I would like to call tonight's meeting to order.

Please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

I'd believe it's applying the United States.

I would like to know just for those standing, we do have an option.

There is an overflow room with additional seating, and uh we will live stream the meeting from there if you'd uh really like to sit down.

Although if you're going in there and you are uh signed up for the speaking part of the public hearing, there's a slight delay, so just uh allow yourself enough time and we'll talk about our queuing system when we get to that point uh in the process in the meeting.

As we get our meeting this evening, I'll take a moment to uh acknowledge that we do have a quorum of planning commissioners present with seven of nine commissioners in attendance.

Commissioner Corcoran and Commissioner Lynn are absent this evening.

I want to thank everyone in the chamber for attending this evening's meeting.

Planning commissions are an integral part of the process for interpreting and applying the city's comprehensive plan and unified development ordinance.

It's important that our meetings are conducted with dignity and respect.

That applies to every person in attendance.

We strive to provide an atmosphere where the ideas and opinions of all participants are held in the highest regard.

And finally, the actions on the issues we discuss are ultimately under the responsibility of the City Council.

As a planning commission, we're here to help the council as our elected representatives to be fully informed to make the best choices for our city.

By statute, the planning commission strives not to engage with any party on our issues prior to this meeting.

Should that interaction take place as a result of a business relationship or any other interaction, which we refer to as ex parte communication, commissioners will report that interaction when we reach that item in the agenda.

We'll now move on to our consent agenda.

This evening we have one item on the consent agenda.

Commissioners, do you need any additional information or have questions for staff on anything on the commit consent agenda?

Commissioner Bergita.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I just have uh two small minor notes to add uh to the minutes when the time is appropriate to make a motion.

Okay, yeah, sure.

If you want to go ahead and uh and state those for the record and uh follow it up with a motion, I think that would be acceptable.

Yes, on uh page uh 15 or I believe it's 14, excuse me, on SU 25-0002 on page two of that item.

Um I had asked some clarifying questions regarding the types of units being added on that project, as well as confirming that uh there had been no crime at that address during the last 15 years, and I'd just like the record to reflect that, please.

Okay.

If we'll make note on that please.

Is that it?

Yes.

All right, we'll go ahead and uh proceed with the motion then, Commissioner Brigitte.

Mr.

Chairman, I would move to amend uh the minutes as so stated by adding notes to Commissioner Brigitte's comments clarifying the types of units being added and that no crime had occurred at that address uh prior.

All right.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you, Commissioner Chapman.

Uh since we do have an amendment there, we will do a roll call vote.

Ms.

Will, please.

Commissioner Bergita.

Yes.

Commissioner Chapman.

Yes.

Commissioner Creighton?

Yes.

Commissioner Breen?

Yes.

Commissioner Brown?

Yes.

Commissioner Torones.

Yes.

Chair Channer?

Yes.

That motion passes seven to zero.

All right, so now we'll move on to our regular agenda, which is our public hearing.

And this evening we have one scheduled public hearing.

So I assume that's why everyone's here.

Welcome.

We'll talk a little bit about how the public hearing works.

Um we'll begin calling on individuals who have signed up to speak.

And I want to thank everyone you know here for attending, and we do appreciate your participation.

And we understand that the comments and feedback that the public has submitted to the city.

So we be as you might expect with this many people showing this, we've received many emails, um, many letters, calls.

I let you know that all of those are part of our record.

Um they are looked over in detail by our staff and prior to this meeting, as well as being distributed to everybody on this panel to have the opportunity of seeing everything that's been entered so far.

Um, in saying that, tonight we're most interested in hearing new information.

Okay, so in accordance with our bylaws, how the structure will work is each speaker has five minutes to speak.

We'll see the timer over here to my left with the red numbers where you can easily see the podium over here is where uh the comments will take place when we get to that point.

Um the countdown clock will be set for each speaker, which will be visible.

And think about this as we get there, though.

If your points have already been made, it doesn't really move us forward at all to come up and say the exact same thing or to duplicate things that have already been received in written correspondence.

So when you do come up, we want to have you um go ahead and your name state your name, state your address for the record, uh, and then uh the information that you have provided.

Um prior to that, we will have a presentation by our city representatives, and I understand our applicant may have a few comments as well.

So we'll move forward on that, and then we'll uh talk further uh before we start the public hearing.

All righty.

Ms.

Schuler, go ahead.

Well, good evening, commissioners.

Jessica Schuler, senior planner.

As introduced, this is a rezoning and preliminary site development plan for the 175th Lone Elm Center.

This is a proposed employment center for general industrial and commercial uses, as well as for an automated cold storage uh facility for lineage logistics.

The subject property is undeveloped.

It's located north of 175th Street and east of Lone Elm Road.

To the east, west, and south.

We have undeveloped property that does retain county role zoning as designations currently.

Uh directly to the north is Olatha's Lone Elm Park, which includes softball and soccer fields, picnic shelters, some walking trails, etc.

Um southwest of the site is the single family subdivision, Nottington Creek, and near the center of the property are two existing single-family residences on about five acres combined.

This property was annexed earlier this year, and it currently retains county rural zoning designations for agricultural related uses.

The applicant's request tonight is to rezone the seven acres at the southwest corner to the C2 community center district, which does mirror the C2 directly uh Caddy Corner, and the remaining 138 acres to the M2 General Industrial District.

This proposed zoning is consistent with our feature land use map, which designates this area as an employment area.

Employment areas consist of light assembly or manufacturing and high-quality planned developments integrated with complementary retail and service uses.

The proposed M2 and C2 districts are consistent with the pattern of warehousing, manufacturing, and business park areas that are developing along the 175th Street corridor.

As part of the land use analysis for zoning applications, we look at the permitted uses in each zoning district and the suitability of those uses with adjacent properties.

There are 80 or so permitted uses in the M2 district.

Um staff has worked with the applicant to restrict those uses that you see on the screen here.

Um these are higher intensity uses, they could generate odors or noise, or include outdoor storage areas such as leather manufacturing, paper manufacturing, etc.

In the C2 district, we have two uses restricted here, and again, the applicant is agreeable to what you see on the screen.

Four conceptual warehouse and distribution facilities are proposed in the M2 district south of a proposed collector roadway that will be constructed central to the development.

The buildings here range from just over 120,000 square feet to 500,000 square feet.

In the commercial area, we have six proposed um conceptual buildings, and these could range from a restaurant with drive-through to an office use.

This entire southern half, as you can see, is conceptual at this time.

This will require a revised preliminary site development plan prior to development.

So it will come back before you and it will include additional uh public notification prior to development.

On the north half of the site on lot one, uh Lineage Logistics proposes to construct an approximately 440,000 square foot automated cold storage facility.

It's very similar in nature to their existing facility located at 167th in Erickson.

It's just two miles to the northwest.

Um this was approved in 2019.

But this proposed facility is secured with fencing on all sides.

It's oriented with the office portion to the east, um, the the freezer portion to the north, and the dock and loading areas to the south.

This orientation is actually critical to its automated function.

And it does match the layout of their other facilities across the country.

Two access drives are proposed on Lone Elm Road, and these will require turn lane improvements at each location.

The north entrance accommodates all of their truck and entering and exiting, with this entire length here being for truck stacking.

They have their guard shack and gated entrance here.

And just to this point here is about three football fields.

That speaks to the scale of this property.

The southern entrance then accommodates their more than 280 employees, as well as future access to the southern industrial lots.

And as I mentioned, a new public street will be constructed central to the property.

Lineage is operational 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Charlie Love, Chief Development Engineer.

A traffic impact study was completed for this development.

It was completed by MERGE Midwest Engineering.

The study collected existing traffic counts in the area and estimated the number of trips each phase one and phase two of this development will generate based on the uh proposed uses.

The study's analysis of how this development will impact existing traffic, determined that the existing signals.

And Lone Elm and 175th Street will operate acceptable levels of service post-development.

Future phases, including the phase two industrial and future commercial area, will require the traffic study to be updated and revised for future proposals.

Additionally, city staff is aware of KDOT starting a study for the US 169 corridor, and we have shared this site plan with KDOT.

And other engineering related items and stormwater detention and water quality requirements per the city's uh Title 17 requirements are required at this site, and they are planned and will be provided for this site.

Phase one is providing what detention basins along the west and east side of the property and future phases as was alluded to earlier, they will be required to meet Title 17 requirements as well, and those plans will come back with a revised uh stormwater uh plan when the time comes for those developments to come before us.

Okay.

A preliminary landscape plan for lot one lineage logistics was provided and it meets all UDO requirements.

Um adjacent to Lone Elm, enhanced landscaping and screening will soften the view of the building from the road and obscure the trailer parking that you see to the west of the site.

This treatment here includes a seven to nine-foot berm, a double row of evergreen trees and street trees, a decorative six-foot um tall picket fence wraps the west and south sides of the property.

Um, as acknowledged in the staff report, there are two properties directly adjacent, um, and those properties will experience some significant impacts by this development if they are not acquired by the developer.

And because of their proximity currently, um, the landscape treatment adjacent here is pretty significant.

It includes an 11-foot tall worm berm and wall combination with a mix of planning types.

However, ongoing conversations between the applicant and these property owners are taking place, and should lineage acquire these properties, that additional landscape treatment would not be required.

Building architecture here is very similar to their existing facility, just to the northwest.

The cold storage portion of the building is a very highly insulated class one metal panel.

And the dock and the office portions of the structure are a class one concrete panel.

The automated freezer portion here is 140 feet tall max, and the dock and office portions of the structure are 65 and 40 feet tall, respectively.

So this height of 140 feet is permitted by right in the UDO, subject to following the applicable site design requirements.

So I've included a little table here to kind of help you understand what additional requirements were uh included here.

So starting with your front yard setback, the district standards require 20 feet.

The site design enhances that to 50 feet.

But what they are providing is over a thousand feet.

Again, that's almost three football fields from Lone Elm Road.

The side yard, again, the district requirement is 10 feet.

The site design kicks that to 200 feet from designated open space, which is to the north, Lone Elm Park, and they are providing almost 300 feet.

The rear yard, the base requirement is 10 feet.

The site design category does not speak to that side, but they are providing over 450 feet here.

So as you can see, they well exceeded UDO requirements, and they are placing the structure as far to the northeast corner of the site as possible.

And it is about it's just over a half a mile from the nearest residential home in Nottington Creek.

So it really speaks to just the scale and truly how big this site is.

Renderings were provided from various perspectives to give us again an understanding of the design and the scale.

This picture is would be going southbound on Lone Elm Road.

And this would be from the intersection of 175th and Lone Elm.

The following rendering provides what build out of the industrial portion would then look like.

What you're not seeing here is the build out of the commercial portion at the at the hard corner.

But due to the very unique function of this uh facility, oops, sorry, this rendering was um the eastern office portion of the building.

Um due to the unique function of this building, we do have a couple of waiver requests.

Um waivers to glass requirements and articulation are request requested, and staff is supportive of those.

Um glass is only able to be provided on the east office portion of the building due to the need to maintain thermal integrity of the structure.

Um the proposed design and layout of the structure, um, as I mentioned, it's the layout is very important to its highly technical process, which doesn't allow the building to be mirrored or rotated.

In lieu of meeting UDO requirements for glass and articulation, um, they've added vertical and horizontal color banding to the west facade to provide a little more visual interest.

Um blue color banding is provided throughout.

The entire structure exceeds UDO requirements for other facade materials by um including entirely class one materials here.

The applicant is also providing again significant berming on Lone Elm Road, which helps to soften the view as you drive down the road and help to screen those parking areas as well.

The feature land use map designates this area as an employment area.

The proposed M2 and C2 districts align with this land use designation and are a part of this larger 175th Street corridor where the employment uses are directly adjacent to 175th Street.

We transitioned to industrial uses further north and residential use is further south.

Um again, the exception here is the Nottington Creek subdivision, which was actually annexed into the city prior to the vision for this corridor being realized through the 2016 update to our comprehensive plan.

So neighborhood notice met all state and UDO requirements and actually went beyond these in quite requirements to extend a neighborhood meeting to the Nottington Creek neighborhood.

Um about 20 uh residents attended that meeting, and we heard some general questions and concerns pertaining to the height of the building, stormwater traffic, um, access to the site, and just kind of the general number and build out of warehouses in this area.

Um we also received a letter of correspondence that was included in your packet and an additional 30 or so letters that have been mailed to you following posting of the packet.

To address some of these concerns, we've included a number of stipulations in the staff report.

For the conceptual development on lots two through five, staff recommends that the height of the buildings be limited to a maximum of 55 feet, and in the commercial district, a maximum of 35 feet.

This would allow the property to have a tiered down effect in regard to height.

So only lot one being permitted the full 140 feet.

Here we have stipulations regarding the recommended waivers that I mentioned, as well as a number of standard stipulations as well.

Staff is recommending approval of the rezoning to the M2 and the C2 districts as stipulated, and of the preliminary site development plan as stipulated.

Um I am happy to answer any questions.

Our applicant also has a presentation to make this evening.

Thank you, Ms.

Shuler.

Are there any questions from staff before we bring the applicant up?

Commissioner Creighton.

Okay, Ms.

Shuler, let me go ahead and start with you since you are up there, and then we'll go to Mr.

Love.

Okay.

I'll mention the three things that I have have concerns about, and I think they mirror pretty much what the neighbors have stated, that being traffic, height of the building, and safety because of the refrigerant.

Let's start with the height of that building.

And you gave us an idea of the distance to the nearest residence, which is about what I estimated.

What give me some similarities in Olatha where we have other buildings of that height and why this building's height is going to be different than what their other logistic building is.

We'll start with that.

Sure.

Well, operationally, as far as why their other facility is 88 feet tall.

This is 140 feet tall.

As far as operations, I'll let the applicant address kind of their need for the increased height here.

As far as height, the most similar building in Olathe we have is probably the Johnson County Courthouse next door.

It's actually 150 feet tall, so this is a little bit under that.

In the south part of town, you all are probably familiar with the water towers at 199th and Lackman, those are 150 feet tall.

So yeah, Charlie, if you have specific traffic questions, we can address those to Charlie.

Okay.

Let me, as long as you are up there.

And I want the applicant to be able to address this too.

But the uh safety of the refrigerant, which I understand is a anhydrous ammonia type.

Um I want specifically from them details on the capacity, that type of thing.

But what are some of the safety aspects that we are involved in as a city or other government agencies, be it the uh OSHA or our fire department, et cetera.

Right.

Um there is a long list of layers of um risk management and and review and approvals, and I'll let um probably Chet or Charlie kind of help walk through what those layers look like for you.

Okay.

Good evening, Chet Belcher, Chief Community Development Officer.

Um I talked to our fire department, unfortunately, our fire fighting group and the hazardous materials folks weren't available tonight.

But um Deputy Chief uh Dave Anderson, I talked to him about the firefighting capabilities in this area.

We have specially equipment um to handle any type of fire for any building of any size.

Um in addition to that, we also have cooperative agreements with all the surrounding uh fire fire departments.

So thank you.

I guess then Mike will let Mr.

Love answer the rest of that question, then I do have a traffic question as well.

So if you want to go ahead and address uh Ms.

Shuler mentioned that you would be able to talk about some of the different entities if there was any additional to what Chad has mentioned.

Charlie Love, Chief Development Engineer.

I don't believe I have anything to add in regards to the to the chemical that you were speaking of, but I can help with traffic questions.

Okay.

I do want to know like who would respond to EPA, those types of things in the event of a leak.

So that in the event of a leak, um, you know, typically there is Johnson County, we we have our our county hazmat.

There is specific protocol in regards to how those get reported, and that is through our fire department.

And I I know there is notifications that get sent out.

Um I don't know all the specifics in regards to that, but there is a process here within Johnson County, just like any other uh municipal or county governments in regards to any type of hazardous leak or issue that arises.

And then let's go ahead and quickly move to traffic.

Uh that area has definitely changed a lot in the last 15 years.

Um that was uh very rural and residential prior to the last uh comprehensive plan 15 years ago.

In addition, since then, not only in addition to the growth, the uh county is restricting truck traffic on certain streets and roadways, Gardner, the City of Gardner is doing the same.

So 175th Street is carrying significant number greater than they did before.

Can you uh talk about a timeline?

You mentioned uh K DOT is involved in the uh looking at the 175th Street and 169 highway interchange.

Uh is there a time frame on that, and what are some of the other uh improvements on 175th that uh we're aware of, and is there a time frame on those?

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Um regarding I'll start with K DOT.

Um, in particular, the study that I referenced.

This is just kicked off.

This is really fresh, really new for K Dot.

Um I think they have actually just and I don't know who the engineer that they have on staff, but I believe they have just gone out earlier in the year, went through the RFQ process and got somebody selected that's gonna help perform that study.

For my understanding, that study is going to go all the way down from the Spring Hill area all the way north to kind of the I-35 area.

And so it's gonna be an extensive study, and it is going to take time, but we don't have a specific timeline in regards to when that is going to be completed.

It's it's just getting kicked off.

In regards to improvements to 175th, Lone Elm, currently these are two-lane roadways.

Uh they are unimproved.

Uh 175th Street uh is is planned to be a six-lane uh expressway in the future.

However, and then Lone Elm is divided, a six-lane divided roadway, and then Lone Elm will be planned for a four-lane divided roadway.

However, currently in our current CIP, our five-year CIP, there's nothing programmed for these areas.

That's just based on the need and the capacity.

The city does review our uh projects annually, and so we take in a lot of considerations, whether it's traffic, uh accidents, just a lot of just what where are our needs, and those are evaluated on an annual basis.

So currently it's not in the CIP.

There are unfunded projects that we're watching, but we don't have anything currently planned for this area.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's where I wanted to start.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Creighton.

Commissioner Chapman.

Thank you, Chair.

Um Ms.

Schuller, could you bring up Could you bring up the diagram showing the entry points for uh lot one?

Okay, yeah, that one there.

So the main entry point will be at the top end of this diagram, and this is the one that you indicate is at least three football fields long, but this will be the primary entry point, will it not?

It's the primary entrance for their truck traffic.

Yes, for the truck traffic only.

How many trucks a day are they anticipating that will come through this 24-hour seven-day-a-week facility?

Charlie Love, Chief Development Engineer.

Uh they have currently stated that it's 500 trucks per day.

It's anticipated that that is the that truck traffic is spread out evenly because it is a 24 operational facility.

Okay.

And so they are anticipating when you when you break that down to an hourly basis, it's 21 trips either in or out total.

Uh so 11 and 10 coming in and out of the facility per hour.

Does the applicant have a way to monitor and control the number of trucks arriving and departing any given time of the day?

I'll have to defer to the applicant to answer that question.

Okay.

And how many loading docks does this facility have?

Well, let's see.

These are the loading docks here.

There's um probably about 30.

I don't know, probably 30 on this side, um, less on that side.

Um, understanding is that their operations have the trucks stack in the stacking lane, and then they have specific drivers that then come pick up that truck and take it to the site.

So they have a different driver that actually facilitates it within the property itself.

And where does that exchange take place after the security gate?

Um that's another great question for our applicant.

Um it's probably here in these um tractor trailer spaces, I imagine, is where that switch would take place.

And then the um what is indicated or looks like a parking area over there to the left of the facility.

Uh-huh.

Is that where trucks will be parked?

Yes.

So these are just trailer parking spaces.

Um, and then they have tractor spaces designated on the other side as well.

No, I'm sorry.

You can't at this point.

I'm sorry, please refrain from any comments from the gallery.

Okay.

And then with regards to the entry point, uh, which is the primary entry point for the trucks.

Vehicles uh tractor trailers will be, I assume will be exiting off of 135 north or south, 159, also 175.

