October 24, 2006
The Board of Commissioners of the City of Lawrence met in regular session at 6:35 p.m., in the City Commission Chambers in City Hall with Mayor Amyx presiding and members Highberger, Hack, Rundle, and Schauner present.
RECOGNITION/PROCLAMATION/PRESENTATION:
With Commission approval Mayor Amyx proclaimed Tuesday, October 31, 2006, as “Halloween Beggars Night.”
CONSENT AGENDA
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to approve City Commission meeting minutes from October 10th, 2006. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to receive the Hospital Board meeting minutes of September 20, 2006. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to approve claims to 452 vendors in the amount of $2,012,939.74. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to approve the Drinking Establishment License to El Mezcal Mexican Restaurant, 1819 West 23rd; Duffy’s at the Econolodge, 2222 West 6th; Molly McGee’s, 2412 Iowa; Eldridge Hotel, 701 Massachusetts; and Jet Lag Lounge, 610 Florida; and the Retail Liquor License to K.C. Liquor, 1805 West 2nd. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to concur with the recommendation of the Mayor and appoint Brenda Nunez to the East Lawrence Neighborhood Resources Advisory Committee, to a term which will expire September 30, 2009. Motion carried unanimously.
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to authorize the purchase of required takings from Elizabeth Spray Haehl, trustee of the Alice C. Spray Credit Trust for $33,500 and Janette McCullough, trustee of the Janette McCullough Living Trust for $17,900 for the Baldwin Creek pump station project. Motion carried unanimously. (1)
The City Commission reviewed the bids for three submersible sanitary sewage pumps, including installation and startup, for the Utilities Department. The bids were:
BIDDER BID AMOUNT
Pump and Power Equipment, Inc. $ 87,600
Douglas Pump 91,100
Douglas Pump Alternate 93,648
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to award the bid to Douglas Pump, in the amount of $91,100.00 because the low bid did not meet specifications. Motion carried unanimously. (2)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to approve the sale of surplus Ford 1987 dump truck through Gov Deals. Motion carried unanimously. (3)
The City Commission reviewed the bids for the 2006 Weatherization bids, for the Neighborhood Resources Department. The bids were:
CONTRACTOR Storm Windows Weather-stripping of doors Attic Insulation
Kennedy Glass Inc. $36,212.30
Advanced Glass &
Mirror, Inc. $32,222.00
T & J Holdings, Inc. $3,460.00
Billy Construction $4,141.78
Midwest Installation $22,425.00
Staff Estimate $39,880.00 $4,328.00 $21,750.00
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to award the bid to Advanced Glass & Mirror, in the amount of $32,222; T & J Holdings, Inc., in the amount of $3,460; and Midwest Insulation, in the amount of $22,425. Motion carried unanimously. (4)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to authorize the City Manager to negotiate an engineering services contract with Black & Veatch to design the Stoneridge Elevated Water Storage Tank and site improvements. Motion carried unanimously. (5)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to authorize the City Manager to enter into a design/build service contract with Burns & McDonnell/Garney LLC for $1,862,017 for the construction of the Yankee Tank Creek 2-1 & 2-2 Relief Gravity Interceptor projects. Motion carried unanimously. (6)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to approve the change order for $14,112 for Riverfront parking garage and New Hampshire parking garage repair project, and provide five additional calendar workings days to Western Waterproofing, Inc. to perform annual work. Motion carried unanimously. (7)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to approve amendment to Engineering Services Contract with Peridian Group, Inc. in the amount of $28,885 to include the eastbound right turn lane off K-10 onto O’Connell Road. Motion carried unanimously. (8)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to authorize the City Manager to enter into a cooperative city/county agreement with R & R Communications, Inc., for fiber optic cable installation between City Hall and the Law Enforcement Center for $30,132.28 and $59/hour rock clause for the cooperative fiber optic project. Motion carried unanimously. (9)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to authorize the City Manager to enter into negotiation with ETC Institute for a contract for services for completion of a citizen survey. The negotiated contract will be placed on a future City Commission agenda. Motion carried unanimously. (10)
Ordinance No. 8044, annexing approximately nine acres (Pump Station No. 48 site, south of Turnpike), was read a second time. As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to adopt the ordinance. Motion carried unanimously. (11)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendations to accept the revised easements on the Final Plat (PF-07-18-06) for Stephens-Noller Addition, a one-lot industrial subdivision, located at the SW corner of Research Park Drive and Bob Billings Parkway; and accept the dedication of easements and rights-of-way subject to the following conditions:
1. Provision of a revised Final Plat with the following changes:
a. Cross access easement shown from the access point on Research Park
Drive consistent with the proposed site plan layout.
2. Execution of a Temporary Utility Agreement;
3. Provision of the following fees and recording documentation:
a. Copy of paid property tax receipt;
b. Recording fees made payable to the Douglas County Register of Deeds;
c. Completed Master Street Tree Plan.
Motion carried unanimously. (12)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to approve the site plan (SP-09-77-06) for 14 additional angled parking spaces within the West 3rd Street right-of-way along the north side of West 3rd Street in front of the Kaw Water Treatment Facility, 720 West 3rd Street. Motion carried unanimously. (13)
As part of the consent agenda, it was moved by Schauner, seconded by Rundle, to authorize the Mayor to sign a subordination agreement for Christine Lanier, 1812 Atherton Court. Motion carried unanimously. (14)
Hubbard Collingsworth, Lawrence, pulled from the consent agenda the quarterly report from Bert Nash Mental Health Center regarding the Case Management Outreach Team.
He said he was pleased with the results regarding this outreach program the City was backing. He asked if he could receive a summary of the progress report versus previous quarterly reports and if the City was on budget.
David Corliss, City Manager, said he could provide that information to the City Commission and Collingsworth if that was the Commission’s desire to see whether or not they could compare those statistics to earlier statistics. He said the City was on budget from a monetary standpoint. A certain amount of money was budgeted to pay Bert Nash Mental Health Center for their services.
Moved by Rundle, seconded by Highberger to receive the quarterly report from Bert Nash Mental Health Center regarding the Case Management Outreach Team. Motion carried unanimously. (15)
CITY MANAGER’S REPORT:
During the City Manager’s Report, David Corliss said he was going to ask Lisa Patterson, Communications Coordinator, to walk the Commission through something that was not in the report, but involved a number of the Commissioners regarding the SDAT visit.
Lisa Patterson presented an update on the SDAT project. She said SDAT was an acronym for Sustainable Design Assessment Team and was a team of national volunteers with a variety of areas of expertise that worked with communities to improve their sustainability. Sustainability could be defined as a community’s ability to meet the environment, economic, and social equity needs of today, without reducing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The SDAT was a grant from the American Institute of Architects for technical assistance and it provided funding for up to $15,000. The Lawrence community SDAT would begin next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
She said in December of 2005 Commissioner Highberger shared the information about this opportunity with the community and an application committee was formed. On December 21, 2005, was the opening of the meeting for the Steering Committee. Commissioner Hack and Commissioner Schauner released a joint statement calling for the community to look for help and having the community answer big questions about what it wanted to be in the coming decades. In January 2006 the application deadline was met and the application was submitted. In the spring, Lawrence was awarded one of six SDAT’s for the year. She said this summer the City hosted team lead by, Bill Gilchrest, who was the Director of Planning, Engineering and Permits with the City of Birmingham and Aaron Simmons, an AIA staff member. She said they spent two days intensely touring the community, getting exposed to the community’s issues, and had meetings with stake holders.
She said a final report was expected sometime late this year or early in January and the AIA would conduct some follow up activities in May or about six months after their community SDAT. It had taken the efforts of many people to get to this point so she thought they should spend a few moments recognizing those people. First, was the application committee, a core group that spent about six weeks intensely working on an application which could be found on the City’s website. Second, they had a partner in their SDAT, the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce who financially contributed to assist with the matching funds that were necessary for the grant. Third, a Steering Committee was pulled together and truly represented their community. This group was involved during the application creation and weighed in on community issues, read draft materials and shaped the application that was submitted. She said they also needed to show their appreciation and recognize more than 140 people who participated in those two days of visits in August; it said a lot about their community. She said the AIA, as well as the team leader, was very impressed with the community. She said they were hosting nationwide volunteers, which was a volunteer group with experience and training and expenses were the only thing that was being covered with grant money.
