INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — Some officials in Independence, Missouri, including its mayor, believe there should be industrial growth in the area known as Little Blue Valley.
"Eighteen thousand people who live in this city go to work someplace else,” Mayor Eileen Weir said. “So we are seeing — and that's just Independence, not to mention Blue Springs, Grain Valley, Oak Grove, who are all driving through Independence to get to Kansas City or Johnson County for these types of jobs."
Kansas City, Missouri-based VanTrust Real Estate hopes to develop that area, but has met resistance from some residents.
According to city-collected data, as of September, 643 Independence residents are actively seeking work while drawing unemployment benefits.
"They're big employers,” Weir said. “They employ a lot of people typically, depending on the type of business it is it pays a higher median wage than what is average in Independence. It's a great user for our utilities which we own.”
Not doing so, according to Weir, would continue to leave Independence behind and the city would miss opportunities for cash flow. But not all city officials are on the same page.
"We have a business park zoning for a reason,” Karen Deluccie, Independence City Council Person at-large, said. “You don't ask your clients, your out-of-town relations that you sort of want to impress to go through a trailer park to get to your mansion.”
A lack of industrial development means the city is not bringing in business, Weir said, which, in turn, means the city is not “creating jobs at the rate that we want to.”
However, it is “just a slump in the economy,” according to Deluccie.
"We're like everybody else,” she said. “I do not want to give away the farm. You don't take the one nice entrance to Independence and mess it up. And this is our one nice entrance."
Referring to it as the jewel of Independence, Deluccie said the Little Blue Valley has been 50 years in the making and officially opened in 2013.
It was originally intended for business and residential use, and currently there is residential and a little business, which is the crux of where folks remain split.
VanTrust is taking both city council and resident suggestions and making revisions to a development proposal that they hope to present again in the coming weeks.
