KCP&L substation at 19th Street and Cherry
Lynda Callon was so fed up that she walked out of a Monday-night meeting between Westside residents and
Kansas City Power & Light. The outspoken neighborhood activist, who oversees the
Westside CAN Center, had heard the company's pitch and didn't like its dictatorial tone.
Earlier this year, KCP&L approached Westside residents and businesses about locating a new power substation in their neighborhood. But while community meetings have created plenty of buzz, Callon says KCP&L has disconnected them from the decision-making process and put in jeopardy their neighborhood's hard-fought revival.
KCP&L spokesman Chuck Caisley says the company has been exploring new sites for substations because the metro's demand for electricity has grown dramatically in recent years. He says household usage has jumped 42 percent since 1996. Add significant development downtown and around the Plaza, he says, and that means KCP&L needs more infrastructure to shuttle that power around the energy-loving city.
Substations take electricity from high voltage lines, Caisley explains, and step down the power so it can be distributed to homes and businesses. Right now, the company needs two new facilities to act as those electricity off-ramps. But neighborhoods aren't too amped to have a fenced-in facility with towering metal structures in their backyard.
Last year,
Hyde Park Neighborhood Association president Angie Splittgerber got a call from KCP&L saying the company was planning to plant its transformers in her area. "The community protested because the location was completely inappropriate," she says. "It was too close to homes, and it was going to tear down viable storefronts on Troost [Avenue], which we'd rather see for commercial usage.
"The approach they initially took with us was just really disrespectful to the community," she adds. "They came in and looked around and said, 'We think this is blight, so we're going to build a substation with 26-foot-tall equipment and build a 10-foot wall around it.'"
After the outcry, KCP&L created an advisory group of area residents and business owners. Over a year, in a process overseen by a marketing consultant, the group came up with sites it thought would be appropriate.
But, that community-based approach has been lacking on the Westside.
In addition to the substation near Troost, KCP&L is planning a similar facility on property owned by
DST Systems, near the Westside Business Park. Caisley says the company has been talking to Westside neighbors and businesses since the start of the year.
Callon says community members only heard about the plans through the grape-vine, thanks to other activists near Troost. She says by the time they held a public meeting in September, KCP&L simply presented the DST site as gospel, instead of soliciting the neighborhood's suggestions.
"We've been working like damn dogs to improve our neighborhood," Callon says. "And KCP&L essentially said, 'Here's the site we decided is the best site. Take it or leave it. It doesn't really matter what your comments are. We're going to build it anyway.'"
The Westside already hosts a substation near 17th and Holly, Callon says, and prospective residents and businesses have shied away from the area because of the aesthetic blight. The new substation, she fears, will be more of the same. She says residents want to see it located away from any main streets, in a way that it won't throw cold water on further development in the largely-Latino neighborhood.
Caisley says KCP&L isn't going to ignore Westsiders -- but it's not going to go to the lengths it did to win over the residents near Troost. The Hyde Park location, Caisley says, was different because it was in the middle of a residential area. The Westside proposal, he adds, is in an area that is already being used for industrial purposes. "Anybody who wants to get together in ongoing community meetings to talk about this and make recommendations, we'd be more than happy to talk with them and provide information and take any suggestions they might have," he says.
Callon isn't impressed with KCP&L's efforts so far. She says Monday's meeting was the same one-sided presentation she's heard for months. "They just ratcheted up the sales pitch," she says. Until the discussion about the substation gets a little more democratic, Callon's got a sales-pitch of her own: "Put it in the Power & Light District."
-- Carolyn Szczepanski
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