Dropped Brookridge lawsuit clears a path for Overland Park project

Discussions between Overland Park city planners and the developers of the Brookridge Golf and Fitness Club will continue now that a lawsuit by developers against the city has been dropped.

The city’s Planning Commission will review a new plan submitted by the developers that includes a tract of putting and chipping greens in its northwest corner. Maintaining the green space of the golf course has been a concern of neighbors, who have opposed the development and filed a legal protest petition. The Planning Commission will take up the new plan at its meeting Monday. Barring any further delays, it would go to the full city council June 6.

The change was made in response to city planners’ previous recommendations that the area behind existing single-family homes remains undeveloped in the first development phase, wrote Grant Curtin an associate in Curtin Property Co., which is developing the land.

Under the latest plan, the northwest corner would have a clubhouse, long- and short-range chipping greens, a bunker and practice greens and golf cart path. It would also include landscape screening. Curtin said the inclusion of the green space is the most noticeable change in the mixed-use plan.

Negotiations on the development went into a brief hiatus after the landowner, Overland Park Development Co. I, LLC, filed suit in district court over the city council’s recent denial of the previous plan. The landowners had asked for a reversal of that decision and more than $75,000 in damages, saying the council’s decision did not comply with established legal guidelines for development decisions.

On hearing of the suit, the council went into executive session and came out agreeing to suspend further talks about the development until the suit was resolved.

Developers withdrew the suit last week so that the new plan could stay on schedule, Curtin said.

The development near Interstate 435 and Antioch Road has been hotly contested by neighbors, who object to the density of the project.

The property was bought in September 2014 and plans for its use have been revised and scaled back since then. The last plan to be considered called for more than 2,000 residential units, 1.95 million square feet of office space, retail, a movie theater, a 3,500-seat indoor performance venue and a 550-room hotel. It also included a 45-acre park.

Neighbors have said the development is out of character with the rest of the area, which is single-family homes. They also expressed concerns about traffic, stormwater drainage and the effect on their property values.

That plan didn’t get enough votes for the supermajority approval that is required when a protest petition is on file.

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 5:30 PM with the headline "Dropped Brookridge lawsuit clears a path for Overland Park project."