She said the team leader, Bill Gilchrest, Director, Department of Planning, Engineering and Permits, Birmingham, Alabama, would focus on historic preservation which would double his duties; Henry Kosarzycki, Program Manager, State of Wisconsin, Department of Commerce, Division of Safety and Building would be the leader in the codes; Caroline Lobo, Associate/Project Manger/Environmental Analyst for Orcutt/Winslow Partnership Architects, Phoenix, Arizona, would address the environment; Karina Ricks, Transit Oriented Development Coordinator, Washington DC, would address transportation; Charles Downham, Project Manager, Nashville Planning Studio for Looney Ricks Kiss Architects, Nashville, Tennessee, would focus on Economic Development; and Amy Smith, KPS Group, Birmingham, Alabama, would round out that team with landscape architecture. This team would spend half of their time getting to understand the Lawrence community and speaking with stakeholders.
She said she wanted the City Commission to know about the calendar of events for November 1, 2 and 3. There were two key events, Wednesday night was the public community input meeting which would discuss sustainability, all three elements, whether it was social, economic, or environmental. The full team would be present and they had a great way of engaging the community. The next key event was Friday which was the presentation of the team’s work. There would be a PowerPoint presentation and summarized what they had seen and give their recommendations which was the piece that came before the written report. That event would take place 3:30 at the Lawrence Art Center auditorium.
She said the community would have a chance to talk in detail with those experts on four categories which were development, government, culture, and economic. Contact was made with everyone involved in the first SDAT and everybody was plugging in well in understanding the framework. She encouraged the City Commission to think about what they might want to work into a topic or discussion.
If the Commission had added time, there were additional input sessions. Wednesday, 1:30 – 5:00 at the Eldridge Hotel would be a conversation with community stakeholders gathering input and break out groups would be focused around those four frameworks. Work continued on Thursday morning from 8:00 a.m. to noon, which was round two of that community input and work group.
The Steering Committee and SDAT team looked forward to next week’s events and looked forward to the participation of the Lawrence community at any and all of those input sessions. This schedule of events had been placed online at: lawrenceks.org for details.
Commissioner Highberger thanked Patterson. He said he was excited about those possibilities with the SDAT project and thought it was the start of the community visioning process that had been talked about for so long and encouraged everyone to participate as much as they could.
Commissioner Schauner thanked Commissioner Highberger for his spearheading this project. He said it was a great effort and the community would benefit from that project.
Mayor Amyx also thanked Commissioner Highberger for initiating this important project.
Also, during the City Manager’s Report, Chuck Soules, Public Works Director, reported on the Kasold Road project. Staff was anticipating the first of next week switching traffic from the west side to the east side. In the next couple of weeks, the west side would be substantially excavated along with constructing the retaining wall. (16)
REGULAR AGENDA ITEMS:
Receive status report from Dan Boyle, Boyle and Associates, concerning City and University of Kansas transit study.
Dan Boyle, Boyle and Associates, said he wanted to update the City Commission on the process in the steps that were taken, and what was left to do. They had conducted a comprehensive analysis of the “T” route and the “KU on Wheels” route in terms of ridership and productivity. They constructed a public outreach effort to be transparent and talk to as many groups as they could to get input and to make sure everyone knew what everyone else was saying. He said they held a series of meetings and met with City Staff, KU Staff, the students who operated KU on Wheels system, the Vice Provost and Provost at KU, bus operators and a group of riders, and heard an awful lot. He said their job was to try and tie it all that information together.
He said they also conducted surveys of “T” and “KU on Wheels” riders. He said in analyzing the “T” rider survey, one of the questions asked was, “Why are you using the bus today?” He said 47% were going to work using the “T”; 18% were going to school, some probably to KU, but most to the junior and senior high schools in the city. He said that was almost 2/3 of the riders using the “T” either to get to work or school which was important information to know. He said they also asked people to rate various elements of service and the overall rating for the “T” on a scale of 1 – 5 was 4.22. He said he had done surveys around the country and had not seen a rating that high. The riders were clearly pleased with the service. The items rated highest were operator courtesy, safety on the busses, and safety at the bus stops. The item rated lowest was span of service because they wanted more evening service and Sunday service. He said they conducted a survey around the State and except for Kansas City they operated the latest service in the state. He said Wichita stopped at 6:30 in the evening and the “T” ran until 8:00 p.m., but Lawrence was a different city from Wichita and Topeka in that there was a lot of night life so they looked at trying to find ways to extend the service later in the evenings.
He said they conducted a peer analysis of Big 12 school communities, which KU considers their peers, and also of transit systems that operated at those locations to try and understand some of those issues about how they served campuses, which operated things, how they arranged governance, their experience, and pitfalls. He said they received a lot of interesting information and also added some Big 10 schools that had long time successful programs in Anne Harbor and Lansing, Michigan, and Champagne/Urbana, Illinois, just to give them feedback on what had worked in other places where the city and university had tried to work together.
Last month, they spent a lot of time talking about governance because it was a key issue if they moved toward a more integrated system. Among City staff, University staff, and students, they had a consensus about first moving toward a more coordinated effort with separate systems and eventually moving toward a coordinated governing body with representatives, perhaps 50% from the City and 50% from the University and those could be split between administration and students. The governing body would make decisions about transit and treat the network as a whole. He said it was interesting they received that consensus. He said none of the groups knew what the other group was saying and many of them felt that no one else would agree with this, but they thought this was the best way to go. He said that was an important finding as well.
This month they had been discussing service alternatives and funding. He said they thought they would package it in terms of packages of improvements they could make. He said the first package was a status quo; no more money coming into the system and what could they do to make things a little more efficient. He said that was an issue of allocating resources from places where ridership was not great to places that obviously needed more service. The second package assumed a 20% increase in revenue hours of service over the next five years. The third package assumed a 33% increase over the next 5 years and the fourth package assuming the City Commission, students, and the University would give them all the money in the world and what could they do. He said that was obviously not going to happen, but it was important to recognize some of the ideas they heard from people that were valid, but could not be funded under these funding envelopes. He said they were having discussions this week to try to make sure their priorities match up with what they heard. He said they also looked at an action plan of how to proceed if this governance idea was indeed the one to work and what they had to come back with next month was findings and recommendations about what improvements were needed in the systems, how they achieved excellence and transportation in Lawrence and the public transportation system, and also an executive summary so everyone understood.
There were a number of reports that were in a variety of state of revisions and over the next week or two they wanted to be sure to put those revisions on the web. He said they presented much of that information in their presentations and public meetings, but they wanted to place that information on the Web for people who could not come out, to see what they thought about and possibly react to that information.
Mayor Amyx said he appreciated Boyles work in trying to make the Lawrence transportation system better. He said Boyle would bring back the final report the middle of November and asked Boyle if he would be available in the near future to have a session with the City Commission or would Boyle prefer meeting with the Commission at the time of the final report.
Boyle said the time he gave the final report would probably be the best and most efficient to work with and he would be delighted to talk to the Commission.
David Corliss, City Manager, said he wanted to make sure the City Commission received the completed report and all the various options. The report did not have an executive summary, at this time, and it was voluminous in its current stage. He said the Commission would then receive the report and the next steps would depend upon the City Commission’s direction on where to move and how they would partner with others and what steps they might be able to take.
Commissioner Schauner asked if Boyle had an opportunity to review other possible merged operation of other dissimilar systems where they would merge a city and college system.
Boyle said yes, but Lawrence was a little bit unique because of the students running the KU on Wheels service, that was the older service and made them different from many of their peers and other systems. He said they started out conducting that serious peer analysis due to some questions that came up from the Vice Provost that was generally supportive, but had some tough questions and they wanted to make sure that everyone understood how they went through it. There was no one model, but many of the cities such as the transit agencies in the cities and universities had come to an agreement on their particular unique concerns. He said most places were happy with it and had some advice on things that could be done if they had started over again, but they had looked at as many of those systems, but none of those systems were quite exactly the same as the unique situation in Lawrence.
Commissioner Schauner said he took it there were some common threads of mistakes that others had made that they could avoid based on his peer review.
Boyle said yes. He said the peer review report indicated some of those things that people told them. He said it was gratifying that both the universities and the transit agencies they talked to were very forthcoming in talking about things that worked, but also things they might wished they had done different. (17)
Receive staff report and summary of public comments. Consider authorizing Phase I – Development of “Greenbelt Park” (east of George Williams Way and Harvard Road).