They could also be coming down 169.

So we would have I guess it's feasible that we'll have trailer tractor trailers coming east and west on 175th as well as north and south on Lone Elm and 169.

Yes.

So a fair amount of the trucks.

It's going to depend on where they're coming from and or where they are going, but it's anticipated that trucks will be traveling on uh I-35.

So some probably if they're traveling northbound are going to take the 175th exit and come to the site from the west.

If they're traveling southbound on I-35, they probably have some choices to make as whether or not they cut get off at 169, or if they get off the 159th exit.

Most likely, I would assume they get off the 159th exit, travel south down Lone Elm, and then there's the potential of if somebody is trying to either go south on 169, or if they're traveling north on 169, they would probably choose to take that 175th Street uh from the from the east of the site.

Okay.

So if they average 500 trucks a day, those are going to be all the access points coming to this one singular entry point.

Correct.

Okay.

Now, one of the comments that was made was that the traffic ordinance requires mufflers, noise suppression systems on vehicles, uh noise-creating mechanical exhaust devices along 175th.

How do we enforce that?

We have a noise ordinance.

Right.

I know we have the ordinance.

I'm just curious, how do we enforce the ordinance when we're going to have 500 trucks a day coming through here?

How are we doing manage that?

How do we apply that ordinance successfully?

Uh Chet Velcher, Chief Community Development Officer.

Typically uh PD, as I understand it, uh responds to a concern basis.

So if they receive a concern from anyone in the area, then they're able to come out and monitor the noise.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

I think that's that's all for now.

Thank you.

Commissioner Brown.

Commissioner Brigitte, are you going to yield to him?

Yeah, Commissioner Bergida.

And the guys up at the podium and and Chad, if you guys hold that mic a little closer, um, sometimes it's a little difficult to hear you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I got a couple questions for Mr.

Love, and then I got one question for Mr.

Belcher as well.

Um Mr.

Love, thank you for your time earlier today answering some of my questions.

And I just wanted to clarify um a discussion we had on the increase in truck traffic this would have based on some of the numbers we talked about.

I believe it was 8 percent during non-peak hours of current traffic is truck traffic, and that goes up to 20 percent during peak hours.

Based on those numbers, would you say it's fair to say this facility would add an additional 25 to 62 percent increase in truck traffic based on the time of day?

Uh Commissioner, um in regards to truck traffic, I did take a look at the truck traffic that's along this corridor.

So I'm gonna speak mostly in regards to Lone Elm.

Uh the traffic study, the analysis that was done, uh that study showed that there is approximately 652 trucks that currently daily travel up and down, north and south Lone Elm Road, um, which is about 8.5 percent of the daily volume that that travels that corridor.

Um this specific site is anticipated to generate 500 truck traffic a day.

Um so when you take that in consideration, um the total traffic that that comes up and down Lone Elm is gonna go up 800 to it's gonna be an average daily traffic of around 8,350 vehicles per day, of which uh 1,150 of those will be trucks.

So it's increasing that truck traffic that's there, that 8.5 percent volume, it will go up from 8.5 percent daily volume to 14 percent.

So 70, 80 percent increase, something like that.

Okay.

I don't have my calculator right here.

I appreciate it.

And then uh you had talked about acceptable levels of traffic uh down the street on 175th.

Could could you define that or expand on that?

Let's see.

How do I think that's a good idea?

Okay.

So I'm gonna speak in regards to um we're gonna switch from average daily traffic to uh peak hour.

So our peak hours are typically AMPM type events.

In this particular case, the real peak hour for this one was more in that PM.

So it's it was I I do think it was about a 430 to 530 type event, which is pretty common for peak PM hours.

Uh the existing traffic that was there for that vehicles per hour that's traveling lone elm was the 1,020 existing.

Then I break out uh the trips that the study showed in phase one and phase two, you essentially have 71 trips coming in, 169 trips going out.

That equates to a total traffic of 1,260 anticipated, and the capacity that we would assume for Lone Elm Road, and this is with a level of service that's a DE threshold, it should be able to handle a capacity of 800 trips an hour.

And so that's where we're coming up that it it meets that level of service.

We have real similar numbers for 175th Street.

With these estimates of capacity, are trucks giving a heavier weight in terms of what an intersection can handle as opposed to a four-door sedan?

Yes.

Okay.

So it's it's modeled in the analysis whenever they're modeling these within the the traffic software that they use to model.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then um, Mr.

Belcher, uh you spoke about your conversation with Deputy Chief Anderson at the fire department, and he spoke about us having specialized equipment.

I know in and we'll I'm sure this will come up in public comments, but uh there was uh a great amount of concern uh regarding a similar fire or excuse me, a fire at a similar or identical facility out in Washington State.

And there were comments in uh the media from the fire chief out there regarding the equipment they had and how the height and depth of the building.

Did uh Deputy Fire Chief Anderson speak at all to what specialized equipment that we had that would enable us to get to the center of a very high and very large building.

He didn't speak directly to sorry, Chief Community Development Officer Chet Belcher.

Um he didn't speak to the exact type of equipment, but he was very confident when he told me that they could cover any type of fire in any size of building.

Have we had any large?

Could you get a mic a little closer, please?

Yes, sir.

Is that better?

Okay.

Have we dealt with any large-scale commercial fire of a warehouse building or something of this size?

Not that I'm aware of.

Okay.

Thank you.

Commissioner Brown.

A question about this south part of this lot.

We can call it part two.

Question about the south part of this lot.

Sure.

With these industrial buildings.

The height of you might have answered this already.

The height of those you say is 35 feet.

No, the commercial area we recommend restricting to 35 feet, which is standard for the C2 district.

And then in the southern industrial, we recommend limiting that to 55 feet.

Maximum height.

The three industrial buildings there.

Correct.

55 feet.

I'm having hard time.

What the rationalization is for the 100-foot justification.

Sure.

As per our ordinances.

Sure.

Our code, let me get rid of this.

And back to this.

Okay.

So the UDO is set up to allow a little bit of flexibility and a developer can request that additional height of 444 feet.

It is permitted by right in our code.

And our code is set up that if you move over to those set of columns, you have some additional site design uh restrictions that you have to meet.

And that's where additional setbacks from arterial roadways and designated open space come into play.

And so that's what I'm showing you in this chart.

That middle column, enhanced site design, is speaking to what we call site design category six.

Staff employees, the strictest site design standard for a project that applies to their land use category.

And what site six gives us is those additional setbacks.

It's trying to protect parkland, the visibility from arterial roadways, setbacks from residential, et cetera.

And so it's it's built-in flexibility, but it does require the developer to achieve some additional standards.

And what they're doing here is actually far exceeding those by pushing this building as far up to the north as we can.

Um and then they are also being agreeable to on the remainder of the site, saying that whatever future developer uh you know business center comes in, you're going to be limited to a lower height.

So that we have a tiered down effect and we uh protect uh the visibility from our arterial roadways even more.

Does that answer your question, Commissioner?

Somewhat.

Okay.

I'm still confused by it.

Okay.

Uh a minor question re relating to the uh C2 part of it.

Uh-huh.

You're restricting, we are restricting uh entertainment establishments.

Would you define entertainment establishment?

Yes.

It's defined in our code as lounge, private club, or nightclub.

Um it says any establishment other than a restaurant where alcoholic beverages are served for consumption on the premise.

It offers those examples.

Oh any establishment other than a restaurant where alcoholic beverages are served for consumption on the premise, such as a lounge, a private club, or offers live entertainment, such as music or dance floors, such as nightclubs.

Um this includes any warehouse entertainment club or teen entertainment club.

That's the full definition.

So a bar and grill wouldn't be allowed there, for example?

No, a bar and grill would not be a light a nightclub or a lounge that would be allowed.

It would be a sit-down restaurant.

Thank you.

Commissioner Toronas.

Yes.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

My question will be for the applicant.

Thank you.

Okay.

Perfect.

Anything else for staff from any of the commissioners?

Okay.

So I understand our applicant is present.

Yes.

And while he's coming up, if I could ask staff, there's somebody who could grab a bottle of water.

I would sure appreciate it.

And down there out.

Okay.

Floor is yours as you get settled here.

Hi, good evening.

Uh thank you for hearing our application and uh thanks to the staff and Jessica for the presentation.

Uh my name is Rob Sangdalm, BP of Real Estate for Lineage Logistics.

Uh with me is uh Jim Romine, he's our Vice President of Construction and Design, and uh Rich Desmiel, who is our lead architect.

Uh we were asked to talk about ammonia.

Is that mic too long?

Pardon me?

It doesn't sound sound like it.

Is this better?

Yes.

There you go.

We're uh adjusting to them as well.

So we we are prepared to speak about um how we use ammonia as a refrigerant gas, but uh thought maybe since it's fresh in everybody's mind, would we like to go through the the dais again and have any questions for the applicant ask of us at this point?

I would like to go ahead and address the applicant for any questions we've already had.

Yes?

Okay, well no, go ahead and go talk about the okay ammonia, we'll go from there.

Yeah.

So just uh just a slot on one slide here, or two slides actually beyond this title slide to talk about uh ammonia and how it's used in our building.

Uh I'll cover the advanced.

There we go.

So uh apologies for the small type, but tried to fit it all in one sheet.

Um I'll hit on the first two topics and I'll let Jim uh talk to you about the second two.

But uh the use of ammonia is nothing new.

It's it's been around since the mid-1800s.

Um it's been it's been used in that capacity or the capacity that we intend for it uh as a food and beverage production uh and and the cold storage uh mechanism to to create cold air to keep uh perishable products from spoiling.

Um so what you have is a century and a half of regulatory um enhancements, uh safety improvements, equipment improvements, uh technical technological improvements that all results in the safe use of uh ammonia as a refrigerant, excuse me.

Um eighty percent of ammonia use is is basically uh limited to the agricultural industry, cold storage and other uses like food production uh are only about 20 percent.

So um some interesting things about um well Jim Jim has a little bit more to talk about what a closed loop system is, so I'll save that for him.

But um in farming, ammonia is actually exposed to the environment, it's directly injected into the soil to re uh reintroduce nitrogen into the soil.

So uh we don't do that.

Um everything that we do is contained inside a safe building, right?

So the the second topic is um the fact that our building is it's safe, secure, and vapor tight.

Uh it has to be vapor tight because we're negative 20 inside, and when it's 85 and humid on the outside, we can't allow that warm air to come into the building, otherwise it'll create a snowstorm, literally.

So uh just as we keep the warm air out, any kind of leak, if it were to happen, would also be kept in.

So our site is secure, as Jessica mentioned, we've got fencing and gates around the entire site.

We have uh security staff at a guard house.

Uh our facility is not open to the public, so nobody can come in and tamper with uh the ammonia or the refrigeration system.

Um all of our employees have security uh badges to access the facility to get through the employee gate at the employee parking lot, and even fewer employees have access into the engine room uh where the ammonia is stored and where the the system does its job.

Uh those would be our trained um professionals and our management staff.

Uh we also equip the the building with a closed circuit TV camera system both inside and out.

And we have 24-7365 uh staff on site.

Jim.

Yeah, I guess just to carry on from where Rob was.

Um the compliance and training.

I'm sorry, could you take a moment to introduce yourself, please?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Uh General Mine with lineage logistics.

Great.

Thanks, Jim.

Uh the compliance and training portion, we're overseen by OSHA EPA, and also we uh we go with IIAR recommendations, International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration.

They're kind of our our industry uh group that oversees uh best uh best uses for ammonia refrigeration.

So we the OSHA and also the EPA programs, there's a 14-element uh program that we have to comply with.

And uh just a few of those elements.

One is training, where you have to train all of our operators and safe operating practices, you know, a very uh very uh uh basic thing for us.

Um also uh preventative maintenance.

So there's a program where we have to maintain all of our equipment, and we're basically maintaining our equipment to the manufacturer's requirements.

Um that training, I mean that that uh maintenance, uh some is quarterly, some is uh semi-annually, some is annually, depending on the piece of equipment.

Um we also do periodic testing, uh relief valves are changed out every five years, whether they're you know, whether they need to be changed or not, we're gonna replace them every five years.

That's dictated by the preventative maintenance program.

Um we also uh before we ever introduce ammonia into the system, we have a process hazard analysis.

So basically what we're doing is sitting down for a week with operators, engineers, designers, and we're going through the system in a systematic way, and basically asking what if questions.

What if a plane hit?

You know, what are we going to do?

How do we how do we mitigate that risk?

How do we minimize that risk?

And it it gets really long and tedious, but it there's a lot of great ideas or great recommendations that come out of it.

And we have to, for every every item that's brought up, and there's hundreds, if not thousands, we have to meditate, we have to answer the question how are we mitigating that risk?

You know, is it safeties?

Is it operating conditions?

You know, how do we make sure that we're going to deal with that?

And sometimes it's you can't really do anything.

If a plane comes and hits, you know, uh not a whole lot we can do, but we do outline all the programs that are in place, the support with uh local responders.

I mean, those things are all called out.

So that's just three of you know, 14 portions of the program that that apply.

Uh to what Rob was saying with the closed loop system, it it's just like your air conditioner in your house or in your refrigerator, that refrigeration system, or in your car.

Except we operate a lower pressures.

Um the the systems, you know, all these systems, they recirculate the refrigerant around.

And I'll I got a quick little presentation right after this on the next slide, and I can talk you through that.

But we're not um we're not exhausting any refrigerant, and we're not adding refrigerant uh except whenever we bring the system online.

And there may be, you know, we we drain some oil, we lose a few ounces, that happens, you know, periodically over time.

You will have to top the system off again.

But the system's designed to be closed loop and um not use refrigerant, but recycle the refrigerant.

It's a closed loop system.

Um things that we we have in place, leak detection, that's a real key thing.

You know, that used to only only be just to alert if anybody, you know, if the the folks in the warehouse or in the refrigerated areas where the evaporators are, that was used to alert them, say, hey, that we got a problem.

But really, um before the leak detector goes off, people are smelling it.

And they're coming and saying, hey Jim, we've got a problem over here.

I can smell ammonia.

All right, we get in, we take care of it.

Um we've done a lot to mitigate the opportunity for leaks.

And uh I I guess just one thing that comes to mind is we're using blocked refrigeration valves.

So these valves there's two connections in, and then you can you can put different um different components into that block valve.

So you instead of having each of these different components as two connections, so you may have 10, 12 connections in the functionality that you have in one block valve where you only have two connections.

A simple thing, but you know, it it's there's things like that that have come up come around over the past 10, 20 years that have been additional improvements.

And I think Rob's point early on was you know, really spot on.

The ammonia's been used as a refrigerant for you know hundreds of years now.

And over that time, every time there was an issue, you know, unfortunate issues, backstops have been put in place to help make it a safer refrigerant to use.

You know, and everybody says, boy, it stinks, amen.

That's a great thing.

That's a fantastic thing because you can find it quicker.

You can understand if there's something starting to seep and leak a little bit, okay.

We know to get up there and take care of it.

Uh one thing I forgot to mention on the leak detection, our computer control system.

It's set up so that whenever there's a leak detector that goes off, any evaporators in that area, those the liquid shuts off to them automatically, and they start pumping down.

So the suction stays open, and we're pulling back refrigerant back to the engine room.

So, you know, it's the control systems have really evolved and help you know to make the system uh even a safer system if there was something to happen.

Um that last point, we don't transport or refill the system once it's filled, it's just recycling the refrigerant.

Figure this out here.

Down there.

All right.

Uh this is just a real quick and uh uh a quick pictorial of how the refrigeration system works.

So the the at the top we're pulling low pressure vapor from the evaporators, and it's compressed up to a high pressure, and our high pressure is about 120 to 150 pounds.

And in I know in my home system, I'm over 400 pounds on the high side.

Um then it's condensed down that high pressure vapor, we pull the heat out of it and we condense it.

And I the the best thing I can think of is if you have a cold drink in your hand in the summer and you start getting you know drips of water and everything, that's condensation.

We do that's condensation on the outside, you know.

And what we do is we we condense the uh high pressure vapor on the insides of the tube.

So it's not on the outside, it's on the inside.

We run air and water over it, and that helps condense it.

Turns it into a high pressure liquid.

The high pressure liquids fed through a metering valve.

And once it goes through that metering valve, it drops pressure, but it also drops temperature.

And we're dropping down to minus 30 in the vessel, so we can get minus 20 in the rooms.

Uh that cold liquid and vapor goes into the evaporator, and the evaporator is uh you know, in your in your house, it's an A coil typically, but it's it's taking that cold uh liquid and vapor and it's absorbing heat and warming up that cold liquid and vapor, then it goes back to the compressor and does the same thing again and again.

So it's again a closed loop system, um, very safe.

Ammonia is a natural refrigerant, so it doesn't hurt the ozone, doesn't hurt uh, you know, there's no global warming potential.

Um it's a very efficient refrigerant.

You know, in our our facilities, we want, you know, we we loop we're gonna be living in the community.

We've got folks, you know, that are going to be living next door to you, maintaining this system.

And uh safety is our number one uh priority in our facilities, and we want to maintain you know a safe operating facility and be a safe operator in the community.

Okay.

Thanks, Jim.

Well one last thing I forgot to mention, we do agree with all the uh the comments and stipulations in the staff report as well.

So is there any questions for the applicant?

Commissioner Creighton, go ahead.

I want to get back to the refrigerant real quickly, and you answered a lot of the questions that I had written down.

Just exactly how big is this system.

I know you said it's closed loop, you don't have uh what's its capacity?

Um can you give it roughly in gallons?

I think what everybody would be interested in is what's the how much ammonia are we gonna have.

And based upon OSHA PSM, R RMP for the EPA, they don't regulate you until you get to 10,000 pounds with ammonia.

We're gonna have around 25,000 pounds, and most of that charge is going to be stored in the high pressure receiver that operates at 120 to 150 pounds.

It does have relief valves on it, so that if you we over pressured for some reason, we're not going to rupture the vessel.

The vessel is designed for over 300 pound working pressure.

Um, so about, I guess to answer your question, around 25 to 30,000 pounds.

Can you equate that roughly to gallons?

I'm thinking back to my uh agricultural days, and that goes back 40 plus years, you know, and hydrosammonious tanks are you know, a thousand to fifteen hundred gallons.

Can you give me a rough idea of comparison?

Yeah, probably around uh seven to eight pounds per gallon.

You know, I know that's a weight of water.

I'm just trying to equate it.

Um additional questions for the applicant?

Commissioner Toronto.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

With regards to if you could walk me through because it it's related to the truck traffic, 24 hours operation.

How does the deliveries work?

I've heard approximately 30 docks.

How does the delivery and the timing work to ensure there is an even flow of deliveries, limiting the more truck traffic all numerous times?

Copy.

So uh there's there's 53 loading docks.

And and I think the number that was mentioned before about 500 truck trucks, right?

And in I guess in the traffic engineering world, 500 trucks would be a thousand trips, right?

Trips are uh one a truck coming and going, that's two trips.

Uh that's not all us.

That that was across the entire development.

Just wanted to make sure that that was clarified.

Ours is closer to 250 trucks a day.

Um and uh so how does that get regulated?

Uh this this building is 80 percent dedicated to a single customer that runs their own fleet, so they have complete control over 80 percent of the traffic that comes into this building.

So it's gonna be staffed with their own drivers, their own tractors, their own trailers.

So and again, uh when you think about a loading dock on the front of a storage warehouse, the the loading dock is the throttle.

That's that's what controls the throughput.

So with only you know 50 doors, you can only accommodate 50 trailers at a time.

And it takes an hour or two to load or unload a trailer.

So uh when you do that math, it's kind of like you know, fifty fifty trailers, turn that uh every two hours, and you know that's your maximum potential throughput.

