A divided Overland Park City Council has approved changes to the city’s development code that include new apartment building height limits.

Although city staff characterized the changes — which included other amendments to the city’s Unified Development Ordinance — as “interim” and “incremental,” the proposal still sparked heated discussion among council members at the Monday, Nov. 4 meeting.

Ultimately, the council approved the changes by a 7-5 vote, with Mayor Curt Skoog casting the deciding vote.

In particular, code changes set a height limit for apartments in the highest density multifamily areas of the city, labeled RP-6.

They also eliminate a minimum height in the same RP-6 zones and codify what are called “transition zones” between higher-density multifamily projects — which typically rise several stories — and established home zones nearby suburbs.

Overland Park City Council split apartment height limit

Discussion of the topic — which was originally included as part of the meeting’s consent agenda but was removed at the request of Councilman Jeff Cox — lasted more than an hour and at times devolved into debates about the philosophy of housing in the largest town in Johnson County.

Earlier, amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance passed through the Surface Park Planning Commission without objection, passing 9-0.

In addition, city staff said the amendments are intended to serve as a sort of “band-aid” as the city prepares to embark on a large-scale overhaul of the city’s development codes to align them with the new comprehensive plan, OP-framework.

Ultimately, the local council approved the updates to the 7-5 development code.

Council President Logan Heley and Cox Council members Melissa Cheatham, Scott Mosher and Richard Borlaza voted against. Mayor Curt Skoog’s affirmative vote was needed to pass the amendments.

Councilor Chris Newlin was absent from last Monday’s meeting.

What development codes are changing in Overland Park?

Most of the updates focus on residential development, although there are a few pieces for other types of land use.

Current Planning Director Brian Monberg said at last week’s meeting that the changes that have been made so far reflect concerns from neighbors in recent projects that have come through the planning process and common variance requests from developers, as well as changes from the development industry.

Changes approved last week include:

• Apartment buildings in the city’s densest residential zoning district, RP-6, cannot exceed five stories without a developer’s variance application.
• The minimum block height of four storeys in the RP-6 district has now been removed.
• The new height limit does not affect the multifamily housing portions of larger mixed-use developments.
• The update also codifies transition zones between the two densest multifamily zoning classes, RP-5 and RP-6, and the adjacent single-family residential zones. Also, they cannot enter the areas designated as Suburban Neighborhood or Rural Transition Zone in the new long-term plan of the framework OP.
• Buildings can now be up to 500 feet – provided there are some design elements or modulations to break up the facades. Previously, buildings could not exceed 200 feet without an approved variance application.
• Additionally, these changes make way for the city’s permit-ready housing pilot program, which aims to speed up pre-approved housing projects in certain parts of the city.
• It also highlights some changes related to commercial building materials and deviations from requirements on this front.

Those amendments are “interim,” Monberg said, meaning they are intended as a stop-gap measure to bring some of the city’s development code up to the new standards set under the OP before a larger update that could last several months. to complete.

– Why are we boxing?

During the meeting, councilors were divided on the changes to the Unified Development Ordinance, with temperatures running high at times.

The main disagreement was the new height limit on apartments in RP-6 zoning areas, with several council members questioning the need for such a limit.

“We should not be adding roadblocks to adding housing to our community. We should be doing everything we can to encourage housing,” Heley said. “I think this seems like an unnecessary way to make housing in our community more difficult, rather than easier.”

Overland Park Planning Documents

At one point, Councilor Mitrisin offered an alternative motion that would have approved the changes without the apartment height limit.

“Why are we boxing?” Mitrisin asked. “If anyone thinks they can support housing in our community, I don’t want to negotiate against that right now.”

That motion failed 4-7, falling short of the nine affirmative votes that would have been needed to deviate from the planning commission’s recommendation. Borlaza, Mitrisin, Cheatham and Heley voted in favor of Mitrisin’s alternative motion.

Finally, Mitrisin voted to approve the amendments as recommended.

“I don’t want Overland Park to be like this”

For his part, Cox criticized the density of housing developments, but did not go into detail about the problems he has with these specific updates to the Unified Development Ordinance. He said the council’s housing decisions “degrade what Overland Park is and why everyone loves it.”

“I’m trying to preserve what’s great about Overland Park, and there’s a big cost to density,” Cox said. “There is a cost to this relentless drive to turn us into a city from a suburban community. … I just don’t want Overland Park to be like that.”

In the end, support for the amendments won out.

“I see this as a way to address some of the challenges that both our residents and our developers have faced in the projects that this council has looked at,” said Mayor Skoog.

Cox also complained that the topic was initially included on the consent agenda. (Typically, items that are approved by the planning commission unanimously, as these proposed changes were, are placed on the approval agenda to be approved by the council without discussion.)

Cox, however, felt the proposed changes focused on major issues that the local council had recently clashed over. He said he would have preferred to discuss those changes in a study session before they hit the city council agenda.

In response, Skoog said any insinuation that the city council was not transparent or had bad intent in dealing with the issue “is outrageous and wrong.”

Next steps

The city still plans to do a full review of its Unified Development Ordinance in the coming months.

City staff have signaled that those future changes are likely to include additional changes or other changes to Overland Park’s apartment standards, though it’s unclear what that might look like.

Any future changes will also require approval from both the planning commission and city council.

Overland Park also continues to grow a new zoning overlay district specifically for the College and Metcalf area which could set separate standards for building height, width and other factors to encourage mixed-use redevelopment in that prominent corridor.

This story was originally published by Johnson County Post.