PARKVILLE, Mo. — A proposed community development project at Platte Landing Park on Parkville's riverfront is causing concern for some who live there.
It includes four new ball diamonds and six new multi-purpose fields.
This is part of Parkville's master plan created in 2016. The hope is to receive a $1 million grant from Platte County and use $2 million to $3 million from the city's half-cent sales tax collected from Proposition P, which 70% of voters approved in 2019.
Alysen Abel, Parkville public works director, told 41 Action News the city reached out to the public to solicit opinions.
"We had community engagement, community involvement and the majority of the people wanted ball fields," Abel said. "They said they wanted soccer fields, ball diamonds. They wanted places for their kids to run and play."
City officials, according to Abel, believe the development will bring people from the Kansas City metro to the city to use the fields.
"Where you’re going to see most of the benefit could be exposure to Parkville," Abel said. "People coming to Parkville from Johnson County to come for a baseball game."
Right now, the plan is in a conceptual phase as the city awaits approval for the grant before making any final decisions.
Meanwhile, a growing group of residents who are concerned about the project started a Facebook group called Save Parkville's Charm - Save Our Parks.
"It doesn’t make sense to take taxpayer dollars and build a ball field in the middle of a wetland in a flood plain," Parkville resident Sheryl Biermann said.
Marcia Katerndahl, also a Parkville resident, said they don't want the plans to interfere with "all the other activities" people enjoy in the parks.
Their concerns range from an increase in traffic to the project impacting the wetlands and wildlife and lights on the ball fields shining at night.
"The lights would have been a tremendous impact not only to the neighbors but to the wildlife in the wetlands," Biermann said.
While the city removed the request to add lights in its grant application, Abel said they still are figuring out if lights are needed.
"Lighting, that’s going to be one of the things that we’re going to be studying to see if there’s going to be a negative impact to the wildlife," Abel said.
Another complication is the flood plain -- just two years ago the entire area included in the plan flooded.
"We want to make sure that the ball fields are elevated so that when flooding does occur that the ball fields will be impacted less," Abel said.
Abel said the fields will be recreational and not for competitive competitions. The city will study the environmental and traffic impacts once funding is approved, according to Abel, and they move to the design phase.
"We want to provide a community ball field for the people that use our parks," Abel said.
Down the road, Abel said, there will be public sessions for the community to engage in the project.
The hope is to start on this project sometime next year.
More information about the project can be found on the Parkville website.
