ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Following many months of community engagement, research, and assistance from city planning professionals, the Liberal City Commission officially adopted a new 10-year Comprehensive Plan for developing the community at its most recent meeting Tuesday evening.
“As you all know, our last comprehensive plan was developed in 2003. In 2024, we started working with Professional Engineering Consultants (PEC) and Wichita State’s Public Policy and Management Center to create a 10-year plan for Liberal’s development,” Chief Communications Officer Keeley Young said. “The Launch Liberal 2035 Comprehensive Plan communicates our aspirations and goals to private sector investors, local institutions, businesses, and residents. The plan serves as a playbook for local leaders to understand the appropriate types of development and land uses in the city, realizing that each new development or redevelopment project creates a lasting impact on the city’s design, built form, economic well-being, and quality of life.”
Lance Onstott from Professional Engineering Consultants (PEC) then went into more detail about the work that went into the plan.
“The commission, as the governing body, appointed a 36-member steering committee that included community members from across the spectrum, and we engaged with them strategically throughout this project, which I know the commission is aware of,” Onstott said. “Then, the Liberal City Commission and the planning committee combined and worked throughout this process as well. In addition to those structured teams, we definitely had what I would consider a fairly robust public engagement strategy as well – we were at two pop-up events and met people where they were to help them participate in the process, and we also met with several stakeholder groups throughout. We also had a community survey that engaged nearly 600 respondents. Every comment we received from every individual we engaged with was recorded as an appendix in this plan.”
The plan itself has five 10-year focus areas: economic development, housing, community character, transportation, and recreation.
“A Comprehensive Plan’s values statement should reflect the encompassing values, and we put that together based on what we heard throughout the community engagement we did,” Onstott said. “Underneath each of the value statements is going to be a a handful of goals which, if we can make measurable progress toward, we should be getting closer to achieving what we’ve set forth in those value statements. Then, the specific actions are going to be included as strategies. The values statements that will guide this plan are ‘Liberal will have safe and attainable housing for residents at all stages of life,’ ‘Liberal will be a connected community providing an efficient, safe, functional and pleasant experience for all transportation users,’ ‘Liberal will feature unique and identifiable places and spaces that further community pride,’ ‘Liberal will be a community of great and connected park spaces with enjoyable recreation options,’ and ‘Liberal will have a strong economic base with a diverse business community and a vibrant downtown area.’ Everything else in this plan should revolve around one or more of those statements.”
Another aspect of the plan that was discussed was land use.
“Our approach to future built environment planning utilizes a ‘place-based approach’ for land use and development patterns. The emphasis for this approach is that future physical development will be based on character of the built environment and site design rather than exclusively relying on general or specific use of land,” Onstott said. “A traditional land use map that separates uses does not consider the complex fabric of a community. Traditional land use maps can result in less exibility, restricting a community’s ability to adapt to local trends and new local patterns, leading to ine cient and undesirable community development patterns. Utilizing the place-based approach allows development to occur in conformance with the community’s vision over time as opposed to a particular moment in time. We did take a more modern, best practice approach with that – instead of saying ‘Residential goes here and commercial goes there,’ we use the place framework, which really communicates how we as people know less about our cities than we think we do because communities are dymanic and go through change. In each of those place types, we have provided a narrative description of what we want to encourage in these place types. We’ve given very concrete examples of the types of land uses that are compatible, and we’ve taken the existing zoning districts and applied them to the place types where we thing everything will work.”
Another aspect of the plan that saw discussion was access in terms of transportation and how those can also be accounted for in the future, and the last aspect of the plan that was discussed was overall implementation.
“I would say it’s going to be between 70 and 80 strategies we’ve specifically identified as part of this plan,” Onstott said. “This plan includes value statements, goals, and multiple actions and/or strategies to achieve those. For each of those strategies, we’ve included a description of the strategy, the type of strategy it is, whether or not it’s a priority (or the immediacy of that priority) and the level of investment we would anticipate. The goals is to balance these strategies over 10 years, so we knew we didn’t want to frontload the city with a bunch of immediate actions – we wanted to pay attention to the level of investment so it wasn’t ALL heavy investment strategies all at the same time. These will ebb and flow with time, and this is where you all, as policy makers, are going to make adjustments throughout those 10 years.”
Onstott then emphasized the work that goes into putting together a Comprehensive Plan.
“A Comprehensive Plan is so much more than just figuring out what gets built and where,” Onstott said. “How the city uses this plan going forward is completely up to you all, and it can be used for so many different things from budget planning to public safety to staffing decisions and more. All of those types of decisions should make their way back to this Comprehensive Plan. This is meant to provide a good roadmap to future planning and ultimately lead to good governance.”
After some more brief discussion, the communission ultimately unanimously approved Ordinance No. 4637 to adopt the Launch Liberal 2035 Comprehensive Plan as approved by the Liberal Metropolitan Area Planning Commission. Those interested in learning more about the Comprehensive Plan can visit https://www.cityofliberal.org/626/Launch-Liberal-2035.
In other new business, the commission unanimously approved Ordinance No. 4638 concerning the amendment of Chapter 2, Section 2-204 of the Code of Ordinances, which would accommodate the necessity of medical institutions (veterinarian clinics), and education institutions (Liberal High School), to treat animals (medical) and keep livestock (educational) on hand within City of Liberal limits. The commission also unanimously approved Ordinance 4639 rezoning 101 E. 2nd St. to a C-3 Core Commercial District and Resolution No. 2436 concerning authorization of the Housing Preservation Grant.
The commission also approved the purchase of replacement heaters for the Mid-America Air Museum from Lynn’s Total Comfort of Liberal for an amount not to exceed $32,000 and also approved the hiring of McDaniel Co. Inc. of Wichita to perform maintenance to the Mid-America Air Museum fire sprinkler system. To conclude the meeting’s new business, the commission voted to allow the City of Liberal to apply as the Common Consumption Area (CCA) permit holder, for which there is a $100 annual fee.
