A Developing Problem

Alex Cruz is a Kansas City, Missouri, police officer. Cruz, his wife, Kathy, and their two children live in a stretch of woods west of U.S. 169 in Kansas City North. Their neighbors, Cindy Dickerson and Darren Ivey, also are cops. And as cops, they're required to live in the city they patrol.

"We are no different from others looking for a piece of the suburban 'good life' in Kansas City," Cruz says of their choice to live in the Northland, the only part of town where there's still room to spread out.

Like many suburbanites, they naively believed their neighborhood would remain pristine forever. "My wife and I looked at over 40 houses before we picked this one three years ago," Cruz says. "We based our decision on what would be best for our peace of mind and our kids. Now everything is different. The nature of my investment has changed, and I didn't have anything to do with it."

In February, Cruz's neighbors found a crumpled, handwritten notice in the bushes along N.W. 68th Street. For months, construction had closed off parts of the shoulder where the sign was hidden. Had Cruz's neighbors not taken a walk on the newly opened stretch of road, they wouldn't have found out about a public hearing regarding Falcon Ridge and The Vineyards, two developments slated to go in at N.W. 68th Street and North Bell.

Cruz called his city councilmembers, Paul Danaher and Bonnie Sue Cooper, to get details on the project. He found out that for Dennis Curtain of the CM Curtain Family Trust to build Falcon Ridge, the land along N.W. 68th Street would have to be rezoned. For more than 40 years it had been set aside for single-family housing. Curtain was planning to build a convenience store and gas station, so the property would have to be rezoned for commercial use. And large swaths of existing single-family zoning would be changed to accommodate apartments, townhouses, and duplexes.

Then, in March, Vineyards developer Brian Bechler filed his plan to put The Vineyards next door to Falcon Ridge. The 33-acre tract would be zoned for single-family residences (half would need to be rezoned from agricultural use to single-family).

Cruz asked Cooper and Danaher how the people who lived in his neighborhood could become involved as the projects went through the city-approval process. Cooper and Danaher told Cruz the first step was to form a neighborhood association. After that, the new organization would need to prepare a presentation for the City Plan Commission. They also said it would be best for the group to select one or two leaders to deal with the city council, city planners, and the developer.

Cruz and his neighbors followed the advice. In late February, they founded the North Star Neighborhood Association -- the city's newest neighborhood organization.

A growing cadre of interested neighbors went to work. Cruz, his wife, Dickerson, Ivey, and Larry Thrasher formed committees to research and build a presentation to counter the developments based on economic, zoning, and codes enforcement arguments. Michele Rhoades headed up a committee that researched flooding and made contacts with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Shortly after they founded North Star, Cruz and other members met with Falcon Ridge representatives. They also talked with Bechler, of the Mission-based Vineyard Investment Company. Surprisingly, they got Falcon Ridge to drop its strip mall and gas station and to put in office buildings and parking instead, and to drop some multifamily housing in favor of single-family homes. As for their discussions with Bechler, he scuttled plans for 12 homes (out of 68) that encroached on the floodplain of Old Maid Creek, making way for a 3-acre park instead.

Attorney Michael Burke, of King Hershey Coleman Koch & Stone, represented Falcon Ridge developer Dennis Curtain. He says neighbors' objections convinced him to persuade his client to change the plans. The original commercial aspects of the development "probably didn't fit," he admits. "The gas station and convenience store would have had an adverse impact on creating a high-quality development. We are far better than we started out."

There was still one messy problem, though.

Alex Cruz's tiny, isolated subdivision follows the Old Maid Creek bottom, a tributary to Line Creek. Twenty years ago, flooding along the creek was nonexistent. But now every time there's a substantial rain, an angry wash of mud and sand scours the creek bed behind the homes -- stormwater runoff from acres of new roofs and parking lots upstream that dump rainwater into the Line Creek watershed faster than it can drain.

Nearly 50 feet of Michele Rhoades' backyard have given way. "This was my father's house," Rhoades says. "When he moved here 25 years ago, there wasn't a problem. This was not considered a floodplain. But he has been dealing with the city on this for over 13 years."

On August 1, both the Falcon Ridge and Vineyards proposals went before the City Plan Commission.