The Blue Valley Plan, Urban Fringe Area Plan focuses on future development of the 21 square-mile Blue Valley Plan, Urban Fringe Area south of the City of Overland Park.
In spite of the existing dvelopment pattern and the scattered zoning districts for residential and rural uses, the Blue Valley Plan, Urban Fringe Area has experienced only limited non-residential growth in the past ten years. There are two principal reasons for this slow growth rate:
The area encompasses a relatively small population in comparison to the balance of the County, and the labor force is tied to employment centers elsewhere in the metropolitan region. The resulting commuting patterns facilitate shopping for goods and services in locations closer to work. This characteristic has supported only limited services, e.g., convenience shopping, in the Blue Valley Plan, Urban Fringe Area.
Public sanitary sewers [Editor: See Neighborhood Topic Sewers] are just now becoming available in the Blue Valley Plan, Urban Fringe Area. Only very limited commercial and industrial activities could be accomodated in this area in the recent years because of the absence of public sanitary sewers. Because of the recently established Blue River No. 8 and Blue River No. 10 sanitary sewer subdistricts, and the revised sewer system financing method established a couple of years ago, this condition is now changing and additional sanitary sewer system development should be expected in the Blue Valley Plan, Urban Fringe Area in the foreseeable future. This does not mean a great increase in nonresidential development in this area, however, as the population base needed to support extensive commercial development is still absent.