Stop Overreacting: Prairie Village backlash over housing policies is unproductive

Don’t bother stopping for the five newly-installed and obviously homemade bright red road signs while driving down Mission Road to East.

Our city’s newest “stop signs” are really “Stop Rezoning Prairie Village” signs — an over-the-top reaction from local families in response to the city council’s housing recommendations promoting inclusivity. Yes, mere recommendations were enough to cause a sign-printing spree from our city’s most traditional families.

Miscommunication between residents and officials has caused the city council’s actions to be over-dramatized by some community members — effectively slowing progress on lowering inflated housing prices. 

The city’s June recommendations include enabling more multi-unit building types and considering revising accessory living quarter standards, aimed to help “preserve access to attainable housing,” according to the committee.

Prairie Village has become less accessible for middle-income workers like teachers and police officers as home prices in the area accelerate faster than wages.

If enacted into policy in some neighborhoods, the recommendations would mean allowing more multi-family homes that are cheaper per occupant and the construction of unattached “granny units” to house extra family members. It’s an imperfect — but well-intentioned — plan that should’ve received a sensible response and opened a reasonable discussion.

Instead, the reaction to the suggestions is confusing — yard signs reading “Stop Neighborhood Rezoning!” have been erected with no clear call to action for a law to veto or a politician to remove. Residents have yelled over Teen City Council members attending the city council meetings who were trying to explain that concrete policies haven’t even been made yet.

To be fair, the city council has some blame for miscommunication.They mention only once online that decisions about housing policy updates won’t be made until spring 2023 — deep on their website under a drop-down menu of FAQ’s.

Plus, opposing organizations, like the Stop PV Rezoning group, have a point: the recommendations aren’t perfect and could devalue properties in some districts. But the front page of their website reading “CITY COUNCIL WANTS TO REMOVE OUR RIGHTS AS SINGLE FAMILY HOMEOWNERS!!” in bold text is a vague and aggressive way to get their point across.

Or the point isn’t coming across at all.

Eighty-one percent of community members have seen the signs with only 40% knowing what issue they refer to, according to an Instagram poll of 166. Plus, 68% out of another poll of 152 students have no idea what housing issues are being discussed in city council, even though the conversation can directly affect their neighborhood.

Clearly the messages from both the city council and anti-rezoning organizations haven’t been conveyed effectively. City-issued notices appear daunting in paragraphs of official legal language compared to the opposition’s overly-blunt and nonspecific, bulleted talking points online — two extremes that fail to educate residents. 

Both sides should work to spread understandable information through concise posts tailored for the average viewer, or else recommendations will continue to be blown out of proportion. 

Especially since rising housing costs aren’t slowing while the city argues. And medium-income families continue to become less likely to buy property here. If less community energy was put into organizing a 582-member Facebook group and instead given to revising the recommendations, Prairie Village could find a compromise. 

Instead of complaining about the revised recommendations, concerned residents should list realistic and specific modifications to the document. Solutions can be pitched at city council meetings, like the upcoming one at 6 p.m. on Nov. 21.

The council already proved they are willing to listen when they revised housing recommendations after the initial backlash in October — deciding to exclude multi-family home options in some areas.

Shouting at city council meetings and making bold signs might draw more attention now, but Prairie Village needs productive conversations to solve its housing exclusivity in the long-term.