Meeting Information
-Convene
-The Pledge of Allegiance
-Consider approval of minutes for April 9 and April 23, 2007
CONSENT AGENDA
(1) (a) Consider approval of Commission Orders
REGULAR AGENDA
Planning Item:
(2) Planning Item: CUP-02-02-07: Conditional Use Permit for a grass airstrip, located at 593 E 1250 Road, Baldwin City. Submitted by James and Barbara Butell, property owners of record. (Mary Miller is the Planner)
(3) ECO2 report of Commission Final Plan (Larry McElwain and Trudy Rice)
(4) Receive presentation about proposed Neighborhood Revitalization project in east Lawrence Project and set date for public hearing (Bo Harris)
(5) Consider Petition for Approval of attachment of lands to Rural Water District No. 2, Douglas County, Kansas (Quentin Kurtz, attorney representing RWD#2)
(6) Discuss project options for inclusion in the 2008-2012 five-year plan for federally funded projects (Keith Browning)
(7) Receive and review draft text amendments to Subdivision Regulations created to respond to issues raised in March 1 workshop with city/county staff. Recommended Action: Initiative of draft amendments or revise and initiative amendments for Public Hearing at Lawrence/Douglas County Planning Commission meeting in June.(Linda Finger)
(8) Other Business
(a) Consider approval of Accounts Payable (if necessary)
(b) Appointments
(c) Miscellaneous
(d) Public Comment
(9) Adjourn
Johnson called the meeting to order at 6:35 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 with all members present. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
McElhaney moved to approve the minutes of April 9 and April 23, 2007. The motion was seconded by Johnson and carried unanimously.
CONSENT AGENDA 05-02-07
Jones moved approval of the following Consent Agenda:
► Commission Orders No. 07-124 (on file in the office of the County Clerk);
The motion was seconded by Johnson and carried unanimously.
PLANNING 05-02-07
Mary Miller, Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Department, presented the Board with item CUP-02-02-07 for a Conditional Use Permit for a grass airstrip, located at 593 E 1250 Road in Baldwin City, Kansas. The application was submitted by James and Barbara Butell, property owners of record. The property is approximately 98 acres in size. The airstrip has been in operation since 1999. The airstrip is located away from existing structures and lies approximately 380' to the west of, and parallel to, Highway 59. The applicant was unaware a Conditional Use Permit was required at the time he constructed the airstrip. He submitted a Conditional Use Permit application when he was notified of the requirement by the Douglas County Zoning and Codes office. Approval of the request would bring the existing airstrip into compliance with the Douglas County Zoning Regulations.
Staff recommends approval of the CUP-02-02-07 for a grass airstrip and forwarding it to the County Commission with recommendation for approval based upon the following findings of fact:
Zoning and land uses of properties nearby. The property is located to the west of E1250 Rd (Hwy 59) and north of N550 Rd. The area and the surrounding area are zoned for agricultural use. The property is in terraced grassland and the only development on the property is a 7680 sq. ft. hangar and a 2100' grass airstrip. Land use of nearby property is agricultural and rural residential.
Character of the area. This is a rural area with agricultural land uses and scattered rural residences. Highway 59 is adjacent to the property on the east.
Suitability of subject property for the uses to which it has been restricted. A Conditional Use Permit (CUP) d s not change the base, underlying zoning. The suitability of the property for agricultural or rural residential use will not be altered. The 97.54-acre property is developed with an airplane hangar and a grass airstrip. The A District allows numerous uses, including agricultural uses and single-family dwellings. This property is suitable for most of the uses permitted in the A zoning district.
Length of time subject property has remained vacant as zoned.
Extent to which approving the rezoning will detrimentally affect nearby properties. County Zoning Regulations were adopted in 1966; this property has been zoned "A (Agricultural)" since that adoption. The property was developed with a hanger and grass airstrip in 1999. There is not other development on the property.
