Kansas City Council: Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee (Sept. 1, 2026)

By Brandee Collins, Kansas City Documenter

These notes were produced through Kansas City Documenters, which trains and pays community members to take fact-checked notes at public meetings, strengthening transparency and accountability in local government.

Summary

• The committee held two ordinances that would rezone a former Northland elementary school site for storage, warehousing and vehicle uses after the applicant’s attorney and city planning staff disagreed over what the City Plan Commission recommended. Committee Chairperson Ryana Parks-Shaw said she was inclined to support staff’s recommendation to deny the rezoning.
• The committee unanimously advanced an ordinance mandating an audit of the city’s former Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) program, which Parks-Shaw said took six months compared to the state’s two-month process.
• Three of the six agenda items were pushed to later dates with no substantive discussion. 

Notes

Holds and recalls

Before taking up the agenda, Parks-Shaw announced the committee would hold:

• Ordinance 260694 until Sept. 22. The ordinance would approve the petition to establish the Tiffany Springs Logistics Community Improvement District No. 1. The action pushed the public hearing on the proposal to the new September date.
• Ordinance 260498 until Oct. 6. The ordinance would call an election to establish fees for chronically vacant nuisance properties.
• Ordinance 260655 until Sept. 8. The ordinance would approve a plan for about 8 acres generally located on the east side of North Oak Trafficway at Northeast Hill Street to allow construction of a 24-unit townhouse development.

First Readings

• Ordinance 260744:  The ordinance requiring the MWBE audit said the review should examine the former program’s certification and renewal processes to identify “potential administrative or procedural inefficiencies and barriers,” to provide findings and recommendations to the City Council and city manager, and directed the city manager to make “reasonable efforts to include businesses that were eligible for certification but did not apply due to administrative barriers as well as businesses that experienced certification or renewal delays or were otherwise negatively impacted by administrative or procedural barriers of the former program.”
  • Parks-Shaw, the sponsor, said the goal is to apply the audit findings to the new program developed by the council.
  • The council developed the new guidelines in response to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who alleged the previous program was discriminatory.
  • The committee advanced the ordinance to the full council with a recommendation to pass.
  • [Editor’s Note]: The full council approved the measure at its Sept. 3 meeting on a vote of 10-1, with 1st District Councilman Nathan Willett voting “no.” Councilwoman Andrea Bough was listed as absent, and Councilwoman Melissa Robinson was listed as out.

Held in Committee

• Ordinance 200943: Approving and designating Redevelopment Project 1 of the Overlook Tax Increment Financing Plan as a redevelopment project and authorizing tax increment financing.
  • David Leader of the Economic Development Corp. of Kansas City presented. He said the plan was approved by the City Council on Dec. 3, 2020, and amended three times, most recently on July 2, creating a second project area so the existing office building sits on its own parcel and can be sold to the Health Forward Foundation. 
  • The committee advanced the ordinance to the full council with a recommendation to pass.
  • [Editor’s Note]: The full council approved the measure at its Sept. 3 meeting on a vote of 12-0. Councilwoman Andrea Bough was listed as absent.

• Ordinances 260677 and 260682 (Heard together)
  • Ordinance 260677 would rezone about 7.6 acres from District AG-R to District B4-1 and approve a development plan.  Ordinance 260682 would amend the KCI Area Plan on the same acreage from Neighborhood 1 to Business Center for The Hub.
  • The committee decided to hold the items for a week.
    • More details about the discussions are:
      • The proposal involves a 23-acre parcel that includes the former East Platte Elementary School within the Platte County school district.
      • The site has an easterly parcel of about 7.6 acres and a westerly parcel of about 15 acres.
      • Much of the detailed discussion among committee members, city staff and attorney John Roe, representing owner Lamar Eby of Longview Ventures, centered on differing interpretations of City Plan Commission actions related to the development proposal and whether its actions had applied to only the eastern portion or the entire site.
      • The discussion also focused on zoning conformity, such as placement of vehicle storage areas and the dedication of right-of-way.
      • Eby said he lives on the street and moved there in 2007, that two of his children attended the school in 2009, and that it was then closed for 10 years and boarded up, with police activity at the site. He said it is his community, that he is not a developer but a small-business person, and that he was putting a disused, eyesore building to good use. Eby and his wife cleaned the building and run two businesses there.
      • He said he wants a resolution workable for everyone, that they want to continue investing in the area because it is on their street, and that the neighbors are happy not to have an old public school that was going to be torn down or that drew regular police calls.

Observations & Follow-Up Questions

Observations

• The committee disposed of six items in 49 minutes, and the split was stark. The two ordinances that actually received votes, authorizing a city audit and activating a tax increment financing project, moved from first reading to final vote in six minutes combined, with no committee questions and no public testimony on either. The two items that were held and received no vote at all consumed nearly 40 minutes, about four-fifths of the meeting.

Follow-up Questions

• Will the KCI Area Plan amendment for The Hub move forward on 7.6 acres or on the full 23, and does that difference set a precedent for how the plan treats the surrounding low-density residential and agricultural parcels?
• Eby said he raised the site’s nonconforming status with city staff in December 2024 during the KCI Area Plan revision and attended nearly every meeting on that plan. What happened between that outreach and the enforcement action that brought these ordinances forward?
• Ordinance 260498 as printed calls an election for Aug. 4, 2026, and directs city clerk notification on or before May 26, 2026. Both dates have passed. Will the ordinance be amended to a new election date, and what does the delay do to the timeline for putting the question to voters?

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