The Lenexa Planning Commission has approved changes to a planned subdivision in western Lenexa that swaps out proposed duplexes for single-family homes.
On Aug. 25, the commission approved revisions to a preliminary plat for Cedar Canyon West Villas, which changes the plan from a 20-lot duplex development totaling 40 dwelling units to a 29-lot single-family subdivision.
The revision passed 7-0, with Commissioner Sunny Dharod absent.
A preliminary plan for duplexes at Cedar Canyon West Villas was previously approved by the Lenexa City Council in August 2024.
Those plans changed when the developers for the project, Lenexa-based Schlagel & Associates and Speedway II, LLC, discussed the project with prospective builders.
“Our client had discussions with builders about who would be interested in building the attached villas, and all of them came back, ‘Well, we’d build it if it were single-family.’ So that’s why we’re asking for the change,” Dan Foster, landscape architect for Schlagel & Associates, said at last month’s commission meeting.
Revised plan includes 29 single-family lots
- The Cedar Canyon Attached Villas subdivision will be built on slightly more than 7.5 acres of undeveloped land near 99th Street and Canyon Creek Boulevard, just north of Kansas Highway 10 in western Lenexa.
- The new plat proposes 29 lots with one dwelling unit on each lot, for a total of 29 homes.
- The previously-approved plans included 20 duplex lots with 40 units on five tracts of land.
- The development will still include landscape buffers that abut 99th and 100th streets to soften noises from nearby streets.
The subdivision is part of bigger plan
The subdivision is part of a 110-acre bigger development, which has been in the works since early in 2023.
The overall project includes seven parts and five zoning categories on land that runs parallel to K-10, east of Canyon Creek Boulevard.
The larger project plan includes:
- a convenience store,
- 5 retail or general commercial buildings,
- 9 apartment buildings of various sizes totaling 276 units,
- 19 townhomes totaling 58 units,
- 2 single-story office buildings
- and a 150,000-square-foot manufacturing building.
Planning Commission had some comments
While he had no problem with the revision, Commissioner Don Horine thought it would be courteous of the developers to notify people moving into the newly-approved single-family subdivision of their future neighbors within the as-yet-undeveloped Cedar Canyon West project.
“Although this is going to remain [single-family residential zoning category] RP-2, so, medium density, it’s going to be single-family housing. Right across the street is high-density residential [apartments] and I guess even though these are going in first, if they know what’s going in across the street, (it’s) buyer beware, but maybe they ought to be made aware,” he said.
Agreeing with that thought, Commissioner Chris Poss noted that the planning commission typically likes to build up the densities gradually.
“I had same thought that Don had with that, we spend a lot of time trying to step these things into progressions to different densities and stuff like that,” he said.
Still, Poss said he was happy with the revision.
“I think it’s a good product. Obviously, this is what the market’s asking for, is these smaller lot types of homes. It seems like a lot of the newer subdivisions out in that part of the world are coming in like this,” he said.
What’s next
Since it was revision to previously-approved plans, it will not be brought up by Lenexa City Council.
Final plans will still have to be approved by both the Lenexa Planning Commission and City Council.
Other Lenexa Planning Commission news:Â National gun retailer returns with plans for new indoor shooting range in Lenexa
