The Great Bend City Council Monday night authorized Mayor Mike Allison to sign an engineering services agreement with Wichita-based Professional Engineering Consultants for the replatting of the remaining undeveloped portion of the Amber Meadows Subdivision. 

The contract with PEC will not exceed $30,700.

At the May 2 City Council meeting, Josh Golka of PEC was present to discuss the proposal to replat the area to make the lots in the area more usable with respect to lot sizes, elevations, dirt work, being environmentally friendly and making the lots ones that people would want to purchase. The city has contracted with PEC for on-call services instead of hiring a full-time city engineer.

There were 162 lots in the original Amber Meadows plat, City Administrator Howard Partington said. There were 49 in the first phase development. The current Rural Housing Incentive District being developed now has 19 lots on it.

Therefore the undeveloped area has about 94 lots. But that number will be reduced with the new plat.  

“We will lose about 15 to 20 lots,” Partington said. This is due to the redrawing of boundaries and drainage control measures.

Each lot is worth about $15,000 to the city. However, he said this has to be weighed against the cost of doing extensive dirt work in the area which could possibly cost much more.

Partington stressed that these problems do not impact the current development nor the existing RHID. A rural housing incentive district is a program through the Kansas Department of Commerce that offers tax credits to encourage residential developments.

Nonetheless, the city ran into a number of issues with the way the subdivision’s plat was originally designed. Officials thought it better to have this done now before they start trying to develop the remainder of Amber Meadows.

Now, PEC will submit its plans to the Great Bend Planning Commission. After a public hearing, they will come before the council for final approval.