Extent to which removal of restrictions will detrimentally affect nearby property. The airstrip is located away from structures or residences. Given the lack of public comment or complaints regarding this airstrip and its distance from other structures or development there should be no negative public impact associated with the approval of this CUP.
Relative gain to the public health, safety and welfare by the destruction of the value of the petitioner's property as compared to the hardship imposed upon the individual landowners. The public health, safety and welfare would not be significantly impacted by either the approval or denial of this CUP request. The denial of the request would create a hardship for the applicant in that it would prevent them from using the property as a landing strip or hangar.
Conformance with the Comprehensive Plan. Horizon 2020 d s not directly address the issuances of CUPs or private landing strips. The comprehensive plan d s discuss Lawrence Municipal Airport and the need to keep its airspace free from encroachment. This private airstrip will not encroach on the Municipal Airport's airspace.
AND subject to the following conditions:
1) Provision of a revised site plan to include the following notes:
a. The permit will be administratively reviewed by the County in 5 years (Calendar Year 2012).
b. The permit will expire at the end of 10 years (Calendar Year 2017), unless an application for renewal is approved by the local governing body.
2) Provision of a copy of the Federal Aviation Administration determination for the airstrip resulting from the review required under FAA Regulation 14CFR part 157
a. If FAA determination is other than 'no objections' the CUP will be rescinded. The CUP will be reinstated if a 'conditional determination' was made by the FAA when the applicant meets the FAA conditions.
Miller provided a map of existing airstrips in Douglas County and is in the process of drafting airstrip standards as requested by the Board at a previous meeting. Miller contacted KDOT's Department of Aviation and FAA Airport Division in Washington, D.C. for guidance to determine the distance requirements of "no obstruction zones" around an airport or an airstrip. It was determined there are a total of six airstrips, all located in the southern portion of Douglas County. Miller stated that even though the applicant d s not receive FAA funding, he is required to provide FAA notice when he wishes to construct a new runway. The applicant has submitted the proper forms. It could take 30-60 days to receive a determination. The FAA will make one of three determinations: 1) no objection; 2) a conditional determination where there are conditions to be met; or 3) an objectional determination. FAA would not actually prohibit the application. However, Staff would recommend the CUP application be rescinded if FAA determines anything other than a determination of "no objection."
Jones asked if the FAA regulations address the use of the airstrip. Miller responded that FAA regulations do regulate whether the use is commercial or agricultural. Occasionally, in the CUPs the County has restrictions for commercial use. Jones questioned if Miller reviewed the clearance on the north end, as well as the south end of the property. Miller stated she had.
Jones asked Keith Dabney, Director of Zoning and Codes, to share with the Board the history of this CUP application. Dabney responded the issue was brought to his attention when a CUP for an airstrip south of Eudora was brought to the Board. Jones asked Dabney when he first made the applicant aware of the problem of not having a permit for the airstrip. Dabney answered in the last few months. Jones asked if it is the applicant's responsibility or Staff's responsibility to make the applicant aware there are laws and regulations to abide. Dabney answered both. Staff will notify the owner if they are aware of the intent to build an airstrip, but it is the property owner's responsibility to inquire if a permit it required.
McElhaney questioned how Staff would treat a CUP if the airstrip crosses utility easements or right-of-ways. Dabney replied Staff would get confirmation from the utility company holding the easement that there are no objections. McElhaney asked if the township fire departments were notified of the application. Dabney stated that townships are typically notified, but the Sheriff was not notified. McElhaney suggested Staff add the Sheriff's Department to their list of informants.
Johnson opened for public comment.
Terence Leibold, attorney for J and Thea Richards, representing J and Thea Richard, the property owners to the west of the airstrip, stated the Richards have concerns regarding safety, due to the strip being so close to Highway 59. He also mentioned the Richards have a history with the applicant. He presented a letter Mr. Butell handed to the Richards prior to the beginning to the meeting. Leibold stated the applicant likes to use his airplane for harassment and intimidation. The applicant repeatedly flies over the Richards household. Leibold stated Mr. Butell used the airstrip for pleasure purposes, not agricultural purposes. Liebold stated that there is a significant risk involved due to the proximity of the Richard's house and highway 59 to the airstrip. Leibold stated the general welfare of the community would dictate that the application be denied.
