Emporia city and Lyon County residents are being encouraged to give their thoughts on zoning and subdivision regulations as a second round of talks on comprehensive planning gets underway.
Stakeholder meetings are underway as Emporia city and Lyon County officials look to make adjustments. This follows work in 2016 and 2017 between the city, county and the Oregon planning group Urban Collaborative. That first round led to a joint city-county comprehensive plan, known as Plan ELC, that was approved at both government levels late last year.
On KVOE’s Talk of Emporia on Monday, Lyon County Planning and Zoning Director Sam Seeley says the process is starting, in a sense, with the professionals.
The Urban Collaborative model uses what’s known as form-based regulations, which uses the physical form of buildings as a guiding principle in what kinds of development can go into different parts of town.
Traditional zoning, which has been in place locally for decades, keeps different kinds of development in the same general areas of town.
Once the stakeholder meetings are done, there will be a four-day public workshop Oct. 29-Nov. 1. This will help to shape both the so-called Regulating Plan for the city and county as well as standards for buildings, streets and landscapes.
If you have questions about zoning regulations or PlanELC, you can go online to www.emporia-kansas.gov or www.lyoncounty.org. If you have questions about the update process, contact City Planning and Zoning Specialist Joe Foster at 343-4268 or jfoster@emporia-kansas.gov or County Planning, Zoning and Floodplain Management Director Sam Seeley at 341-3471 or sseeley@lyoncounty.org. You can also reach out to Urban Collaborative Planner Zoe Anton by email at zoe@urbancollaborative.com.
