Gardner approves rezoning and permits for two substations, adopts several road and development measures

The Gardner City Council on April 21 approved rezoning and two conditional‑use permits to allow construction of two electric substations on 11.17 acres at 17955 Clare Road and took a series of infrastructure and financing actions including a five‑year County Assistance Road System plan and a resolution to begin condemnation proceedings for a culvert replacement on 4 Corners Road.

Planning staff told the council the site will host two adjacent facilities: an Evergy regional substation of about 5.25 acres and a smaller City of Gardner substation meant to serve local loads. "Before you this evening are several applications related to the development of two substations," planning staff said, outlining required zoning changes, landscaping buffers and two requested deviations that would allow barbed wire fencing and a gravel access road in the planned‑agriculture district.

Jessica Kacketh, an Evergy representative, said the company will connect the Evergy substation to the new Gardner facility to serve both local and regional loads and that the Evergy site will include a 150‑foot communications pole for internal grid monitoring. "Basically, we're building a substation that ties into the proposed Gardiner substation, to provide power to Gardiner and then we have transmission lines around, so we provide power outside as well," Kacketh said. She added the pole will be a single‑pole communications structure, not a lattice tower, and will not include guy wires.

Staff and Evergy said the project will preserve an existing stream‑corridor buffer along Clare Road and include layered plantings: shorter shrubs and native grasses where transmission line clearances apply and larger trees…