So uh the customer controls the traffic.

Um as Jessica mentioned, our driveway is pretty long.

I think it's even longer than a thousand feet.

Um, and so we have the ability to accumulate trucks if they show up too early, so to speak, and we have plenty of extra parking uh if um they're not ready to leave.

If we're done with them at the loading dock and they need to go wait until it's time to leave, they can't.

Again, so so I think there was a comment from uh the audience about trucks uh waiting on site as if it was a truck stop.

That's that's not what's happening here.

These are employees uh of our customer uh who drive to work, park in the employee parking lot, get into a tractor, get a trailer, and then take a food product somewhere or bring a food product back.

So that answer it?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

I have another additional question.

I saw in your presentation you talked about a uh security staff at the truck entrance.

Will they s as they turn into the main entrance will they require to stop?

Is it going to be a uh gatehouse at that intersection?

Yeah, Jessica, is is that if I hit the up arrow, will I get back to that that slide?

So we haven't been trained on this.

That's okay.

That's good enough.

Yeah.

Right.

So if you look at the um I don't know if you can see my cursor on that screen up there, can you?

Yeah.

Huh?

Oh, there it is.

Yeah, okay.

You see my little cursor up there on the far right-hand side.

That's where the guard house is.

It's actually dual guard houses.

There's two of them.

So there's two inbound lanes of truck traffic.

You see it splits uh right around a little bit to the left of that arrow that indicates 298 feet.

Uh so we split off.

So we have two inbound lanes with two guard shacks.

So trying to be as efficient as we can with with clearing trucks through security uh and not letting them stack up and encroach on lone elm.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Commissioners.

Commissioner Brown.

I drove by your other facility today, which I never even knew existed, to be perfectly honest.

Could you compare this proposed facility to the other facility?

Yeah, I mean, aside from the obvious, right?

Both cold storage, uh both light and color and both tall.

Um they're both automated as well.

Um typically building design is a function of the throughput velocity, the number of inventory turns that you have.

Um that building has a little bit slower moving product than this one.

That's part of the reason for the height difference.

Uh another reason for the height difference here is is um uh uh just building capacity in general.

Uh how many pallets do we have, Rich?

Oh, it's a 42.

Uh 110,000.

Yeah.

So this building has 110,000 pallets.

And and you could imagine the sprawl of the building if it uh if it if it if it wasn't tall, it'd be twice as big, right?

Um so there's an efficiency in in height, uh, not only from energy consumption and refrigeration, but from storage capacity as well.

So forklifts can only go about 60 feet to bottom of product these days.

Um these cranes can well, they can go over 200 feet, but there's an efficiency breakover.

So 140 is a sweet spot.

Would you compare the truck traffic between the two of them?

I don't remember.

I don't know if is Judd around.

Uh do you remember what traffic council were for our old building?

I I this one's gonna have more.

Um again, it's a faster turning inventory and it's a bigger building.

Um that let's say uh I'm just guessing here this is probably 30 percent more.

But I can get you an answer if you if you like.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bergita.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So I've got some questions for uh Rob and then some for Jim as well.

Um I think this one probably is a Jim questions to start off.

Um you had mentioned uh topping off uh with the closed loop system, but never needing to be a refill.

Could you clarify that a little bit in terms of what a top-off would be as opposed to I'm assuming a refill would be replacement of all uh the ammonia or something like that, the refrigerant, while a top-off would just be a little bit as there's dissipation gradually.

Yeah, I it typically in it in older facilities we would we would order a thousand to two thousand pounds to top off.

You know, you because you you can you can you know let the the working level of the receiver, which is the largest vessel, you can let that work down.

So you wouldn't you wouldn't call in for a top-off until you got down to that point.

Because you're having to pay the truck trip, you know, to bring the refrigerant out, and that's about the minimum minimum spin.

You could buy 500 pounds, but you're gonna pay 2,000 pounds worth of cost.

How often would you need to do a top-off, do you estimate?

Um to five years, maybe, something like that.

And then uh Jim, you mentioned uh I heard that this is a 24 uh sorry, Rob, this is this is more of a raw question.

24-7 uh site.

Uh how many people will be on site in general, and then weekends and graveyard shift?

So I think our our largest shift, if I remember correctly, is about 85 people.

And um the way we're gonna staff this is uh a morning evening shift for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Uh so that would be two crews, crews one and two AMPM crew, and then uh Thursday, Friday, Saturday you'd you'd repeat that same thing with with uh two other crews.

Uh Sunday would be uh a skeleton crew, minimal minimal crew, just uh uh to handle some prep for Monday outbound probably and to do any uh scheduled maintenance uh on the building.

So what would be the crew on a a skeleton shift from Saturday or a midnight shift from like Saturday night to Sunday morning?

Probably 10, 10.

Yeah, 10 or 15, not many.

Okay.

So on uh June 21st, 2024 at 515 a.m.

on a Sunday, according to the um Benton Fire District out in Washington, a fire started in one of the freezers on site.

Could you walk us through what happened there and how we can be sure that's not gonna happen here?

Uh yeah, as far as what happened, um, and again we call it Kennewick.

I I think I saw Finley before too.

Is that what you're yeah, same thing, okay.

Um we don't know yet, honestly.

The the the uh fire investigation team is still yet to determine the cause of the fire, uh to be honest.

So don't know what happened, but what I can tell you that the primary difference is between that building and this building uh is age for one and everything that comes with it.

Um that building being in the Pacific Northwest and built I think in the 70s, is a timber frame building.

So it was built with combustible materials.

Um and and the fire suppression standards of that system were probably a different code generation or iteration than than the current codes.

This building is uh built uh from steel and concrete, basically, so non-combustible materials, and it's got a very extensive fire suppression system with a diesel pump um to push the water in the event of a power outage and an on-site water tank.

So we're not uh worried about the water capacity in the pipes uh that run down lone elm.

We're not worried about losing power and the fire suppression system is is extensive.

It not only covers the roof deck, but it goes up and down the racking as well.

So sorry, and we have heat detection as uh kind of a belt and suspenders approach.

So uh if the if something happens where a head won't won't fire, it's a dry system, obviously.

If the if the head doesn't fire because of heat, there are heat detection systems in the building that will that will turn the system on as well.

So that one wasn't a fully automated facility.

That that facility was not automated.

No, it was low roof.

It was uh combustible construction, and it it I don't I'm not even sure if it had fire protection.

But uh if it did, uh it was probably confined to the the underside of the roof and not within the racking system.

Different animal completely.

Has lineage updated any of its safety protocols following that incident?

That's an excellent question that I can't answer.

Um I I would say that what we probably did as a reaction was to take a closer look at some of our older buildings that have uh you know older generation fire suppression systems, and we probably looked at some of our buildings that are are wood framed to to see if we needed to enhance uh fire suppression in those.

But uh that would be something on our safety team did, and uh I'm not I'm not on the safety team, unfortunately.

I don't have a good answer for you, sorry.

And then um from the June 3rd uh of this year, Spring Hill Planning Commission meeting.

It correct me if I'm wrong.

It seems that there are different blueprints for your different facilities in terms of size.

Is that is that an accurate statement?

Do you have like certain facilities or a certain size and you want to make them all a certain way, or or how does that work for you all?

Uh no, there's we don't have prototypical building sizes.

Um we we either look at buildings as fully automated or conventional, um, again, based on availability of land, based on throughput of product, uh based on customer needs, uh, based on demand within the market.

So uh again, this this building is dedicated, 80 percent to a singular customer.

So we worked in concert with them to design this building and its capacity and size.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Commissioner Chapman.

Thank you, Chair.

Um Rob, I guess these questions will be for you.

Um they're both two unrelated questions.

Time to clear security.

What are we talking about here?

You explain the process for clearing security.

For for a truck, yes.

The truck coming in.

Um minutes, I mean one or two minutes.

Again, uh, for the most part, 80 percent of this traffic is is for our specific dedicated customer.

And I keep saying that.

I apologize that that their name remains confidential.

Eventually it'll be known, but uh and it's a household name.

Um but um so as their trucks come in, um we just probably wave them through.

It's it's the other trucks that we would uh that would be associated with what what would what we call a public warehouse uh uh customer.

So that could be anybody, you know, anybody who wants to store uh products in a cold environment.

So those trucks would get a little bit more scrutiny and and maybe take a minute or two to to clear.

So if you had you know 10 trucks show up at one time, it would take 20 20 minutes to clear that line or 10 minutes because we have two uh parallel entry drives.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then the second question is is this, and that slide, I'm glad that slide is up.

Uh the 140-foot height, there's been a lot of comments about that from from uh uh the Nottingham people.

And um I I'm just curious, was there ever any discussion considering the fact that your setback from the front is a thousand and fifty-nine feet, which is quite a bit further back than the 20 feet minimum setback required?

Was there ever any discussion of having less of a setback so that you could actually achieve a lower height?

Or is the is the height due to the automation requirements that you need?

Yeah, yeah.

Uh I mean uh say we were to to shorten the building to a hundred feet, um that's a 40 percent reduction in height, so you would add 40 percent more crane aisles and and cranes in those aisles, and cranes are pretty expensive.

So cranes can go up and down uh pretty much as high as you want them to.

So this this there's a balance in the design of the facility between the number of cranes and how fast you need the crane to do its job to bring product to the loading dock and vice versa.

So this is a cost issue with regards to going high at the end of the year.

It's an efficiency issue.

Efficiency.

And and power consumption too.

To operate how many cranes?

How many cranes are in here?

Yeah, so it's 14 or 15 cranes in here.

If you added 40 percent more, is what about five more cranes, you'd have 40 percent more power consumption with the motors that are running too.

So there's all kinds of efficiency.

And it's actually the the amount of energy it takes to cool a building is a direct directly proportional to the size of the roof.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Are there any additional input by commissioners?

I have one question for staff.

Just we've talked a lot about the ammonia use in this facility.

What other facilities throughout Oletha or even in the area use a similar type product?

Uh Chet Belcher Chief Community Development Officer, so Tyson uses that.

The new Walmart plant uses that.

Um more that we knew for certain, but definitely those two.

And oh, the other lane edge building, obviously.

Right, the other lane, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any additional?

All right.

Well, we'll start moving towards the uh public hearing then.

Thank you for being here this evening.

Um, did we have a uh staff?

Did we have a system set up for people in line to speak?

Yeah, Chair Janeer, this is Kim Hollingsworth, planning and development manager.

So we have placed two chairs up here, and I recommend uh you'll be calling up the next two speakers, and so you can come up to one of these two chairs to be on deck for your turn.

All right, so yeah, well, I guess in to use baseball adage, we'll have somebody up, somebody on deck and somebody in the hole.

Um Commissioner Breen, uh my vice chair will be helping with that process and and indicating who's next on the list.

Uh just want to uh re-emphasize that uh um this is a public hearing.

Uh we are want to hear what you have to say.

Uh what it is not is a QA session.

Um as a speaker, uh we asked you to refrain from dialogue or questions for the staff, applicant, or commissioners.

Uh and your comments are directed towards the commissioners to assist us in in making our decision.

And and I'm sure everybody um will conduct themselves in a civil and respectful manner.

So I thank you in advance for that.

Um go ahead and pass that on to you.

And just as a reminder, as Commissioner Breen has given our starter list, five minutes, state your name and address uh as you begin.

First up, we have uh Doug Dorfler and then a Wayne Perzi and John Gillis will make their way forward as well.

Yeah, all right.

Go ahead, Doug.

All right, my name is Doug Dorfler and I live at 21834 West 175th Terrace in Oletha.

And uh my residence actually backs up to 175th Street, so well aware of of what's going on here.

Um mentioned that you drove down uh looked at the lineage building.

Uh I would say if you uh if you also drove down lone elm, um anyone that does would know that that's a two-lane with no shoulder rolled road, and in fact, uh a lot of that uh road is actually uh not there, and and there's some gravel there, some not.

There's some holes in it, so it needs a lot of work, in my opinion.

Um the future land use map of the plan Olatha comprehensive plan identifies subject property as an employment area.

Employment areas by definition consist of light assembly or manufacturing where high quality planned development developments integrate a mixed office and light industrial uses, complimentary retail and service uses should be limited in scale and carefully integrated.

Also, by definition, light industrial zoning typically restricts activities with significant noise, pollution, and safety hazards.

We know there's going to be noise.

We've covered that 24-7 truck traffic, pollution, potential for leaks, ammonia, and safety hazards.

And as they said, they have many, many safety controls.

So there must be many, many safety hazards.

They wouldn't have so many safety controls.

Um he mentioned an air uh what if an airplane hit the building, there were nothing they could do.

I think you're probably all aware.

Not long ago, an airplane did crash into a building.

We live by a very busy airport with a lot of uh pilots who drive small crafts.

And there are accidents in the area, not far from this building.

So again, by their example, they wouldn't know what to do.

It happened a month ago.

Um planned development is not for light industrial use by definition.

And the development is visible from Lone Elm Realm, 175th Street, and in proximity to residential uses to the west and south.

The proposed zoning does not meet the elements of the comprehensive plan.

Page five also states of the staff report that the maximum height permitted is uh 55 feet, but exceptions can be made if enhanced site design and landscape buffers are established.

Increased setbacks and significant berms do not justify approving a building 90 feet higher than the maximum height.

I think we will still be able to see it.

Um page 11 of the UDO rezoning criteria states that the 175th Street Corridor, Nottington Creek is the only residential neighborhood directly adjacent to 175th Street west of US 69.

It also states to provide harmony, that's the goal, harmony between adjacent business park and residential land loses uses.

Attention should be paid to buffers between uses and screening mechanisms to reduce visual clutter and mitigate potential noise created by truck traffic and warehousing uses.

I don't see how these berms and trees are going to accomplish that, honestly.

Um the staff reports also says that the application will have significant impact and harm on the two residences right adjacent to their property.

Um I agree they're probably worth zero once this starts, and and this is built around them.

And I would also say that's not the only properties.

Again, where I live, we're we we get this 1,000 uh truck traffic, 8,500 vehicles a day going back of our house.

And adding all this to it, if you think that all that noise from 6 a.m.

24 7 isn't going to impact the value of property, I think I think it will.

Um, you know, I I we don't think, I don't think this should be allowed, but if it was allowed, I think you know, we you have to do something for us, the homeowners, my opinion, to help with this noise because we have we have some buffers now.

We don't have near enough buffers.

We have trees and they're spread out, and the HOA is trying to help with that, but no way.

So if this is going to happen and you and you're serious about the harmony, provide us some financial uh incentive to help us with the buffering on our side, not just on your side.

And then, as you all know, the many golden factors support delaying approval.

Um seconds.

So factor five states the protection of public health, safety, and welfare is the basis for zoning, and the city's responsibility to the citizens should be weighed.

Again, there's a lot of issues with public health safety and the welfare here.

It talks about the uh fatalities should be thoroughly reviewed.

That includes water, sewer, roads, parks, police, fire.

We talked about those.

I'm not sure they've been thoroughly reviewed.

That's all I got time for.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Wayne, you're up, and if Jeff Walters will also come forward.

My name is excuse me, my name's Wayne Persee.

I live at 21708 West, 176th in Nottington Creek.

It's obvious to me that five minutes that he just got, I'm gonna really be in trouble.

Just uh a little bit of an emotional part of this because we wanted you guys to know that there are people living in that 250 houses.

We've been out there now, many of them were there from day one when it was first being built.

And over a course of time, it has successfully been changed with residential to rural to commercial, and now we're looking at this monster M2.

And I just I really struggle with that.

You know, and if I was gonna say, what could you do for us?

Don't put it where they want it.

Don't put it next to us to where we're 500 feet.

The other thing that I would say is what I understand is on 175th and 169, Spring Hill already agreed to one of these.

So let's take times two, all of our frustration tonight because they didn't care.

We listened to their Spring Hill meeting.

They don't care that all those extra trucks are coming to their facility and coming down 175th as well.

So take whatever you thought was going to be on 175th and lone elm and take it times two.

At least that's the way we look at it.

Keep in mind we didn't know anything about this until the 21st.

So what you hear tonight from this outstanding group of speakers put all this together in three weeks.

So there is some emotional emotion in there.

My wife and I are both real estate agents, one a little bit more than the others.

But one of the things that we've noticed already is a house that normally would be for sale in our neighborhood would sell within five days.

We've got them now languishing at two months because the rumors out.

And they see the traffic.

And they're caught in some of that traffic as their real estate agents trying to bring them to the to the subdivision.

We've got a realtor that's going to talk to that issue as well.

What I wanted to say on a personal level is I had the opportunity to join the service, and one of them it was preserve, protect, and defend.

And one of the things that I'm a little concerned about at this point is whether or not we're being preserved, protected, and defended by the problems that we've got there.

My wife spent an awful lot of time looking for what the zoning was out there before we ever bought.

And it's changed three times since we bought it.

Our housing value is going down, our taxes are going up.

We all got this present from for our taxes, and we already know what's going to happen.

The problem of it is is the values of our houses are going to go down.

Who's gonna you know?

I mean, I know we're talking planning and zoning here, but this is reality of what it's gonna do to our housing.

You can go to three other subdivisions and see their houses or 75 to 100,000 for the same house that they're selling right now, and they're selling them like cake.

We're not gonna get those kind of prices, especially when we put in something as questionable and as dangerous as what this possibly could be.

We're not naive enough in our neighborhood to know that once all of this got given to us with the present, that it was going to be in commercial and then now unfortunately industrial.

We're not naive enough to know that it's always going to stay rural.

But geez, does it have to be up in competition with uh Olatha's building down here?

We don't need that out there.

It's too big.

Ten foot of berming is not going to cover all of that.

I sit at my kitchen table working on my computer, and I know full well that building is going to be center in my window.

And I'm going to look at that every meal I sit there.

We went out there because we wanted to retire.

We went out there as probably 50% of the people that are out there are in there with retired or came back to see their grandkids, and they want to see their grandkids come in there.

And it's quite frankly, it's not going to be a safe place to be there.

One of the other things that I wanted to do, because I'm going to lose out is we've got some outstanding talent that's going to talk to some certain points.

Traffic they're going to talk about.

I've already put in my bid about the fact that it's times two.

They're going to talk an awful lot about light pollution.

24 hours a day, where's those lights going to be?

And we're going to lose the trees pretty quick because the leaves falling off.

The noise is incredible.

We already hear all of that.

We really need some help, but I'd go further, but I got 21 seconds, and I want my neighbor to tell my wife that I didn't take the whole five minutes.

Thank you, Wayne.

Janice Walters, if you come forward.

I live at 22200 West 178 Terrace.

The proposal for this tall building should be welcomed in Olatha.

A prosperous area requires new buildings and development.

And this technologically advanced cold storage facility certainly adds value to our neighborhood.

I live four blocks away from the intersection, and I'm glad it's being planned.

It's hard to imagine the project being more appropriately located, since it is at the intersection of two major highways.

The original planning of Johnson County and Olatha envisioned that those roads would be four-lane or six-lane highways.

So it's not as if it's being built on some little side road.

The idea that this project would be a would negatively affect traffic strikes me as really odd because I drive up and down Lone Elm and 175th all the time over years and years.

And I know that there are all these warehouses around, yet the roads are relatively easy to get by.

There's not big traffic problems.

That's not what I see.

It's not happening.

Excuse me.

Allow the speaker his time.

I think that those who oppose this work have a mistaken perspective of how America grows.

Just as the City of Olatha didn't impede the development of the major office building and production buildings of Garmin nearby.

So should the City of Olatha not stand in the way of this growth.

And it is this kind of growth that helps the whole city prosper.

I also welcome the height of the building.