Fred DeVictor, Parks and Recreation Director, presented the staff report. He said this land was purchased in 1997. He said a Master Plan was started in 2004 for this project and completed in 2005. He said there were several public meetings held after the Master Plan and since the neighborhood grew, it was important to hold an additional public meeting on September 20th. He said over 100 people attended and gave valuable information and feedback on that development. He said that additional input from those neighbors was in the report given to the City Commission.
He said staff was presenting recommendations based on that input received which was to start with playground equipment across the street from Langston Hughes Elementary School and trail work. He said $200,000 was budgeted to go toward those recommendations, and staff wanted to stretch those monies as far as they could which was broken down in that report.
He said the plan had always been to preserve as much as that wooded area in that green belt as they could. He said they wanted to work with the City Stormwater Engineer and the Utilities Department to lay out the final locations for the trail. He said the first phase were three types of trails staff was recommending which were hard surface trails, limestone screening or ag-lime trails, and natural trails in the corridor. He said they realized there was some sensitivity in some places along the greenbelt area, particularly between Waverly and Stonecreek. He said staff had flagged some of that area and found something that would work, but staff would work with adjacent land owners and neighbors in that area.
Commissioner Highberger asked staff to indicate on the map where the concrete trail and the limestone screening trail would be located.
Mark Hecker, Superintendent of Parks and Maintenance, said if they looked at the varying phases of the trail, it basically made a loop. He said they were looking at making a concrete trail from Harvard to Bob Billings Parkway, if the money would fly that far. He said from there they would go just over Harvard with concrete and then go ag-lime along the top end. He said the reason staff selected that area was because it was a higher area so the ag-lime would hold better in a less wet situation. He also indicated where the natural area would be located.
Mayor Amyx asked how low the natural trail area would be and would the trail be out of the waterway.
Hecker said it varied because there were a couple places the waterway would be crossed, which staff would deal with by using some type of stepping stone system. He said there were a couple places where it was fairly narrow, but where there was room, they went to the high side.
David Corliss, City Manager, said he thought it was important to note, on the natural trail, there would be times when that trail would not be passable which happened with other natural trails when there was a lot of rain.
Mayor Amyx asked how close the trail came to a neighbor’s property.
Hecker said the closest point was probably 20 feet of a property line where it was very, very narrow. He said from that point, it was approximately 30 – 40 feet from either property line. He said there was concern from a few people who thought they were a little close, but staff moved the flags over a little bit to accommodate those concerns.
Commissioner Schauner asked how close the McGrew Nature Trail was to those property lines.
Hecker said there were two or three places where it was right on the property line.
Commissioner Schauner said he did not know how much crossing of George Williams Way this park would encourage. He asked if staff had given any thought to any ability to offer some additional safety to children or others in crossing that street. He said his sense was, in the long run, it was going to become a fairly busy street as it carried traffic off of 6th and onto 15th and reverse.
Hecker said there was quite a bit of discussion through the master planning process in creating a crosswalk at the mid-block that would take kids down to the roundabout. He said the basic consensus was to keep the kids at that roundabout at that controlled access point instead of mid block where traffic might move a little quicker.
Commissioner Schauner said his concern was less about what adults did in directing their children, but more about how those kids would direct themselves and whether a pedestrian crossing at that mid block area would make some sense just as some additional protection for children who were not in the care and control of their parents.
Hecker said staff would look at that idea.
Commissioner Schauner said that street was going to carry a lot of traffic over time.
DeVictor said when the master plan was completed that street was not open, but the street was opened now with that roundabout in place, and it was a concern staff planned to address. He said a crossing of some sort was needed to direct people north to the roundabout, but coming back might be a problem which staff wanted to address.
Mayor Amyx asked if DeVictor felt the budget was adequate to make those improvements with the costs of concrete.
DeVictor said the plan was in Phase I, but the overall plan called for more funds. The recommendations staff proposed were adequate to do.
Mayor Amyx called for public comment.
Hubbard Collingsworth, Lawrence, asked if anyone looked at an elevated crosswalk.
Mayor Amyx said no.
Susan Chi, Lawrence, West Lawrence Neighborhood Association, said her association collected over 400 signatures in favor of the trail and park playground area. She said it was a beautiful area and walked the entire perimeter and encouraged the City Commission to go forward with that development.
Harris Tate spoke in opposition to the proposed trail. He said he appreciated Commissioner Highberger and Commissioner Schauner attending the September 20th meeting and Commissioner Schauner at the meetings in 2004 although the West Lawrence Neighborhood Association did not have any official position on this matter. He said Commissioner Schauner was also at the Drainage Committee meeting where drainage issues were brought up. He said they tried to come up with pros and cons, and a pro would be that it was pretty and concerning cons they talked about drainage issues and at the September 20th meeting. He said the meeting before the September 20th meeting Hecker said he would start at the park and go the north route, and then 34 days ago it was the park in the south route.
He said in January 2005 the budget for this plan was $823,000, and now it was $200,000.
He said regarding that controversial narrow area, he lived in that area and had seen water 3 ½ feet deep, 20 feet wide in the upper part and 60 feet wide, a foot deep in the lower part after three inches of rain in five hours. He said they were considering there were safety issues, loss of trees, and potential for crime. He said people have talked about this being a pathway to school, but he did not think anyone would send 8, 9, 10 year old children through a little path through the trees early in the morning. He said another neighbor mentioned to him that people would be going through their yards to get to that path. He said he personally believed that there would have to be bridges put over some of the water areas such as at the McGrew Nature Trail, which would be more expensive. He said there was an alternative route that would complete the trail. He said Hecker said earlier that one of the goals was to cross the city, like down by the trafficway by the theatres. He said there was another area on the original plan where the natural trail met the red line on the map, took off to the right which was much wider. He said the trees were already removed and part of a conservation easement that was granted March 11, 2002, between Alvamar and the City. He said he was not clear on the ownership because he was not familiar with the legal aspect, but the grantors were Alvamar and Mike Stultz and the grantee was the City of Lawrence. He said he thought Alvamar retained the ownership, but it was indicated the grantors retained the right to dedicate utility and drainage easements within and across the green space, which might be left in its natural state or improved with park amenities such as walking paths, benches, tables and/or an arboretum.
He said he had not seen the petition that was mentioned at the September 20th meeting and it was odd the petition was not presented to anyone on Stonecreek. He said the original 19 signatures of the people that lived on Stonecreek had drainage concerns.
Mayor Amyx asked if Hecker had already laid out a route to where the natural trail would go behind Tate’s house.
Hecker said that area had been flagged, but nothing else had been done and the area could be adjusted.
Tim Herndon, Lawrence, spoke in support of the proposed trail. He said he was privileged to have been involved in this project from its very conception when the former golf course plans that would have been the third Alvamar Golf Course were scrapped in the early to mid 1990’s. He said he worked shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Billings as they started to re-develop a plan for how this property could develop and work. He said one of things that he mentioned at the meeting with the neighbors at Langston Hughes was this trail was a trail that was conceived about a dozen years ago and the property was conveyed to the City about 10 years ago when Longleaf Subdivision was being developed was when the actual conveyance of that property occurred. He said the narrowest portion of City property was 66 feet and another area was closer to 100 feet in width. He said, as was evident at the neighborhood meeting at Langston Hughes Elementary, there was overwhelming support for this trail.
Mayor Amyx said Tate had brought up the idea of taking the trail all the way around to the conservation easement to the east. He asked if that ground was any higher than that narrow piece off Stonecreek.
Herndon said it would be difficult to tell whether the ground was few feet higher or lower. He said the physical characteristics were very similar as a low lying area. He said it was generally un-developable for streets and houses and that was how long, linear pieces of property like this tended to occur. He said a number of streamed parks were in metro areas and ring parks that occur in the floodplain areas through major metropolitan areas where they were guaranteed to have a long strip of property that was generally otherwise un-developable. He said that was where park land and particularly trail land was most often found.
Mayor Amyx said if there was going to be periods of time where the eastern edge of the ring park might be unusable because of rain, he said they could actually start with the trail that was proposed, but if they were looking at concrete or limestone through that area, he asked if it was a better move, over the long term, to make it go further east and have a longer trail.
Herndon said it was going to be accessible by much fewer people and ultimately, as the research park continued to develop and hopefully as more businesses and light industrial and high tech facilities move in over there, there would be the day time use by business people or the employee base over there that could use it which would be counterpoint to the a.m. and p.m. use by the residents and particularly kids. He said there was an area reserved for some point in the future that could be another leg of the park.
