photo by: Bremen Keasey

Lawrence's City Hall, located at 6 E. Sixth St., shown during June 2025.

Lawrence city commissioners next week will weigh in on a proposed policy that would set guidelines for how affordable housing incentives are issued.

The commission won’t be voting on the more than 50-page Affordable Housing Incentive Policy next week, but it will hear a presentation on it and provide feedback to staff.

According to the meeting agenda materials, the policy is meant to provide clear guidelines for what types of projects are eligible for incentives. It also lays out accessibility and design standards for projects and outlines the incentive approval process “to ensure fairness and consistency amongst all prospective applicants.”

One of the stated goals of the policy is to “create mixed-income communities” that feature both affordable housing and market-rate development. A section of the policy lists several different levels of affordability relative to the area median income that developments must have in order to qualify for affordable housing incentives. The area median is currently about $83,000 for a two-person household, according to the presentation.

All of the dwelling units in a project would have to be set aside for households at or under 120% of the area median. And a portion of the units would have to meet even stricter standards: at least 80% of the units would have to be set aside for households earning 80% or less of the area median, and at least 40% would have to be reserved for households earning 60% or less of the area median. Finally, at least 20% of the units would have to either have three or more bedrooms, be fully accessible or be set aside for households at or below 30% of the area median income.

Much of the policy is also dedicated to the procedures for specific types of incentives, such as industrial revenue bonds, which can be used for sales tax exemptions on construction costs, and Neighborhood Revitalization Areas, which allow for property tax abatement on the valuation increases resulting from new development. It also includes guidelines for the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund process and for other incentives such as donations of city-owned land.

The presentation says the commission will be expected to approve the policy sometime in early 2026, and it would be implemented starting in the second quarter of 2026.

In other business, the commission will:

• Consider authorizing City Manager Craig Owens to execute land transfer agreements with US Engineering Metalworks for a new manufacturing facility in Lawrence VenturePark. The land transfer is part of the Catalyst Program, which the city created in 2017 as a way to attract businesses to its business parks. The commission approved the Catalyst incentives last month, and US Engineering plans to begin construction this year and open the facility by July 2026.

• Consider awarding a nearly $5.4 million bid to Kings Construction Co. for improvements on Bob Billings Parkway from Wakarusa Drive to Kasold Drive. The project would reconstruct part of the roadway and make improvements to stormwater, pedestrian infrastructure and street lighting. It would begin in late 2025 or early 2026.

• Consider a demolition request that would open up the alley behind the former Journal-World printing plant building. The structure that would be demolished in the alley is a corridor that connects the New Hampshire Street and Massachusetts Street sides of the building. The application for demolition says the corridor is causing an issue with splitting up the building among different tenants: “It was built just as a connector. So, it’s not very usable or decent space.”

All three of these items are on the commission’s consent agenda, a list of items that can be considered on a single vote.

The commission meets at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.