Since it'll be, in a way, a landmark from afar, something that will help you see where you are.

Yeah, yeah, I do.

And after seeing the drawings of a building, uh that was my first reaction, but after seeing the drawings of a building, I was actually surprised that it doesn't seem as tall as it actually is 140 feet.

So I think that this project should be approved by the Commission as a signal that Olatha wants to grow.

Thank you.

Katie Hugh, you'd come forward.

My name is Jeff Walters.

I uh live at 21581 West 177th Court in Olatha, Kansas, in Nottington subdivision.

I am not as happy as the last gentleman.

Common sense and recent history tells us that you don't build industrial facilities that use toxic, deadly chemicals close to residential communities.

You just don't.

In 2024, a lineage facility in Finley, Washington caught fire.

It burned for 60 days.

It wasn't necessarily the cladding of the building.

It was what was inside of the building.

It was the wooden pallets.

It was the plastic packaging.

That's what was burning and what they couldn't put out for 60 days.

Residents are still suffering from health issues there.

It disrupted the entire community.

In Olatha, the winds blow predominantly from the west or the southwest.

So if we had a Finland accident here or something worse, the fallout area is going to be to the north of this facility or to the east of this facility.

And have you looked at what is north and east of the facility?

Well, let me tell you.

Lots of schools.

Sunnyside Elementary, Madison Place Elementary, Woodland Spring Elementary, Prairie Creek Elementary.

And the list just goes on and on.

Lots of subdivisions on the other side of 169 Highway.

I can't even list them all in five minutes.

And the Lone Elm Park is right next to it.

How many feet away?

200?

That's nothing.

Eight stocker fields, five softball fields, and a playground.

Hearing lineage talk about anhydrous ammonia sounds like they're talking about cotton candy.

It's not cotton candy.

It's dangerous.

And if you don't believe me, believe what the EPA says about it.

The EPA has a 75-page accident prevention and response manual.

It's online for anhydrous ammonia refrigeration system operators.

You should definitely read it.

I've sent you a link to it.

And I want to leave you with three quotes from the report that I want to share.

72% of all reported chemical accidents in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska involve anhydrous ammonia.

96% of them are preventable.

Why is that?

Because it's caused by human error.

You can have the best systems in the world.

But if your operator had a little bit too much to drink, a little bit tired, has an error, makes a mistake.

It doesn't matter.

The last quote is this.

Anhydrous ammonia is very corrosive.

And exposure to it may result in chemical type burns to skin, eyes, and lungs.

Released anhydrous ammonia will rapidly absorb moisture from the air, form a dense white, visible cloud.

The dense cloud tends to travel along the ground on a cool day.

Now lineage told you that all these accidents occur in agriculture.

Well, of course they do.

80% of the use of ammonia is in agriculture.

You've already heard them say their systems are different, their facilities are safer.

But even old facilities have to meet new OSHA EPA and homeland security regulations.

Old facilities have to be upgraded or they would be out of business.

The lineage facility in Washington State in Finley, it was older.

It had been upgraded.

It burned for 60 days.

Accidents happen.

Imagine this scenario.

It's a cool fall Saturday.

And Lone L Park is full of kids and sports teams and families.

It's a weekend.

So the lineage staff is doing their maintenance on the system.

An accident occurs.

It's human error.

It just happens.

A dense white toxic cloud of smoke spreads across the ground into Lone Am Park and east across Highway 169.

In the park, what do we have?

Children are collapsing with chemical burns, burns their eyes and their lungs.

Panic ensues and breaks out.

Across Highway 169, people come out to see what's going on.

They can hear the explosion that occurred.

They can smell ammonia, they see smoke and fire, and then their eyes and lungs are burning too.

Lone Elm Road and 175th Street, both two-lane roads, because a traffic study was done saying they don't need to be widened in this scenario, become parking lots as parents try to get their kids out of the area.

It's a gridlock.

Well, where are the emergency responders?

They can't move against the traffic.

They can't even get there.

People are dying.

They can't reach lineage because they didn't improve any of the roads.

Semi trucks are blocking the roads, cars are blocking the roads, and just everything goes downhill from there.

It's a terrible scenario.

And the experts at Lineage will tell you that that would never happen.

But let me tell you the truth.

That has already happened two times.

The first was in 1992 in Senegal in Western Africa.

A tank holding anhydrous ammonia exploded.

129 fatalities, 1,150 injuries.

They called the white cloud of anhydrous ammonia the cloud of death because it killed and maimed so many people.

In 2024, we knew what happened in Finley.

Common sense tells us you don't build these types of facilities next to residential areas, and you sure don't build them next to a park.

Thank you.

Dan Nadon, if you come up.

I'm sorry.

There you go.

Okay.

I'm Janice Walters.

I live at 215 81 West 177th Court in Olatha.

I have a couple quick little things I want to slip in.

The client that we don't want to name.

If it's Walmart or whoever it might be, we don't want to wave them in.

If somebody hijacks a Walmart truck, don't wave them in.

I don't want 80% of the people that are bringing in trucks to be waved in.

Surely we're going to do better security than that on a facility that is that sensitive.

That's all I want to say about that one.

Another point is on the enforcement of why we don't enforce the noise ordinance.

Somebody may or may not talk about the fact that we got a hold of highway patrol.

They have six highway patrol people for that area.

Those six people patrol four counties.

They couldn't handle all of us complaining about the noise if they had to.

They don't have staff for it.

Four counties for six guys.

Now you're wondering, what is she really going to talk about?

Okay, so this I'm gonna take it down to a different place.

At the informational meeting that we had, Lineage kept on telling us it's gonna be just like the facility we already have.

Okay.

So the one at I-35 and 167th Street.

It's gonna be the same, except it's gonna be in our backyards.

Semi trucks are noisy.

Refrigerated semi trucks are even noisier, much, much louder.

This location is next to a residential neighborhood at the corner of two already extremely busy streets.

But this facility will be just like the other one we already have, except this one is going to be 50 feet taller.

A whole new set of issues.

But let's just go ahead and assume that this is going to be the same.

The project managers were extremely excited to say, oh, this is gonna be fully automated, easy in, easy out.

I'm thinking, sounds pretty simple, sounds pretty good, but wait a minute.

On your diagram, what are the 500 semi-trailer parking stalls and the 30 semi-trailer truck parking stalls for?

If it's easy in, easy out, why do you have 500 parking places?

That confuses me.

I don't understand it because I know that there's 500 trucks making an in-trip and an out trip each day.

So it's a thousand trucks for us when we are on LONAM, it's a thousand because it's an in and out.

So each truck represents two times on the road.

So I didn't understand what are the parking stalls for.

So I thought, well, I'll investigate.

So what's the best place to go?

How about the people who actually use the parking spots?

So I went and I checked into some reviews.

I'm gonna read you three little reviews here.

First person, I waited three hours to get loaded and almost four hours for the paperwork.

Why do we need four hours to print a bill of lading?

And I forgot to clarify.

These quotes that I'm giving you are all from the lineage people servicing the Olatha facility.

All of these reviews come from the people using the facility in Olatha right now.

So they're current within six months of each other.

Six months of today.

Second guy or lady or man.

Five hours to get loaded.

Once loaded, I was told to move out of the door and wait for a phone call to pick up my paperwork.

It's been two hours and 15 minutes, and I'm still waiting on paperwork.

That's what the parking places are for.

Here's the next one.

The first visit was a five-hour wait to get loaded.

Then I had to come back because they didn't load the trailer properly.

This is my second time here, and it's been absolutely the worst ever in my whole 20 years of driving.

Definitely don't come here expecting to get a live load at your appointment time because it's absolutely not gonna happen.

All of this, and I've got many, many more quotes, but I won't, I'm running out of time.

We don't want angry semi-truck trailer drivers on lone am.

We don't really want them on lone am, but we don't want angry ones, frustrated ones, people who are behind time, they're behind schedule, and now here are some piddly little cars in our way, and we don't have enough room to even move.

We're gonna have fatalities, we're gonna have motorcycle wrecks, we're gonna have deaths, we're gonna have parents, loved ones.

People are gonna die because they're frustrated.

There is a reason there are 500 parking spots.

It's because it's a parking lot out there, and all those vehicles, trucks are gonna be running, refrigeration noises all night long, 24-7, all night sitting there waiting to drop off and pick up deliveries.

And sometimes the drivers say we even sleep there.

So now we're gonna hear it all night again.

I don't believe this is a good perpose, not happy, and I think that Lineage should take care of the problems they have in Olatha, and they need to go back to Finley and take care of what the mess is that they left there.

Thank you very much.

Sarah Wilkinson, if you come up.

Ready?

My name's Katie Hoopy, it's 21567 West 177th Street in Olatha.

I also live in Nottington Creek in South Olatha, and I have been spending the day reviewing the future land use plans that the city has published over the years.

Um, Nottington Creek first developed in 2004.

So I looked up uh the 2000 loan on vicinity map, and for the section of land we're talking about today.

If there's any way to pull up the land use, the future land use plan that I know was on a slide earlier, that would be awesome, but I'll just keep talking because I don't know if we can do that.

Um in 2000, when the neighborhood was started, this was the a residential and potentially rural land.

So then I'm gonna jump ahead to 2010.

It got a lot more detailed in 2010 where the city had made more plans for the area, and this parcel of land that we're talking about tonight was considered an employment area.

We bought our house in 2010.

Oh, I definitely was looking at all of those, all of that information to find out if this was a good place to spend our house to raise our boys and to settle down.

Um I'm gonna move along because I know Doug and Wayne talked about this.

Um today I got information from the zoning and land use page on the planning website for the city of Olatha.

The map was up earlier.

My little printed one is here.

Um we have industrial zones, and then we have employment areas.

I looked up a lot of other areas that had that were considered an employment area, and Garmin was one, Oletha Medical Center was one.

All the areas that were listed today where there is cold storage already in use is considered an industrial area as far as I'm reading on this map.

Tyson Cold Storage is a gray industrial area.

Walmart's gray industrial area.

The other lineage facility is a gray industrial area.

So don't tell me that an M2 building is an employee area when it's convenient, because it's not convenient for our neighborhood.

So the employment area definition was already read to you, but I would like to add a description of the M2 district as described by the Johnson County.

It says the M2 district accommodates a wider variety of light industrial uses, including warehousing manufacturing and assembly.

It allows for uses that are generally not compatible with residential or commercial activity due to the scale, intensity or impacts of their operations.

That's not compatible with us.

It's not compatible with Lone Elm Park and all the children that come there.

It's not compatible with the summer camps that take place at Lone Elm Park every year.

It's not compatible with the softball complex and the soccer fields and all of our families and our teen drivers that drive up and down Lone Elm to get anywhere in Olatha, we use Lone Elm.

Tonight we're discussing a change from an area that potentially services our computer with community, which is originally on the map that we all looked at was considered an employment area.

That would be like a medical building or I think Doug wrote it earlier.

So I'm not going to reread it.

But as residents, it sure throws up some red flags that this change is being seriously considered.

We understand that development is a necessary and beneficial part of city growth, but I challenge the commission to think creatively for the land use in South Olathe.

But I um and think outside the warehouse mode we are currently stuck in.

I would encourage the planning commission to stick with the current plan and consider a BP or a CP zone for this area to be true to the information residents were previously led to believe was the final plan.

And that's what we would have referred to when we were buying our houses.

If this modification to industrial is made, what confidence can we as taxpaying citizens and homeowners have that other desirable, undesirable zoning changes won't be allowed to the areas around our neighborhood?

Currently the land just east of us is zoned for residential.

I don't know many developers that will not find an industrial zone across the street a drawback to building a neighborhood in this location.

What confidence can we have that a spiral effect won't take place that surrounds our neighborhood with further industrial parks?

Our elected officials like to tout that Olatha is ranked in the top ten suburbs to live in.

And I agree that it has been a great place to live and raise our children.

I was also raised here.

But what makes Olatha great?

It's the people, the communities, the safe streets, the clean air, the clean water.

What it is not is miles of warehouses, semi-truck clogged streets, diesel fumes, and buildings full of potentially hazardous chemicals.

I would encourage the planning commission to stay true to what makes Olatha great and prioritize families and local business owners over industrial zones and the potential hazards they bring with them.

Thank you for your time.

Robin Kluts, if you come forward.

Hi, I'm Dan Nadin.

I live at 21793 West 176th Terrace in Nottington Creek.

The uh Nottington Creek subdivision is uh it has uh almost 300 or eventually we'll have 300 single family homes.

Uh it's getting close to capacity.

Um our our subdivision has a swim pool, a green space that has a nice creek that runs through it and a walking path that goes along it.

It's a nice quiet neighborhood, a close-knit community that's been in this location for close to 20 years.

There are also neighborhoods that are further south of us, uh immediately south of us that uh I don't think it really got notified for all of this because by by how the notification stuff works, it's uh that they're they were too far out.

So I think some of them are here tonight, but I I I also think that they have some concerns that that they didn't really get notified for.

Uh I was going to talk a little bit more about traffic overall, but uh I think that's been covered.

But there are a couple of issues that I think are are that I want to want to bring up from some of the uh the comments that were were made earlier.

Um the building is 140 feet, it's gonna be 140 feet tall.

But uh if you actually look uh drive up or down Lone Elm, it's actually sitting on the top of the hill.

And I went to uh an interactive map online.

Excuse me.

I went to an interactive map online and did elevation of the top of the hill and elevation to let's say the back corner of the uh the southwest corner of the Nottington Creek uh uh excuse me, subdivision.

The it's a a 30-foot difference in elevation, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it seems like that um whatever runoff that would be coming when that whole area is paved off.

Uh I mean maybe there's capture areas or maybe the there's not, but the creek that runs cut a corner through our property runs right up to the corner of 175th on Lone Elm.

It seems like we would probably eventually be getting runoff or or waste from from that property.

Back to traffic.

So we have basically one point of ingress and egress for the the for the uh for for the for where the trucks are going to be coming in out in and out of.

Um that that area there, even if they have three football fields worth of places for the trucks to come into, the trucks aren't going to be able just to turn in, turn out very easily.

If they're stacked up at all, then there's going to be congestion and that'll back up.

If the trucks are heading south on Lone Elm, they'll be backed up across the entrance to the Lone Elm Park where there's on game days, that parking lot is full of uh people watching the watching the sports activities that are that are there.

I don't see any way that the added congestion, truck congestion there on Lone Elm won't have an impact, a direct impact on trucks coming and going or people coming and going from the parks, or people even just being able to get through on lone elm.

Uh if you want kind of an example of what that might look like, the uh Tyson facility that's on a 159th, just short of uh 169 highway, the trucks that come in that come in there are um they quite often end up having to park in the middle lane, just stop there, waiting for the ability to turn in.

They don't have the the the nice long run-in for that, but the trucks just end up blocking part of 159th street because they can't turn into their facility or they can't turn out.

It's uh and you know that's a worst-case scenario, probably, but we're gonna see the same kind of congestion or worse uh when it comes to 500 trucks a day coming in and out of the uh of the uh the lineage facility.

Also, um I had one more and it just kind of slipped my mind.

Uh let me just go ahead and stop there because there are there are gonna be other speakers give them give a little more time back to them.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Brian Sweetman, if you come forward.

Uh hello, my uh my name is Zarek Wilkinson.

I live at 21849 West 177th Street, also obviously in Nottington Creek subdivision with the rest of these awesome people.

Uh it's great to see everyone here together.

Um I haven't seen the entire neighborhood this passionate about anything, and uh it's it just goes to show you the impact that it's gonna have.

Uh my my wife and I uh decided to move here uh and it's been uh awesome.

Uh we love it there.

We've been here almost eight years, uh, but I would have never foreseed us having to come together tonight and talk about something like this.

Uh I've grown up in Gardner, Spring Hill, and O'Lathan my entire life.

Uh I went to high school in Spring Hill.

So I'm very, very familiar with, I mean, I've been traveling Lone Elm 175th my entire life, starting driving at 14 years of age around here.

So uh I do want to address uh three core issues with the proposed uh lineage logistics cold storage facility at 175th and lone elm.

The excessive height variants, the significant truck noise impacts, and the inadequate infrastructure to safely handle this facility.

First, the height variants.

Olatha's zoning code limits building height in two districts to 50 feet.

This proposal is for 145 feet.

That's nearly triple the legal limit.

This is not a minor exception.

It is a uh substantial deviation from the adopted standards of our community.

Granting this variant sets a precedence that undermines the enforceability of our zoning laws and exposes the city to potential legal challenges from other developers seeking similar exemptions.

The planning commission has the responsibility to uphold uh the integrity of the code unless there's compelling public benefit, which has not been demonstrated here.

I I I can't see any public benefit.

I mean, it's not really bringing that many jobs.

Uh all it's going to do is impact the uh businesses, uh, the other warehouses that are around it.

I mean, we have warehouses on 175th that have been sitting vacant for two years that are gonna also bring 500, and I haven't heard anyone you know mention that.

I mean, if you add this 500 plus the 500 that hasn't even started yet, Lone Elm is an absolute disaster.

I mean, the city has done nothing but throw asphalt on top of holes on top of holes.

Uh I mean, I mean, you can have a brand new car and it feels like you're driving a 40s car.

So, you know, I can't imagine what another thousand, two thousand trucks uh a day could do to the road.

Um second, the truck noise uh and operational impacts.

The applicants own traffic and impact study projects approximately 500 truck trips per day in phase one alone.

These trips were arranged over 24 hours in the study, which does dilute the reality that peak hour traffic truck will create concentrated noise, vibration, safety hazard, especially for the nearby residents and school roads.

Continuous heavy truck noise is also to reduce property values and negatively uh will affect the health uh for the children and the seniors.

Uh this raises liability concerns for the city if it knowingly approves a project that creates foreseeable and documented health impacts without adequate mitigation.

Uh someone also mentioned the the traffic already backs up.

I mean, just at baseball practice time, uh game time, obviously, but when you have soccer practices going and baseball practice going, I mean you might get five, six, seven, eight cars deep that are waiting to turn.

I mean, I can't imagine having a bunch of frustrated semi-truck drivers uh that can't get through.

I work at a warehouse in Linuxa.

It's in a complete industrial zone on a much smaller scale.

Uh and we probably have a hundred trucks in a day.

And I mean, them just trying to get out onto a purely uh industrial road can sometimes be challenging.

And we've had accidents.

We've had cars run up underneath semis, uh, you know, run over property signs, uh, meters, phone, uh you name it.

Uh third infrastructure inadequacy.

The Lone Elm Road at 175th Street are designed for the are not designed for the volume and weight of the traffic that this facility will generate.

The traffic impact studies recommendations, adding only three turning lanes does not address the long-term deterioration of pavement, the lack of widened shoulders, or increased collision risk.

Approving the project without ensuring sufficient infrastructure upgrades could leave the city responsible for costly repairs and emergency response burdens later.

Finally, I urge the commission to consider its role not only in improving the land use but in safeguarding public health, safety, and the welfare.

The city has the authority to require mitigation measures, deny variances that do not meet the code criteria, and ensure that any approved development is compatible with the existing infrastructure and surrounding neighborhoods.

If if this product proceeds without strict conditions, the long-term liability for noise safety and infrastructure failures could fall back on the city, and by extension, the taxpayers.

I appreciate it.

Thanks.

Gail Strahan, you'd come forward.

Shocker.

Most of what I've said has already been said, so I'm not going to repeat that, but this is really killing my urban homestead vibe.

Um I am a social worker by trade.

I've been helping our community for 10 years.

Um I have a 13-year-old who will be driving probably around the time that this facility would be completed.

Um she is also in the Olatha School District, even though we are Spring Hill, so she would be driving all of these roads as well.

