DeSoto ? Although Janet Stevenson has heard the right things so far concerning the city of De Soto’s planning for western growth, she remains concerned.

Stevenson and her husband, Keith, own about 10 acres of land north of Kansas Highway 10 near Evening Star Road. That’s why the Lenexa couple attended a recent joint De Soto City Council and Planning Commission meeting on the planning processes to address anticipated growth on the city’s western and southern fringes – growth expected to fill much of the open space along the K-10 corridor east of Lawrence.

The planning processes involve developing a new land use plan for that area west of Sunflower Road, and a more detailed area plan for an area north of the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant. The land use plan will be developed in conjunction with a series of public meetings the next two months, while work will start on the area plan in the late summer.

“I think it’s great they are doing it,” Stevenson said. “I just wonder if it’s going to have any impact.”

She’s not alone.

Richard Wegner said he had lived in his Edgerton Road home for 25 years. Other than subdividing his lot to make room for his brother to build a house, he hasn’t seen much development, he said.

“I like being out there where you don’t hear anything but the geese when they fly overhead,” he said. “It’s a beautiful place out there.”

Wegner would like to see development go elsewhere, but like many residents, he said he was resigned to growth.

Infrastructure concerns

State law gives municipalities the right to plan three miles beyond their city limits, and those unincorporated lands in the area of study were included in the city’s 2004 update of its comprehensive plan – slated for business and mixed uses.

It was decided to take another look at the area because of last summer’s transfer of Sunflower plant land to a developer, along with the city’s decision to construct its new sewer plant in the West Bottoms, where work started last month.

Those new developments, with the presence of K-10 interchanges at Edgerton and Evening Star roads, make the area a likely target of developer interest. One developer has already put together 500 acres west of Edgerton Road and north of K-10 with an eye toward residential development.

The key to the area’s growth will be sewers, De Soto city engineer Mike Brungardt said during the joint meeting. Sewer mains and treatment plants are expensive, and topography and geology limit where service can be extended and who can provide it. At the bottom of watersheds tracing through the west side, De Soto is the only jurisdiction able to provide service to the area, Brungardt said.

However, Brungardt said the completion of the city’s new wastewater plant in about a year would not in itself open up any new land for development. Without the installation of expensive mains, the only part of the study area in which sewers can be extended is that area south of the city and east of Sunflower Road.

There is an existing network of roads serving the area with K-10, Edgerton and Evening Star roads and 95th and 103rd streets, Brungardt said. But he said it was important that those links be expanded and others added, if De Soto was to avoid becoming two distinct communities as the west side developed.

Sunflower questions

Questions about the future of Sunflower have drawn the most attention.

De Soto officials said the developer, Sunflower Redevelopment Inc., had promised to produce a development plan for the plant.

Sunflower Redevelopment Executive Director Kise Randall said the developer expected to seek requests for proposal of the master plan possibly as early as this month but certainly within the next two. Requests would be sent to the most prestigious planning firms in the country, she said.

Although there might be a wait as the selected firm clears its workload to get to the project, it was reasonable to expect the master plan’s completion in a year to 18 months, Randall said.

Like the county master plan, Sunflower Redevelopment would probably ask for a plan that looked at the area between the plant and K-10, Randall said.

Randall conceded Sunflower Redevelopment’s schedule didn’t conform to the city’s completion of an area plan for the properties north of Sunflower. She said she was hopeful the city and developer could remain flexible for an area where it seemed natural the two would have common interests – Sunflower Redevelopment owns 80 acres surrounding the old surface water plant in the area to be studied.

Sunflower’s plans could dovetail with what the city comes up with, or the city could adopt what that planner develops.

“Planning processes are evolutionary,” she said. “It could be they have such a great idea that it lights everyone’s fire. That’s what I’m hoping for.”