David Corliss, City Manager, said his understanding of the area to the east was it was not available for public use. He said the conservation easement specifically stated the easement did not convey a right to public use of the greenspace nor did it convey any right of possession in the green space to the public or the grantee. He said it was a conservation easement and the property owners were not allowed to build any development on that property. He said that was the bundle of property rights the City received. The property was conserved and would be open space and greenspace, but it did not give the City the legal right to allow that area for public use.
Paula Pepin, Langston Hughes Council President, said she wanted to address Commissioner Schauner’s concern about crossing at George Williams Way which was also a huge concern for school staff, the principal, and parents. She said they were trying to find out, from a site council perspective, when a second parking lot would be built. She said there were plans, not shown right now, to add an additional parking lot just south of the current parking lot. If that parking lot was constructed, people would cross in the middle. She said if going further south with a parking lot, people probably would not go up to the roundabout. She said there were also planning maps that showed apartments at the corner of George Williams Way directly south of the school and then retail and another street that was going to go up toward the SLT which would bring in more traffic to that area. She said she thought school staff should work with David Woosley, City Traffic Engineer, to look at traffic calming or some other way to get kids safely across.
She said from the perspective of the park, the park was something she was very passionate about in speaking for the kids and future kids. She said there were 350 children in the elementary school and the school would eventually hold 500 children, but there was no park space in that area. She said they really needed the entire path. Parents would make decisions based on what they felt comfortable with. If a parent did not think their 10 year old should be walking behind a wooded place, then that parent would say “no”, but others might feel comfortable with that situation. She said there was a lot of talk of safety issues and some of that talk was to try and make people fear the trail should not be built because they might be bit by snakes or attacked by predators. She said if they could focus on the good parts the park would do for the community and West Lawrence, it would eventually be a jewel for their neighborhood. She said she hoped the City Commission would go forward with this plan.
Alan Cowles, West Lawrence Neighborhood Association, said this was one of the most popular projects his neighbors had worked on. He said in 2000 the first petition that came around to their door was a petition in favor of parks. The 400 signatures on the petition had a big emphasis on the completion of the entire ring trail. He said he guessed the households in favor of the park were in the 90% to 95% range. He said he and Susan Chi walked through the contested area, between Waverly and Stonecreek after the soaking rain and said there was not enough mud on his boots to clean his boots off. He said he did not think the water in that area was much of a problem. He said in looking at some aerial photographs, at one time there were a farm pond in that area and he had seen remnants of a dam and thought it was part of the reason why it was marshy. He said one of the things that could be done was to simply take some of the old farm pond dam which would clear up some of the drainage issues the Tate’s and other neighbors were concerned about. He said this was not a suggestion to get the Corps of Engineers to do one of their jobs, but simply turn that area into its original state.
He said as far as crossing those streams, they noted they could all be crossed with step stones, although eventually they would want to have a couple bridges. The longest one was 10 feet long and the deepest channel to cross was 5 feet deep. The water was cut 10-15 feet deep in a short channel in what used to be the farm pond dam, but it was not significant because they could walk parallel to it.
He said Police Chief Ron Olin indicated that crime in the suburban parts of Lawrence was virtually non-existent. He said that was not an official position, but thought Chief Olin was trying to be honest. He said by and large he thought it was a highly overrated problem, but thought that parents always wanted to be alert.
He said the plans that DeVictor had come up with was a very good compromise between all the possibilities and distributed the currently available funds in a very reasonable way between trails and playgrounds. He thought it was a great project and recommended the City Commission’s passage on those plans.
Commissioner Highberger said he supported the plan as presented. He said he understood Tate’s concern, but understood they could not use that conservation easement for additional trail. He said he could not see many kids using that part of the trail to get to school. As far as flooding, if looking around at this City’s park system, there were other parts of that park system that were under water after heavy rain. He said as Herndon pointed out, their parks were coming from floodways and served a dual purpose of being park lands and storm water control the rest of the time, but did not see that as a concern in moving forward. He said he thought it was a great plan and thanked staff who worked hard on that plan.
Commissioner Schauner said he thought he attended all of the meetings on this item and thought there were some legitimate concerns about flooding in the area. He said he did not know if those areas necessarily had a direct impact on the ability to do this trail. He said he thought the trail and playground would serve a useful purpose. The concern he had was rather than do this plan in stages, he appreciated the idea of putting this together as a package and completed as physically achievable. He said he thought they were going to see more rooftops in the area along with more children. He said he was in favor of moving forward with the plan. He said he was enamored by Tate’s original idea about moving this further to the east, but in looking at the conservation easement, it appeared pretty clear the easement granted would not permit public access, so he did not think they could build a trail at that location. He thought that would be a good alternative in some ways, but under the facts today, it was not going to be a viable option. He said he would encourage Parks and Recreation, as he thought they had already indicated, to leave every tree possible and thought it was an important ingredient to maintaining the ground as well as providing additional interest along the trail. He said he would support the plan as presented and hoped they could finish the plan as quickly as possible.
Vice Mayor Hack said this process had been a collaborative process with neighbors and City staff. She said stepping stones were great, the bridge was even better, and ultimately something like that would be looked at, but right now a trail was needed for connectivity to some of those neighborhoods and the park itself. She said she was excited about the plan and wished they had a lot more money to put into the plan right now. She said she supported the plan as presented.
Commissioner Rundle said he echoed the Commissioners thanks to staff and people who put so much time into this plan. He said he was also very supportive and thought the concerns expressed were well documented and thought staff, the Commissioners, and neighbors were going to be ready to listen to any problems that would come up as this plan went along. He said it was long overdue and was glad they were getting that need met.
Commissioner Amyx said he had not been very supportive of this project to date and wondered whether this plan should be placed ahead of other Parks and Recreation plans. He said staff had done an excellent job trying to make sure every tree was conserved. He said Tate’s concern about people walking through yards, to the site, was important and needed to be addressed. He said from the Naismith Park area, he had not heard a lot of complaints from the neighbors. He said he also shared Tate’s concern about that area being the best use of that property. He said anytime a trail was put in an area that was going to flood, he guaranteed it would flood. He said the City’s investment in that particular area was minimal and would be maintained as a natural trail. He said ultimately, it was the best use and there was a plan that would have little effect on the neighbors. He said he thought the plan should proceed and thanked staff for all their efforts on the plan. He asked staff to continue to work with the neighbors to save as many of those trees through that area because the area was a natural buffer.
Commissioner Rundle said the Mayor had some experience with this type of issue through Prairie Park.
Moved by Hack, seconded by Highberger, to authorize staff to proceed with Phase I Improvements. Motion carried unanimously. (18)
Consider the following items related to proposed development at the northwest corner of 6th Street and Wakarusa.
a) Consider adopting findings of fact, approving rezoning requests, and authorize drafting of ordinances for placement on future agenda:
Z-06-16A-06: A request to rezone a tract of land approximately 2.21 acres from PRD-2 (Planned Residential Development) to PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with revised restrictions), located at the intersection of 6th Street and Wakarusa, North side of Highway 40.
Z-06-16B-06: A request to rezone a tract of land approximately 15.8 acres, from PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with limited uses) to PCD-2 (Planned Commercial Development with revised use restrictions), located at the intersection of 6th Street and Wakarusa, North side of Highway 40.
b) Consider, subject to conditions and use restrictions, PDP-06-06-06, a Preliminary Development Plan for Wal-Mart includes approximately 17.98 acres, located at the NW intersection of 6th Street and Wakarusa Drive. The plan proposes approximately 121,500 square feet of commercial development.
Lisa Pool, Planner, presented the staff report. She said the PRD-2 zoning was needed to allow for commercial space with commercial space limitations. The PCD-2 rezoning from the existing PCD-2 was needed to allow for revised commercial space limitations and that property would include the four pad site buildings and the Wal-Mart building. The total commercial retail space was limited to 128,000 square feet, which included the garden space limitation of 6,500 square feet and a feature building space limitation of 99,990 square feet. The permitted uses for both of those districts had not been altered from the current list of permitted uses for the PCD-2 portion of the site.
She said concerning the preliminary development plan portion of the applications, the project did include one feature building and four pad site buildings. The feature building comprised 99,840 square feet, which was the Wal-Mart store, and 6,147 square feet for the garden center. Each pad site building would include one of the listed PCD-2 uses, and those uses had not been identified. Those buildings would comprise 5,000, 7,300, 7,400 and 1,800 square feet each with a total of 21,500 square feet.
In working with the applicant on the lay out of the site and building aesthetics, staff had done some research in other communities and she provided a list of those communities.
