Lee's Summit planning commission recommends denial of 'Pathways at Kensington Farms' redevelopment plan

The Lee's Summit Planning Commission on Oct. 23 recommended denial of PL2025-098, a proposed preliminary development plan called Pathways at Kensington Farms, after residents raised concerns about traffic, drainage and whether the site should remain single-family in character.

Petra Development's managing director of development, Tyler Burkes, told the commission the project is a three-phase, market-rate residential community on the southern edge of the city's limits. "What we're proposing here... is a market rate community," Burkes said, describing a plan that would first build detached single-family homes, then attached townhomes, and finally 55-plus twin villas. He said the applicant had reduced an earlier, denser concept and now proposed 540 units on the portion of the parent property it controls, with roughly 235 single-family units, 177 attached townhomes and 128 duplex/twin-villa units.

The proposal would also include a land swap with the city and the Raymore School District that the applicant said could free a 20-acre site for a new park and a potential elementary school, plus about a mile of 10-foot shared-use path along County Line Road. Burkes told the commission the site has extensive legacy infrastructure problems (unaccepted utilities, eroded detention basins and large dirt piles) that Petra plans to remove and replace as part…