The city of Mission has renewed its lease with Johnson County Wastewater for the community garden near the Nelson Complex Wastewater Treatment Facility.
Mission has been leasing the section of property at Lamar Avenue and Foxridge Drive from Johnson County Wastewater since 2009. The city’s 10-year lease with Johnson County Wastewater was set to expire this month, so the council on March 20 unanimously approved extending the contract for an additional four years.
The county is planning to make renovations to the property in 2024, so the contract with Mission will end to accommodate those renovations.
Emily Randel, assistant to the city administrator, said it is unknown at this time if the city will be able to lease the property for use as a community garden after Johnson County Wastewater completes renovations.
“The terms of the lease agreement were set to give the County flexibility, pending the needs of their renovation project at that time,” Randel wrote in an email.
During the council’s community development committee meeting March 6, Randel said that in the meantime, city staff doesn’t anticipate anything changing about operation of the community garden.
At that same meeting, Councilmember Hillary Parker Thomas asked if the city would be able to add more plots to the garden in the future, citing a constant wait list for use of the space. Randel said this had been discussed in the past, but not recently. City staff will look into it, she added.
There was no additional discussion at either of the meetings.
