The months-long fight over whether Starfish Project Foundation should be allowed to move next to Olathe’s Briarwood neighborhood ended Tuesday night with a 6-1 City Council vote.
Now comes a different question: What happens next?
Starfish has permission to operate its community food, clothing and personal-support center in the former Aldi and Quilters HQ building at 16175 W. 135th St., but the organization cannot simply move in and operate without restrictions. The special use permit lasts only two years, and council members added a series of conditions intended to make the next two years a closely monitored test of how Starfish and the surrounding neighborhood coexist. Mayor John Bacon cast the only vote against approval; six votes were required because nearby property owners had filed a valid protest petition.
When will Starfish actually move?
As of Thursday, Starfish has not announced a new firm opening date for the 135th Street building. Its website still lists its temporary location at 14910 W. 119th St., where the organization has been operating since May. Before the permit controversy delayed the move, Starfish had hoped to be in the new building by mid-August and had already stopped accepting non-food donations at the temporary location in preparation for relocating.
With the City Council vote now complete, a revised moving and opening schedule is expected, but one has not yet been published.
There is also work to be completed at the former Aldi before the move is finished. Starfish must submit and complete a final site development plan covering landscaping, parking-lot restriping and screening of exterior mechanical equipment. Nothing donated to Starfish, merchandise or equipment can be stored or displayed outside the building. The organization is also limited to one box truck under the permit.
Traffic — one of the biggest issues raised by Briarwood residents — will receive additional scrutiny. Starfish must develop a traffic and parking management plan, and truck deliveries and pickups will be restricted to the organization’s operating hours. Those hours are generally 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, with operations from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the second Saturday of the month. Councilmember LeEtta Felter also pushed for visitors, volunteers and employees to use the property’s parking lot rather than surrounding streets, and for queuing, loading and unloading to be kept off Brougham Drive and 135th Street.
The new location does have one major advantage over Starfish’s previous facilities: it is a standalone building with its own large parking lot and loading dock. Starfish Board Vice President LaVern Fields acknowledged at Tuesday’s meeting that parking was the principal problem at the nonprofit’s previous Santa Fe and Parker location. Starfish shared parking and a service alley with neighboring businesses there, and the landlord ultimately invoked a 90-day clause requiring the organization to leave. Fields told council members that the new property gives Starfish something it has not had before — complete responsibility for its own parking lot, building and activity on the site.
City will check on Starfish after six months
Approval Tuesday night was not a “come back in two years and we’ll see how it went” arrangement. City staff will conduct a formal review after Starfish has operated for approximately six months, followed by another review at the one-year mark. At the end of the two-year permit, Starfish must return through the public special-use-permit process if it wants to continue operating at the location.
Those reviews could become particularly important because city officials made clear that the permit can be enforced — and potentially revoked — before the two years are up. Planning staff told the council that individual complaints can be investigated and corrected through normal city enforcement procedures.
Repeated or significant violations can lead to a formal process that could ultimately remove Starfish’s authority to operate at the property.
A new “Good Neighbor Committee”
Perhaps the most unusual condition to come out of Tuesday’s meeting is creation of a Good Neighbor Committee. The group is expected to bring together Starfish representatives, nearby residents, the Briarwood Homes Association, city staff and a representative of the Olathe Police Department. It is not intended to have governmental authority. Instead, the idea is to create a direct line of communication so neighbors have somewhere to take concerns before relatively minor issues become larger disputes.
Starfish must also designate a local manager who can respond to neighborhood concerns. The council discussed having that person’s contact information publicly available, along with maintaining a complaint and incident log. As of Thursday, Starfish has not yet publicly posted the name or contact information for that manager or details about when the Good Neighbor
Committee will begin meeting.
Residents do not have to wait for the committee if they see a potential city-code or property problem. The City of Olathe operates OlatheConnect, its online system for submitting service requests and concerns to city staff. Police Chief Mike Butaud also told council members that residents should contact police when they witness illegal activity or someone trespassing on private property. Butaud said police can act on trespassing complaints and asked residents to report situations rather than assume officers already know about them.
Some of the concerns surrounding Starfish focused on crime and homelessness, but police data presented Tuesday showed relatively few calls directly connected to Starfish’s former addresses. At its Clairborne Road location, seven calls for service were tied specifically to Starfish during the period reviewed, with two resulting in police reports. At its later Santa Fe location, two calls were associated directly with Starfish’s address and one resulted in a report. Butaud characterized the overall activity as average for a commercial area. Police also made multiple checks of the Indian Creek Trail near the proposed new location after claims of homeless encampments were raised and found no evidence of an encampment.
Meanwhile, improvements underway at 135th Street and Brougham Drive will continue regardless of Starfish. The city is replacing aging traffic signals and adding right-turn lanes as part of a previously planned street project. Officials emphasized at Tuesday’s meeting that the improvements were already scheduled and are not being constructed because of Starfish.
Completion is expected this fall.
For Starfish, the council vote provides the opportunity to establish the permanent Olathe home it has been seeking. For nearby residents, the conditions attached to that approval provide specific benchmarks by which the operation can be judged.
The debate leading up to Tuesday was largely about predictions — what supporters believed Starfish could bring to the community and what opponents feared could happen next to their neighborhood.
From here forward, the debate will have something it did not have before: an actual record of what happens at 16175 W. 135th St. The six-month review will be the first major checkpoint.
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