Comprehensive plan topic at quarterly city-county meeting
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 01:28 p.m., January 10, 2008
Updated 01:28 p.m., January 10, 2008
City and county commissioners received an overview of highlights of the city’s new comprehensive plan Wednesday during their quarterly luncheon in the Little Theater in the Civic Building, the same site for tonight’s open house that will allow the public to view and comment on the updated plan.
The city’s consultant on the plan, Brian Comer of the HNTB Corp. of Kansas City, Mo., discussed several key points, including the Newman Regional Health area, the public desire for a citywide interconnected sidewalk trail network and the zoning possibilities of the Kansas Turnpike area.
Comer said that possibility for growth for Newman has been incorporated into the new plan, which upon adoption will be the city’s first such document since 1998.
“Our understanding is that in the next 15 to 20 years, the hospital may outgrow that site, but we do have means of improving (it) the next 15 years,” he said.
The hospital could grow toward the south, which potentially could block some residential areas, but it could also move north across 12th Street into the old College of Emporia campus.
The turnpike area, Comer said, generated big discussion about which sections should be residential, which should be commercial and which should have land use flexibility.
Many potential changes had been discussed, Comer said. For example, the area north of 24th Avenue on Industrial Road has been identified as a “point of discussion.” Right now, that section is zoned for residential use.
Comer said property owners, business owners and developers had stressed the need for the plan to have flexibility for the future.
City Manager Matt Zimmerman told the commissioners that there had been a review of the new document since its first draft last April because of the changes in local leadership that had taken place recently, including new city and county commissioners, a new executive director of Emporia Main Street and, of course, Zimmerman’s appointment.
“We didn’t want to adopt a document that had sort of been prepared by not the people who are going to be implementing and working with that document,” he said.
Zimmerman said that unless something significant is brought up for changing at tonight’s open house, the current version of the plan is likely to be the one that goes to the city and county for adoption.
Tonight’s informal open house begins at 5 p.m. and will go until 8:30.
Also at Wednesday’s luncheon, commissioners:
• Watched a Power Point presentation by a representative of Springsted Inc., the company that examined the city’s potential for consolidating city and county law enforcement. Tom Kaleko, project manager and Springsted senior vice president, outlined his project team’s experience in law enforcement and government, as well as the procedure Springsted used to reach its findings on the procedure for consolidation.
• Welcomed new Police Chief Gary Smith to Emporia. Smith had talked to the city commission at its work session earlier Wednesday.
• Received an update on the city and county’s joint agreement task force from City Commissioner Jim Kessler. The task force’s job is to try to decide who pays for what in the city and county’s joint agreements. Kessler wants both commissions to look at the list of joint agreements and see if there are any that are not covered on the list.