The city of Westwood and a group of residents exchanged threats of legal action over a recently approved Rainbow Boulevard project.
Residents say the city failed to follow a specific state statute requiring a published notice of intent to sell Joe D. Dennis Park — one piece of the pie for the Karbank Real Estate Company’s vision for the block of land on Rainbow Boulevard between West 50th and West 51st streets.
Todd Hauser, a Lee’s Summit-based attorney with Bushyhead Law LLC, on Oct. 12 — the same day a preliminary development plan for the project was approved — sent a letter to the city on behalf of a group of residents encouraging Westwood to publish a public notice of sale of Dennis Park.
Days later, Hauser told the city in another letter that if the city refused to publish a public notice, his clients would take all steps necessary to make the city publish a notice, “including legal action.”
On Nov. 8, the city responded to Hauser in a letter from city attorney Ryan Denk stating that objections to the Rainbow project were “without merit” and that the city was “prepared to take such legal action against you and/or your clients as may be necessary to protect its title and its contractual relationships.”
Meanwhile, plans for the site are moving forward.
The city council in October approved Karbank’s preliminary development plan to build four multi-story office buildings and two retail “pavilion” structures along Rainbow (on the site of Dennis Park and a neighboring green space), along with a new nearly four-acre park on the site of the current Westwood View Elementary immediately to the west.
Westwood Mayor Davids Waters told the Post this week in an email that though the city is prepared to take “appropriate legal steps” to protect the deal going forward, no legal action has been taken by anyone at this time.
Residents want a public vote
Friends of Westwood Parkland, a group that has formed in recent months advocating to “save the park,” submitted a petition with about 220 signatures to the city on Dec. 12, with the goal of taking the project to a public vote, said Tara Hensley, a Westwood resident and member of the group.
This request, Hensley said, resulted in the city’s threat to sue — referring to Denk’s Nov. 8 letter.
Hensley said the city’s threat to sue residents who want to see the project taken to a public vote “was absolutely appalling.”
She added that it has been scary to identify herself publicly as a part of the Friends of Westwood Parkland group because of the city’s response.
“We’re asking for [a] public [vote] — on something that is going to have an impact on residents for more than 50 to 100 years, for us to have public vote, and that is literally all we’re asking,” Hensley said.
It is unclear how a public vote might work given the city already approved a preliminary development plan for the project back in October.
Hensley told the Post that she got involved in opposition to the project to conserve the city’s green space.
Even though Karbank’s proposal would create a larger public park on the neighboring site of the old Westwood View Elementary, residents say they use the current Joe D. Dennis Park and an adjacent open green space between West 50th and West 51st streets as a park.
In addition to the old elementary school to the west (which is currently being used this year but is set to be sold in order to make way for the Karbank project), Joe D. Dennis Park also abuts a green space immediately to the south where the Westwood Christian Church previously stood.
The park, the school site and former church grounds are all part of Karbank’s proposal.
Waters told the Post via email that K.S.A 12-1301, the statute Hauser and the Westwood residents he’s representing have cited as requiring the city to publish a public notice of sale, is inapplicable to Joe D. Dennis Park.
While the city understands the park has been used as a public park for years, Waters said, in a legal sense, “it is not dedicated park property for the purposes of the Kansas statutes cited.”
That’s the city’s stance for a number of reasons, Waters said in his email to the Post.
That includes the fact that the park, when it was publicly dedicated via ceremony in 1973, was not legally dedicated as parkland, though news articles from that time refer to it as a park.
Also, the land for Joe D. Dennis Park, when it was sold to the city in the late 1960s, was “not acquired with intent to commit its present use as a small park in perpetuity,” Waters said.
The city also did not use bond proceeds to originally acquire the property, and no “park tax” has ever been levied in connection to the property.
After the residents sent their letter through Hauser in October demanding a public notice of the park’s sale be published, Waters confirmed that the city did go ahead and publish a public notice of sale on Nov. 7 — a day before the city attorney responded to Hauser’s letter — and another on Nov. 14.
These public notices were intended to “potentially address the cloud on title” created through the residents’ suggestion that they could take legal action, Waters said.
Waters said a looming threat of legal action could threaten the Karbank deal, potentially discouraging the purchase of the property and impacting the issuance of a title insurance policy.
Still, Waters said “the city’s position has not changed” when it comes to K.S.A. 12-1301 being inapplicable to the sale of Joe D. Dennis Park.
Waters said the city understands some residents want the city to stop moving forward on the Karbank project and that the city “has no quarrel with these opinions.”
He noted that the city took resident input over the past nine months and the project was changed based on that feedback, as well. This includes a reduction in commercial square footage, preservation of trees and an additional traffic analysis, he said.
“The Westwood City Council and Planning Commission have always welcomed good-faith questions, comments, concerns, feedback, and resident inpu, and over the last nine months, all of it was instrumental in making the new development and city park project the very best it could be,” Waters said.
Additionally, Waters said the city’s position is that the Karbank project does “not fall within those subjects which are proper for a public” vote.
How did the Karbank project come to be?
The city has been working with Karbank since March, when the real estate company proposed its idea to remake the prominent Rainbow Boulevard site between West 50th and West 51st streets.
Before Karbank brought its proposal to Westwood, though, the city had been discussing the future of that plot of land — including Joe D. Dennis Park, the old Westwood Christian Church site and the original Westwood View Elementary — for years.
Those discussions included the city’s 2017 comprehensive plan — which prompted pushback on anything other than single-family housing in Westwood — the demolition of the Westwood Christian Church and the subsequent future for that site.
Last year, Mayor Waters outlinedfour different possible scenarios for the future of the site
The Karbank project includes six total retail and office buildings and a multi-acre park. Karbank presented its proposal to the city in March, at which time the city agreed to enter a no-strings-attached executive agreement with the Mission Woods company.
Two months later, the Shawnee Mission School District agreed to sell the original Westwood View Elementary building to the city of Westwood. The city began discussing the project in more detail in June.
By August, residents and neighbors pushed back on an updated site plan that called for colorful, tall buildings. A month later, the planning commission approved a reworked site plan that shrunk the buildingsand removed the brightly colored facades.
In September, the city created a public tax increment financing district for the site (monies from any TIF project approved in the district would go toward the public park only).
The city council on Oct. 12 in a 5-to-1 vote approved the Karbank project.
The city is expected to close on the purchase of the original Westwood View Elementary building next month, funded by Karbank.
At the same time, Karbank is anticipated to close on city-owned properties along Rainbow Boulevard.
This story was originally published by the Shawnee Mission Post.