Residents are sounding the alarm on Kansas City’s plan to rebuild Line Creek Parkway and realign Line Creek Trail, removing about seven acres of what residents have long called the last KC forest.
The City of Kansas City hosted a community engagement meeting Monday, Feb. 2 at Northland Church off Waukomis Drive. Second District Councilwoman Lindsay French and members of the city’s public works, parks and planning staff spoke to a crowd of about 100 people concerned about the future of the forest.
Since the 1970s, the city has had plans to connect Barry Road to Waukomis, cutting through a swath of mature woodland potentially containing artifacts of the Hopewell civilization, which lived there about 2,000 years ago, as well as more recent pioneer-era cemeteries.
The city’s major street plan was updated in 2022, with plans for the woodland gaining more focus. City staff stressed that these are merely plans, and that any construction of an actual roadway would not be completed by the city, but would be funded and built by developers interested in developing the area. Large sections of the woodland are owned by the city and the Park Hill School District, but a patchwork of private property owners also have interest in the area, including a large development company, MD Management. MD Management has proposed a 226 acre community at Barry Road and Line Creek Parkway, currently called Kimpton Falls.
At the Monday meeting, city officials hoped to take the temperature of the room about future development. An informal vote was conducted, with the majority of those in attendance stating they don’t want a road cut through the forest at all.
City officials presented three possibilities for the area: Require construction of a Parkway, which contains more city control over the project; allow construction of a connector road; or to create no preliminary development plan at all. Any potential road would need to, at some point, cross the existing Line Creek Trail, though engineering of what that crossing would look like has not yet been done.
While most chose the third option at the beginning of the meeting, by the end most had agreed to allow the city to move forward with a parkway design, which would require more green space, including a median, and 8-foot sidewalks. The proposal will go before the Kansas City Parks Board on Tuesday, Feb. 10 and the Kansas City Planning Commission on Wednesday, Feb. 18.
City officials stressed that this is merely a preliminary plan, and no road work or residential construction is in the pipeline for the area. While MD Management has a plan on its website, no plans have been submitted to the city for potential adoption.
Road work is planned further south
The city hosted a public meeting in August about the proposed changes to Waukomis Drive/Line Creek Parkway between Northwest 62nd Street and Northwest 68th Street.
Waukomis Drive was originally built in the 1910’s as the St. Joe to Kansas City Interurban Railroad and then rebuilt in 1942 as Missouri Route AA, a two-lane farm road. According to project engineers, this project includes reconstruction of the roadway into a four-lane parkway with a median; the addition of new sidewalks and a multi-use trail for pedestrians and cyclists; and improving access to local businesses and cross streets like Northwest 64th Street, Northwest 65th Street and Byfield Avenue.
The project will connect the residents of the Line Creek Valley to Line Creek and Hopewell elementary schools and allow a safe route to school and will also connect to the Line Creek Trail, Line Creek Community Center, Line Creek Park, and the Englewood Boulevard complete street reconstruction currently underway. Project will include proper street lighting necessary for an urban area, safe transit stops for ATA users, and storm water mitigation.