OP vs Olathe
Overland Park versus Olathe
Sort of a smaller twist on the Border War. Overland Park and Olathe are two of the largest and fastest growing cities in Kansas, and they border each other. Olathe is west of OP.
Having grown up and lived most of my life in Massachusetts I was unaware of a thing known as unincorporated land. In Mass, every square inch of land is part of a city or town. But here in Kansas, just 30 miles south of Kansas City, there are large areas of land that are not legally part of a city or town... they are county property and under the jurisdiction of county government and the sheriffs office.
Now, to get unicorporated land a city has to annex it. That is, request it from the county.
South of both OP and Olathe is lots of unicorporated land. With both cities growing rapidly and annexing large lots of land it seemed only reasonable that there would be some sort of boundry set (or implied) for and eastside / westside dividing line.
Pfflum Road (pronounced FLUM) runs north-south from the southern most portions of both cities... a sort of dividing line. Olathe understood this and proposed this to be the official boundry for future annexations by both Overland Park and Olathe.
Unfortunately OP officials didn't sign on to that agreement and this past month OP started annexation procedings to grab land WEST of Pfflum Road... or on Olathes' side of the dividing line. Of course Olathe officials are up in arms about this, since they've spent thousands of dollars planning housing development for that area. Both will be taking their cases to the Johnson County commisioners.
Of course maybe Overland Park has good reason for wanting that particular property... maybe some grand scheme for the betterment of all.
NOPE. They want to put a soccer complex on it, and since soccer complexs aren't great tax revenue generators OP doesn't want to waste annexing land EAST of Pfflum Road for that purpose.
Hopefully the Johnson County commissioners will deny the Overland Park annexation request. But it's highly unlikely. This of course could lead to all out war between OP and Olathe!
Sort of a smaller twist on the Border War. Overland Park and Olathe are two of the largest and fastest growing cities in Kansas, and they border each other. Olathe is west of OP.
Having grown up and lived most of my life in Massachusetts I was unaware of a thing known as unincorporated land. In Mass, every square inch of land is part of a city or town. But here in Kansas, just 30 miles south of Kansas City, there are large areas of land that are not legally part of a city or town... they are county property and under the jurisdiction of county government and the sheriffs office.
Now, to get unicorporated land a city has to annex it. That is, request it from the county.
South of both OP and Olathe is lots of unicorporated land. With both cities growing rapidly and annexing large lots of land it seemed only reasonable that there would be some sort of boundry set (or implied) for and eastside / westside dividing line.
Pfflum Road (pronounced FLUM) runs north-south from the southern most portions of both cities... a sort of dividing line. Olathe understood this and proposed this to be the official boundry for future annexations by both Overland Park and Olathe.
Unfortunately OP officials didn't sign on to that agreement and this past month OP started annexation procedings to grab land WEST of Pfflum Road... or on Olathes' side of the dividing line. Of course Olathe officials are up in arms about this, since they've spent thousands of dollars planning housing development for that area. Both will be taking their cases to the Johnson County commisioners.
Of course maybe Overland Park has good reason for wanting that particular property... maybe some grand scheme for the betterment of all.
NOPE. They want to put a soccer complex on it, and since soccer complexs aren't great tax revenue generators OP doesn't want to waste annexing land EAST of Pfflum Road for that purpose.
Hopefully the Johnson County commissioners will deny the Overland Park annexation request. But it's highly unlikely. This of course could lead to all out war between OP and Olathe!
posted by P. McB. at 8:35 PM
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