‘It’s our plan as a community.’ City planners aim to IGNITE Lee’s Summit

Ryan Elam is ready to listen to the people of Lee’s Summit.

Elam is the city’s director of Development Services and, along with assistant director Josh Johnson, is overseeing the development and long-term implementation of the Lee’s Summit IGNITE Comprehensive Plan. The plan essentially will guide the community’s physical development and program over a 15- to 20-year time-frame.

It will be the basis for economic development, residential growth and improvements aimed at protecting the quality of life for both residents and businesses.

“It’s kind of an exercise in dreaming a little bit about what the next 20 years could look like,” Elam said.

And there has been a lot of dreaming going on this year as technology allowed the development of the plan to remain on schedule despite the pandemic.

Feedback from the community is being collected through February through online surveys available on the plan’s website: cityofls.net/comprehensive-plan/engagement/surveys

Hearing the community’s voice is vital to the plan’s success, Elam said.

“This isn’t just our plan,” he said. “It’s our plan as a community, not just a staff plan.”

Already there is a lot of useful feedback, Johnson said.

“What we have found in the community is a lot of pride in their neighborhood, and they really want a connected community,” he said. “They want to be able to drive, walk and bike to the businesses and the parks they frequent all the time.”

Already, surveys offer some telling statistics.

For example, quality of life strategies that received 50% or more “very Important” responses:

▪ Continue building and filling in gaps in sidewalks, bike lanes and trails to make it easy to walk and bike.

▪ Improve police department training, administration and fiscal efficiency.

▪ Improve access to mental health and addiction services.

▪ Develop a program to recruit and retain highly motivated, qualified employees to ensure an effective and efficient public safety/emergency service workforce.

▪ Train police officers in mental health and crisis intervention.

When asked, “What are the most important features of vibrant, quality neighborhoods,” the top three responses so far are:

▪ Clean, well-maintained properties (79%)

▪ Safety (75%)

▪ Green space and parks (63%)

Elam said the plan has an important role.

“It’s a signal to not only those in the community, but it’s a really big signal or playbook to those outside the community about where we want to go and how we are going to get there,” he said.

In addition to the community survey, work to be done on the plan in 2021 starts with joint meetings with the city council and planning commission. Key dates are:

▪ Dec. 17: Introduction of a fiscal impact model and discussion of additional plan building blocks.

▪ Jan. 12: Fiscal impact scenario planning, land use policies, design guidelines and strategies.

▪ Feb. 9: Review of the draft plan.

▪ March 9: Review of the final plan draft.

The start of the formal adoption process with the planning commission is scheduled for April.

An important element for the long-term implementation of the plan is a dashboard.

“The dashboard will be a quick resource for the community to know what the different priorities are,” Elam said. “It will also be useful in identifying where we need to make changes and adapt throughout the lifecycle of the plan.

“The plan will be more web-based than in the past, and the dashboard will help to track progress toward stated goals, as well as a way to benchmark expected outcomes,” Elam said.

“Through the process, we are identifying key markers for the community and we will be holding ourselves accountable for making progress on those goals. We will also use the dashboard to review if things are going as expected or not and we will be holding ourselves accountable for making progress on those goals.”

Elam hopes to continue to hear from the Lee’s Summit community.

“Our focus is on making the plan as useful as possible and embracing a continuous feedback process to keep the community engaged in the future of the city. The plan will act as a roadmap for future development and our goal is to have the community engaged so we can adapt to the overall needs of the city.”

For more information about the plan, go to: cityofls.net/comprehensive-plan

This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM.