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April 10, 2002 Roger Kroh, Director Johnson County Department of Planning, Development and Codes 111 S. Cherry Street, Suite 3500 Olathe, Kansas 66061 Re: Blue Valley Plaza, LLC Dear Roger: This letter is to confirm our understanding that the notification to neighbors for the April 18, 2002 Oxford Township Zoning Board Hearing should be delayed for one month due to your request for a traffic study. We are very disappointed that we are unable to present our plan to the Oxford Township at their April 18 zoning board hearing [Ed: Actually, the application is now delayed to June 20 to give applicant time to complete studies], having worked very hard to prepare and file our Rezoning Application prior to the March deadline for the April hearing. On February 8, representatives of the future owner of this property, Blue Valley Plaza, LLC (the “Owner”), including Andy Schlagel (planning consultant), Roger Cassity (civil engineer), and I attended a pre-filing meeting with your planning staff. At that meeting, your staff indicated that a traffic study would be required for our project. After several inquiries and almost two months later, on April 1, 2002, Andy Schlagel finally received a faxed letter from you setting forth the scope of the work for the traffic study that would be required. Delays of this sort seem unnecessary and if unnecessary, are unfair to everyone in this process (including owners, neighbors and other interested citizens). As a result of these delays, we are now forced to prepare for, at the earliest, a May, 2002 hearing at the Oxford Township which would allow us to proceed to the Board of County Commissioners hearing in June. As a side note, we have also been puzzled by statements you or your staff have made (to us and the press) in which you indicated the subject property was reserved for residential uses, when in fact, the property has never been through a zoning process. We understand that residential development is an alternative for our property. However, since the other three corners of this intersection are developing for commercial uses and a fire station exists on the property, we firmly believe commercial development is the best use for the forth April 10, 2002 Page 2 corner of this future major intersection. It appears that you may be predisposed to rejecting our plan and we question whether that is appropriate considering the financial benefits this project will bring to Johnson County in these times of budget struggles. We simply ask that you and your staff keep an open mind regarding the proposed land use and our plan for its development. Please call Frank Lipsman or me with any question. Very truly yours, [His signature] Jack M. Epps JTME:mb.427o1v2.131 135 cc: Paul Greeley Scott McCullough Andy Schiagel |