photo by: Wheatland Investments Group

This rendering shows a concept for an apartment building in the Floret Hill affordable housing development in west Lawrence.

City leaders next week will be considering a tax incentive package for a proposed 121-unit affordable housing complex on the west side of Lawrence.

The housing project is Floret Hill at the southeast corner of Bob Billings Parkway and Kansas Highway 10, and it’s being developed by Wheatland Investments Group and Tenants to Homeowners. Its plans call for a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units that will be permanently affordable, and the goal is to have units available to rent by mid-2027.

Wheatland has requested multiple incentives for the project, and the Lawrence City Commission will consider two of them at its meeting on Tuesday: Industrial Revenue Bonds for a sales tax exemption on construction materials, and a 10-year, 100% property tax abatement for property constructed or purchased with the proceeds of those bonds.

A report from city staff estimates that the city would forgo about $386,000 in taxes as a result of these incentives. It also says staff concluded that the incentives were necessary for the project to move forward.

“All requested incentives are needed to make the project financially feasible and close the financing gap created by higher construction costs, interest rates, and the high cost of groundwork,” the report said.

In addition to the tax incentives, the project has requested a few other incentives from the city that are less typical. These aren’t on the commission’s agenda, but they are mentioned in the report:

• A type of fee waiver that the city normally prohibits, which would apply to installation charges for water and wastewater systems. City policy says that water and sewer services and facilities shall not be “furnished to any user … without a reasonable charge,” and Affordable Housing Administrator Lea Roselyn, at a commission meeting earlier in January, said that language had been interpreted as preventing the city from waiving the cost of installing a project’s water and sewer infrastructure.

• A request to haul excess dirt from the project to the city’s Bob Billings Parkway expansion. The developer estimated this would save $420,000, but the city’s report says it wasn’t able to accommodate this request because of storage limitations.

• A request to allow blasting for the excavation work at the site. The developer estimated this would save $700,000; it has been forwarded to the fire department for consideration.

• A request for the city to provide $1.3 million in extra funding to help with the construction of a road on the site. The city doesn’t have funding sources available to consider this right now, the report said, but the developers could apply for Capital Improvement Plan funding from the city in the future.

Floret Hill has already received $1.8 million from the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and the city has also donated 12 acres of land for the project. As the Journal-World has reported, the city was considering using the Floret Hill site as a fire station or police substation in the 1990s, but the city never needed it for those uses and gave the land to Tenants to Homeowners in 2022.

The development is expected to include a variety of housing options, including multi-story apartment buildings, row-house-style buildings and duplexes. This would include 12 permanently affordable townhomes that would be available for moderate-income homebuyers to purchase. There would also be amenities such as a community center, a playground and walking paths.

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