Johnson stated it is worth noting that the distance from Highway 59 to the strip is appropriate per FAA requirements, plus the fact that Highway 59 is in the process of being moved 300' to the east, which will put it even farther away. There should not be a safety issue.
James Butell, applicant, read a letter to the Commissioners giving background information on his pilot qualifications and license. Butell also stated he was not the only airstrip owner that d s not have a permit. He knows of four other residents who will need to make applications for CUPs. He clarified that he d s use his airstrip for agriculture and pleasure. He uses his plane to fly over terracing outlets on his three farms to see if the pipes are plugged up. He stated the airstrip is legal because he had two men from the Wichita Airport stake the airfield before he built it in 1999. He did not remember their names or agency.
Jones asked if the consultant mentioned the permit requirement. Butell replied they did not.
Jones moved to close the public hearing; McElhaney seconded the motion and it carried 3-0.
Jones stated that he d s not feel the applicant meets all the qualifications to have the airstrip. He sees it as used for recreational use and while there may be some agricultural use, he is not sure why the applicant could not drive around and look at the pipes. Jones stated, "If people can't be good neighbors, I'm not inclined to be very supportive of their request.
McElhaney stated, "It disappoints me when we have landowners and neighbors in this community who do not even try to put forth some effort to have good communication and good skills to work together." McElhaney stated he feels that according to staff review, the applicant meets all necessary requirements. Next time, he would like to see more public safety officials involved at the Planning Commission level. He also stated, he d s not like the airstrip going completely to the property line to the north. .
Johnson stated his position is the airfield is not legal contrary to what Mr. Butell says. It perhaps was built to legal specifications, but is not legal because he did not get a permit. Johnson commented that Miller did a great job analyzing, checking with FAA and giving the Board the facts to make a decision. The tragedy here is the neighbors do not get along. The Board cannot and should not regulate based on that fact. The airfield was there before the property was sold. The people who bought the property knew the airfield was there.
Jones questioned if the Board should entertain the possibility of a shorter CUP than the 10-year window. Johnson stated no. He feels the Board should stick with the 10 year CUP with a 5-year review. If there are neighbor complaints, the Board can always hear them.
McElhaney requested the item be tabled for further consideration and to be placed on the agenda for the May 9, 2007 meeting. Jones commented that the Board is always respectful if a member wants to table an item. Johnson agreed.
McElhaney moved to table Planning Item CUP-02-02-07 grass airstrip at 592 E 1250 Road for one week. The motion was seconded by Jones and carried 3-0.
MISCELLANEOUS AND ECO2 05-02-07
The Board received the ECO2 report of Commission Final Plan. Trudy Rice, Chair introduced Larry McElwain, Vice Chair. McElwain conducted a brief PowerPoint presentation asking the Board to adopt the plan.
McElhaney stated his concern for tax of the plan. He questioned if the proposed conservation easements in parks are to be permanent. Roxanne Miller, ECO2 member, replied she anticipates the Conservation easements being permanent. When you have the value of the easements appraised, it is based on the term and typically, the conservation easements are permanent and are paid in a manner that it is permanently purchasing in essence the development rights.
Jones thanked the ECO2 Commission and stated something has to happen fairly soon. This commission has been dedicated to the idea that one of the legacies we want is a substantial amount of space for industrial growth, and to set in motion plans to meaningfully preserve open space on some of our heritage sites. He stated the Farmland property would be a great opportunity, but if not, then maybe another site.
There were no comments from the public.
Jones moved to accept and adopt ECO2's final plan; McElhaney seconded and the motion carried unanimously.
