Infrastructure: The Foundation for Growth

By Connie Parish

Contributing Writer

Just how important is infrastructure to development?

If you ask Steve Jack, executive director of the Leavenworth County Development Corporation, he’ll answer quickly. “It’s vital,” he says. “It is water; it is fiber (optics); it is electricity; …it’s also important that a committee is working on the airport and business park concept, because there are some challenges with Sherman Airfield (at Fort Leavenworth).”

All of these things are infrastructure before you even consider transportation, Jack said, noting that’s a particularly important issue for the county.

Some of the best news for the economic development group, as well as county officials and leaders in southern Leavenworth County, is an improved County Road 1 that will connect to the turnpike, Interstate 70. Previously, there was no on and off ramp to the turnpike in Leavenworth County.

“If you’re a manufacturer, it matters,” Jack said. “You’re building a product and you’re shipping it out, trucking it out. If you manufacture a bigger product and you’re going further, it matters more. You’re not only improving the quality of life for those living here but also the ability to get traffic moving.”

Tonganoxie administrator Mike Yanez thinks the improvement may be especially beneficial for his city.

“The transportation network, 24-40, makes Lawrence and Kansas City about 20 miles away,” Yanez said, “then we’ll have the new turnpike interchange to I-70 that should open in about two years. That will probably make Tonganoxie more attractive to those who commute to work in Douglas, Johnson or Wyandotte counties; at the same time, it may make us more attractive to industry because industry relies on interstate access to ship the product in and out.”

Chris Dunn, who heads the county’s planning department, has a concern about roads as they relate to residential development as well. He said the natural instinct for homeowners who build out in the county is to want driveways that go all the way to a county road. That’s a problem if the driveways are on a collector or arterial road, because they quickly add up and slow down traffic. That’s why the comprehensive plan for rural subdivisions will require internal roads that have one entry point, to preserve the speed of the corridor.

The plan will also make it possible for developers to know where sewer lines will be, so infrastructure can be planned accordingly. “Instead of building roads to things that never should have been built, we can build roads where the things should be,” Dunn said. Now, the county builds about five miles of road a year, and developers build another five to get their residents to the nearest decent county road. Knowing ahead of time where the growth will be is a better use of resources, the county planner said.

Dunn says storm water drainage and sewerage are the hidden factors that a lot of people don’t take into account. “If we get those right, a lot of the other things fall into place,” he said. “You can pump water up hill and down hill; you can get water where it needs to go. Roads are a little harder because you’ve got to build with the terrain, but you can get roads. But managing storm water and your sewerage, that’s the tough part.”

In the plan, the county is divided into basins, where everything drains.

“Ideally you want all sewer systems to work on gravity, with no pumps to maintain, no high pressure pipes, all streaming downhill,” Dunn said. “You want a sewer plant that’s up out of the flood plain but right there where it’s going to discharge. So when you look at the county’s basins, what we tried to do was tie growth areas very close to the basins.”

 Ideally, Dunn said, rural subdivisions would be in the area inside of a basin on county or state roads.

 Yanez said the city of Tonganoxie’s comprehensive plan adopted last year took infrastructure into account, among other things. He thinks the existing infrastructure, including the highways, makes the southern Leavenworth County city especially attractive. It helps explain the city’s phenomenal growth, especially a few years ago.

 In addition, he said, “We also have a more than adequate sewer treatment capacity and we’re putting in a new water line this year that’s going to allow us to accommodate a doubling of the size of Tonganoxie.”

 Jerry Gies, director of planning and community development for the city of Leavenworth, said the city has a capital improvement plan that addresses which collector and arterial streets are scheduled for construction or improvement in the short-term. City commissioners prioritize future projects.

The city has a separate sewer program, which Gies said addresses two concerns. “There is a lot of capacity for growth if growth occurs, and we’re looking at where growth is likely to occur and directing lines in that direction.”

The arterial and collector system for streets is established and is sufficient for growth for the next 20 years. One that could be built in the future is 30^th Street to the west, where growth is anticipated.

The city of Lansing has been planning for its improved Main Street for a decade, said Mayor Ken Bernard. The huge project is basically complete, with just a few loose ends, like seeding, left for this spring. He cited three more street projects that have been significant for the city – Eisenhower Road, 147^th Street and the Bittersweet extension between the two new schools.

The city has also planned well in advance for wastewater treatment. The new plant “should be good until about 2030,” Bernard said.