Residents of the unincorporated community of Clearfield in Douglas County have filed a petition in hope of being incorporated as a city, Douglas County commissioners heard at their meeting Wednesday.

Clearfield is an existing unincorporated community in Douglas County located 9 miles northeast of Baldwin City within Palmyra Township. The proposed incorporated city limits, however, would be within five miles of Baldwin City, Edgerton and Eudora and encompass 18.2 square miles of land in roughly the shape of a backward letter P. The southernmost border would stop at U.S. Highway 56, and the northern border would stretch up closer to Eudora.

It wasn’t clear on Wednesday how many people had signed the petition for incorporation, nor how many residents the proposed city would include. According to the Douglas County Clerk’s Office, a petition for incorporation requires at least 50 signatures, and the territory to be incorporated has to contain at least 250 people.

At its meeting Wednesday, the Douglas County Commission set a hearing for the petition for June 15, the next step in the process. State statute specifies that a hearing has to take place sometime between 30 and 90 days after a petition for incorporation has been filed and approved.