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MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL DESIGN GUIDELINES AND STANDARDS II. BACKGROUND CONDITIONS AND ANALYSIS Once a small community with residential neighborhoods integrated into a downtown core, Overland Park is now a metropolitan city with a population of approximately 160,000, extending north to Interstate 35 and south to the rural community of Stanley. The city witnessed an explosion of multi-family residential projects in the 1970s and 1980s, and in 1986 adopted design guidelines to direct multi-family development. The result was that the quality of multi-family development in Overland Park has generally been good, exceeding that of many other communities in the Kansas City metropolitan region. However, experience with the current guidelines and the form and quality of new multi-family development has led the city to initiate an update. One shortcoming, as noted above, is the resulting unpredictability surrounding the guidelines' application and the protracted negotiations that typically arise with each new multi-family development. Additionally, the current guidelines offer significant density incentives to developers who provide, for example, attached garages or minor amounts of open space. But current market forces are demanding these features, and thus the city is granting extra density for features that would Figure 1--T~ica/ multi:famil3, developmen/ in Overland Park. have likely been provided in any case. Additionally, the community would like .to see an improvement in the quality of materials being utilized in multi-family developments. Most of the new multi-family development in overland Park is taking place south of Interstate 435. While these developments are typically attractive and well landscaped, they usually do not foster in their residents a sense of connection with, or responsibility for, their communities. New multi-family residential developments are usually oriented inward, away from the primary street which they abut, in contrast to multi-family development in the older portions of the city that traditionally f,ace the street and integrate into the community with connecting street systems that are designed to balance automobile, pedestrian, and bicycle movements. Newer multi-family developments do not include direct physical links to adjacent neighborhoods, subdivisions, or commercial centers except by major streets or sidewalks along those streets. Similarly, they are often walled off from nearby commercial developments by wood or masonry fences or walls, further heightening their separateness. CITY OF OVERLAND PARK, KANSAS 4 OCTOBER 7, 2002