In looking at the performance of the plan with the Comprehensive Plan and the Area Plans, the commercial development was noted as a proposed land use for the subject corner in the Northwest Plan. The area plan for the intersection stated the subject corner was the most appropriate corner at the intersection for commercial development of a retail focus.
Regarding the previous action at the Planning Commission meeting on August 30th, the Planning Commission recommended approval of both rezoning applications and those were both a 6 – 4 vote. The Planning Commission vote on the preliminary development plan was a 5–5 vote which meant the motion failed, thus resulting in a recommendation for denial.
She said since the Planning Commission meeting, the applicant had worked with staff to revise the development plan to essentially meet the conditions of approval and in some cases alternate provisions had been utilized to fulfill the conditions due to various reasons within the site layout. Many of the conditions of approval were related to conformance of the plan with the commercial design guidelines and the plan did meet many of those standards, especially related to pedestrian connectivity, excess landscaping, retention of existing trees and vegetation, screening of a loading dock, and many other items she had listed. She said it was also important to note that with implementation of the commercial design guidelines it had definitely been a balancing act of weighing the standards against each other to see what worked for particular sites. It was also important to note that all the studies associated with the plan had been approved by staff. Some of those studies were in a state of flux at the Planning Commission meeting and they had since worked with staff to get those issues resolved.
She showed a slide of the building elevation at the front and it showed they used a variety of building materials and architectural details to break up the massing of the building. She showed two other slides that outlined the materials used in the exterior of the building, and the materials did meet the 30% minimum requirement. The spirit of that requirement was to use native building materials. She said they were using synthetic slate roofing, wood brackets, quick brick, and synthetic stone venire and the applicant could speak to why those sources of synthetic materials had been used, but staff felt those materials met the spirit and intent of that particular requirement.
She said the City Commission’s action would be one of the following:
● If the City Commission approves the Planning Commission action of denial, a majority vote of the City Commission is required;
● If the City Commission seeks to override the Planning Commission action of denial and approve the development plan as submitted, a super-majority (4 or more) vote of the City Commission is required; or
● If the City Commission seeks to return the development plan, with comments, to the Planning Commission, a majority vote of the City Commission is required.
She said since the Planning Commission meeting, the applicant had submitted a rezoning application for a corner lot which was currently zoned Planned Residential District and they were proposing to rezone it to Open Space, which was a new district in the new code and they would utilize that lot for above ground detention where the original plan they submitted showed an underground detention area. If the rezoning requests were approved, they would show the layout in its entirety on the final development plan.
Mayor Amyx asked how much different was this development plan from the plan the Planning Commission reviewed.
Pool said staff would not say there were significant differences. A few differences to note would be an additional sidewalk portion along the east side; the applicant had also removed some parking and added some green space; and took 35 parking spaces and included pervious pavement, or green pavers.
Mayor Amyx asked if the addition of the rezoning for the open space was a major change to the entire plan.
Pool said staff saw it as a significant change in the fact that it did increase their pervious surface areas of change in the detention. The City Storm Water Engineer had actually already approved a revised drainage study. She said staff thought the preliminary development plan did not need to show that lot with the above ground detention, but the final development plan would.
Mayor Amyx asked Pool if she believed that lot and the request to change to Open Space should be considered as part of the entire development plan.
Pool said it would perhaps help the applicant’s case for the Planning Commission to see that additional green space.
Mayor Amyx said his main concern was that he wanted to make sure the item that had been sent to the City Commission was exactly what the Planning Commission saw with a 5–5 vote, and was the plan the City Commission was going to review at this time.
Pool said this plan did not include that lot with the Open Space or the above ground detention, so they were not considering that as part of this plan, so it was essentially the same plan.
Mayor Amyx asked when the rezoning for the Open Space would be considered.
Pool said that rezoning was scheduled for the mid November Planning Commission meeting.
Commissioner Schauner asked if the Retail Impact Analysis was submitted in final form.
Pool said the applicant’s retail market study, yes.
Commissioner Schauner asked if it was sent in final form to the Planning Commission.
Pool said the Planning Commission did not see the actual study.
Vice Mayor Hack said Commissioner Schauner was asking about the big study and it had not gone to the Planning Commission, but Pool was saying that a retail study that staff signed off on, was part of staff’s recommendation.
Pool said correct, the applicant was required to submit a retail market study for this particular project and most recently that was submitted to Planning Staff in its final form so they were able to give the okay for this particular project.
Commissioner Schauner asked what staff looked at when staff gave the final okay for that project.
Amy Miller, Planner, said staff compared the market study that was submitted by the applicant to the standards that were outlined in Horizon 2020, Chapter 6. specifically policy 3.11.
Commissioner Schauner asked about staff’s conclusion.
Miller said the conclusion, based on the applicant’s numbers, was that it did not push the vacancy rate of the retail market for the entire city above 8%.
Commissioner Highberger asked if Pool knew the required number of parking spaces for that project and the number provided in the current version of the plan.
Pool said she could get that information.
Commissioner Highberger said his understanding of the Commercial Design Guidelines was they were encouraging to create more of a street front, to create a line of site at the street level. He said the design they were looking at now had two very small buildings at the corners, which was good, but the bulk of the building was set back several hundred feet from the street. He asked if Pool could explain how that met the Commercial Design Guidelines.
Pool said the Commercial Design Guidelines were guidelines and the review was a balancing act. She said for this particular site, staff also looked at a portion of the guidelines that talked about specifically bringing the out lot and the pad site buildings up to the corners and the street frontage. She said staff felt as if the applicant did that effectively in three locations. As far as bringing the Wal-Mart store up to the front of the street, she said sometimes bringing a big box to the frontage of a principal arterial might work against the pedestrianism that they were trying to create. She said within the context of the intersection and its surroundings, staff did not feel it was necessarily appropriate for this particular project.
Commissioner Schauner said when the City Commission considered the Bauer Farm Project, he remembered one of the selling points of that proposal was that it would be very near the street, a significantly shorter setback than had previously been required along 6th, and that was part of the walk-ability issue, the pedestrian scale and so forth. He asked how that was different than this project.
Pool said she was not the principal planner on that particular project. However, she had looked at those plans and reviewed the minutes and staff reports for that plan. She said it was a different project as a whole. It was a mixed use project; there was not a big box per se that had been brought to the street. The buildings that were along the street frontage in that case were smaller in scale as a whole and they did not get the continuous line of a 99,000 square foot building.
Commissioner Schauner said if he understood, it was staff’s belief that having this building set back from 6th created a more walkable, pedestrian friendly environment than one that would bring that building closer to the street.
Pool said where the main drive aisles were, on this particular plan, needed to be looked at. The drive aisle that went right across the front of the Wal-Mart store did not connect with Congressional and it was not the main access point for vehicles entering and exiting the site, therefore creating a more pedestrian friendly environment within the site itself and there were three connections out to 6th Street.
Commissioner Schauner asked what was considered the main access point to this parking lot.
Pool pointed out points along Overland Drive and Wakarusa Drive.
Vice Mayor Hack asked Pool to walk through the amount of open spaces between the curb on 6th or Highway 40 and where the parking lot and berm started to visualize that open space.
Pool said it was difficult to see on the plan because of the scale, but there was a 50 foot KDOT and utility easement that started in the back of the curb line, right-of-way. In another portion were the green pavers and the 35 parking spaces, the drive aisle, and the applicant had done a nice job of grouping some islands to make larger islands of green space. She said right along the frontage was a berm with quite a few street trees, a hedge row, and the parking lot sloped down.
Vice Mayor Hack said a person would not be looking right into the parking lot.
Pool said that was correct.
Mayor Amyx asked if that parking lot actually had been lowered on the south end.
Pool said she would have to defer that question to the applicant.
Mayor Amyx said from 6th Street as one would drive by, coming through the intersection, would they see half the parking, a third of the parking lot, or all of the parking lot with the berm.
Pool said the applicant had some nice visuals to show what the area would look like with the landscaping.
Mayor Amyx asked if it was the intent of the Commission to make a decision on it this item at this time, or was this item going to be sent back to the Planning Commission with a list of items to consider including the part of the development plan which was the stormwater area to the north so the City Commission had the entire plan. He said this was the first time since he had been on the Commission they had an opportunity to discuss this specific plan. He said he would like some feedback before going forward with a public hearing. He said he wanted to make sure the plan that was before the City Commission this evening was the plan the Planning Commission actually voted on for recommendation to this body. He said if it was the intent of the City Commission to send this plan back, then this issue needed to be addressed now.
