Tomahawk Creek Watershed Encroachment in Olathe

143rd St. Corridor Homeowners Group has strong opposition to the revised “The Willows” residential development (previously submitted and rejected as “Wheatley Hills”) which Schlagel & Associates, P.A., and their clients and associates have proposed multiple times since 1995 for the southeast corner of 143rd St. and Pflumm Road. The 143rd St. Corridor Homeowners Group opposition is because of increased traffic and safety issues, quality of life impacts to existing neighborhoods in the area, and increased stormwater runoff. Joe McMillian of 143rd St. Corridor Homeowners Group, discusses some of the group’s concerns in advance of the meeting at Olathe City Hall on Tuesday.

WHEN: 7 p.m., Jan. 5, 2016, Public Meeting, Olathe City Council.

WHERE: Council Chambers, Olathe City Hall, 100 East Santa Fe, Olathe, Kansas.

WHY: 143rd St. Corridor Homeowners Group, comprised of concerned Overland Park and Olathe residents, intends to voice profound concern for the proposed residential development at 143rd and Pflumm based on inadequate planning for traffic and flooding.

The property in question is perhaps the largest piece of undeveloped land in the Tomahawk Creek watershed. Olathe and Overland Park citizens who have sunk their roots into these communities and have made huge financial commitments to live here are most anxious that their elected officials afford their continuing concerns the respect and careful consideration that they have offered in the past.

Particularly compelling is the fact that the existing neighborhoods that would be impacted by any increased stormwater runoff from residential development at 143rd and Pflumm—Parkwood Hills, Symphony Hills, Heritage Hill West and Harmony View West, all in Olathe, and Amesbury Lake (Windsor Ridge, Grayson Mills, and Brookhaven) in Overland Park—all connect with one of the most hazardous stretches of road in Johnson County—143rd St. between Quivira and Pflumm, where dangerously decreased sight lines have caused accidents to continually occur and with a road that floods in normal rainfall, Pflumm Road.

Olathe and Overland Park municipalities have told homeowners that 143rd St. between Quivira and Pflumm will not be widened until 2017 or after and that there are no immediate plans to improve Pflumm Road.

The concerns about potential stormwater runoff from the proposed development are real and constant. The current stormwater abatement plan seems to rely heavily on the use of detention ponds, and many of the homeowners in the area have uncovered research that indicates that these ponds must be maintained, must be kept in repair, must be inspected and certified—and that all of those necessary actions are extremely costly. Some homeowners are discovering academic research that emphasizes that when maintenance responsibility for detention ponds shifts to homeowners’ associations—which will happen at some point if The Willows residential development becomes a reality—it is often not performed. The Olathe Planning department’s plan for increased runoff is to move it quickly north into Overland Park. According to Olathe city planners, once there, the City of Olathe would not be looking to solve problems outside its boundaries.


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