Lawrence Journal-World 10-05-11

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‘An exciting, big step’ for homeless shelter

City adopts tougher penalties for landlords By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com

Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo

LORING HENDERSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE LAWRENCE COMMUNITY SHELTER, foreground right, describes what the inside of a future homeless shelter might look like during Tuesday’s announcement of the pending property purchase at the Franklin Business Center, 3701 Franklin Park Circle. Tuesday was also the official kickoff of the public phase to raise the last $800,000 to complete the shelter’s capital campaign.

Purchase deal announced By Shaun Hittle sdhittle@ljworld.com

ONLINE: See the video at LJWorld.com

City and county officials are on board, and the property’s under contract to purchase. Now, Lawrence Community Shelter officials just need $800,000 to make a new 125bed home just east of Lawrence a reality. “This is an exciting, big step for us,” said John Tacha, Lawrence Community Shelter board chairman. Tacha was joined by city and county officials Tuesday at the shelter’s proposed location, 3701 Franklin Park Circle, to announce an agreement to purchase the building, which is a 25,000-square-foot warehouse next to Douglas County Jail. The purchase agreement was

solidified this week for about $1.7 million, Tacha said, and the overall cost for the building and renovations is about $2.7 million. The warehouse currently is owned by a group led by Lawrence businessman Tim Keller. Misty Messinger, a current Lawrence Community Shelter resident, stopped by for a tour of the new facility Tuesday and said a larger building was long overdue. “It’s awesome,” said Messinger, who talked about the cramped conditions at the current shelter, where she lives with two sons. “They’re boys. They like to throw the football.” But currently, such recreational activities are difficult at the building at 214 W. 10th St. The shelter, which has a capacity of 75 people, has routinely been seeing 100 or so requests for shelter daily. The shelter uses several sites to house peo-

ple when it reaches capacity, Tacha said. “It’s just not adequate,” Tacha said of the current building. Loring Henderson, shelter director, gave visitors a tour of the site, pointing to areas of the warehouse where they’ll have family programs, a recreation area, job training and a garden on the four acres of property. “There’s some exciting things we’ll be able to do here,” Henderson said. Shelter leaders said they hope to be in the new building within the next year. Including several matching grants and city stimulus funding, nearly $2 million of the overall cost has been raised, and Henderson said the specifics of a fundraising campaign will be announced at a later date. — Reporter Shaun Hittle can be reached at 8327173. Follow him at Twitter/shaunhittle.

At a glance ! An agreement to purchase the 25,000-squarefoot building, at 3701 Franklin Park Circle near Douglas County Jail, was finalized this week. The cost was about $1.7 million. !"The new shelter will have 125 beds, 50 more than the current shelter. ! The shelter has raised all but about $800,000 needed for the $2.7 million total estimated cost for the building and renovations. ! The shelter has received a $200,000 pledge from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, $78,900 from city of Lawrence stimulus funds, and a $540,000 matching grant from the Mabee Foundation. ! For more information, or to donate, visit lawrence shelter.org.

Gaslight Village area in line for redevelopment By Mark Fagan mfagan@ljworld.com

Gaslight Village Mobile Home Park is under contract to be sold for redevelopment, a decade after the park split to allow construction of a Best Buy, Home Depot and other commercial development northeast of 31st and Iowa streets. And new homes or apartments could be on the way. Residents of the 41-acre park, 1900 W. 31st St., are being advised of the proceedings by the park’s owner, which notes that funds are available to help relocate mobile homes to other parks if the sale goes through in the coming months. Edwardsville-based Mid-America Manufactured Housing Com-

The rumors are flying wildly again. There is a potential buyer out there that is looking at buying it. We just wanted to be honest with our residents and tell them the truth.” — Tom Horner, corporate secretary for Mid-America Manufactured Housing Communities munities, which owns the park, has distributed notification letters to residents of the 148 homes at the park, which has 241 spaces — and has been the subject of development speculation ever since developers secured approval in 2001

dential use,” one that would comply with the area’s comprehensive plan, said Scott McCullough, the city’s planning director. The property, now zoned for single-family homes, is designated for future “medium-density residential” development. That would require rezoning to a designation that would allow an increase from four dwellings per acre to a range of seven to 15 units per acre. Such zoning could allow for a “wide range of uses,” McCullough said: from single-family homes to duplexes, townhomes and apartment buildings. An existing apartment complex across the street, The Connection, formerly called The Exchange, would be at the upper end of the

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Lack of state health insurance exchange could invite fed control By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com

TOPEKA — If Kansas doesn’t put together its own health insurance exchange, the federal government will install one, taking over major portions of the health care system in the state, an official said Tuesday. “It takes huge control away from states,” said Linda Sheppard, director of the health and accident division of the Kansas Department of Insurance, about a federally implemented exchange. Gov. Sam Brownback rejected a $31.5 million federal grant to help set up Brownback a Kansas-designed health insurance exchange. He said there were too many strings attached to the grant, although he had earlier supported it and some of the contentions by his administration about the exchange have been refuted. Critics of Brownback have said he rejected the grant to appease those who oppose any movement to prepare for the federal Affordable Care Act. The health insurance exchanges are a key provision under the federal law and are required to be in place by 2014. The

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for opening a Home Depot at 1910 W. 31st St. “The rumors are flying wildly again,” said Tom Horner, corporate secretary for Mid-America. “There is a potential buyer out there that is looking at buying it. We just wanted to be honest with our residents and tell them the truth.” While Horner declined to discuss specifics of the proposed use, citing a confidentiality agreement, he noted that the city would need to approve any development plan. Such approval, in turn, would trigger a deadline for the buyers to close on their purchase. “It would be a change of use for the property,” Horner said. City officials have been in contact with a company that envisions a project “along the lines of a resi-

Unscrupulous Lawrence landlords beware: The price of violating a longtime city code just got much higher. City commissioners at their weekly meeting directed staff members to immediately begin changing how they enforce an existing city code that prohibits more than three unrelated people from living in a single-family home. In short, the new enforcement policy would allow the city to revoke a landlord’s rental license for a particular piece of property if that property has been found to be in violation of the occupancy code two times within a 24-month period. In some Cromwell cases the license could be revoked after one violation if the property owner did not take steps to correct the violation. “Neighborhoods are suffering from this,” Mayor Aron Cromwell said, although commissioners said they believe it is a minority of landlords who are blatantly violating the code. “But this has become a problem throughout our town, and we have to deal with it.” When it comes to losing a rental license, the financial stakes could be high for landlords. As city commissioners were told at

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COMING THURSDAY We’ll hear from Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods.”

Vol.153/No.278 30 pages

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