By Jill Draper
Few—if any—changes to a proposed condominium project at Holmes Road and 115th Street were presented when developers held their second public information session on Feb. 22 at a meeting of the Center Planning and Development Council at Trailside Center. But neighboring residents had the same—if not more—concerns.
“This is still an engagement process,” said Charles Renner of the Husch Blackwell law firm, who is working with Iron Door Development on plans to rezone four single-family residential lots on the southeast corner of the intersection for 34 attached townhomes.
A third information session, originally scheduled Monday, March 7 at St. Thomas More has been postponed. And a meeting with the KCMO City Plan Commission has been rescheduled for April 19.
The main change from an earlier information session held in December is the price. Developers previously said the townhomes would sell for $350,000 to $450,000. Now they expect the price to be $300,000 to $325,000 since the cost of construction materials has gone down.
They showed the same drawings and plans depicting two-story townhomes grouped into six duplexes, six triplexes and one quadplex on 3.4 acres. Each unit would include three bedrooms, 2 ½ bathrooms, a single-car garage and a short driveway. A road would curve through the complex, and a detention basin would be built on the east side for stormwater control.
It was unclear whether the road through the complex would be gated or public. Also unclear was where visitors of condo residents might park and whether sidewalks would be built. The project site is east of Coach House Apartments and south of Minor Park Golf Course.
Debbie Anderson, who said she lived nearby on Campbell Street, questioned why the development couldn’t be built in a less dense style such as the patio homes at Red Bridge Greens on the northeast corner of Holmes and Red Bridge Road. She noted the buildings in her Kerr’s Addition neighborhood were mostly single-family homes on doublewide lots with mature trees.
“I hope that the city planners take a good look at their own area plans when they make their decisions,” she said, indicating the area plan calls for maintaining a suburban environment.
“This is a unique site on Holmes Road buffered by a golf course,” countered Renner. “Some sort of density for this type of opportunity makes sense.” He repeated an earlier statement that the developer is asking for no incentives and only site-specific zoning. He also said the project would not force a special assessment for the remainder of 115th Street, which one attendee described as “a cute country lane.”
The developers also said a traffic study showed the proposed townhomes would not greatly affect Holmes Road, but some in the audience questioned the accuracy of the study and whether the detention basin would be adequate for the increased runoff the project would produce.
The project details are still under discussion, concluded Renner, adding, “A lot of the city feedback has been positive.”