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In a unanimous vote, Kansas City’s Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) sided with the Scarritt Renaissance Neighborhood Association June 28.
BZA denied Fox Family Foundation’s request to obtain a special use permit for group living at 523 Gladstone Blvd. Originally, Newhouse partnered with Fox Family Foundation with the goal of operating a group home for unaccompanied girls ages 15 to 21. Newhouse stressed it would not be a halfway house, but a home setting for teenage girls with no other place to live. In addition, the girls would need to follow a list of rules stipulating they must attend school, have employment or are working toward employment, not use drugs or alcohol, be responsible for upkeep of the grounds, among other requirements.
To operate the home, Newhouse and Fox Family Foundation would need a special use permit and rezoning since the neighborhood association downzoned the neighborhood’s Historic District from the combination of multi-family and single family living to single family living only in 2007.
Scarritt Renaissance Neighborhood Association voted against the plan June 6 and voiced their input during the June 21 City Plan Commission meeting. Despite the opposition, commission members voted to recommend the rezoning and special use permit since the Budd Park Area Plan still supported “high density residential.”
When Scarritt residents continued to voice opposition, Newhouse parted ways with Fox Family Foundation on the project. However, due to contractual obligations to the seller of 523 Gladstone Blvd., Fox Family Foundation was required to continue its quest to obtain rezoning and a special use permit, said Newhouse President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Caplan.
In his letter to the BZA, Scarritt resident Will Royster defended the neighborhood association. The underlying issue, he said, is more important than a social service organization’s mission statement, the Budd Park Area Plan and the city planner’s interpretation of group living.
“When an elected officer of a neighborhood speaks on behalf of the neighborhood, that officer speaks on behalf of the collective voice of hundreds, if not thousands, or tens of thousands of residents,” Royster wrote. “To have a commission or committee ignore that voice is to place the desires of individual special interests above the will of the neighborhood.
“The Voice of Scarritt Neighborhood was ignored, and the petition of the immediate neighbors was not even considered. This is wrong, and the application must be denied.”
Royster also stressed the applicant’s request would overturn the unanimous support of the city council and sub committee that voted the rezoning proposal into law three years ago.
With BZA’s decision, Fox Family Foundation will not be able to operate a group home since both the rezoning and special use permit for group living were required.
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