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John “Jack” Helin
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TAB 5
The Chieftain (Bonner Springs, KS)
December 5, 2007
City Council Reach Consensus on Growth
BONNER SPRINGS — It didn't carry the weight of the Yalta Conference, but it was a still a
historic event when city council members and staff of Bonner Springs and Basehor met Nov. 28.
The purpose of the first joint meeting between the two bodies, held at the Kansas Department of
Transportation office at 650 N. Kansas Highway 7, was to discuss the future growth areas of
each city as well interlocal agreements between each municipality and Leavenworth County
concerning the cities' authority over those areas.
What emerged from the meeting was a more or less solid consensus that the area designated as
Area A -- west of Bonner Springs' present boundary at 142nd Street, south of Interstate 70 and
north of Loring Road --stretching from 142nd to between 158th Street and 166th Street would be
a future growth area for Bonner Springs. The other agreed-upon future growth area for Bonner
was designated C, which is a piece of land shaped somewhat like a teardrop on its side,
stretching about half a mile north of I-70 from 158th Street to about half a mile west of 142nd
Street.
Tabled for discussion at a later date was the area designated as B, was would be the area north of
Interstate 70 to U.S. Highway 24-40, about half a mile west of 142nd Street. The present
boundary for Bonner Springs is at 142nd and 24-40, with a section just about a quarter-mile
north of I-70 west of 142nd Street about half a mile.
The interlocal agreements on the future growth boundaries with Leavenworth County -- in which
the lettered growth areas fall -- would provide each city with the authority to rule on zoning,
subdivisions and building codes for those areas, thus making planning for those areas easier, said
Bonner Springs City Manager John Helin. The county would then have to approve each city's
zoning regulations as well as any new ones down the road, Helin said, and would also have the
last word on rezoning requests. That prompted one Basehor Council member to ask what the
advantage of the interlocal agreement was. "At least you have a say-so," Helin said, meaning
that a rezoning request would not reach the county without a prior approval from the city whose
jurisdiction the future growth area falls in. As for the downsides of the agreement, Helin said,
"you have more issues, more responsibility" in those growth areas for planning and zoning.
The official designation of an area as a future growth area also requires that residents of that area
be represented on the planning commission, Helin said.
Helin said the staff of each would work together on crafting complementary interlocal
agreements with the county, and that he had already given a rough draft of to Basehor "I think it
carries more weight if both cities ask for the same things from the county commissioners," Helin
said.
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