Um I also have a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old to also consider.

Um obviously I stand up here just with the safety of my kids as top priority.

Um I noted just a couple OSHA violations that I had cited that I am sure everyone is aware of, but uh one of them, one of the lineage facilities had not required a safety audit on their ammonia system since 2013 when one was due in 2021.

And then the failure to inspect an ammonia storage tank and piping for deterioration, um, which was a basic step to prevent leaks.

Um I think really matters is the public health.

And I reviewed the Plan Olatha for the first time, which I didn't even know existed, honestly.

Um the quality of life, I think is what everyone here is advocating for.

Um specifically with public health in our neighborhoods, the EPA and CBC are clear.

Um if it's not the ammonia that they're saying is going to be contained.

Um I think everyone thought COVID was going to be contained.

So I would just like to plan for the safety in the event something would happen and not just pretend that it won't happen, especially as a social worker.

You think you're not going to see lots of bad things, but bad things do happen.

So if we can just be prepared for them from the city's perspective, that would be awesome as I'm trying to raise my children.

Um just the diesel exhaust, idling at the lights, all of that is going to impact our air quality, um, which I highly monitor because I have kids with skin issues.

Um any seniors or anyone with lung or heart conditions could also be impacted by this.

So we all need really nice air doctors, if that's the case.

I know everyone's talking about the trucks and all of that, but also the school buses.

There's a lot of motorcyclists, as we all know recently that are that are on the road.

Teen drivers, older adults, um, and bicyclists.

I see bicyclists on there a lot.

Um another one of the things I wanted to mention was the emergency response limits, which someone noted on the Olathe Fire Department would obviously be the first on the scene.

But if it were to happen, that ammonia would be released and there was an explosion or whatever, how long would it take for the other facility or the other fire departments to be able to adequately help?

And what time frame are we looking at for what the damage would be?

Um the local fire department, I believe, uses the 2024 emergency response guidebook, which if that's true, it says that the daytime evacuations for I'm not sure how much, like again, how big of the ammonia would have to be exploded or whatever, but um it could extend up to 1.2 miles in the daytime, which would cover a lot of the schools and neighborhoods, obviously the softball complex, and then up to 2.2 miles at night that would all need evacuated if there was something to uh to happen.

Um that goes down to like the church and Odak and all of those facilities.

So again, instead of saying that it's not going to happen before this is even approved or built, I would like to see like every school and homeowner have an emergency evacuation plan to actually know what to do, because I like would never not have any idea what to do with my kids if something were to happen like this.

So with a couple questions, which I know I'm not supposed to ask.

Um is there a site-specific evacuation plan in place?

Or would they would there be um would you commit to road and emergency access improvements before the facility opens?

Um, or would you wait the year that they say that they re-evaluate everything?

And most importantly, would you be comfortable with this being across from your house with all of the added danger that could happen?

So Morgan Wixen, you can come forward.

Hey everybody, my name's Brian Sweetman.

I live at uh 22198 West 177th Terrace.

Uh I served in the country, retired from the Air Force after serving for 20 years.

Um during those 20 years, I moved eight times.

Um I retired, it was time for my wife Jamie and I to establish, finally establish some routes for our four kids.

Uh and we chose Nottington Creek because it's close enough to all the city amenities that we have.

Uh it's easy access to the highway, and it's provided us with a quiet country-like setting from South Olatha.

Um when we first purchased our house, um, the the site plant plan had ag around it, you know, and that has changed drastically throughout the years.

Um in fact, this is the longest place I've lived since since I grew up as a kid living with my parents.

Uh about two years ago, we kind of went through the same process where the city was rezoning um part of the ag land for warehouse development.

Uh that concluded with the warehouse with over a million square feet uh being built.

And ironically, it's still vacant uh at this time.

Uh during that process, we the members of Arlington Creek brought it up, uh brought up the amount of traffic that would all cause on 175th and Lone Elm.

The developer and his team at that time showed all kinds of studies uh and and said the traffic noise and everything that there was not a problem with the infrastructure on the roads, anything like that, much like we heard from lineage today that they've done done traffic studies and there's not a problem.

Um I really doesn't come surprised to me that the that they would say that.

Um most of these traffic studies have been conducted uh during the summer months when kids weren't driving to school, when buses like Robin had mentioned weren't weren't driving every day.

Um the road noise is something that that is that is serious, and I feel for the neighbors that are that are right on 175th because it is loud.

We had a we had a meeting the other day at the pool up there at 7 o'clock at night.

And uh I'll be damned if you could hardly hear anybody uh, you know, trying to speak with uh the amount of truckers going through there.

So if this is something that is going to be approved, then this there's some drastic changes that would need to happen as far as berms, um, planting some nine-foot-tall trees really doesn't do anything.

Um anything like that.

Um we are in the south part of Olatha, and we get that.

You know, we get that.

You know, I I kind of tell all my military friends, it's kind of like we're the we're the redheaded stepchildren of Olatha.

Uh we're on the southern end.

Uh we're closest to the Gardner Amenities.

Olatha doesn't even have a school for our kids to go to.

They go to Spring Hill.

Uh the only time the city really cares about us is property taxes, and and Wayne brought that up.

They keep raising our property taxes nonstop.

They keep raising our property taxes nonstop, you know.

Uh we keep thinking, man, maybe maybe the city's gonna invest in something near us.

Well, all they want to do is rezone it industrial.

I mean, that's that's ridiculous.

Um the city of Gardner is actually developing the correct way uh east of I-35.

They're building a beautiful neighborhood.

They have plans to expand to more residential and more commercial.

Uh people haven't even talked about that, how that's gonna drastically impact the roads around 175th and Lone Elm as well.

I'm sure the planning committee, you know uh that you've talked to the sheriff department about the amount of trucks that bypass the the way station.

It's it's pretty cool that lineage put up their you know how they want people to go in and out of their facility.

That's that's directly correlated with bypassing the way station.

So I mean that's just gonna continue and probably be even more tenfold.

Um, you know, that they said 5,000 trucks in, five or five hundred trucks in, five hundred trucks out.

That's that's a thousand.

That's pretty easy.

They said 85 people working every day, so that's a thousand eighty-five more trips, and and really you can double that um with the other uh facilities that are going in in the warehouse.

Um we all know that the traffic is something near and dear to our hearts.

You know, we got a lot of younger families in the neighborhood, a lot of younger kids learning to drive.

What a what a shitty way, excuse my language, to to learn how to drive on on roads that the city wants to consider a super highway in the future.

I mean, that's not what this was established for.

Um it was brought up, there was a fatality.

I know late the police detective with 24 years of service died, and he was a victim.

Um so obviously roads need to happen.

I got 40 seconds.

I want to touch on a couple things.

Closed loop, HVAC system, ammonia.

Every every resident here has a closed loop HVAC system at their house.

You know, it all has to be recharged from time to time.

Why is that?

Because it's leaking.

Um, you know, um.

1850 is when the refrigerant was was started being used and it's still used now.

I wonder how many of those buildings from 1850 on were 140 feet in the air.

Um I just hope that the city does the right thing.

You guys are charged with an amazing task of helping build and grow the city of Olatha, so your guys' jobs is not taken lightly.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk here.

And I just charge that you guys go out and kind of see the residents and kind of see the impact.

Um, you know, Mr.

Brown, you said that you uh went out and saw the lineage's first place today, you know, and stuff.

I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on in South Olatha, so I just hope you guys get out there and see it before a decision's made.

Michael Cedric, if you come up.

Hi.

My name is Gail Strand, 21470 West 181st Harris.

Well, the main thing I want to say is when Nottington Creek, huge subdivision came out the way where we live, because I live south of there.

And we didn't want Nottington Creek.

It ain't no lie.

It's a bigger subdivision.

We're the county.

But you know what you did, Olatha?

They annexed Nottington Creek.

And they said, oh, we want to make this an area, a really nice area for people to raise their kids and live.

So you did it.

You annexed it, and you shouldn't have been able to, but you wanted the money.

And now you just want their tax money, but you don't want to take care of everything that's going on.

And you're gonna allow a corporation to come in here and just screw up everything.

You know what?

Right now, um I live on Lone Elm.

And I live right on the corner.

And I am a truck driver, okay?

Trucks are not even supposed to be allowed south or anywhere on those back roads.

But let's get this straight.

You know as well as I do, what Trump do.

He came into effect, and you are not he if he pulls a truck driver over, they can't speak, they can't read or any English.

Guess what?

You know they don't have a real license, right?

So you're gonna have all of these truck drivers coming in and out on an area that's ridiculous.

The road that I live on, two uh 21470, you don't even have a damn sideway.

The it's a non-truck route, but uh a cop can't do their job because if they pull over a semi, they're gonna cluster up the entire road and make it more unsafe.

So hypothetically, if a truck driver gets pulled over because a cop's doing his job, and then a fire comes out to someone's house, fire trucks can't get there, and then everything's blocked up, and you're gonna get what you got like in Gardner, where it's like you don't the little apartment complex.

It's it's horrible.

You guys need to go out there, you need to drive the road, you need to see what's going on.

And when the guy goes and tells me that there's only 500, oh no, it's 250, that's BS because I'll tell you, I've delivered a cold point over there by uh logistics park.

Truck drivers go in there, they're drop and they drop their trailer and they leave, and they go to the TA and they park.

They don't they are not allowed to stay there.

So then they have to come back and get their trailer, which is in a spot, because once they load it, hostler trucks come and pull it into a spot, and so yeah, 56 uh doors, it's a joke.

They've got 56 doors lined up across on the north and south side.

Talk to them.

Don't just take their word because they're lying to you.

So you're gonna have 500 trucks coming in, you're gonna have 500 trucks coming out.

My road can't take it.

191st or 199th, they just made a you know how people went from Spring Hill, the trucks, all the trucks went down 199th, and they finally said no trucks.

Why?

It's dangerous.

It's dangerous.

You're gonna break up the infrastructure.

We're not made for it yet.

And until you get the infrastructure, don't be stupid.

You wanted their money.

They built or they built their houses, they have a home.

We have a livelihood.

Behind where they live, I live.

There's four horse or three horseshoes.

There's also Dayton Creek and there's Spring Hill.

And then you got the morons in Spring Hill who want to put a truck stop.

And I'll tell you why they want to put a truck stop right there.

They want to put it there because Walmart, oh wow, they got a light.

We begged for a light on 175th Street for over 25 years.

I have lived there for 25 years, and you can go back on the moose, and the people before I got there were begging to get a light.

Couldn't get it from Olatha, couldn't get you to do that.

But boy, we can get you to get these people to get the subdivision and take their tax money, and now we can screw up their livelihood.

I'm done.

Nancy Sadek, did she come up as well?

Uh my name's Morgan Wixen.

I live at 222 66 West 177th Street, um, Olatha, Kansas, in Nottington.

Um, I'm not sure quite how to follow that.

Um, I guess I did have a whole thing written, um, but I know you don't want topics gone over again, so I think I'm just gonna kind of add lib a little bit of um why I came tonight.

Um I've lived in Johnson County my whole entire life.

Um I've been in Olatha for the last 13 years.

Um, and I am a four-time cancer survivor.

And uh after my first um occurrence, we my husband moved my family and my kids to Olatha.

Um, it was peaceful, it is farmtown, it is um cows, our house backs up to a beautiful field.

Um, and when we found out this was coming, I was floored um that something like this to this degree would happen.

My oldest is in softball.

I take her to Lone Elm Softball Park.

I am terrified that I'm A, I will not drop her off anymore with our coaches of the amount of traffic that will be going on, the amount of traffic that's backed up for when we have games from practices, adding this many trucks.

I had from my initial notes 100 plus tractor trailers moving in and out, then it turned into 500.

Then they said, oh no, it's 250, so we can't get any of those numbers straight.

Then I wrote plus 85 crew members for split shifts, oh, plus the semi-truck drivers are driving in and parking.

So we have just exponentially grown those numbers to a point that nobody even knows what those numbers are.

They're just throwing things out, but yet you say the roads are okay.

The roads are not okay.

I drive these every day.

I work for an optometrist.

We have eight locations in Johnson County.

I drive all of these roads.

Lone Elm is inundated with tractor trailers.

They're avoiding the way station.

Let's just be honest.

We know they all do it day in and day out.

Those drivers are avoiding it.

But yet we don't do anything about it.

The law enforcement, I see them out there.

They're trying, but it's feasibly not possible for what needs to happen.

I'm worried about the health of the environment.

I'm worried about my children who are gonna be at driving age soon.

I'm worried about all the school districts and the pollution, the noise, all of it.

It is very concerning, and I don't think that any of you, if you lived in Nottington and came to our neighborhood, you can see how close-knit we are.

We care about each other, we care about this community, we care about Oletha.

I'm not naive.

I think that there will be growth, and that is fine.

But this point of growth is not okay.

And I don't think you'd want it in your backyard.

I don't think you want your kids learning how to drive around it.

And I just would beg you to come out and drive in our facility.

Come to our pool.

You can be my guest.

And just hang out at the pool, have a beer, and listen to the semi-tracks go zooming back and forth and back and forth, nonstop.

And you haven't even opened these this facility, and the other one's not even occupied yet.

That's all I have to say.

Hi.

Um my name is Michael Sadek.

I live at 21889 West 177th Terrace.

Again, Roddington Creek.

I'm not an expert in cold storage, but I am well experienced with the need of cold storage.

I'm I'm actually I've been I was in biotechnology.

I retired from biotechnology, having hadn't been in that for more than 35 years, have a PhD in immunology and infectious disease.

This past year I retired, and my wife, Nancy is speaking next, um, and I moved here from North Carolina to be closer to our kids and grandkids, twin grandsons less than a year old to be around them.

And we would never have ever purchased the house.

We moved here two months ago.

We would never have purchased that house had we known what is potentially in store.

It's just not a place we'd want to be next to that that a uh a CSW.

It's not uh compatible with a residential neighborhood.

You know, health risks and hydrus, the noise, other things.

I'm gonna talk to the noise.

Um bottom line is that large cold storage for um warehouses can be a really significant source of noise.

I mean, we at nighttime, if we sit out on our back porch and we're we're several blocks away from 175th.

But you can hear the rumble strips out on 169, the half mile mark.

You can hear them from our backyard.

That's minimal compared to what what a CSW facility might do.

Um cold storage warehouses require industrial strength um equipment, cleaning equipment, the condensers and the compressors.

And they're running 24-7 through 65.

I mean, everybody here has ACs in their houses, and you know how loud those compressors can be.

That's nothing compared to industrial scale compressors.

And if we can hear the rumble strips, you know, a mile away, I guarantee you we're going to hear these huge compressors running a couple hundred feet away.

Um again, that equipment is running all day long.

Anywhere anyone living near that cold storage warehouse, they're unlikely to see any relief any time of day from those noises.

On top of that, the trucks that are coming in, they're also refrigerated.

They have their own compressors that are running all the time.

They can't afford to have those off.

I understand and appreciate the need for good cold chain uh logistics, but they are very noisy.

They have them several hundred feet away from the residential area.

We will hear those as well.

On top of that, you've also got um regular uh testing uh uh of uh you know back of the backup generators on a weekly basis or uh or sometimes less often, but usually about a weekly basis.

That's also going to be noisy.

There's going to be a lot of noise generated.

And I guarantee a eight to ten foot berm isn't going to do squat to block that noise.

We will all get it.

Uh on slightly different tangent, uh, but still with noise.

Well, not a direct threat toward the neighborhood.

There is also noise associated risk to local migratory birds.

So that's also going to be an issue, including endangered species.

I mean, the uh migratory birds follow established roots called flyways during the seasonal migrations.

Olatha Kansas is situated within the central flyway, which is one of the major migratory bird routes in North America.

The loud noise associated with warehouses and industrial areas can significantly impact the migratory birds by disrupting their communication, their navigation, causing chronic stress, causing alteration of their behavior, degrading their habitats, and potentially impacting the long-term survival, reproductive success.

So not only is it going to impact the human residents, it's going to impact endangered bird species.

And there are actually four dangerous bird species that are on the central migratory pathway.

The hooping crane, uh loose turn and piping clover, and lesser prairie chicken.

I can't say that I'm familiar with any of those other than the hoop and crane, but it's important aspect that we need to keep in mind.

That's also going to be disrupted by some a facility that is just allowed.

So again, I understand the need for cold chain.

I understand for cold storage, but it's not appropriate, not compatible for being this close to a residential area.

Thank you.

April Barton, you can come forward.

My name is Nancy Halpin Sadek.

I'm at 21889 West 177th Terrace, also in Nottingham.

His wife.

Again, we moved here two months ago.

I'm a retired neonatal nurse practitioner with over 30 years experience with sick and preterm infants.

Anhydrous ammonia has not been something I've spent a lot of time thinking about.

Although I do have a sister and brother-in-law who farm in western Kansas who used to use anhydrous ammonia as a fertilizer, so I do have a slight knowledge of it.

Ammonia has been around as long as people have been peeing and leaving soil diapers around.

Anhydrous ammonia was discovered in 1774, and it was called alkaline air.

But it wasn't until the early 20th century that it was available on an industrial scale.

The difference between ammonia and anhydrous ammonia is the anhydrous, no water.

Anhydrous ammonia was actually one of the earliest and still the most efficient cooler, coolant ever invented.

It is efficient and inexpensive and deadly dangerous.

In the late 1800s, when wealthy people decided they wanted home refrigeration, anhydrous ammonia was used, but this caused safety issues and deaths due to leaks of the toxic gas.

By the 1940s, anhydrous was used only in industrial refrigeration.

As I stated earlier, anhydrous ammonia has no water.

In cold storage facilities, it is typically kept at minus 28 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's kept there at for a reason.

This is the boiling point of ammonia at atmospheric pressure, about one psi, or minimal pressure.

As the temperature rises, so does the pressure in the pipes and the tanks, which increases the risk of leaks.

When an anhydrous ammonia tank leaks, the gas can escape very rapidly, especially if there is a sudden rupture.

While ammonia is lighter than air and tends to dissipate, this process can take minutes to hours, and dangerous concentrations can persist at the leak site or in the path of the plume, according to NRT.org, which is the national response team.

Inhaling the anhydrous ammonia causes burning to the respiratory system.

The ammonia reacts to the moisture in the airways to form ammonium hydroxide, which is a corrosive substance which causes chemical burns and tissue damage and even death.

Household cleaning supplies such as Windex used to use ammonium hydroxide in them.

It was removed and reformulated in 2006 as the ammonium hydroxide was considered too hazardous.

According to NRT, at indoor facilities, such as industrial freezers, dangerous concentrations of ammonia gas can occur quickly in enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces, such as lower levels or utility corridors inside the building.

After gaseous release, ammonia can dissolve into bodies of water, forming ammonium hydroxide, a very corrosive alkaline solution, which may have toxic effects in in present in high concentrations.

If a large plume of anhydrous gas is released, not all of the gas may dissolve before the plume leaves the vicinity of the water.

Lastly, ammonia is flammable, and it is recommended that there is a if there is a fire at an anhydrous ammonia facility, everyone with in at least a mile must be evacuated.

The three fire departments closest to the proposed new lineage cold storage facility and other industrial buildings in the area are Olatha Station 7, which is 3.8 miles away, Olatha Station 8, which is 4.2 miles away, and Fire Station 1 in Gardner, which is the closest at 3.4 miles away.

Gardner explained that despite the fact that they are the closest, they are out of our jurisdiction.

But that on a good day, without terrible traffic, meaning without the proposed extra 42 trucks an hour that this facility plans to add, or more or less, since we don't actually know, it will take at least seven to eight minutes to arrive on site.

After talking with Chief Hartick from Olatha Station 7, he says the response time for them is six minutes four seconds to seven minutes 13 seconds.

