Olathe is about to start the process of building a new comprehensive plan for the first time in nearly 15 years.
The plan, when complete, will forecast long-range development in the city and mull other factors for Olathe’s future, possibly including diversity, economic development and sustainability. It will replace PlanOlathe, the current comprehensive plan.
The overhaul has yet to officially begin, but city staff and officials laid the groundwork for the new plan last week during a joint meeting of the Olathe City Council and the Olathe Planning Commission.
Olathe is one of many Johnson County cities to embark on new comprehensive plans or major revisions to their existing plans in the last couple years. Others who have started or completed the process recently include Lenexa, Overland Park and Shawnee.
What is a comprehensive plan?
- Local governments use comprehensive plans to identify long-term and ideal development patterns for their communities.
- They usually also discuss other variables, like available infrastructure and resources.
- Such plans, when completed, can guide decision-making in the community for decades, though Olathe’s have historically lasted about a decade or so.
- Comprehensive plans are usually drafted following lengthy public discussion and engagement. Then, city councils approve the plans and can update them periodically.
- The government itself won’t do the actual development work but identifies recommendations and rules for developers who do.
New comprehensive plan to include more community variables
Since Olathe last adopted a new plan in 2010, best practices have changed some, said Planning and Development Manager Kim Hollingsworth. That means the new comprehensive plan is likely to have more elements included.
For example, the last plan primarily only considered land use, transportation, housing, resource preservation and environment, Hollingsworth said during the joint meeting.
The new plan may also consider all of those factors as well as commercial zones, diversity, growth management and fiscal responsibility, infrastructure, sustainability and economic development needs.
Olathe’s next comprehensive plan will focus on major corridors
In addition to development across the city and the factors that affect it, the next comprehensive plan could focus heavily on some of its major corridors. That could mean new studies of the defining roadway and the surrounding area for the selected corridors.
Based on an activity planning commissioners and council members participated in during their joint meeting last week, the new plan will could emphasize:
- College Boulevard
- Santa Fe Street
- Ridgeview Road
- Parker Street, which joins K-7 south of Santa Fe
- 175th Street, near Olathe’s southernmost border
Exactly what all that could entail is unclear at this point.
Next steps:
- The city council is expected to take a vote soon on a contract with a consultant to help reimagine Olathe’s comprehensive plan.
- Then, the process is likely to begin in earnest some time this spring, likely March or April, Hollingsworth said last week.
- Community engagement opportunities are tentatively scheduled for the summer months.
- If all goes to plan, the city council will adopt the final draft of the new comprehensive plan some time in 2025.
- After that, the city may update the unified development ordinance as well if necessary based on the outcome of the comprehensive plan process.
Keep reading: Olathe development projects to watch in 2024
