Map for possible future road raises ire of neighbor

A neighbor voiced strong objections to the possibility of an arterial road crossing his property at the Springfield Planning & Zoning Commission meeting last night.

P&Z approved the measure – a five-year renewal of a map of a possible arterial road in southern Springfield – by an 8-0 vote, with member Helen Gunther absent, after a public comment period with one neighbor expressing perplexity and another telling commissioners he was so mad that he was shaking.

The latter was Cory Eden, who displayed a poster-sized photo of his 12-acre property. The pic captured a bucolic wooded setting where he said he sees deer, turkeys and coyotes while enjoying his quarter-mile walking trail. He also brought a photographic rendering of what the same setting would look like with an arterial road crossing through it, with a snarl of traffic where a line of trees once stood.

“On my land, eminent domain down the line – it’s going to happen,” Eden said.

The map would place an east-west arterial roadway between U.S. Highway 65 and Farm Road 169 in south Springfield. It’s an alignment that was first approved in 2001 when City Council adopted the transportation element of a Springfield-Greene County comprehensive plan.

Debate occurred in 2015-2016, with P&Z approving the first preliminary designs for the road and council remanding the matter back to P&Z. Council ultimately approved the mapping with a five-year time limit and clarifying that the mapping is only for properties within city limits. An extension was granted in 2021, and that five-year extension is set to expire in June.

Eden does not live in Springfield – he said he has an Ozark address in Greene County – yet he received notification of the P&Z hearing.

“I’m very confused,” he said. “I have an Ozark address, I live in Greene County, but I’m in a city of Springfield meeting. I feel like it’s almost like a trick – like I’m not being given the whole truth.”

Eden said the road was going to go through his woods, despite the fact that it is in a floodplain.

Eden posited that the road is being considered in part to connect to Lake Springfield, for which a $1 billion recreational, natural and cultural development plan has been created.

“You want to expand that road and get a quicker route to Kissick for something that’s not going to happen for 50 years with the Lake Springfield plan?” he said. “I mean, c’mon guys. Makes no sense.”

Ben Peterson also spoke up with questions about the plan, saying his property is adjacent to the route, which he is not necessarily for or against.

Peterson questioned the placement of the route.

“It crosses a bunch of residential lots, where just south of it, there’s open, vacant farmland, so – not sure why it’s proposed to cross all those residential lots,” he said.

When the route was first proposed, an arterial road may have seemed unlikely. Now, new development in the immediate area has brought Mercy Orthopedic Hospital and Innovative Dental, and a temple to serve the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is under construction.

Commissioner Bill Knuckles, who was serving his last meeting after five years on P&Z because he is moving outside of city limits, noted that Kansas Expressway got its start as a planned arterial, and Bob Hosmer, city planning manager, said National Avenue was also once a pre-mapped street.

The city’s map applies only to city property, and Hosmer said residents outside the city were notified because if their land were annexed in the future, they would be subject to the same map. If the property were to be annexed, the city would have the authority to act on the road, he said.

Hosmer said the city and county have both adopted the broader Ozarks Transportation Organization major thoroughfare plan, but P&Z was only being asked to approve the alignment within the city.

He added that the map merely shows an option of a street.

“It’s not going to say that it’s going to be built; there’s no funding mechanism,” he said. “It’s just a public notice that we have engineered and designed this street to this location.”

City Council is scheduled to hold its first reading and public hearing on the mapping issue on May 4.

Kenworth plat
P&Z approved the renewal of a preliminary plat of the currently undeveloped, 28-acre MHC Kenworth Addition at 5400 E. Buc-ee’s Boulevard, east of the Buc-ee’s travel center in east Springfield.

TCEK Real Estate LLC applied for the renewal for the property that was annexed into the city in 2023.

MHC Kenworth's Springfield operation, a semi-truck dealership that offers repairs and parts at 3301 E. Kearney St., is looking to locate to the site under question.

Knuckles queried staff about the turning radius on the road for semis, and Justin Crighton, assistant director of planning and development, acknowledged that the road is “kind of a slalom” coming from Interstate 44, particularly for tractor-trailers.

Patrick Doty of MHC Kenworth said new and used truck dealer TLG Peterbilt is on the other side of I-44, and he wasn’t aware of any issues that they had had.

Council is slated to consider the measure on May 4.