The Flint Hills Regional Council is undertaking a joint land use study of Fort Riley and surrounding communities.
“What it is looking at is the compatibility and issues around a large military installation coexisting with residential communities and that they’re both able to prosper equally without the harm of the other,” said Jennifer Jordan, regional planning manager with the Flint Hills Regional Council.
Jordan told local leaders at Thursday’s joint City/County/County meeting that a technical advisory committee and a policy committee, comprised of local elected officials, will steer the project to completion.
“Then hopefully we will wind up with some concrete implementation steps that really speak to any sort of issues that need to be mitigated between Fort Riley and the communities that surround it.”
Noise is an issue of particular concern, especially for developers in the City of Manhattan.
“We’ve already dealt with it a little bit in some of our newer subdivisions on the west-side;” said Deputy City Manager, Jason Hilgers, “I don’t think it necessarily stops development, but we may have to do it in a different fashion to accommodate the future users in dealing with the noise from Fort Riley.”
The project is funded by a U.S. Department of Defense Grant and it will take approximately a year to complete.
