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Commission approves Petersen Road variance and preliminary plat for Fall Creek Farms central section
Summary
The planning commission granted a variance to reduce Petersen Road’s required width for a central segment of the Fall Creek Farms development and approved the preliminary plat for the Fall Creek Farms 23rd plat; staff said the area is low‑density R-1 and the variance is consistent with earlier approvals on the corridor.
The Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission approved a variance reducing the required Petersen Road width for the central portion of Fall Creek Farms and recommended approval of the preliminary plat for Fall Creek Farms 23rd Plat on Aug. 27.
Planner Sandy Day told the commission the application covers the central portion of Fall Creek Farms along Petersen Road; the property was annexed in 1995 and much of the right-of-way and utilities are already in place. “This preliminary plat addresses that central portion of the Fall Creek Farm area along the south side of Petersen Road,” Day said. Because Petersen Road is a designated principal arterial, the applicant requested a variance to allow a reduced street-width requirement for this segment; Day said staff has supported similar variances previously on the project’s ends and recommended approval.
Corby Rust, land planner for the applicant, described the filing as a cleanup of a remaining, complicated portion of the larger Fall Creek project and said the team worked within existing sanitary sewer, drainage easements and an existing residential bridge to finalize lot and tract layouts. The commission’s discussion addressed questions about the difference between lots and tracts, shared driveways and how the plate’s density table was calculated.
Commissioners and staff clarified that a tract generally cannot support a residential building permit (it is commonly used for community features such as a pond or private access) while a lot is buildable. Commissioner Eldridge asked whether a shared driveway qualified as a public access; Day answered that shared driveways provide emergency access but are not public streets in the same way private streets are. Day also said each lot in the shared-driveway grouping still has frontage on Petersen Road and therefore meets the preliminary-plat frontage requirement.
Discussion turned to density accounting. Day said she had included a table in the staff report showing gross and net areas for lots and blocks but later told the commission she regretted including it because density calculations are project-specific and the code allows different deductions depending on whether new rights-of-way are being dedicated. Day said for this project no new right-of-way is being dedicated, so the right-of-way was not deducted from the lot-level assessment. Commissioners asked staff to schedule a deeper mid-month discussion on density calculation methodology and code cleanups.
After discussion the commission voted to approve the variance requested from section 20-1110(e)(5) of the subdivision regulations and then moved to approve the preliminary plat, both motions passing with no recorded opposing votes in the meeting transcript.
Clarifying details: the application was originally submitted in 2024 before the current Land Development Code changes; the property is mostly zoned R-1 and the preliminary plat covers residential lots and several tracts (including a pond tract); the parcel was annexed in 1995; staff confirmed there is no plan to widen Petersen Road for this segment.