Both of those stations say they have what they need on hand in the trucks.

The City of Olatha's motto is setting the standard for excellence in public service.

If you intend to keep that in mind.

Susan?

Yes.

Hold on, just for a moment.

We do have speak two speakers up here right now.

Just kind of let everybody know when those two speakers are done.

We're going to take a short recess, everybody take a break.

We're limited on our bathrooms, so hopefully we can get that done in 10 minutes, but if not, we'll fudge that a little.

But go ahead.

All right.

I live at 17 no 2175 West 17th Street in Nottingham.

You've heard lots of the great reasons this evening why we feel this plant shouldn't be built in this area.

The ISOR facility would be stretching way beyond the current some code regulations and we can and the height of it going into the skyline.

For you when you're deciding if you're going to approve this or not.

Assuming the same ease of access to major highways, would you approve this proposal in Black Bob Park?

Would you approve it next to the Garmin Soccer Complex?

Would you allow it adjacent to the Latha Girls Softball Complex?

Maybe in Heritage Park, just adjacent to the football fields.

If not, why not?

Because of the proximity to the residents, because of the proximity to the youth activities, because of the blight, it would be on the area's appearance, maybe.

All of those same conditions that would make it proposal, a non-starter in those above name locations exist here with this existing proposal that would make it a non-starter in our area, too.

It's right next to a thousand plus Olatha residence.

It's adjacent to the Lone Elm Softball Complex, which we've talked about.

It hosts practices and tournaments throughout the warmer months of the year.

It's right next to Lone Elm Soccer Complex, where the Olatha Rush Soccer Club practices and have games nonstop year-round.

And but right up to the Lone Elm Park with its walking trails and shelters and playground.

So I don't believe you should allow it here either, where all the same reasons to not build exist also.

There has been there has to be a better location for the project.

Whether it is located in Olatha or not, I really don't care.

But please don't build it in our area.

Thank you.

I had things about the infrastructure has been talked about, so I'll skip over that.

I do want to say and reiterate that this proposal will have an impact on emergency services, not just if something were to happen.

I'm talking emergency services in general.

We um heavy traffic doesn't just clog the roads, it will delay emergency response times.

Fire trucks, ambulances, and police already navigate tight routes through our area.

Adding hundreds of semis per day increases the risk that critical minutes will be lost when someone's life is on the line.

Our emergency services in Olatha are already stretched thin.

We should not knowingly add to that strain.

Can we really handle it?

Let's, you know, I'm not sure.

Large diesel vehicles bring increased noise, vibration, air pollution.

This is not just a nuisance.

It's a public health concern.

Higher particulate matter levels from the diesel exhaust are linked to asthma and cardiovascular issues.

Um and protecting public safety, supporting smart, sustainable development.

A cold storage facility of this scale is not compatible with those goals.

Beth Reinhard, Elizabeth Mikhalski, and Greg Pokovich.

Apologies for butchering any names, but you three will be next.

Thank you.

Two minutes, two minutes.

Please take your seats.

All right.

Thanks everybody for getting back promptly.

Just to kind of give you a heads up of where we're at.

Um we're not quite halfway through our speaker list.

Commissioner Brain.

Beth Reinhardt, the floor is yours.

I hoped for perhaps a coffee shop nearby.

We never imagined that Olatha would consider annexing property right next to us for use of warehouses.

It breaks my heart to see this happen.

I have many concerns about rezoning this property.

I had two safety concerns I wanted to talk about.

One of them has already been explored.

I won't talk about that.

I'll say that for your memories from way back when we started all this.

I do want you to note that one of the concerns that keeps me awake at night is that there is currently no infrastructure in place to support the many trucks.

And this is very bothersome to me.

Also, the study that was in your packets for the traffic study.

You should note that the data did not include the data of it was like a 24-hour snapshot, and it was performed in June.

And our school year just started.

So it doesn't include all the trips, all the kids, all the parents, all the teachers, people going back and forth, picking up kids, all of that was not included in that snapshot.

With that many trucks, lineage plan of adding a few turning lanes is insufficient.

This additional traffic puts us all in danger and threatens the safety of our lives.

My second concern is lineage's EPA violations.

Lineage lineage, I can't even say it, professes its compliance to safety protocols for chemical risk, and yet on November 24th, 2023, the EPA fined them for violations of Federal Clean Air Act.

According to the EPA, the lineage facility in Altoona, Iowa used over 10,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia and failed to comply with regulations intended to protect the community.

Lineage agreed to pay the fine of 172,591 dollars to resolve the alleged violations.

Among other violations, the EPA said that lineage logistics failed to comply with accidental release prevention requirements.

How would you feel about living close to a company who could accidentally release anhydrous ammonia gas?

I shudder to think what would happen if Lineage has an accidental release of anhydrous ammonia gas in our community.

Remember, lineage has a documented history of noncompliance of safety rules.

In addition to 2024, Lineage had this massive fire in the community of Finley, Washington.

The community is still living that nightmare.

If you haven't done it, go Google it.

Olatha prides itself in being one of the best places to live in Kansas and the U.S.

And in part due to offering a high quality of life.

I believe it, and I can speak for most of us.

Nottington Creek is a beautiful oasis in Olatha.

We'd invite you to come visit with us so that you might gain a better understanding of the need to keep our community a part of Olatha's best communities to live in.

I ask you to not rezone the land from city rule.

I ask as Olatha citizen that you consider our safety as your number one priority and not allow the lineage to build a cold storage warehouse that could negatively impact the safety and the quality of our lives.

Thank you.

William Grove, you can come forward.

That's the next guy.

Yes, you're up, sorry.

Sorry, we got out of order.

My name is Elizabeth McCowski.

I live at 22162 West 177th Terrace, Nottington Creek.

I'm gonna cry.

I never imagined in my wildest dream that I would able be able to purchase a home in a community like this.

Uh we are such a close-knit community.

Um it I am we are truly blessed.

And by the number of uh people that have shown up, this proves we are truly blessed.

I have lived in Olatha most of my life.

I attended elementary school, junior high, and high school here in Olatha.

Um there have not been many years that I can count that I did not have a um walking taco or a range pup.

Um at Old Settlers, which is coming up.

I have seen firsthand the positive innovation and improvements in this community.

I have given I have roots here, um, I am it is very appealing to keep my kids here to keep my uh community safe.

I am a nurse in our community as well.

Um I will say that for Fourth Fridays.

The things that you guys uh that this community has offered um in in the last 20 years, it's it's just it's an amazing place to be.

I want to keep it that way.

Our neighborhood is a place where families have chosen to raise their kids in a safe, peaceful environment.

It's where our children ride their bikes, play outside, swim in our pool, though it is noisy.

Um we do have a water feature that sometimes gets turned off at times, but that does help mitigate some of the the sound.

That's a joke.

Um has played softball at the Lone Elm Park for 11 years.

I contribute the reason why she got a college scholarship is because we were right down the street from the Lone Elm Fields.

Uh her dad and her spent many, many nights until the lights were turned off and they closed the doors, hitting fly balls, pitching.

Um, and I want to continue that for our community.

These houses aren't leaving, right?

These houses are not leaving.

Once we go on, move on, there's gonna be another families.

There's gonna be more families.

I ask you, please.

Uh the rezoning, the the the overindustrializing of our community right next to our home where our children play and learn and dream of the future.

This is not Olatha.

I know Olatha.

I've been here.

I see, I've seen.

My child I want my s children to see the same.

Please leave a legacy for our kids, our grandkids.

You are going to help us leave a legacy.

To experience Olatha I grew up loving.

Um, please, please think outside these big concrete boxes that you're surrounding us by.

Think outside these boxes.

There are other opportunities to to better our community, provide you know, jobs, eighty-five jobs.

What?

Um I think La Coretta and Gardner hires more.

I children's children, our legacy, help us, help us continue that legacy.

And and God forbid that something happens to our community with our our softball fields.

Um what is what is the emergency notice for those kids?

How do we evacuate?

There's nothing planned here.

Thank you.

Uh David Sanders, you can come forward.

Um, Greg Parkowicz, I live at uh 2223 West 176th Street in Olatha.

Um so many topics.

I got a ton of them written down here, but uh here's one that nobody's ever talked about yet.

Um if anybody's looked up what Wine Edge uh see how their financials are, they are losing money.

Uh in the last nine months, they've lost 12 billion dollars.

Over the last five years, they have lost approximately about 50% of revenue every year.

So I gotta ask.

I mean, would you put your own money into it?

I mean you're putting you want to put our tax dollars into it.

Makes absolutely no sense.

And on top of that, the CEO, I believe he's sitting right over there.

Make sixty-nine million dollars a year.

They had a 500% raise this past year.

Who in the hell gets a 500,000 or 500% raise when you freaking lose money like that?

Most people would be out on the street really quick.

All right.

Another topic.

Building height.

I know it's been talked about a lot, but from my house, that building sits about 50 feet above grade from my driveway.

Where I live, there's a tree line 220 yards out.

I would be able to see 40 feet of that building over the top of the tree line.

I don't want to see that.

Nobody in our neighborhood wants to see that.

And I'm in the interior of the neighborhood, not on the exterior.

And then uh believe the engineer that was here touched mentioned there was 800 vehicles going up lone elm per hour.

That's 13 vehicles per second.

Or sorry, one vehicle every 13 seconds.

All right.

So little more math.

So if you're sitting at the exit by the pool, and you're trying to go left or right, either way, you have about 1,600 feet from a vehicle coming from the left that tops the hill, 1900 feet from the right.

That gives you about 22 seconds to 26 seconds to make a decision to pull out or not.

And that's at a vehicle going 50 miles an hour.

All right.

Not a lot of time.

Especially if you're talking there's a vehicle every 13 seconds.

So that just got cut in half.

So little bit more math on top of that.

So if a car is coming, you're trying to turn.

How much time do you have to get up to speed before that car's on your ass?

Not very much.

I timed myself this morning when I left to work.

Took 16 seconds approximately to get up to 50 mile an hour.

And I wasn't gunning it.

Just an average day.

Right.

That car coming over the hill would be six seconds behind me by the time I got to 50 mile an hour.

And that's six seconds.

It's 439 feet at 50 mile an hour.

A semi is 70 feet long.

That's only six semi-lengths in between you.

If you're going a little slower, he's going a little faster.

Who knows what will happen.

So there's a lot of safety concerns.

That's pretty much all I got.

Thank you.

Judy Ball and Mike Andrew?

My name's David Sanders.

I reside at 21682 West 176 Terrace.

Infrastructure's not equipped for this, whether it's roads, utilities, emergency services.

They're all going to be put to a tremendous strain.

And if it requires any upgrades, those are paid by us, not by the company, by the corporation.

We fit the bill for that.

We've talked about the dangers of anhydrous ammonia.

What hasn't been discussed in detail is the fact that uh lineage logistics of the history of safety violations involving um anhydrous ammonia in McCall in Texas?

They were fined for nine serious OSHA violations after pneumonia release endangered workers and the surrounding community.

That's happened already for them.

We've talked about noise and light pollution.

What hasn't also been discussed is legal liability.

Uh, if this facility causes harm, whether through chemical exposure, traffic accidents, or environmental damage, who's gonna be held accountable for that?

The city could face lawsuits, and residents may suffer irreparable harm.

Lineage logistics is the already paid over $5 million in penalties for violations ranging from air pollution to workspace safety.

So this they're a known violator.

Um finally, there are better options, better sites for this facility, pick places that are already zoned appropriately, already have the infrastructure and distance from homes in the area.

Let them go there.

They don't need to be across the street from a uh a residential area.

Um this is about protecting our families, our health, our quality of life.

We urge you to reject this proposal and work with lineage to find a more appropriate location for the facility.

Thank you.

Linda Parker.

My name is Bill Grohl.

I live at 22249 West 176th Street.

I moved in there 20 years ago, and we anticipated there was going to be more housing in there and everything.

But you know, it didn't.

I mean, so I think I'm not going to hit on multi topics.

They have already been talked about.

I'm not going to knock lineage.

I think this men here, I don't think there's anything wrong with them.

But you know, I think Lone Elm, I think the biggest problem is we've known it for a long time.

All you gentlemen know it.

You go down these streets.

Low and Elm should have been updated a long time ago.

You go across that bridge right there, you got FedEx buildings, you got all the other warehouses, the t-shirt warehouse there, or the you know, so that should have been upgraded a long time ago.

Now we're putting in a facility that's going to should maintain a four-lane street, it doesn't.

You go down 175th Street, it's a cut through, as we know.

You're either going to go I-35 or you're going to go 169, depending on where you're going in the state.

And so we got and we do, like Greg says, we go out there.

I mean, you've got to literally floor it when you get out of the subdivision because the cars and trucks are coming on you so fast.

And there again, that has nothing to do with the facility that they're talking putting in, but that's going to end the struct, you know, with the trucks.

The warehouse that you got sitting there you approved two years ago, that's not even up and running yet.

Coca-Cola is sitting in there.

Hedge lane is going to take a lot of that traffic.

I understand that.

But that's a blind curve coming up the hedge lane, too, if you go out there and drive up there.

So we're going to have a lot of traffic coming off hedge lane up into blind traffic.

You know, you can't put a stoplight at every corner.

So the traffic is the number one thing.

I know it's redundant.

We keep talking about it, but the traffic is the number one thing, and I don't know how you get around that.

We keep putting more facilities out that way.

I don't think we're ever going to get another subdivision that's going to be out near us.

I I mean, other than Gardner putting in the ones over there, but and that's that's a drawback.

I really anticipated when I moved out there 20 years ago that that would build up and a little bit like it did on 167th Street when you go over to Brome.

That area is built up real nice.

We never did.

So I don't think we're going to change that.

Um the structure there.

Uh you know, and and we talk about violations with lineage.

You know, I I and I think most of the time what we're hearing with you know, some of the violations were bought before they bought the buying facilities.

They bought Cold Point.

They so a lot of these violations are coming before they ever bought them.

So, you know, we are putting up, you know, we're talking about a 14-story building.

That's a big building.

I mean, but um, you know, that's that's not going to be our main problem.

Our main problem is going to be the lone elm.

You know, we didn't put a street light in there until there's a fatalities are in there, accidents.

We didn't get that left-hand turn lane uh and 169 until people were killed.

We've got to somehow look further down the road than we are.

We've got to try and think of what the roads need to be done before we do the infrastructure.

And it was too late now to even think about that, but but that's where most of the complaints are said.

You know, I don't know how you you bumper that now.

It's already built, the warehouses are up, the new warehouse is going up.

So I think that's the major concern is that traffic going up and down 175th Street.

I drive a school bus since I'm retired, because they say you can't just retire.

I did good for about seven years.

But you've got to do something.

So but into the mountain.

You drive a school up uh school bus up and down the lanes.

It's uh it's a mess.

We go to the parks, we take kids to the parks, and traffic gets backed up terribly going into that South Soft Bar Park or OldAck.

So but that's just concerns.

I know I'm not gonna hit all these because they're just redundant about talking about them.

I don't know how you start and stop the traffic, but that's the major what we've got going.

I love the subdivision.

I I still wouldn't move now.

I st I love where I live, and Greg's my neighbor.

I love Greg.

So you know.

But that's that's just the concerns we have.

So thank you.

Lori Vogelsberg, you can come forward.

My name is Judy Ball, and I live at 21896 West 177th Street.

A lot of what has been said today was in what I wanted to talk about.

But I um so I'm not gonna talk about a lot of those things, but I do want to remind uh remind you that according to the plan of latha full comprehensive plan, quality of life is considered to be one of the most important elements of a community.

And Olatha's greatest act um uh asset that's in the plan.

And I agree with it.

A high quality of life um standards promote a balanced, prosperous community.

These standards include how people move around the community, where they live, access to parks and recreation, the safety of the of the neighborhoods, clean air, abundant, open and natural spaces.

The plan continues to identify Aletha as a metropolitan area.

And across the United States, these areas tend to trend away from heavy industries and manufacturing to more intellectual industries, where skilled employees are found more than materials and heavy infrastructure.

There has been extensive work on the downtown area.

New residential areas have been built with intellectual industries blended in.

Parks and recreation areas have been improved and/or built.

There is a lot to like about Olatha, and that is why I chose to live here.

Nottingham Creek Creek is a quiet community of residences that has great access to roads, going anywhere you want to go.

Shopping, work, church, recreation.

We have a nice mix of families, couples, and singles, ranging from very young to well, more mature.

We are a neighborhood of single family homes of various sizes and shapes.

The homes are valued roughly like other upper middle level neighborhoods.

That's our identity.

That's our character.

And that is what is supposed to be valued as part of the Olatha plan.

That character and quality of life and our house values are being threatened now by this proposed change of zoning.

The zoning will limit the opportunity for other residential homes in the area.

And when pressed, two people have stated that while there are no proposals in the pipeline, that if this goes through through the preference for industry is going to be increased.

It's not going to be for residences, it's going to be for industry.

And so who's going to protect us?

Who's going to protect our community?

Yes, we are supposed to in the the future plan.

Um there's supposed to be this area for residential.

But if we let industry here and zoning is changed, it said in the plan that this plan is fluid.

Well, that doesn't engender much security in my mind for property values, for our the way that we are living our quality of life.

Um particularly as we look at that we're going to be surrounded on three sides by industry.

Um if there's no one out there who is protecting us in terms of staying away from uh have not having industry in that southern portion of south of Nottington Creek, then our property debt values are going to go down.

There's no question about it.

There's a lot of concerns that we've talked about tonight that you heard about.

They're going to also continue to increase the likelihood that our property values are going to go down.

Some of us think, well, okay, our then maybe our taxes will go down.

I doubt that, but I but I just want somebody.

I just want a group of people who who are willing to say, okay, we've heard you, we we want to stop, um, maybe rethink some of our our the the things that we're we're thinking about in terms of of industry and refocus on us as a community and expanding um the residences, expanding the the property more for residents for park and recruit recreation.

We have a little bit of that, but there you're doing so much more for other areas of Olatha, and not much in South Olatha.

And that's a that's a concern, and that's a problem, and that's that needs to be addressed.

Um our neighborhood has been called an anomaly, a stepchild that that um is going to be compromised if we do if we proceed as we are proceeding in terms of industry uh surrounding us, and that needs that's a problem that we all need to look at.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Michael Hibbett.

Hi.

My name is Mike Andre.

Um my family and I live at uh 1732 5 South Lone Elm Road.

If that doesn't ring a bell or the little square that everybody keeps talking about in the slides.

Um we moved out, our property, while our property is currently zoned rural residential.

Um up until now uh we had been surrounded by farmland.

Change is inevitable.

We knew that when we moved there 20 years ago.

Our hopes were that the change would allow us to live on the property forever.

Um we hope that the farmland around us would become residential.

With that change, we've seen it coming for years.

Wasn't that long after we moved in?

We got something in the mail from the county.

Said the road's going to get wider.

That seems to be an overlying problem here.

Make the road wider.

You're going to do it 20 years ago.

Step it up.

Our future and the future of what Olatha sees don't seem to match.

We understand that.

You're looking out for the community.

We were just looking out for ourselves.

But in that process, we believe you guys are the experts.

You're looking at this as a long term for the city.

We just ask that you look to the future, you look to the present, and you look to the past.

There's a lot of past out there.

It goes all the way back.

I don't know if anybody here even knows what lone elm is all about.

Does anybody here know that?

Okay.

Um one ox cart ride from Westport.

Okay.

So there's some history there.

That's what the park's all based on.

There were some people back, oh 90 years ago or so that saw that, preserve the park.

This is a good thing.

We just ask that you look after it.

Um you look to the future to take care of what's out there.

