Lawrence city commissioners on Tuesday will consider a request to annex nearly 300 acres into western Lawrence for a development dubbed Beacon Landing.
The land — 288 acres total — is west of Kansas Highway 10, south of Sixth Street (aka U.S. Highway 40) and mostly north of Bob Billings Parkway/North 1500 Road, though a small portion near the highway is south of it. The westernmost portion of the annexation request reaches as far as East 800 Road.
A majority of planning commissioners in July voted to recommend approval of the annexation and several accompanying rezoning requests, which are also on the city commission’s Tuesday agenda.
The request includes 111 acres of residential zoning — 70.1 acres for low-density housing (R-2, about four to six units per acre with 5,000-square-foot lots); 16.9 acres for medium density (R-3, about seven to 15 units per acre); and 23.5 acres for high density housing (R-4, 16 to 32 units per acre).
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If approved, another 126.7 acres would be rezoned to commercial center district, and 51 acres would be rezoned from agricultural to open space.
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The original annexation proposal was for 650 acres, but that was reduced down to 288 after one of the property owners decided not to move forward.
The items are all grouped as one agenda item, so the commission likely will not allow public comment on each of the seven items individually but rather all the items at once.
Developers with Landplan Engineering are seeking tax incentives from the city and sales tax and revenue bonds, or STAR bonds, to help pay for development of that area as well as 1059 (formerly New Boston Crossing), the development slated for southeast of K-10 and Iowa Street. However, the tax break requests are not part of Tuesday’s agenda.
Also on Tuesday, commissioners will hear an update on the financial stability of the city’s healthcare fund and a recommended change to the plan and design for 2027, and they’ll have further discussion of the proposed 2027 budget.
Meeting info
Update:
• City Commission approves west Lawrence annexation for Beacon Landing development, Aug. 18, 2026
The commission meeting will start at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 18 at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St. See the complete meeting agenda at this link.
The commission accepts written public comment emailed to [email protected] until noon the day of meetings. The commission also hears live public comment during meetings, both in person and virtually.
City commission meetings are no longer livestreamed on YouTube. In order to watch the meeting online remotely, attendees must join via Zoom at this link, which also allows participants to provide public comment virtually. Meeting recordings are uploaded to the city’s YouTube channel the next day.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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