Owners of land in a three-mile jurisdiction just outside Topeka city limits in unincorporated Shawnee County have no representation when the city’s governing body makes moves to regulate planning and zoning in that area, Shawnee County Commission Chairman Kevin Cook said Monday.
It’s important for the county to enact a comprehensive land use plan, because that would give those landowners representation by giving the county a say in those matters, he said.
Though all but one of the 13 members of the public who addressed the commission during a 70-minute discussion Monday spoke critically of the plan, Commissioners Cook, Shelly Buhler and Bob Archer indicated they were willing to try to hammer out a revised version of the proposed document that they could support. Commissioners will allow for two weeks of public deliberation about the proposed amendments and revisit the proposal on Sept. 10. It wasn’t clear whether final action would be taken that day.
The proposed 197-page 2037 Shawnee County Comprehensive Plan would guide decision-making about the physical development of the county’s unincorporated areas. It seeks to guide orderly growth that balances environmental values and reasonable development demand over the next 20 years.
(Read more: Local – The Topeka Capital-Journal)