Municipal News & Jobs

As part of a months-long effort to review its economic incentive policies, Overland Park is now tackling two that tend to use sales tax to encourage specific types of development and redevelopment. These two economic development tools are community improvement districts and transportation development districts, more typically referred to as CIDs and TDDs, respectively.
Source: Johnson County Post

The city of Shawnee is looking to fulfill the continuing demand for a summer camp in the area by adding a city-run program next summer. At the Shawnee Council Committee meeting on July 8, City Manager Paul Kramer outlined the city’s 2025 budget proposal, which includes a summer camp run by the city’s parks and recreation department at Shawnee Civic Centre. “The demand for youth summer camps is high,” Kramer said. “Nearly all local summer camp providers are full, with waiting lists.” Citing full summer camps this year run by the Johnson County Park and Recreation District, the cities of Lenexa and De Soto and the Shawnee Mission School District, among others, Kramer suggested it was time for Shawnee to explore their options. “The problem is that Shawnee families currently search outside city limits for summer camp options,” he said. In the city’s 2024 Parks and Recreation needs assessment survey, people said they wanted a summer camp for their kids in the area. “The summer camp fulfills one of the unmet needs,” Kramer said. The proposal in the city budget would create a fully-licensed, 10-week pilot summer camp at the Shawnee Civic Center for 2025 that includes field trips. The proposal includes hiring 12 new seasonal employees. Their pay would be fully funded by program revenues brought in primarily through fees paid by campers.
Source: Johnson County Post

After months of back and forth, the city of Prairie Village will get rid of some of the pickleball courts at Windsor Park in an effort to respond to residents’ complaints about noise. The Prairie Village City Council on Monday voted 10-0 to resurface four of the six existing pickleball courts back into one tennis court that will still have pickleball lines, enough for up to three pickleball games to be played at once at Windsor Park. Councilmembers Tyler Agniel and Cole Robinson were absent Monday. The move Monday comes months after the council temporarily shut down four of the courts earlier this year in an attempt to mitigate noise coming from the courts and just more than a year since the six pickleball courts were first installed at Windsor Park, replacing two former tennis courts at the time. Since resurfacing the court last summer into pickleball courts, Prairie Village residents and pickleball players have been at odds about the future of the game at Windsor Park. Some residents have complained about the incessant “thwack” associated with pickleball, which has been an issue for others across Johnson County, as well as more broadly around the U.S. Residents near the Windsor Park courts have also complained about parking and traffic issues.
Source: Johnson County Post

Overland Park is one step closer to fully implementing a “permit-ready” housing pilot program, a pillar in the city’s effort to encourage more diverse housing options in the future. Earlier this month, the Overland Park City Council Community Development Committee voted 6-0 to recommend amending the city’s building codes with that effort in mind. These changes would remove some steps in the approval process for single- and two-family homes smaller than 3,500 square feet. Overland Park would still require other administrative steps before such a housing project could be constructed. “Housing, I think, is our number one community issue right now,” Council President Logan Heley said at the July 1 committee meeting. “This is going to help us have smaller housing products come onto the market that are more attainable to more folks.” Under the pilot program, Overland Park would keep a collection of roughly two dozen pre-designed homes that are “permit-ready” — that is designs that are already reviewed and able to be fast-tracked through the planning process. These designs would be available for any resident to use for free on any lot in the city that carries the corresponding residential zoning designation. They would also emphasize more “cottage court” housing developments, which tend to be a little smaller in size, sit on a smaller lot and usually are organized around a common open space.
Source: Johnson County Post