About 150 Prairie Village residents showed up to the first of two city-hosted housing recommendation forums on Thursday evening.
This was the first formal public input session from residents on the housing recommendations — a particularly controversial topic of interest in Prairie Village since June 2022.
Attendees were able to view a series of informational boards and speak to city staff and planning consultants about the current state of certain zoning districts and to provide input.
There is also an opportunity to attend a second housing forum next month.
The forum did not touch on single-family housing
- That’s because in February, the city council removed single-family zoning districts, R1-A and R1-B, from the planning commission’s purview.
- This forum, as well as one coming up next month, both intend to take feedback on housing recommendations the planning commission is still discussing.
- The planning commission is charged with brainstorming ways to implement the housing recommendations in multifamily zoning districts (R2, R3 and R4), commercial districts and mixed-use districts.
- The Prairie Village City Council is still planning to take a look at neighborhood design guidelines in single-family housing districts, but no timeline is in place for that. And the forums won’t touch upon the subject of single-family housing.
‘What could change’ and ‘How would change occur’
- The informational boards presented at the forum outlined what zoning currently allows in multifamily, commercial and mixed-use districts. Meanwhile, additional boards showed new options for changing those districts to allow or enhance multifamily developments in the future.
- The boards also posed questions to residents about what design standards they’d support within those districts.
- Currently, Prairie Village has no design standards for multifamily districts, and some commercial districts are subject to certain multifamily district development standards.
- Another board entitled, “What could change?” showed what’s possible for a range of multifamily housing options in Prairie Village, such as row houses, duplexes and apartments.
- A series of boards entitled “How would change occur” dove into each type of zoning district (excluding single-family) and asked attendees to think about the appropriate housing types, lot sizes, heights, density and design elements for that specific district.
- Representatives of MultiStudio, the city’s professional planning consultants, were also available to answer questions at the forum.
Residents were able to provide input with a survey
- In addition to asking what housing types are appropriate for which districts, the survey asks residents about concerns with mixing residential and commercial districts.
- Shawn Kyndesen, a resident who is affiliated with the Stop Rezoning Prairie Village group that has voiced opposition to the recommendations, said she doesn’t want to see the city “turn into what old Overland Park is.”
- Kyndesen said the informational boards helped her visualize what residential and commercial together could look like.
- Joni Kimsey, a Prairie Village resident for 55 years, said she attended the forum to learn what’s actually happening with the housing recommendations.
- “You hear one thing from one group and one thing from another group, and the only way to check it out is go to the source,” Kimsey said.
You can still give feedback at another open house coming up
- A second housing recommendation forum is scheduled for 4 to 7 p.m., July 13 at the Meadowbrook Clubhouse near 91st and Nall.
- Deputy City Administrator Nickie Lee told the Post that an online survey and a PDF version of the informational boards will be shared with the public in the coming days.
- The online survey is for residents who were unable to attend either of the two in-person forums.
Next steps:
- Following the July 13 forum, there will be two or three planning commission work sessions to discuss and work on the recommendations.
- Lee said the results from the public input survey will be shared through planning commission or city council agendas in the future.
- After that, there may be another public forum to share results from those planning commission work sessions.
- A public hearing will take place before any proposed changes going into effect, according to a city email.
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