Douglas County Commission to consider rural landowners’ request to divide property into residential lots

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World File Photo

The Douglas County Courthouse is pictured in September 2018.

The Douglas County Commission at its meeting Wednesday will consider allowing two rural landowners to convert their 25 acres of land into residential lots.

According to planning documents provided to the County Commission, property owners Patrick Halpin and Erin Callahan-Halpin are asking for permission to divide the land into up to five residential lots. The land is located at 981 East 1549 Road, roughly 3 miles south of Lawrence.

To allow for the subdivision, the commissioners would need to rezone the land to cluster preservation, a zoning designation that allows nonagricultural residential development. Currently the land consists of two parcels; one is zoned as agricultural, or AG-1, and the other is zoned as transitional agricultural, or AG-2.

Planning staff has recommended the rezoning request for approval. Staff has said that the plan generally conforms to the joint city-county comprehensive plan and that residential housing is compatible with the surrounding land uses in that area.

However, during a planning meeting in May, the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission voted 6-2 to recommend that the County Commission deny the request. Some of the planning commissioners were concerned that the landowners’ request would conflict with the comprehensive plan’s goals of maintaining open spaces and curbing residential growth in rural parts of the county.

The County Commission will convene at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday for its regular business meeting at the county courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St. Residents can participate in the meeting in person or virtually, and a link for the public to watch live online is available on the county’s website, douglascountyks.org. Residents may also call in and listen by phone by dialing 1-312-626-6799 and entering meeting ID 928 7830 4371.


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