Um we understand that the future.

All you gotta do is look at the triangle there.

The future is warehouses.

I hate to say that for you guys that are opposed to this.

They're not going to stop.

They're coming our way.

I've seen it since the day I moved out there and went like, uh-oh.

Um we owed you guys.

You weren't there when we moved there.

Um, you know, and so put the infrastructure in, allow things to happen, take care of the community.

And that's pretty much all I got to say, man.

You know, I'm not opposed, I'm not for, not against.

Just do what's right.

You guys know how to do that.

You're the property planners.

Take care of it.

Thank you.

Amanda Palowitch.

Alcoholitz.

My name is Lori Vogelsberg, and I live at 218-17 West 176th Street in Olatha in Nottington Creek.

Um economic development policy clearly states that tax incentives are a privilege, not a right.

They're meant to be used carefully and only when there's a clear public benefit that outweighs the cost of the community.

This comes from the City of Olatha's economic policy, Section 1.

These tools are supposed to help our community grow in ways that improve our quality of life, not shift costs onto the neighbors.

When a development gets a tax abatement or other incentives, that means less money going into the city's general fund, at least for a while.

And that gap doesn't just disappear.

It gets made up by the rest of us homeowners, small business owners, and the people already paying full property taxes.

In Johnson County, we've already seen the burden shifting.

In 1988, 47% of all property taxes came from residential property.

Now 70% of all property taxes come from residential property.

That's a 50% increase.

And in 2024 alone, 108 million dollars was diverted from Johnson County Public Coffers through property tax incentives.

That's about 25% of the total property tax revenue from commercial and industrial properties.

This information came from the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners Committee of the Whole, 5125 in Johnson County 2024 tax certification.

This cold storage warehouse will operate 24-7 and will need significant city services, which have been talked about, police, fire, emergency response, road maintenance, and utilities.

If it receives tax breaks, it will not be paying its full share for those needs for years.

Meanwhile, our neighborhoods will see the traffic, noise, and wear and tear immediately.

So I'm asking you to weigh this carefully.

And will the tax base recover enough to support the services we all rely on?

Your own policy states incentives should only be approved when they clearly serve the public interest.

And from where I live, right across the street, the burden looks like it would fall heavily on the people already here.

Well the benefits would be uncertain and far off.

We all want Olatha to grow and thrive, but it needs to be growth that's fair, balanced, and truly in the community's best interest.

And if you remember one thing from me tonight, please remember this.

Tax breaks are meant to serve the public good, and when they don't, they become a public burden.

Part of the role is your role is to make sure the growth is sustainable and in the public interest.

Incentives can be a great tool, but the c if the cost outweighs the benefits, it's not sustainable growth.

Thank you.

Judy Mason.

Good evening.

I'm Mike Hibbett, 17671 South Brockway Street here in Olatha, Kansas.

Thank you, Commissioners, for hearing us this evening, for listening to your neighbors.

Um and whether or not we are able to sway you.

Um, I I sincerely hope that we are.

Um, but I just um I I thank you for your time.

So give your spouses and your kids an extra kiss and and apologies for keeping you up late tonight.

Uh good evening uh friends and neighbors.

Thank you for hearing from your residents uh this evening.

My name is Mike Hibett.

I am a concerned resident living across the street from the land that you are considering rezoning.

I'm a public school teacher and a coach.

I'm a proud father of two middle schoolers.

One's in sixth grade this year.

I'm super excited for him.

I tell you these things about myself so that you get the sense that I'm just a normal guy.

All right.

I'm a normal guy who cares about and contributes to his community.

I'm here tonight to speak in strong opposition to this proposal to change this rural land to this medium use general industrial, uh, specifically to allow for this construction of a 140-foot eyesore.

This is not a matter of simply building a new structure.

This is a matter of fundamentally altering the character, safety, and health of our community.

First and foremost, let's talk about the quality of life that we cherish.

We chose to live here for a reason, for peace and for quiet and for open space in the rural rural feel.

This industrial colossus will negatively and permanently impact our skyline.

It will be an aesthetic eyesore, a monument to industrial intrusion that is completely incapable with our residential, I'm sorry, incompatible with our residential neighborhood.

It will operate 24-7, bathing our homes in constant light pollution, regardless of whatever photometric plan and standards you have.

And perhaps most damaging, the constant noise, the hum of industrial refrigeration units, the roar of heavy trucks will replace the sounds of our neighborhood, disrupting our sleep, our peace of mind.

And we will not just be listening to the noise, we'll be living with the traffic.

A facility of this scale will generate, as we've already heard, a significant increase in heavy truck traffic on our local and small roads.

Two-lane road on 175th and a two-lane road on Lone Elm.

This wear and tear on our roads is a heavy burden on our taxpayers, all right, which we contribute greatly to that.

Um the constant flow of trucks will create congestion and frustration for every single resident.

Most importantly, we need to address the serious health and safety risks you already heard the conversation about this uh anhydrous ammonia, um, this toxic corrosive gas.

You've heard about the fine particulate matter that will come from the diesel truck engines, contributing to respiratory illness, asthma, heart disease in the children and elderly in our community, these especially vulnerable people to these long-term health consequences.

And yes, this would include the young people playing softball and soccer at Lone Elm Park.

Two additional items to concern uh to consider, or actually, I'm sorry, one additional item to consider apart from Lone Elm Park to the north is this creek that runs sort of through that intersection of of 175th.

It goes under the road, actually, and it goes through that um that that square of land uh to the uh south west corner of the intersection, and it goes into my backyard.

Um I take my children into the creek a couple times each year to pick up trash that is brought in from heavy rains, including not limited to these heavy rains we've had in recent weeks, and I can't imagine what trash will be brought through our neighborhood through those streams once this development is approved.

In conclusion, this rezoning is not just a change on a map.

It's a decision with real and lasting consequences for our families, our property values, and our health.

The arguments against this proposal are clear and compelling.

It will destroy the character of our neighborhood, create significant safety hazards, and expose our community to health risks from pollution and hazardous materials.

We're asking you, this planning commission to protect the community.

Please reject this rezoning request and preserve the residential and rural character of our neighborhood.

Thank you.

Marsha Fall, you can come forward.

Hello, my name is Amanda Pokwich.

I live at 2222 376th Street.

I'm a mother of a 23-year-old son and a soon-to-be 14-year-old daughter that will be one of these many community commuters on your roads or on the roads.

I'm here to talk about the increased traffic around our neighborhood that's going to be putting our children at risk.

Our neighborhood has over 200 children, with around 50 who have less than three years of driving experience.

Currently, four school buses enter exit our neighborhood, each carrying up to 50 students from in and around our neighborhood.

Every one of these buses, along with all of our young drivers, will on a daily basis will be faced with an approaching semi by making difficult decisions when determining when it is safe to enter or exit our community.

Here's what that means.

If it's just 200 feet away, a driver has less than three seconds to see it.

Decide if it's safe and pull out.

Safety experts recommend four to six seconds, meaning the truck should be at least 300 to 440 feet away.

With 500 more semis, supposedly, I don't know what the number is.

But with 500 more semis making two trips daily, that's a thousand truck trips per day, or roughly one semi every one and a half minutes around the clock.

Those safe gaps will disappear.

In car semi-crashes, 97% of people are killed are in the passenger vehicles.

A semi-up 50 miles per hour needs over 500 feet to stop under ideal conditions.

The danger is even greater for our school buses.

A fully loaded bus takes about 45 seconds to accelerate from a stop to 50 miles per hour, covering around 1,500 feet.

And that same time, a semi traveling 50 miles per hour will close over 3,000 feet, more than half a mile.

If that truck is less than a half a mile away when the bus pulls out, it will catch up.

The bus catch up before the bus reaches the speed.

With this amount of semi-truck traffic, safe gaps in the in traffic will become rare.

Young drivers, my daughter, and buses will be forced into risky pull outs.

Truck drivers, now my brother is a truck driver.

We'll be faced with a sudden breaking or swerving to avoid these accidents.

And when a collision happens, it will almost always be in the be the people in the smaller vehicle, our community members who pay the ultimate price.

Once life is lost, it is too late to undo the decision that put those trucks on our roads.

For the safety of our families, my daughter, and the future of our community, I urge you to reject any plan that would bring this level of heavy truck truck traffic into our neighborhoods, main routes.

Thank you.

Marita Dugan, if you can come forward.

Good evening.

My name is Judy Mason, and as you can guess, I live at 1774 South Laverty Street, Olatha, Kansas, in the Nottington Creek subdivision.

As you've heard this evening, and you know, I'm uh here to talk about the rezoning of the proposed land requested by Lineage.

And you've heard about 250 trucks, 500 trucks, 85 employees, and we heard 200 at a meeting a few weeks ago.

But it doesn't matter because that's just phase one.

We haven't even gotten to phase two.

My main concern though is what these trucks are going to be putting out.

And you'll find out later on what I mean by that.

The exhaust makes asthma worse and it hurts lung function.

Diesel trucks release tiny particles that go into the lungs and the bloodstream, making it hard for people to breathe that have health problems.

The pollution from warehouses, it's been a study has shown that neighborhoods downwind of busy warehouses had 20% higher of the toxic gas called nitrogen dioxide.

And guess what?

It affects asthma and breathing.

The City of Olatha's comprehensive plan says, according to their website, protecting health and safety is a top priority.

It's the people in this community who will pay the price.

So I went on the Olatha Planning Commission website.

And guess what I found out?

It stated that the city of Olatha, and I quote, you can go check it out.

Every, not some, every resident deserves the opportunity to be a part of a vibrant healthy neighborhood.

Also stated on your website, Planning Commission, it said that you have a healthy neighborhood incentive known as HNI.

Did you know that?

Okay.

Just wanted to make sure.

And the purpose of that is for you to work to identify, advocate, and assist residents.

Get this, so that they can continue to live in safe homes and neighborhoods that they can be proud of for years to come.

Quote.

Okay.

Now, if you allow this area near 175th in Lone Elm to be rezoned as per RZ 2507.

Guess what?

I'm a resident of Olatha in Nottington Creek, and I can't be safe.

And I have a granddaughter and my daughter live just a few miles down in Dayton Creek, Amy Wells and her family, and my granddaughter McKenna.

Guess what McKenna and I have asthma?

She has severe breathing problems.

So we're not going to be safe.

We're going to have our health compromised because not of necessarily all the traffic, but the diesel trucks, the anhydrous ammonia, and the trucks sitting idling, waiting to go in.

So I urge you as a commission to think about the safety and the health of these residents, and particularly my family.

I thank you for listening to us, hearing our concerns, but go check out your website, please.

Dan Broils.

Hi, I'm Marsha Fall.

I live at 17646 South Round Tree Drive.

And I am a redheaded stepchild.

I really am.

A lot of the points that are on mine have been covered, so I won't belabor the points.

I don't have a problem with a 140-foot tall facility.

I just have a problem when it impedes some of the things that we've talked about tonight, when it's our safety, when it's children that are just feet away playing softball.

When as a retired Shawnee Mission school teacher who purposely chose to live in Nottington Creek because it was a beautiful area, and I don't regret.

I love my house.

I love my neighbors.

Every one of you would love living there.

And like my neighbor Morgan, you are welcome to come to the pool.

We will give you something to drink, and you'll be happy you came.

That's not the only place that it could go.

We purchased that place intentionally because of the beautiful surroundings.

As I heard so many times when I was growing up, and I think it goes for each one of us from the richest to the poorest, from the youngest to the oldest.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Nellie Shuckman, Jair Mills, Angie Wilkinson.

So most of the points, I'll just go ahead and go.

Most of the points have already been made.

22197 West 176 Terrace.

Thanks, Jerry.

So to kind of piggyback on the last point, um, one of my favorite presidents uh that I admire uh was Teddy Roosevelt.

Um he's the one that kind of helps set up the national parks, not because they the land couldn't be developed or um they couldn't find some use for it, but to kind of preserve it.

And I've been in the neighborhood for 14 years myself.

I've seen the zones rechange, reclassify, move on.

And at this point, you know, it's kind of whoever wants the land gets to do what they want with it.

I hope that as a city we can start to dial things back and come up with more foresight in how we're going to develop that area.

Um like I said, a lot of the other points have already been made.

And the city has a responsibility that if they're gonna build these things to have the infrastructure in place, have the roads in place, you know, um, be able to handle it.

I know that they said that the traffic studies um incorporate trucks, but I wonder you know how many of those calculations include 50% semis coming up to that intersection versus just another vehicle when they start to calculate these things.

Um the last time I was here was uh for the last rezoning, I guess.

They did the traffic count during the COVID shutdown, so it's not a surprise that they did this one on probably one of the least traveled days of the school or of the year in June when nobody's driving kids to school and everybody's done with school and ready to just be home for a little bit.

You know, wait another week and when parents are ready to get out of the house again and see how many people drive by.

Um anyway, those were my couple of points at this point in the night.

So thank you guys.

Kara March, if you can come forward as well.

Okay.

Um for 23 years.

I have driven downtown Kansas City, Missouri to work, so I drive I-35 every day.

I deal with the semis every day.

Difference being there's a another road or there's a shoulder to get off on.

They don't like being in the traffic any more than we do.

Difference is they can turn they turn their turn signals on and they just come over.

The number of accidents that I've seen in 23 years because a semi just gets tired of being there is ridiculous.

When you come off of lone elm to turn left on to lone elm coming off of I-35, you can sit there for two to three cycles through the lights because you're waiting for the semis to turn.

The number of people that you watch that try to go around the semis, especially there at the light from the other low gnome where it merges into one lane.

The people try to beat the semis because they don't want to be behind the semis going down low now.

Just two weeks ago, it took 30 minutes to get from the lone elm exit to 175th in Lone, and there wasn't even an accident.

That's time wasted that people, it just is it's crazy to think about adding more to that.

Umce this all came up, I kind of did a lot of research on what happened in Washington.

Um we've talked about it, you know, they mentioned earlier that it's been a year and they still don't know why it happened.

So I guess I'm not gonna rehash it, but my questions to you as you're thinking about this and looking at this, um, as this has happened, they've ignored the people there.

There's been meetings, they didn't show up at.

They sent letters to the people, oops, sorry, this happened.

If this happens here, what are they gonna do for us?

You know, as a community.

Um, you know, it's it's just kind of you go back and you look at it, what are they doing to help those people?

And um, you know, how are they gonna compensate those?

Especially those people that didn't have an attorney.

So I guess what I would ask you, and what I would ask them, is would you want this in your backyard?

Would you want to deal with this every day?

Thank you.

Sheila Smith, Suzanne Dugan.

If any of you are in attendance.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Tanina Agar, and I am off of 21360 West 181st Terrace in Olive Kansas.

Uh thank you so much for being here tonight, and thank you, neighbors, for being here.

We're united because we matter.

So uh the first thing that came to my mind when I was listening to the representatives of lineage is that I noticed that there are so many questions that were unanswered.

Like uh the investigation, what happened?

Like, did they follow up with the victims?

And I'm like, okay.

And then we were asking about um safety.

He said, Rob said, that there were updates that the building in Washington needed.

So basically it's an old building.

If a company ignores updates and they don't do them, what does that mean?

I want you guys to think about that.

If a company ignores updates, they know there is a disaster coming up.

The other thing I wanted to mention, when I went to the OSHA's website, I noticed that in the last five years, there were like about 20 violations.

And one of them was striking, and I can pull it up on my phone.

I will give you the number if you want to pull it up.

Bear with me.

Okay, so the number report ID is 062600.

And it said, employer did not provide refresher training at least every three years, and more often, if necessary.

If you're not providing the necessary training for your employees, what are you expecting them to do?

There is basically an accident waiting to happen because they need to be trained and reminded because we're humans, we forget.

Everything that I've been thinking about, I'm like, these are my neighbors, these are basically innocent people.

And working in the hill field, I understand that there are issues with unhydrous ammonia, which is basically a compound that's thirsty for water.

If an accident happens, there are schools, there are basically parks near this company.

The first victims will be children.

And the firefighters, when they go there to help the victims, if they get their own time, will be basically, they have to wear hazmats.

They have to wear what one of my neighbors has a firefighter said.

They have to wear air packs because this compound attacks everything that has water in it.

So what has water in it in our bodies?

Eyes will be the first thing to go.

Uh nasal passages.

Alveoli, which is basically the smallest bag, if I can say that, in the lungs.

So people will not be able to breathe.

Their eyes will be damaged.

Are you able to sleep if you know that those children who are in the park playing, they lose their sight for the rest of their lives.

In addition to that, I have a teenage driver.

Every time I hear a fire truck, my heart will be racing.

So how many people will be sleeping, basically noise everywhere?

And then in the morning, they haven't had enough rest, they have to think about their children, they have to think about their properties values going down, and they have to think about oh, uh, where taxes are going up.

But companies are getting tax abatement.

So please, um, I came to this country, I believe in democracy.

So when I vote, I think, okay, um, there are people I can count on.

So please.

Um I want to keep that thought in my mind alive as long as I'm here.

And I appreciate you for giving me the time to express my concerns.

Final two, Janice Rummel and Bill Beard.

My name is Suzanne Dugan.

I live at 21932 West 176 terrace.

Live there for 17 years.

Um I agree with all the big problems that have already been talked about, but I have numerous ones that no one else has brought up.

The first problem I have is the south exit directly onto 175th Street.

If you are not familiar with that road, there as you come off of K7 off the highway, there is a curve next to our lovely strip club that basically creates a blind turn, and that is exactly where you're putting across from the strip club a north entrance into that property.

So you're driving down, just went over the railroad tracks, just go over K7, you're going 50 miles an hour.

You can't see where the strip club is or this entrance, and we're going to have semis backed up through that curve, stopped, or very slowly making a right-hand turn, and you won't be able to see them to stop before you rear-end them.

This is going to be school buses going through the intersection.

This is going to be all the other semis coming from the other facility they're building over on a Spring Hill.

All of this traffic is gonna just run into one another literally and figuratively, because when you're going 50 miles an hour, those semis don't stop on a dime.

Maybe they turned right coming off of K7, and and they had plenty of time to go slow.

And now maybe it's it's the light has changed and the people are coming westbound from over the tracks.

They can't see stop traffic.

And there's they've already said they're not gonna put in turn lanes, so there's no place for four or five semis to stack back up on westbound 175th Street.

I bel believe that that entrance needs to be moved west away from the curve.

It needs to be in the middle of that mile property line.

Um I think that's extremely dangerous.

That that intersection is where all of our kids go to the elementary school, they go to the middle school, they go to the high school.

That is where they're coming in.

There are so many buses, there are so many people, there are so many young drivers.

That's that's a huge problem.

The next thing that hasn't been talked about is lightning.

Let's build a gigantically unusually tall building in the middle of a field with a bunch of metal pipes full of a chemical and hope that it doesn't get hit by lightning.

There needs to be a mandate that there is a separate lightning abatement plan so that this is not a bomb in the middle of the field.

The research I've done says that it needs to be four independent lightning strike locations located separate from the building in order to properly ground it.

And because it's going to be the tallest thing for miles round.

The next thing that no one's touched on at all is I don't understand why there's no landscaping to the north.

Why have is there no berm, no trees, no nothing to the park?

Why is our park facility going to be blighted by this view of this building without even basic landscaping?

I don't understand why why we just write off parks and wrecks so that it's not important.

The other thing that we haven't talked about is if you're saying the long-term plan is for Lone Elm to be six lanes wide, then you've just taken the majority of their parking lot that they won't even have adequate parking for all these stupid semis.

That wonderful, you know 800 feet setback from Lone Elm is not going to be enough if you take it all up with a divided six-lane road, which is what you guys are telling us is the long-term plan.