MISCELLANEOUS & RESOLUTIONS 05-02-07
Korb Maxwell, Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus, P.C., addressed the Board on behalf of Cinco Hombres, LLC. to request the adoption of a resolution that will call a public hearing on May 23, 2007 regarding the adoption of a Neighborhood Revitalization Plan located in the 8th & Pennsylvania District of Lawrence, Kansas.
McElhaney moved to approve Resolution No. 07-15 establishing a date and time of a public hearing being May 23, 2007 at 6:35 p.m. and regarding the adoption of a Neighborhood Revitalization Plan. The motion was seconded by Jones and carried unanimously.
RURAL WATER DISTRICTS 05-02-07
Quentin Kurtz, attorney with Stumbo Hanson, LLP, presented the Board with a petition for approval of the attachment of lands to Rural Water District No. 2 in Douglas County, Kansas. Also present for discussion were Brad Lindstrom of Bartlett & West Engineering; Butch Miles, Chair of Rural Water District No. 2; and at least one landowner within the area.
Jones questioned how this piece of land relates to the rest of water district's boundaries. Lindstrom stated that RWD No. 4 is on the east side of the area, RWD No. 5 is on the west. Basically, this property filled in the gap annexation between the two districts no other district served. Jones asked if the agreement is granted, from east to west running north of Highway 56, would all properties would be within 2, 4 or 5 rural water districts and there will be no property outside of someone's rural water district. Lindstrom stated that is correct
Johnson opened for public comments.
J Daniels, 20815 175th St. Tonganoxie, stated in 2005 he submitted a petition for rezoning for southeast corner of intersection of Highways 56 & 59. Since that time, he has been trying to file a plat. Public water is superior to wells in terms of health and in terms of firefighting capabilities.
Jones moved to close the public hearing; McElhaney seconded and the motion carried unanimously. After discussion, Jones made a motion to approve the attachments of land as described in the petition from Rural Water District No. 2. McElhaney seconded, carried unanimously.
PUBLIC WORKS 05-02-07
Keith Browning, Director of Public Works, presented the Board with a proposed Five-Year Plan for federally funded projects submitted to KDOT. Browning reviewed the following projects:
- Replacement of Route 442 Bridge over Captain Creek just west of Johnson County line (currently under construction with target completion date of September 2007).
- Replacement of Route 1023 bridge over Rock Creek located at 06.97N-01.00E (plans complete; scheduled for January 2008 bid opening).
- Replacement of Route 1057 bridge over the Wakarusa River (engineering design work has not been started). This bridge is on one of the corridors we have discussed including in a study of arterial road corridors to carry traffic from US-59 south of Lawrence to K-10 east of Lawrence.
KDOT estimates a total of $2,439,180 in federal funds to be available to Douglas County. It is estimated the last two projects listed will substantially consume those funds. Browning suggested inserting another project into the 2008-2012 five-year plan between the 1023 Bridge project and the Route 1057 Bridge replacement project.
Johnson suggested we concentrate our efforts where we are growing, where traffic is increasing, and which bridges are under the most stress to have the potential failure. It would seem beneficial to have the City in on our discussion to decide which bridges in the Urban Growth Area need our concentration.
Jones stated he would like to see something between 59 and K-10 get first priority. He suggested using Noria Road to expand the bridge that g s across the Wakarusa River. Browning stated it can be done, but would use up all the funds available. Browning strongly suggested the City and County do a road study to identify costs.
Jones believes it is a good possibility trucks will use Noria Road whether we want them to or not. We need to explore that possibility.
After further discussion, it was the consensus of the Board to table the item for two weeks.
PLANNING 05-02-07
Linda Finger, County Consultant, presented the Board with draft text amendments to the Subdivision Regulations. The Commissioners expressed concern that the 'hard-surfaced' road standard for residential developments within the UGA was too high a standard for most townships to meet or was outside their capabilities to achieve. The Commission expressed their interest in development of a different standard to address their main concern, which is one of dust generated by additional vehicles from residential developments in the UGA. They discussed the lack of a definition of the term 'hard-surface road' in the Subdivision Regulations and asked Keith Browning, Director of Public Works, how he would define a 'hard-surfaced road'. His definition would require more than applying a topical dust palliative to the road's surface. After further discussion, the Commission decided that an amendment to this requirement in the regulations was necessary. A new road standard with a definition that addresses dust and the stabilization of the road surface is needed. The requirement to access 'hard-surfaced roads' should be replaced with a new road standard. The Commission directed Browning and Finger to return to the Board with additional proposed language for initiation as text amendments.
