If a re-zoning is requested for a parcel of land in Kansas, and nearby landowners submit a successful legal protest petition, then a governing body (e.g., City Council or County Commissioners) may only approve the rezoning with a "super majority" of 75% of the membership, rather than a simple majority. In the case of the Overland Park Governing Body with 13 members (12 City Council and 1 Mayor), 10 members must approve the re-zoning instead of 7.

This makes a legal protest petition a powerful tool for neighboring landowners when a rezoning for a development project is requested. Neighbors used a protest petition to successfully block a proposed re-zoning of the land at Southeast corner of Metcalf and 159th in 2002.

State law specifies that the only landowners who may participate in the protest petition are those with land within 200 feet of the re-zoning if they are in a city, or 1000 feet if they are in unincorporated area of a county.

A successful protest petition must have owners of 20% of the land within 200/1000 feet sign the petition. It is the acreage, not the number of landowners, that is counted. If only part of a lot is within the petition area, only that part of the lot contributes to the protest petition.

Protest Petition Example 1

This image depicts land on the Southeast corner of Metcalf and 159th in Johnson County, KS., which is being proposed for rezoning. The land itself and land to the south and east is in the County. The land to the north and west is in the City of Overland Park.

In this example, land within 200 feet to the north and west is eligible for the protest petition, while land within 1,000 feet to the south and east is eligible. In 2002, when the north half of this property was proposed for commercial and residential re-zoning, there was a single application and a single protest petition.

Multiple Re-zoning Applications For A Single Project

Developers now split their projects into separate pieces in an attempt to thwart protest petitions. Since each re-zoning application gets its own protest petition, it can be to the developer's benefit to submit one re-zoning application for a commercial area of a project, and a second rezoning application for a residential area surrounding the commercial.

This lets the protest petition area for the commercial re-zoning include land owned by the developer and intended for residential. For a re-zoning in a city this can be quite effective. However, as can be seen in the following example, it is less effective with the 1,000 foot boundaries in the County.

Protest Petition Example 2

This image assumes that the developer submits a re-zoning application for a commercial area of the project and has surrounded the commercial area with a residential area of the project.

All of the land in red cross hatch is now part of the protest petition area, but belongs to the developer. The boundary of the protest petition area that extends into the surrounding neighborhood also is pulled back. The result is that it becomes harder to mount a protest petition.

However, in this example, because of the 1,000 foot boundary, there is still sufficient land under neighbors' ownership to make a petition possible.