Earlier in August, the Leavenworth City Commission signed on as a partner in a regional initiative that could bring money to the area for future projects.
The city was included as part of a grant application spearheaded by the Mid-America Regional Council in pursuit of the Sustainable Communities Grant, according to Dean Katerndahl, transportation director for MARC.
He said the Sustainable Communities grant is provided by a partnership between the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation.
If awarded, the grant could bring up to $5 million to the area for work on projects that promote sustainable growth. Katerndahl said MARC reached out to partners for the application — ranging from city and county governments to private industry, non-profit organizations and universities.
“There’s a pretty broad set of partners,” he said.
For MARC, Katerndahl said the grant is an opportunity to help put into the practice the Transportation Outlook 2040 plan adopted earlier this year, which he said takes growth patterns of the MARC communities into account and emphasizes redevelopment, the construction of walkable green spaces and growth in existing places instead of the “hollowing out” that can sometimes happen if communities grow outward.
The grant funding cannot be used for “brick and mortar” steps involving physical construction, but it can be used for studies that are the first steps of that construction.
Scott Miller, city manager for Leavenworth, said when the Leavenworth City Commission voted to participate, he had some projects in mind. Most specifically, he said the city is interested in attracting some funds for an economic study of the research and technology park identified as a major component in the redevelopment plan for the northeast portion of the city.
Miller said he feels the project has some regional significance that might help it attract funding.
“It’s brick and mortar and a lot of jobs and that could be very beneficial to the Kansas City metropolitan area,” Miller said.
Miller said he can also see the Kansas Highway 7 corridor study being funded by the grant, which could help the Lansing and Basehor communities.
According to Katerndahl, the Sustainable Communities grant could help fund some of the specific projects along the nodes and corridors identified in the 2040 Plan. But some of the main benefits to receiving the grant would be more widespread.
“We envision a set of tools that helps local governments,” he said, in working toward the sustainable growth practices were mentioned in many of the MARC community’s comprehensive plans and the focus of the 2040 plan.
That could include new policies, guidelines for determining whether a sustainable project is economically feasible and possibly a program that would allow a community to create a visual model of a project when it is proposed. When developed, Katerndahl said those tools would be available to all MARC communities, including Leavenworth County.
However, there’s no guarantees — Miller and Katerndahl both said communities throughout the nation will be applying for the grant.
“It’ll be very competitive,” Katerndahl said.