So let's not build a building nobody wants.

And then just have it not be usable.

I'm running out of time here.

The other thing is, congratulations.

You've set the bar so low.

We want anyone but them.

Anything but them.

Build a prison.

Build anything but them.

So I don't think I saw Mr.

Beard.

Am I right?

No?

Okay.

So I'm Janus Remmel, 17765 South Round Tree Drive.

Uh, yes, in Olatha and Nottington Creek.

Um, I'm actually the HOA president.

So I don't know what that means.

Sometimes I get caught in a little bit of everything.

So it's really, and to be honest, I wasn't even gonna speak because I'm I'm tired.

Um I'm sure you guys are tired too.

I do really appreciate that you are taking the time to listen to us.

I've been watching you.

I'm a leader in my work life.

Um, I'm a leader in my neighborhood, and I know sometimes it's hard to like really be engaged and pay attention, and you guys are all engaged and paying attention, and I appreciate that.

Um we all have some really great points, and I'm so proud of my neighbors in my neighborhood and south of my neighborhood who've done their work.

They're they've done their research, they're concerned.

We're concerned about the safety, we're concerned about our kids.

This neighborhood is full of, I mean, my neighbors are retirees, right?

And they snowbird in Arizona, and then across the street, we've got people with young kids.

So it's a neighborhood that is full of a wide variety of people that really matter.

Um we're here today because we want you to take a pause.

We want you to take a pause and really look at all aspects of how this is going to impact not only us, but those kids that play at the parks.

I went there before I moved into Nottington Creek because I loved Lone Elm Park.

It's a great place.

It's really peaceful.

You should go hang out there.

Um a couple thoughts before I wrap up.

Number one, I grew up down in Burlington, Kansas.

I don't know if you're familiar with that.

Um, there is a very large power plant near there.

And I realize I'm not an expert.

I don't know if inhydris ammonia plants are as concerning as that power plant, but I can promise you that anybody within 11 miles, 15 miles of that power plant, there was an evacuation plan.

There was uh the schools know it.

My dad worked for the county, he's a blue-collar guy who worked for the county.

They went every so many months and had drills so that everybody knew what to do in the event of emergency.

I mentioned I'm in health care.

Uh maybe I didn't, I don't know.

Anyways, I'm in healthcare.

When there's something bad that happens, we take a pause and we debrief.

What can we do different?

I don't know that lineage has done that.

On those violations are gonna happen.

But can you step back and say what can I do better so that this doesn't happen again so that we don't have facilities burning up like they are?

That was the one thing.

Um I want to talk a little bit more in my two minutes about our neighborhood.

So like I I mentioned the people we're we're all ages, and Wayne is up way too late because he's got to get up in the morning and walk.

So what's what's also so important is that we give back to ourselves.

You know, uh we're on a tight budget.

We've got some pool work to do.

I would rather be working on that than to be dealing with this.

But we're here today and we volunteer and we give back.

Our neighborhood has been doing their own, and I think he left.

Um has been doing their own volunteers in our landscape committee, and I love my little retired friends.

Um and they've been planting the trees because we are trying to cut money, we're trying to conserve money and to do our best to be financially responsible.

So we give back to our own committee.

Uh several of my social committee friends are here today because we love our committee community and we want to give back.

So um, I want to make sure that we have you guys looking out for us.

We're asking you to look out for us.

Um uh I hope that you do uh really think about the presenters today and the people who had to leave because maybe it was too late.

Um but really want you to take the time to listen uh and think about the things that were presented today.

So I think that's it.

I appreciate your time greatly.

And um thank you.

Okay, thanks for coming.

Um let's uh move on and uh for starters.

Um I'll call for a motion to close the public hearing.

Mr.

Chair, make a motion that we close the public hearing.

Thank you, Commissioner Trans.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you, Commissioner Brigitte.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Oppose nay.

And the public hearing is now closed.

Now we can open the discussion among commissioners, which I'm sure there is some.

So who would like to go first?

Not all at once.

Commissioner Brigita.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I have uh too many questions uh written on my sheet.

And uh I have some for staff and I also have some um for the applicant as well, if we have the opportunity to go through that.

Um where I'm at at this moment is and maybe we can go through these, but I have a lot of questions, but the the two main ones that I'd want to hear an answer to before I felt comfortable voting on this is some sort of response from either Fire Chief DeGrafenreed or Fire Chief uh Morley in Fire District One as they're the closest as to what equipment we have at our disposal and to confirm the response times uh to this particular facility and what the additional uh resources that would be needed to apply here.

And then two from the applicant, I would like to hear some more information as to what has changed in safety protocols and what happened over in Washington.

Okay, I know we had someone that spoke earlier that to the fire department on staff.

Yeah, Chair Jan or Belgiar Chief Community Development Officer.

Uh when I talked to Dave uh Deputy Director or Deputy Chief Dave Anderson, he indicated that they could fight any type of fire based on whatever chemical was present in any size of building.

No, I'm not a fire expert, so I don't know exactly what types of equipment they have, but he again he was very confident that I should relay that message to you.

Chet, did they happen, or Mr.

Belcher, do they happen to um discuss response time from either of the any of the closest stations?

Yeah, I uh email just came through from Chief DeGreffery tonight, and their estimate is six minutes and sixteen seconds.

And then do you know if they've uh contacted the I think it was Benton County over in Washington in regard to their response at this facility and any comparison of notes?

Uh when I just spoke with uh Deputy Chief Anderson, he said he didn't know the cause of the fire, but he did notice that they had uh water trucks on site, which made him question whether or not there was enough water at the site to fight the fire.

So that wasn't a concern he had at this location because there was adequate water from Water One.

Okay.

Um the applicant, if you don't mind coming up, I'm sure we're gonna have uh a handful of questions uh to head your way across the panel.

So ahead.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Would you all be able to speak a little bit to the operational efficiency?

And this may have been a question for for Jim about protocols regarding safety, because you can have the perfect protocols, but if people aren't following them, errors are going to happen.

And I've noticed in my own personal life and in my business when one thing is out of order, something else tends to be out of order as well.

And I've noticed the different star review ratings of all the seven automated facilities, and it seems like Hazleton and Houston are doing a good job.

So I was wondering if you could comment as to who would be running this facility, if it would be someone local or if it would be bringing in someone from a higher performing facility, and then two, what kind of structures do you have in place to make sure that your processes are being followed?

What's the performance metric you're talking about?

I'm just doing Google reviews.

My guess is that's the predominant one.

We don't own our own fleet.

We don't we don't these these truckers are all independent truckers that are customers hired to come and get product.

They're told times to come.

Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't, sometimes they come early, sometimes they come late.

We do our best to try to accommodate them.

And we don't necessarily track that as a as a as a metric for our our performance.

I I don't know.

But again, we don't control uh the traffic, we don't control the we don't own the trucks.

Um our customers will tell us they're sending a truck to pick up a load of chicken, whatever.

Um and and then and we will tell them your appointment time is is 3 p.m.

Tuesday.

And uh we hope they show up on time.

But if they show up late and they miss their appointment, somebody else will be in front of them and they might have to wait and they're not happy about it.

Uh likewise if they show up early and we can't take them, they're gonna have to wait.

So I mean that that that that happens a lot, and again, it's not the they're not our drivers, they're not our trucks.

So we do our best to give them appointment times with a little bit of leeway either way.

Um I think the big thing that truckers can struggle with is I think they're only allowed to drive uh 11 hours in a day.

So uh there's also maybe four or so more hours they're allowed to wait.

And so they run out of time if um if they can't get their load in in back on the road and and they have to spend an extra night on the road or something.

So uh I I just think it's a balance between uh their schedule and the appointment that we give them and sometimes there's a disconnect.

So how are you ensuring that the system the safety protocols are are followed?

So how are you equating safety to scheduling trucks?

Well, for instance, Richland had an OSHA violation on April 2nd, 2024, and it's one of the ones where there's lower ratings.

So I'm just in general, not necessarily particular to one place.

I don't know that there's a correlation between truckers waiting and and putting complaints on Google and and safety standards.

I I don't know what our safety um rating is for the Richland Washington facility versus the rest of our our assets.

Um I can find out.

Um I can have our safety team pull that information together, but I I'm not sure there's a correlation there.

Okay.

So taking Google reviews out of the picture, what is the internal process to make sure that safety protocols are being followed, and if someone's not or a location is not following safety protocols, what are the repercussions for that?

I'll let Jim answer that.

As far as as far as the ammonia refrigeration system, you know, that's the big concern.

Um PSM requires us to document all of the maintenance that we do, all of the training that we do.

It it it when it first came out back in the early 90s, it was just everybody was afraid of it because there is it's a significant paperwork burden.

But over time you become you come to realize that if you don't have it papered, it probably didn't happen.

Or it could be pencil whipped.

And we've we've we are very strict on documenting and making sure that all of the required maintenance, training, you know, everything that's required by PSM is done.

And we've got documentation to show it.

So from time to time, if the guys don't have the right documentation done, or if the paperwork isn't there, that's a violation.

It may have been done.

The work may have been done, but it's still a violation if you don't have the paper.

So that's been some tough lessons to learn as well.

Are there any other emissions that someone should reasonably be concerned about that you're mitigating coming off from the facility or the trucks or anything like that?

As far as other hazardous materials, you know, we we do we are planning to put in generators.

Those are we've got to have those permitted, you know, record you know, as far as the emissions.

Um as far as the trucks, we are we we don't really control anything there as far as exhaust.

Okay.

And then I've got a couple operational questions.

Is it I know the number of 85 people was uh said for the number of people that would be on site at peak.

Is there going to be 200 hires or how many folks are going to get hired for this facility?

Uh our projections are 240 uh total jobs in our um incentive submittal, we said 200 to air on the cautious side.

And then there's uh the other track going on in Spring Hill, I assume there's just going to be one facility.

There's not going to be two facilities on 175th, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

And then uh it was brought up in comments from the community concern about the financial risk.

There's over 11 billion dollars of assets by the company, correct?

If if in the doomsday event that had to be shut down, there was five.

I I don't know what the cost is to close a facility.

It would be like five, twenty million.

I I don't know what it is.

That's not really it, it's a drop in the bucket relative to the financial position, correct?

Yeah.

I don't know what the figure was.

I I I thought he said 12 billion lost or something.

Our annual revenue is only five billion.

So I I don't know how we lose twelve billion a year.

But um, right.

No, not lost.

I'll give you that.

But that doesn't reflect uh that doesn't have nothing to do with losing twelve billion a year.

No.

What the balance sheet, what your number of assets are you've got that much, yeah.

No, I mean listen, this this facility is going to cost uh north of 200 million to build.

Um you know, we're not doing it to close it down.

So uh, you know, if we can afford to build it, I'm sure we can afford to mothball it.

Okay.

And I I had some additional questions for staff, if that's okay, Mr.

Chair.

Okay.

Um this might be a Chet or a Charlie question.

Kansas Highway Patrol was mentioned in terms of uh policing uh the noise ordinance, Olatha PD could also do that along 175th, correct?

That's who would be our primary.

Yeah, Chet Ultra Chief Community Development Officer, yeah.

It's a city ordinance, so it would the city would um enforce that.

And then is there an evacuation plan in place for like the schools?

Obviously there is for the building, but assuming this goes through uh for the local community in the event kind of thing.

Yeah, during my conversations with Deputy Chief Anderson, there was actually an alarm system at the plant that would set that would be triggered at the fire stations as well.

So um then Charlie, what is the typical wear and tear that a semi would provide on the road as compared to a normal sedan?

Uh Charlie Love, Chief Development Engineer uh truck traffic does produce heavier loads on on roadways.

Um I I don't have a specific answer in regards to how it compares to a sedan.

But that is taken in consideration with what truck loads.

Uh in particular these roadways, they are uh what we would consider an unimproved roadway.

Typically what we see in these areas with those arterials that are old county roads is they usually have a pavement thickness around 10, 10 inches.

But that's not necessarily we haven't done any coring here to confirm that.

But that is pretty typical on what we see, which is that pavement section is pretty a tenance section is what we would traditionally build on a industrial collector road.

The only difference is is we required some geo-grid that's in it, but that geo-grid requirement wasn't even a requirement 10, 15 years ago.

So it's still we anticipate that the pavement section out there is adequate.

Um but it will have to probably go over uh receive ongoing maintenance by our own city staff until some type of improvement comes through.

I had heard a figure of 100,000 cars at one point.

Does that sound high to you?

Or to say it does sound high?

Okay.

And then how in general, since we they did this on a Tuesday in June, the traffic study, how does traffic compare school year versus non-school year Tuesday versus a Friday or something like that?

So traditionally uh common practice for traffic studies is to complete those studies on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

We do not uh like to have traffic studies on on Mondays or Fridays just with holidays, uh week and travel, it changes things.

In particular, this study was done in June.

Um in regards to that, the ultimate study looked at a lot of different things.

And the one thing I'd like for you to keep in mind, whenever we were kind of going through the site plan, uh we had the lineage site, which is what we were considering phase one.

And then we had all the industrial site that was down to the south, it was also a uh uh phase two.

So a lot of the discussion about truck traffic and the 500 number and a lot of that.

I want you to be aware of a lot of that discussion was dealing with just phase one of the traffic study.

Now, phase one and phase two of the traffic study meets our level of service requirements.

So there's additional trucks that are there now.

In addition to that lineage, this particular plan, it meets our requirements for level of service, and then there is a stipulation on this for that future phase two to go through a a revised traffic study.

So at that time, we will have a snapshot in time, or if we need to collect uh additional data that's gonna fall on a school day, it's gonna it's going to be able to be collected.

So between that phase one and phase two, we're we're confident that there's not a traffic issue for this phase one because it wasn't done on a school day.

In in general, though, like generally speaking, is it comparable in school versus out of school, or is it 25 percent more or just generally?

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

I don't know.

And in in particular at this specific location, i if you think about this, and we have a slide in our deck that kind of shows the school districts in this particular area, there is kind of it's the divide between Gardner and and Olatha schools.

Uh I believe it's just to the west.

There's kind of that school boundary.

So you kind of somewhat would anticipate that there's not going to be a lot of bus traffic or traffic that would maybe be going from Nottingham to the west, but there is going to be some that would travel from that subdivision to the east.

There's not a lot of residential north of 175th.

So you also don't anticipate a fair amount of, I'll say school drop-off traffic that would be taking that street because there's not residential on that street.

Okay.

And then the last question I had was for Ms.

Schuler.

Um could I don't know if it makes sense to pull up the map again, but I just want to make sure I have this correct.

Is the park to the north of this or is it to the east?

Um because there was a comment regarding um Birmingham to the north.

And I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

Yes, Lone Elm Park, or Jessica Schuler, Senior Planner.

Lone Park is located directly to the north of the site.

Um there was a comment made about um why is this not landscaped?

And it's because staff prioritize tree preservation on this property line that um is not shown in this image.

I apologize I didn't drop in the tree preservation plan that's in the packet for you all.

But you can see that um the dense tree line adjacent to lone elm is being preserved with this.

Um that provides better screening to loan park, taller trees.

And then also what you don't see is that at final development plan, which would be the next step if this were to be approved, um, is that we would go back in and infill gaps in that tree line with additional planning.

So it's just a final plan kind of process that we go through.

But we did work with the applicant to actually move the grating further south to make sure that those trees would be protected.

That's a priority for the city.

So there's a natural buffer that's there that will be.

That's correct.

And it and that meets CDO requirements, and they're able to preserve that in lieu of you know, addition, you know, other plantings.

Um but again, we will it's our normal process to make sure that we infill any um gaps and areas where the existing trees might not be providing screening.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Rigida.

Other questions?

Commissioner Chapman, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Um Rob, this is probably for you.

Um light pollution has been mentioned a couple times tonight.

Is this facility lit up at night?

And if so, to what extent?

So just like any facility, it it's gonna have light on the parking areas, right, for safe navigation during the night for the trucks.

Um the truck, the the fixtures are all cutoff fixtures, so there's no light exposure up, it's all down, it's all directed down.

There's shoeboxes.

Uh in there will be no light trespass.

Uh whatever the light trespasses permitted by code chet, if it's like one foot candle typically on a property line, that's what this will be.

So we'll follow the city's code.

But no, just because the building's tall, we're not going to put a bunch of lights up on top of it, no.

All right, we're not going to have spotlights up there at 140 feet and we got FAA approval and lineage sign lit up and Judd go.

FAA approval, right?

Yeah.

So so that we've already got the FAA approval, and we don't have to put lights on it for airplane navigation either.

Okay.

And then there's a mention of outside generators.

What's the function of these outside generators?

Are they purely for backup or will they be running at specified times every day?

I I think uh it'd be a diesel generator, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

And so those run once a week just to exercise themselves anyways, and and we can pick what time that happens.

Um but but it's primarily for life safety.

So to keep the fire suppression system, the control panel on, the alarm panel on, uh, it'll keep the uh refrigeration control panel running, uh all the exit lights.

What else?

Uh we can run some of the automation with a product out on the dock.

We can put it back in the backup source to be able to protect the product.

Yeah, it's not necessarily meant to run the whole facility.

That'd be a massive piece of equipment.

Okay, then the last question about uh safety.

Uh I assume you all have an evacuation plan.

Absolutely.

What is the plan for notification should the ammonia leak get into the atmosphere outside the building?

What happens then?

Are you saying as far as going off site?

Off-site.

We've got we've got a we've got a park directly north of this facility.

Right.

We've got kids playing on that park.

You've got a leak that is not contained within the building, it gets outside the building.

What happens?

Uh well, whenever we're so OSHA is concerned with folks inside the property.

Right.

And EPA is concerned with folks outside the property.

So whenever we do the RMP, we also have to go through and lit you you basically make circles around you your uh facility as far as uh based upon certain conditions, largest vessel uh losing all of its charge within a spur certain amount of time that that creates a uh an endpoint.

So here's here's where that endpoint is.

That could be a mile, it could be half a mile, it could be two miles, you know, just depending on what that largest vessel um losing its charge is at that time.

But the whole reason for that is to identify sensitive receptors within that within that radius around the facility.

That's sent to the LAPC and communicated to the local fire department.

And then as far as as what we would do, we don't have any we don't have I mean we we would make the call 911.

It would be up to the LAPC and the local fire department to determine how and who was um was notified.

Okay.

So if I could say just a couple more things about a comment about lightning striking.

So most of the piping here is inside the building, and all of the equipment that uh is used in the evaporative process is inside the building.

Um the pressure vessel that Jim referenced is in basically a concrete bunker, which is the mechanical appendicer that hangs off the south side of the loading dock right in the middle.

Um it's a hardened room, it's a hardened area.

So if something were to happen in that room, Jim, what what happens in that room?

In the engine room?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, uh you know, Rob's right.

We I don't know how you would would reach the vessel.

The the the receiver is the largest vessel, and it holds the most ammonia, but it's it again, 300-pound working pressure.

Um I mean, there they're I don't I don't know how you would lose all the charge out of it immediately.

I I really don't.

But you know.

Yeah, I mean, I guess if the airplane came in and happened to hit that vessel, made it through the block wall, made and you know, it it probably would, but you we'd have a lot bigger problems to worry about than that vessel.

Excuse me, folks.

Absolutely.

Excuse me, hold on a second.

Right here.

You guys had four hours to speak your opinion.

They stood over there quietly and listened to all of it.

This is their opportunity to reply, so please keep quiet in the gallery.

And I'm I just want to say I think the airplane scenario is highly unlikely, but I can't guarantee anything.

I I don't think any of us can.

Okay.

Thank you.

It's good?

All right.

Anyone else?

Commissioner Tronis.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I have a question about the truck drivers.