Commissioner Rundle said that was one of the options, but the City Commission would not be able to say, until they had the hearing. He said he was willing to listen to other ideas.
Mayor Amyx asked if this plan was substantially different enough and did the City Commission believe this was what the Planning Commission had sent the City Commission, or did the Planning Commission need another review of this plan.
Commissioner Schauner said if the question was if he felt comfortable in voting to approve this plan tonight based on the fact the Planning Commission had not even seen it, his answer would be “no.” He said he agreed with Commissioner Rundle that he would like to hear other ideas. He said he was not really interested in two or three public hearings on this, but on the other hand he thought it was an item that was so significant for the community, that he was more than willing to sit through a couple public hearings in order to make the best possible decision, gathering as many facts as he could. He said perhaps a public hearing tonight was in their long term best interest on this issue.
Mayor Amyx said he would suggest the applicant give his presentation and take one hour of public comment. He said at that point, the City Commission would decide whether or not to proceed or if the item would be sent back to the Planning Commission.
Todd Thompson, Attorney on behalf of Wal-Mart, said he would like to discuss a couple of procedural issues at the outset. He said he thought it was too complicated to just refer to this as just “this item.” He said there were three items, two items which were recommended for approval by the Planning Commission. He said the third item, which was the plan itself, he wanted to discuss before he went further into discussions. He said it looked essentially like what the City Commission was seeing. It would be a misconception to believe the Planning Commissioners had a completely different layout or a substantially different layout presented to them. He asked if 35 of the parking spaces been designated to be pervious since the Planning Commission looked at it. He said yes. He asked if there had been some additional shrubbery added in a few places. He said yes. He asked if there had been a change of a sidewalk here or there. He said yes. He said that was substantially the plan the Planning Commission had and it was a 5 – 5 tie when they considered the plan. He said what they did have were about two or three dozen conditions recommended by staff on the plan and conditions were such things as additional shrubbery, location of the sidewalk, and so forth. He said every single one of those conditions had been removed and satisfied by those revisions to the plan. He said the Planning Commission saw a plan with a number of conditions. He said when the plan went back, as they had asked the City Commission to send the plan back, the Planning Commission would see a plan in which all of those conditions were resolved. He said they believed that would be more than enough to pick up an additional vote or two and get a favorable recommendation from the Planning Commission. He said it was a 5 – 5 tie, even with several dozen conditions attached.
He said there were the two zoning items, which were recommended for approval, and a tie vote on the development plan, which statutorily was to be treated as a recommendation for denial. In dealing with two recommendations for approval and one recommendation for denial, the City Commission had a different charge under the statute as to how they dealt with those recommendations. If the City Commission was going to override the recommendations for approval of the two zonings, they would need to override those recommendations by a four to one vote. He said by a 3–2 vote, the City Commission could send those zonings back to ask the Planning Commission to reconsider those recommendations because the City Commission did not like what the Planning Commission did and state why the City Commission did not like the recommendations. He said that was not what they wanted the City Commission to do, but to consider the zoning requests as the Planning Commission and staff considered those rezonings. They wanted the City Commission to approve those two rezoning requests.
He said one of the conditions of each of those two rezoning requests was the ultimate approval of a development plan. He said they had taken care of the rezoning and it would not go any farther unless a plan was approved. He said in his letter to the City Commission several weeks ago, he asked the City Commission to send the plan back because they now had taken care of all of those conditions and would like the Planning Commissioners to take a look at the plan that was now free of conditions and had been enhanced in many ways since they looked at the plan. He said not huge, substantial material ways, but in lots of smaller ways.
He said their request was the City Commission approve the two rezoning requests after tonight’s public hearing and send the development plan back and ask the Planning Commissioners to take a look at the plan again now that all of the conditions were removed. He said the plan would come back to the City Commission in late November or early December for final consideration.
He said the issue of another rezoning application came up regarding some open space on the northwest corner of this parcel. He asked the City Commission not to punish them for making that application. He said this had been a long and at times strained process to get where they were. He said in what they felt was an extreme show of good faith, Wal-Mart had obtained the ability to acquire that piece of ground and was offering to rezone it to Open Space and use it for the detention. He said that would ultimately reduce the traffic in the area because that was zoned before for apartments. He said there would be no traffic generated by that piece of ground and there would be a lot more green space and pervious surface. He said that issue was not before the City Commission at this time. He said the plan they were asking the City Commission to send back to the Planning Commission stated it could go forward with the underground detention exactly as designed.
He said he did not think they wanted to get off track and consider something that was not before the City Commission. He asked the City Commission to look at this plan as it was presented and then send it back to the Planning Commission and ask them to take another look at the plan. He said he would first like the City Commission to look at the rezoning issues and approve those just as staff and as the Planning Commission recommended they do.
He said he submitted an extensive letter because he knew that time was an issue. He said they were at the Planning Commission for five hours. He said he tried to expedite his presentation tonight by submitting a lot of the plan to the City Commission in writing. Nevertheless he said he wanted to highlight a few points he thought were extremely important.
He said this City Commission, with David Dunfield instead of Mayor Amyx, voted two years ago to rezone this corner for 154,000 square feet of commercial space. He said they were before the City Commission asking that be reduced from 154,000 to 128,000. He said that was the issue presented to the City Commission on the rezonings. In addition, the piece of ground that was being rezoned along Overland was being rezoned so they could take the truck dock and basically hide it. He said it would be completely bermed so that when one would go by on Overland Drive, they would not see the truck dock. He said they could not do that without that additional piece of ground which was the detention before and they were going to put the detention underground. He said that was the reason for additional ground being involved, but it ended up being more green space and the purpose of it was to allow them to completely screen the loading dock. He said that was something that was not possible if the building was located up on 6th Street. He said they had a reduction from either the 154,100 square feet of zoning that was in place and in litigation or the 154,000 square feet of commercial zoning the City Commission approved just a couple of years ago when Commissioner Dunfield was part of the Commission.
In addition, the layout or plan differed dramatically from the plan that was approved four years ago. He said the driveway, at one time, came straight across the front of the building. It entered on the west side off of Congressional and shot straight across, and was changed to defuse the traffic through the parking lot so that when one would come out of the building would not be confronted with the main thoroughfare of the shopping center, which happened at Target and the current Wal-Mart, which used to be done a lot, but was changed and was one of the benefits of that revised layout. He said they had brought the out buildings all the way to the corner.
Further, the number of trees in this particular plan was substantially increased. He said it was several times over what was required by code and also increased from what was in the previous plan. The retaining walls had been added on the west side in the back and also in the front, south, side for the purpose of allowing some berming and hiding of the parking. The parking lot was 7 feet below the level of 6th Street and the pavement of the parking lot of the south end actually dipped in the middle and went two more feet down as it dipped to the collector area for stormwater which was in the middle. He said the parking lot had been lowered and extra landscaping added for screening the vehicles. He said the building itself had been enhanced in terms of the variety of materials. He said there was a suggestion they would talk to the City Commission about the synthetic slate being used for the shingles. He pointed out the City made that same choice when it improved the Airport. The City used the synthetic like shingles on the Airport because of cost and durability and that was a prudent decision.
As for other materials, Thompson said they increased the percentage of brick from when this plan was presented to the Planning Commission. He said it had brick before and it had a little more brick now to meet the 30% native materials. He said City staff advised them it was one of the materials that were considered native under the new code. He said they increased those materials to get it up over the 30% figure.
He said those were some highlights from the plan. From a zoning perspective, they were asking the City Commission to reduce the number of square feet of commercial zoning on this corner which reduced traffic. He said he hoped the City Commission would approve that and then send the plan back.
Ray Frankenberg, Site Engineer, said there were changes on this plan from the plan that was shown at the Planning Commission. He said they thought they were trying to follow the new urbanism approach by placing a building in a different location which was what they thought the City Commission was looking for by being pedestrian friendly and placing a building at that location. He said in discussions with City staff and at the Planning Commission meeting, they moved that building. He said they also took another building and moved it on the street, eliminating a couple parking spaces and putting it there so it was right on the street front. He said those changes had been made as a result of working through the conditions that staff had at the Planning Commission.
He said regarding how their project differed from Bauer Farms project and why they did not want such a large building near the street was that Bauer Farms did not have one large building. He said if they wanted to look into the future saying this all might change and there would be other buildings at that location, having this large of a square footage sitting in the back left them with the opportunity with that frontage road to move back and create a city street connected through to the Bauer Farms area and to the residential area to the west, allowing buildings to come up along with their fronts or backs right along 6th Street. He said it worked into that approach, but they had a much larger building and one reason they could not just put the building on the street.
He said they were able to put, at staff’s guidance and direction, parking on three sides of the building and keep the rear used for a service entrance, which was a much safer way for the citizens and for their customers to get in and out of the site and keep them separated from the commercial access and not have them walk through the trucks as opposed to having parking on that fourth side.
He said the question was asked how much parking was visible from 6th Street. He said they did have berms on those islands that would be three feet tall. He said 6th Street actually fell three feet so it ranged between seven and five feet at the lowest point, but they did have a berm all along 6th Street that built up between two and three feet. He said there were some spots where the change from the height of the berm where the row of evergreen shrubs were located, was as much as seven, eight and even nine feet higher than the pervious parking they put in. He said there was a second layer of berming and large islands before one would get to the main parking, helping to split it up and diminish the view of parked cars from the street.
He said some of the items were changes as a result of the conditions from City staff and some changes came about as a result of the discussion the night of the Planning Commission meeting.
He pointed out an area that was all a berm, with a 3–1 slope. He said from the street all they were going to see was a grass and landscaped berm. He said there was a 13 foot tall wall from the truck maneuvering area side. He said when the trucks were in there pulling around, they were behind a wall that was 13 feet high, which was the legal height limit for a truck. He said their trucks were going to be less than 13 feet high and as much as 20 feet lower than the wall on Overland Drive, so there was no way of seeing their service area behind the building.
He also noted that Wal-Mart right now was very big on sustainability. He said it was something that came out a year ago this October. The CEO started a push that pushed Wal-Mart to be sustainable. He said the box culverts and all the concrete in them were not sustainable and it took green house gases to create that concrete and build those boxes, where as putting it in an open area created an area that produced oxygen forever, the trees, grasses and so forth.
He also noted the islands that were added as a result of staff comments. He said four islands were added and there was landscaping added to another island that had a light in it and low level landscaping. He said benches were also added and pedestrian lighting through out as a result of staff comments.
He also spoke briefly about the synthetic native materials. He said what they were trying to use was the synthetic slate shingles and the synthetic stone. He said it was a much more long term material. He said they would not have the limestone rotting out with freeze thaw cycles and so forth. He said it was a material that would last and keep its appearance much longer than if they had used the native slate. He said if they had hail or storms on a slate roof, there were a lot of repair issues and it was hard to make them look exactly like they looked before they were repaired. He said synthetics like they used on the roof of the airport building lasted much longer, looked better, and retained their appearance.
Thompson said in addition to the quantity of landscaping, Wal-mart had agreed to purchase trees from Olathe which were far more mature than was required by City Code. The trees would range from 4–10 inches in caliper size and the City regulations required 2½ inches. He said this was a cost factor and an effort to show good faith that Wal-Mart had gone out and purchased those trees. He said those trees had already been tagged and reserved if this project was approved, which they thought it should, then those trees would be brought over and planted. He said it would look more mature and provide more screening much more quickly than a brand new development typically would have. He said in addition to that, the new code also required a request that as many existing trees on site as possible could be retained or saved and they also agreed with that. He said there were several really nice trees on site that would be saved. There was a hedgerow out there that created what they referred to as toothpick trees which were tall and narrow and not much green on those trees, which were difficult to save. He said some of those would be used, but many of those types of trees would not. He said a significant number of trees would be saved on site.
Mayor Amyx asked Thompson if he had additional information to present.
Thompson said he would refer the City Commission to his previously submitted letter and written submittals. He said they would remain available to respond to any questions and would like a little bit of time for rebuttal at the conclusion of the public comment.
Mayor Amyx called for public comment. He asked the public to limit their comments to the rezoning and to the development plan that was before them. He said he believed that as many of them know, there were legal matters around this issue and asked that everyone speak to only the rezonings and the development plan.
Kirk McClure, Lawrence, spoke about the market impact analysis. He said in the context of zoning what happened way too often in zoning was they get narrowed down to the issues of height, bulk, and use, but zoning was much more than that. Most importantly, for this particular project, it was one of timing. One of the big issues and the reason they furthered the notion of market impact analysis was to answer the question, could the City absorb this space without harm to the remainder of the community. When looking at the market analysis, the answer was clearly no. He said he had looked at this market analysis and other multiple analyses performed over the years.
He said in 2003 the market analysis was submitted on the project and was flawed at the time. The applicant withdrew the market analysis and acknowledged that error. He said it came back recently with the same error. He said it claimed that it did not, but in fact the error was still there. He said they had failed to recognize the effect of inflation on the retail sales level that caused them to grossly exaggerate the amount of increase in retail sales.
McClure said from 1990–2005, the annual growth in retail spending came out to an annualized rate of 1.6% per year. The growth in retail space in 1990–2005 was 4.1% per year. That meant the amount of retail space had grown at 2½ times the rate of growth of retail spending which was a recipe for a Topeka-like situation and having an extremely overbuilt community which was what Lawrence had now. He said Lawrence could not absorb the new space at this time. If, in fact, they built this space they would not be absorbing any new demand. He said there was no latent demand out there. He said building a Wal-Mart did not produce more people, more income, or made people change their spending habits, it simply said the finite amount of retail spending out there would now be spread even more thinly. He said what that meant in very direct terms was, when they open Wal-Mart, a comparable amount of space would go vacant elsewhere in the community, causing deterioration and causing blight in this community. He said communities throughout the nation had learned to monitor their retail market and with that they could better achieve their planning goals. He said Lawrence was now dangerously overbuilt and approving those rezonings and this development plan would only further that problem.
Gwen Klingenberg, Lawrence, said she would like to take the time to correct some mistakes. She said the TransSystems letter indicated the following: “The point is that if delays are high for traffic turning left out of the site at a particular drive, the driver may use another exit or turn right and follow that route.” She said there was so much traffic on 6th Street that the Wal-Mart traffic was heading north to nowhere because the town was south and east of this corner. She said they were looking at an extremely large traffic generating business. She produced a draft document from the Department of Transportation regarding the kinds of numbers they were looking at and the numbers used for trip generation for Wal-Mart was not accurate. She asked if they would be looking at 150,000 cars a day, traveling across the front of the high school. She said sooner or later that traffic would need to come down 6th Street to get across 6th Street and asked if they would travel through another neighborhood to go down to Monterey Way.
The CORSIM, which was a KDOT study of the 6th Street corridor, had several points, but she only read the top five.
1. Traffic volumes along city streets within the corridor would significantly increase. This would occur as motorists seek alternative routes to avoid congestion on US 40.
2. People waiting to shop at existing stores located at US 40 and Wakarusa Drive will experience difficulty entering and exiting the parking areas for these businesses. Access to and from the proposed commercial development along US 40 likely would be even more difficult.
3. There were three schools within the corridors; students walking or biking to and from Free State, Langston Hughes, Quail Run Elementary, would likely experience safety issues as development occurred during the high traffic volumes in the corridor.
4. We believe the network would be even more congested over time as background traffic continued to grow.
5. Scenario 1: A build out of everything that every person who was going to build on property along 6th Street had told KDOT they were wanting
Scenario 2: This reduced the amount of retail to close to what was permitted in the corridor based on adopted land use plans.
She said this approach was agreed to by the City, yet the City had agreed to every commercial development planned along 6th Street. She said Wal-Mart, as they had seen, was a very big traffic producer and was a regional type business. Its traffic producing numbers were inappropriate in a community commercial center. As traffic had been the concern of the neighborhood surrounding this corner, the TIS only confirmed that traffic from Wal-Mart development was excessive and they were well aware of it.
She said she would spare them some time because the applicant had agreed this plan was not significantly different to go back to the Planning Commission. However, in looking at the preliminary plan documents, what they were talking about were legal dimensions, topography, streets, width, grade, but the letter that was sent out referred to daylight harvesting, energy, management, T8 fluorescent lights, low mercury which were all things that had nothing to do with the preliminary plan.
The staff report stated: “It was important to note that the subject application was submitted prior to the July 25 adoptions of guidelines; therefore, the applicant was not required to comply with all of the standards.” The legal agreement stated: “The parties agree the project to be defined within the application shall incorporate enhanced design and construction standards at a level such that the physical appearance and layout of the site and the project will be of high quality and in keeping with the highest levels of aesthetics and design development by Wal-Mart in other locations, and in keeping with and consistent with the design standards of the City.”
