students, especially in places close to downtown and the University of Kansas.

City commissioners had wanted to discuss the issue further, and during their meeting on Feb. 4, they asked city staff about the possibility of amending the occupancy limit increase. The proposed amendment that resulted — and that was recommended by the Planning Commission on a 6-1 vote during its Feb. 26 meeting — would have changed the limit in the R-1 and R-2 areas from five unrelated people to three.

Dozens of people sent in written public comments ahead of Tuesday’s meeting asking the commissioners to approve that change, including the Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods, the Old West Lawrence Neighborhood Association, the Pinkney Neighborhood Association, the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, the Lawrence Preservation Alliance, the Sunset Hill Neighborhood Association and the Hillcrest Neighborhood Association.

Maren Bradley, the president of the OWLNA, told the commission on Tuesday that many families in the neighborhood already live next to students, and that number continues to grow. Bradley said the increasing student presence has made it harder to attract families into the area, and she is worried the code has not done enough to make sure others’ voices “don’t get drowned out.”

However, there were also over a dozen people who spoke at the meeting or sent in written comments asking commissioners to keep the five-person occupancy limit across all districts.

Some expressed frustration with what they felt was proponents of the occupancy limits portraying students or renters in general as inherently irresponsible. One said he was upset with the idea that “students were like locusts.”

Others said that occupancy policies often target marginalized groups like LGBTQ+ or disabled people. One speaker said through tears that her unmarried partner and her two children were often unable to find places that would rent to them because of the occupancy limit.

Anothe commenter, Joy Foster, said she and her partner were renovating an old church with five bedrooms that would serve as a place for the LGBT community. She felt changing the occupancy limit back to three would be “protecting the elite and privileged.”

Cassandra Barrett said that live-in caregivers for disabled individuals can be considered unrelated adults, too, which could make it harder for people to get care and “destabilize” their lives. Meanwhile, people who lived in cooperative living situations said this change would upend their current housing situations.

Some opponents of the amendment said allowing a higher occupancy could also reduce housing costs for people and create more affordable housing options for renters — important at a time when Lawrence needs more housing. Misty Bosch-Hastings, the director of the city’s Homelessness Services Division, said she understood the opponents’ concerns, but that lowering the limit felt like “pushing families with children” into higher risk of homelessness.

Mariel Ferreiro, a member of the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Board, said in her comments that reducing occupancy tightens the scarce housing market and has shown no evidence of helping reduce housing costs.

“This won’t magically solve our housing crisis. It won’t stop investors from buying up houses,” Ferreiro said.

But other public commenters doubted that changing the occupancy one way or another would make a difference in housing affordability. Mike Almon, the president of the Brook Creek Neighborhood Association, said that even if a house was capable of fitting more than three renters, an absentee landlord would likely raise the rent anyways, so costs would still be high.

The commission has to have at least a four-member supermajority to go against a recommendation from the Planning Commission, and here, the vote would end up being just enough at 4-1. Commissioner Amber Sellers was the lone dissenting vote.

Sellers said she was the only renter on the commission. She noted that many states which had occupancy limits, like Colorado, recently repealed those changes. Sellers felt the current housing policies lacked ways to come up with creative housing solutions and were not made to benefit the people. The new code, she said, “is a first step to put people first.”

Commissioner Lisa Larsen said she previously supported occupancy limits, but over the years, she has felt there had been so many issues that she wanted to ease up on limiting the number of people allowed.

And Mayor Mike Dever said he was concerned about restricting how people decide to live and felt the commission had to get “out of the way.” He said limiting the number of people who could live in one home “goes in the exact opposite direction of what we’re trying to achieve” as Lawrence works to help the community grow and become more affordable.

Finkeldei, who was part of the steering committee for the Land Development Code, said that it was always the case that certain key issues could be brought back to the commission for changes after the code’s start date of April 1. Because of the fact that many leases run from August to August, he said, the commission needed to decide on the issue now instead of later in the fall so as not to impact leases.

• • •

In other business, commissioners voted to approve an application for financial incentives for an affordable housing complex in East Lawrence that’s being spearheaded by a longtime local developer.

Developer Tony Krsnich’s Flint Hills Holding Group sent in an application to the city for Industrial Revenue Bonds that would allow the development at 716 East Ninth St. — currently known as 9 Del Lofts II — to not pay sales tax on construction costs.

The project would include a four-story building with 36 one-bedroom apartments, plus six ground-floor units that will allow for an office or store in the front of the unit. 24 of those apartments would be rent-controlled units set aside for people who make 60% or less of the area’s median income.

Krsnich has developed multiple similar projects in East Lawrence which included affordable housing. The city has already awarded $450,000 to the development through the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, as the Journal-World reported

In the application, Krsnich said that he also has applied for incentives through the federal and state governments’ low-income housing tax credit programs, noting that having the city provide incentives has been crucial in the development of his previous projects.