The process to update Overland Park’s long-range land use plan that identifies and governs development and redevelopment potential across the city continues.
Last week, the city completed a second round of public engagement for Framework OP, hosting a series of open houses throughout the city.
The city, still months away from adopting a new comprehensive plan, is considering a number of policy and planning changes.
What is a comprehensive plan?
- City governments use comprehensive plans to identify long-term and ideal development patterns for a city.
- They usually also discuss infrastructure needs, resources available and green spaces.
- These plans can guide decision-making for decades.
- City councils sign off on them, typically after lengthy public discussion and input from the community.
- Cities themselves don’t do the work of actual development but set out the recommendations and the rules for developers who go down the line.
- Overland Park is one of multiple Johnson County cities that has embarked on comprehensive plan reviews and updates in the past few years.
Overland Park’s comprehensive plan is 40 years old
One of the key factors in reviewing the comprehensive plan now is its age, said Overland Park’s Strategic Planning Division Manager Erin Ollig.
“It is due for an overhaul just in the fact that Overland Park has changed significantly in 40 years,” she said. “This is really kind of a unique opportunity in our city’s history to have an impact on what it could look like for the next … 20, 25 years.”
The structure of the plan itself is obsolete as well, Ollig said, noting that it used an “older model” of long-range planning, leaving out considerations for sustainability, housing needs in the community and plan implementation.
Best practice now also calls for substantial public engagement in the long-term planning process, something Ollig said wasn’t used as widely before.
City mulling shift in approach to future land use planning
The city is developing a new formula called “character types,” which would consider both future land use designations and other elements that create a holistic approach to guiding development decisions in Overland Park.
The new formula, if included in the next comprehensive plan, would make use of the city’s current land use patterns but also incorporate design, transition zones and other considerations, like walkability and traffic.
The focus, Ollig said, would be more on “the look and feel of the neighborhood” over “a specific use.”
Take for instance a downtown district. These areas are designed to be walkable with shorter street blocks and tightly-packed buildings.
Under this plan, the city would encourage different uses in the buildings included in these districts, including restaurants, office and shopping, as well as housing and sometimes lodging for tourists.
Another example of a “character type” is a mixed-use district, which would be laid out like a downtown district and accommodate some of the same functions but aren’t necessarily limited to the historic community hub like a downtown district.
Housing and aging office parks are key focuses
The 2021 Johnson County Housing Study suggests that developers are going to need to build, on average, 1,420 units annually through 2030 to meet Overland Park’s housing needs.
One potential avenue Overland Park is exploring is ways to support more of the “missing middle housing” stock, such as twin villas (duplexes), row houses and starter homes.
“For Overland Park, we build a lot of very large single-family houses and large apartment complexes,” said Director of Planning and Development Leslie Karr. “’Missing middle’ are things that are in between those two things.”
What exactly that would look like is unclear at this stage, but some of those changes, if adopted, might require updates to the city’s unified development ordinances and codes, she said.
Additionally, the comprehensive plan could look at ways to redevelop aging commercial centers and office parks as well as large-scale regional commercial districts.
The city has floated some land-use alternatives for these areas, including converting them into potential mixed-use zones, neighborhoods or scaled-back community commercial districts down the line.
Growth is mostly in southern Overland Park
- What exactly to do with growth areas in southern Overland Park is also a major cornerstone of the review process.
- Areas of southern Overland Park have the most growth potential and room to develop but also have a more established rural identity, though there are some established light-scale commercial and industrial uses.
- A Southern Overland Park Land Use Study, which stretches south from 167th Street, covers about 19,000 acres. It envisions three possible land-use futures for the area, including keeping the area fairly rural or reimagining it as a rural neighborhood area or a suburbanized neighborhood zone.
- The distinction between the three potentials comes down mostly to a difference in the number of new single-family homes. The rural plan identifies about 1,800 new single-family units, while the rural neighborhood and suburban neighborhood plans envision about 3,950 and 7,000 new homes respectively.
- All three plans anticipate about 2,300 multifamily units and 1.3 million square feet of commercial development.
- Regardless of what land use future the city ultimately calls for in the comprehensive plan, plans presented at the September open houses suggest that public sanitary sewer capacity in the area will be a key element for successful development.
What’s happening right now with the comprehensive plan?
- Overland Park kicked off the comprehensive plan revision process well over a year ago, hosting open houses and other informational opportunities.
- Over the past several months, the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee and a collection of topic-based advisory groups tasked with reviewing specific themes — such as housing, transportation and environment — have met.
- Now that the city has wrapped up its second round of public engagement, it plans to use that feedback.
- All of that will filter into the final plan, a multipart document to inform redevelopment and new development across the city.
Next steps:
- The city is still months away from bringing a formal comprehensive plan to the Overland Park Planning Commission and Overland Park City Council for approval.
- The city is also planning more public engagement opportunities in early 2024, Ollig said.
- City documents presented at the Framework OP open houses last week suggest a spring 2024 adoption date.
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