She said they were looking for a sense of place, designing a pedestrian scale, creating visual interest on site plan, minimize the development’s impact on adjacent development with properly sited buildings, ensure the site circulation promoted contiguous, efficient and safe pedestrian and vehicle circulation, ensure that parking area provided safe and efficient access to buildings, and buildings do not dominate the overall site. She said streetscapes and neighborhood transitions were usually heavily landscaped buffered areas. Some of the unintended results of this included excessive land consumption, a lack of pedestrian and vehicle accessibility. Accordingly, the following design standards and guidelines were established to ensure that new commercial developments were woven into the physical fabric of the community and surrounding neighborhoods by recommending that building placement and orientation provided compatible transitioning techniques to minimize adverse impact such as noise, odor, light and glare.
The standards and guidelines also included the concept that streetscapes were the community’s most visible public space. Streets played a pivotal role in determining both residents’ and visitors’ experiences to help to define the character of community. The standards and guidelines recommended that buildings within new retail development, especially outlying and pad site buildings, be pulled forward to define the edges of public streets and internal private drives.
The letter that came from Chris Clark, Landscaper for Wal-mart, stated focal points and key entries would be heavily landscaped to create a special area as one entered the project. However, the Community Design Manual under Neighborhood Compatibility stated the combination of architectural transition, green open space transitions, and open compatibly standards should work to reduce the need for more intensive landscaping and screening transitions, but yet they were very proud of all of their landscaping. Neighborhood connectivity and pedestrian connections included bicycle access into the commercial development. Furthermore, parking areas that were arranged around to the rear end side, which they had done a little of, large buildings provided safe, convenient, efficient access, reduce pedestrian and vehicle conflicts, and parking areas should be accessed by rear and/or side. She said under pedestrian access it stated to create shopping areas that were interesting to the development’s design instead of creating stand alone detached sites. It was the intent of the standard guidelines to ensure that new commercial developments were designed for pedestrians. She said there was a whole section on pedestrian circulation. It also stated that a single large dominant building mass shall be avoided, and under their architectural details, reduce mass aesthetic effects of a large building façade.
She showed the development plan from 2002 and 2003 and asked the City Commission to note the similarity to the plan the applicant presented this evening. She said Wal-Mart should take the lead in creating a design that followed the design standards and create walk ability and access ability as it was stipulated in the design standards. Bauer Farms had created a more closely acceptable design based on the design standards and Wal-Mart should, as stated in the standard, more closely follow suit to this development being a neighbor. Wal-Mart had a history of working within design standards elsewhere.
She said finally as they could note, the plan that was presented did not follow their design standards and did not keep with the highest level of aesthetics and design developed by Wal-Mart in other locations. She said this preliminary plan should be denied based on the failure to comply with the abeyance on design standards, their own designs in other locations and traffic concerns.
Klingenberg also requested the grocery store be removed as an approved use. She said they should not send it back to the Planning Commission because all they will get was what they saw. She said they should deny this plan. She said if they wanted to follow the City’s standards as the City Commission asked them to, and they agreed to do, they had a chance to take this bare piece of property and actually create something wonderful.
Lisa Day, Lawrence, spoke in opposition to the proposed rezoning. She said the rezoning of this area to accommodate a second Wal-Mart in Lawrence would cause problems. The West Lawrence Neighborhood members had voiced fear of traffic cutting through their neighborhoods and what about the high school. She said her daughter was no longer a student at Free State, she was a student at KU now, but she still rode her bike to Free State to visit friends. Kids ride their bikes fast and do not think about the traffic. She said that would be the first thing that would happen was someone would be racing to get to Wal-Mart to get one more item that they did not need, and end up hitting a kid. She said she had stated to this body in a prior meeting the concern of the heavy traffic and all it would take was that one time for a student to leave Free State.
She said putting in another Wal-Mart would only divide up sales of what the current store was generating and the additional Wal-Mart was not needed. Anyone in that area could simply jump on the by-pass and be at 33rd and Iowa in minutes. She said the first Wal-Mart had already been enlarged and many of them did not want another Wal-Mart in town.
There was an organization in Lawrence that was trying to get some ridiculous items put on their voting ballot that have no merit or value such as should they be in Iraq. She said she felt putting a new Wal-Mart with city wide vote on the ballot would be beneficial. She said she believed they would see a resounding no from the citizens of this city to another Wal-Mart.
She said she understood that if a plan only received three votes the plan would go back to the Planning Commission, and then back to the City Commission and it could pass with only three votes. She said with all due respect, she did not believe a simply majority of three people should be allowed to approve such a plan and implement it when it had such a tremendous affect on the entire citizenship of the city.
She said Mayor Amyx had previously stated in the Lawrence Journal World yesterday that this issue was about arrangement of buildings and those sort of items. She said they should scrap those arrangements. She said Angie Stoner, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman stated the retailer complied with the requirements and stated, “We worked very close with the City staff on this.” She said none of this guaranteed that anyone could put up a store in their town. She respectfully requested this body listen to the citizens of Lawrence, unanimously reject the plan, and not agree to the rezoning of the area for Wal-Mart.
Hubbard Collingsworth asked if someone could make a clarification about what they meant by intermodel transportation. He asked if 18 wheelers would enter and exit through the same entrance as automobile traffic. He said that was a concern because he spent 20 years in the transportation industry and would like to know what kind of truck traffic there was going to be and which way they were planning on coming into the city. He asked if traffic was going to be coming off the Turnpike at Lecompton or would traffic come off from the east side, coming down Highway 40.
He asked if the shrubbery along one area would be evergreen trees or native trees other than those trees they were going to save. He said he understood Wal-Mart’s concern about visibility at the truck loading dock and he commended them for that. He said he would like the answers from the Wal-Mart representatives regarding the intermodel transportation and the accessibility of the parking lot.
Susan Chi, Lawrence, said she was concerned about the traffic. She said in the traffic impact study report, she noticed the traffic counts were done between June 23rd and June 28th of 2006 which was after Free State High School let out for the summer, after all the track meets, the swimming meets, band concerts, plays, etc. She said also Free State High School had the open lunch period where the high school kids were driving in and out. She said it was not shown on the map and it probably should be.
She said she also noticed on the traffic impact study the garden center square footage was not included in estimating the generation of traffic and she thought it should be included.
She said the retention pond being called green space was a little bit of a misnomer and she was confused about the second action being requested talking about the Planning Commission recommending denial of the original plan that was presented. She said they heard about new things and changes that had been made since then. She said she did not know about other people, but she felt very confused as if they were asking the City Commission not to deny it, but to base part of that decision on the new information that was not presented. She said she did not understand why it was even being talked about at the meeting when that was not the question they were being asked to act on.
Allard Jongman, Lawrence, said he wanted to reiterate the concern that had been voiced by previous speakers about the impact of traffic that such a project might bring about. He said he thought anytime they would consider a project of that magnitude, traffic and safety was a major concern, but particularly in this location being so close to a high school. He said he thought the fact that it was a high school was particularly significant. He said it was not a grade school or junior high school, it was a high school that served well over 1,000 kids and those kids were between the ages of 15 and 18. That meant those kids would get their first driving experience alone driving to and from school. He said they were very inexperienced drivers and thought that was an important fact. He said if they would have told him ahead of time thinking about a project somewhere in Lawrence and it would probably significantly increase the flow of traffic by a number of 10, 100, or whatever it may be, not only that, but they were going to put it right next to an area where most of their young drivers get their first driving experience, he would say they have got to be kidding. He said it might be a nicely developed Wal-Mart, but he did not think this was the right location.
Alan Cowles, West Lawrence Neighborhood Association, said traffic was their biggest issue. He said he wanted to remind everyone that about 40,000 people a day experience the frustrations of 23rd Street around Louisiana and Iowa. The traffic study completed about a year ago predicted there would be 35 minute traffic transits between Folks and K-10 and nothing could be done.
He said the second issue was grocery sales. He said he knew their Commissioners were generally reluctant to try to tell stores exactly what to sell, which made sense in general, but when there was an out of balance sort of situation, he thought it was reasonable for their Commissioners to put restrictions on things. He said most of the grocery stores in Lawrence were west of Massachusetts and there was a particular concentration of grocery stores on 6th Street. The big grocery bag in Lawrence was leaning way to the northwest and he thought it was very appropriate to try to do something about this by restricting grocery sales at Wal-Mart. He said Dillon’s h