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The city of Merriam is officially moving to a single trash hauler for all residents. The Merriam City Council on Monday voted 6-0 to approve a single waste hauler ordinance, which means all Merriam residents will be on a citywide contract with a single trash hauler. Source: Johnson County Post

Service providers and housing officials gathered Thursday to launch their first day of a their functional zero campaign, an effort to ensure that there are more people staying housed across the state than falling into homelessness. Planning bodies for each region, called continuums of care, participated in a homelessness summit in Topeka to mark Kansas becoming a Built for Zero state. The zero each region will be pursuing is functional zero, a milestone used to gauge how well a community is dealing with homelessness. Source: KLC Journal

A research study conducted by Downtown Wichita suggests that the number of housing units in the downtown area may need to double over the next five years to keep up with demand. Construction continues on Wichita State University's Biomedical Campus, which is expected to bring roughly 3,000 students and 200 staff members to the downtown area by spring 2027. Heather Schroeder, the executive director of Downtown Wichita, said the development serves as a strong selling point to attract developers to build in the area. Wu said that more retail stores, possibly even a grocery store, may be possible if the downtown population [...]

Development of northeast Garden City was discussed at the joint Finney County Commission, Garden City Commission and City of Holcomb meeting on Monday afternoon. Matt Allen, City Manager of Garden City, said the development of the city is generally to the north and northeast, and development in that direction was determined in the 1980s with a development plan of the city’s public infrastructure. Source: Garden City Telegram

Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Commerce David Toland today announced the launch of the Blueprint to Build program, an innovative new Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding round. This program provides rural Kansas communities a faster, more affordable way to construct state-of-the-art community centers. Blueprint to Build enables communities to select from three community center models that have already been designed, providing major savings and speeding up the process of building new facilities. Centers are designed for energy efficiency and are intended to be placed in walkable downtowns or near existing community spaces as a way to both reduce infrastructure costs [...]

A slow but steady population loss in rural Kansas has hit Moran as hard as anybody, Mayor Jerry Wallis noted Tuesday. It wasn’t that long ago that Moran boasted three filling stations, multiple restaurants, a golf course, doctor’s office, grain elevator, two taverns and the Klein Tools plant north of town. But one by one, most of those have closed up shop. Wallis was among a crowd of about 25 residents taking part in a community conversation that centered on more than a few blunt comments about the community’s future. But while the solution to reversing the population loss is easy [...]

The City of Lawrence has launched a new online map tool called Citizen Connect that allows people to see locations of plans, permits, inspections, business licenses and code cases that the city has processed. The single portal replaces a handful of previous individual tools, such as maps of long-term and short-term rental licenses, building permits, planning submittals, permits and a licensed contractor lookup. Source: The Lawrence Times

Due to rising reinvestment costs and the recently approved USD 394 bond issue, the Rose Hill City Council recently approved a memorandum of understanding between the city and school district to allow for shared playground use. Part of the USD 394 bond issue will specifically enhance the two district playgrounds, with the MOU to allow for public use during non-school hours. The district would have shared access to city playground facilities and equipment as well. Source: www.derbyinformer.com - RSS Results in news/area_news of type article

Crawford County Zoning Administrator May Smith approached the commission on Friday with a request to approve a motion to enforce the county’s new nuisance and abatement authority granted by Senate Bill SB-384 last year. Source: - Latest Stories

Residents would be able to make reservations for the county’s three parks – Lake Afton Park, Sedgwick County Park, and Northeast Sedgwick County Park – or sign up for recreational programs through the city’s current reservation system, according to a proposal city and county officials heard Tuesday. Source: Wichita Eagle