After further discussion, Jones moved that the text amendments proposed be sent to the Planning Commission for consideration. McElhaney seconded and motion carried unanimously.
Following are revisions based on discussion and actions by the Board on Wednesday, May 2, 2007:
1. Revising the Certificate of Survey for process -- particularly as it relates to UGA properties -- and the impact this will have on doing actual long range planning for future 'redevelopment' upon annexation. Commissioners considered this a policy discussion with CJ supporting not changing the current certificate of survey process and BJ thinking it was okay to redo the C of S as often as it may be needed. The compromise was to revise the current text amendment to permit a C of S to be revised when it is for property located in Service Area 4 of Lawrence's UGA. [related to items 1,7 & 8 in memo that preceded text amendments]
2. Permitting a second house for permanent residence on a rural residential site to address the gaps that John Selk had identified in the Guest House provision [e.g, no kitchen permitted and not for permanent residency year-round] that he had discussed with BJ and JM as an issue (erroneously) with the "Build Out Plan". The BOCC's action was to take no action to correct this. If the frontage and other requirements are met then another residence could be built on its own site. To allow a second residence on a larger site but not require it to occur as a 2nd division was problematic for future misunderstandings and inequalities for others was the Commission's determination.[related to item 9 in memo that preceded text amendments]
3. "Making whole" those properties that were caught up by the Exemption Section of the previous Subdivision Regulations and were not created as lawful divisions that would then meet the Exemption or Vested Rights criteria in the current Subdivision Regulations. It was CJ's opinion that this was 'too bad' and similar to a natural selection process (my words, not his) in that those that followed the rules previously could and should get permits and those that did not follow the rules should not get permits. He saw it as a policy issue and something that would create great inequity among property owners that had legitimate divisions, but less than 20 acres, in the UGA and therefore could not get a building permit AND those who did not follow the rules (or the previous owners had not followed the rules), owned divisions created illegally that were over 5 acres but less than 20 acres and -- by this amendment -- could then qualify for issuance of a building permit. After discussion between BJ and CJ with a few comments by JM, it was agreed to proceed with the text amendment as proposed because it required at least 5 acres and compliance with both sanitation and road frontage requirements. An estimate of approximately 100 properties may have this problem or as few as 20-30 may have this problem concerned CJ. He asked staff to come up with a better educated guess as to how many cases actually exist that are caught up in the previous '5 acre exemption' by being a division that was #4 or more, from a 1972 tract that had a division of less than 5 acres. [related to item 10 in memo that preceded text amendments]
4. The majority of the remainder of discussion on the text amendments centered on the requirement for properties within the UGA to take access to a hard surfaced road and the impossibility this created for property owners in any other township except Wakarusa. CJ led the discussion that the BOCC's primary concern when creating this requirement was with the amount of dust created by traffic from rural residential. When asked if dust was the primary concern I suggested that traffic volumes were also a concern. This was determined by commissioners to not be the primary concern -- their primary reason for wanting hard surface roads was as a deterrent to dust created by increased traffic on roads. The BOCC will continue to work with Keith Browning in the coming weeks to arrive at and define a new term such as "stabilized road" to replace or supplement the term "hard surfaced road." This will result in future text amendments.
Jones moved to adjourn; McElhaney seconded and the motion carried unanimously.
_____________________________ ________________________
Bob Johnson, Chairman Jere McElhaney, Vice Chair
ATTEST:
_____________________________ _________________________
Jamie Shew, County Clerk Charles Jones, Member
Time and Date