by Ivan Foley
Landmark editor
Kansas City’s city council is expected to vote this week on the controversial annexation of the proposed development known as Tomahawke Ridge.
The city council’s Planning and Zoning Committee last week voted 3-2 to pass the proposal on to the full council. The effort would annex 316 acres of land owned primarily by Hal and Peggy Swaney along Hwy. 92 near Winan Road. Swaney and partners are proposing to put in a 657-home high-density subdivision at that site.
The proposed Tomahawke development was turned down by the Platte County Commission after being recommended for denial by the county’s planning department staff and by the county’s planning and zoning commission.
Kansas City’s professional planning staff has also recommended against approving the development.
Last week, the city council’s planning committee voted 3-2 in favor of the annexation. Council members Ed Ford, Cindy Circo and Beth Gottstein supported the annexation, while Bill Skaggs and John Sharp were opposed.
At that meeting, Jim Plunkett, Platte County commisisoner, appeared and clarified that both he and Presiding Commissioner Betty Kngiht stand behind their opposition to the proposed development. Plunkett read an email from Knight in which the presiding commissioner said she lets her previous vote on the matter “stand for itself.”
Plunkett’s comments came after Chris Byrd, attorney for the developer, had appeared on the Chris Stigall radio program on KCMO 710 AM a few weeks ago and claimed that two current county commissioners are not opposed to the annexation and development.
Ford is sponsoring the annexation measure at the council level.
Neighbors have submitted a petition to the city opposing allowing the annexation and zoning change that would be needed to allow the development. Their petition now forces the matter to require a supermajority of council members for approval of the zoning. That supermajority is nine council members.
The protest petition needed signatures from 30 percent of the property owners within 185 feet of the proposed site, and neighbors gathered more than enough signatures.
The action of annexation itself will only take seven council votes, but the zoning to allow the proposed subdivision would require nine votes.
Ford has previously stated he believes he has the necessary votes for passage, but he backed off those remarks a bit last week, telling the Kansas City Star he didn’t know whether the necessary votes to pass the measure could be found.
The council has 13 members.
Opponents have openly questioned the developer’s claims that the development would generate $17.7 million in net economic benefit to the city. That estimate was made in part on an average sale price of $250,000, despite the pledge that most homes would be “work force housing” priced at $170,000.
Byrd has said that while 75 percent of the homes will be priced near $170,000 the others will be about $350,000. He said the “average” price factors in inflation over 20 years.
Kirby Holden, neighbor and opponent to the proposal, said he finds Byrd’s explanation curious.
“A subdivision with ‘entry level’ homes and $350,000 homes blended together? You do not see a lot of these types of subdivisions. None I can find,” Holden said this week.
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