Derby property owners wanted to open laundromat. Here’s what happened after backlash
Applicants seeking a zoning change to open a laundromat withdrew their request after Derby’s planning commission overwhelmingly recommended that the City Council deny it.
Property owner Dan Schmidt and his daughter, Lara Clark, requested a zone change for their property from institutional district to neighborhood business district, which would allow the laundromat strip. The roughly 53,000-square-foot property is at the northwest corner of Buckner Street and Red Powell Drive behind Duck Creek Park in a mixed residential and commercial area.
Schmidt and Clark have owned and operated a laundromat in Derby for three years, Clark said at the planning commission meeting, and the plan was to open another one in the lot they requested to change.
“Due to the small nature of that space, and being in there every day to converse and clean and speak to customers, the general statements from the public were unanimous … there simply aren’t enough machines to accommodate how busy it would be during peak hours,” Clark said during the planning commission meeting in June.
“That’s the reason for the request of this zone change.”
Several community members voiced significant concerns about the change at the June 4 meeting.
“This is not the right location for this type of business. This area is surrounded by homes and a public park, it is a neighborhood where families live, children play and residents have invested in their homes,” state Rep. Blake Carpenter said at the public hearing. “A laundromat is a commercial use that depends on frequent customer turnover, vehicles coming and going and people waiting on site and steady activity during the day.”
Derby resident Marcia Fanning said she was concerned about traffic.
“It’s going to be a hazard to the neighborhood, it’s going to be a hazard to the kids in the park… I’m telling you, that’s too many little roads that go in and out and Buckner is super busy all the time,” Fanning said.
Clark said traffic wouldn’t be a major concern and would equal one new vehicle every 10 minutes.
The planning commission voted 7-1 to recommend the City Council deny the zone change. After the recommendation, a petition asking the council to also reject the proposal circulated on social media.
The zone change request would have been reviewed at Derby’s July 14 City Council meeting. In order to be approved, it would have needed the supermajority vote from the council.
Before the council could review it, the property owners “chose to withdraw their request since it was unlikely to be approved,” Derby’s Assistant City Planner Everett Haynes told The Eagle.
When reached by the Wichita Eagle, Schmidt said he would not comment on their decision to withdraw their request.
The neighborhood was notified by letter that was sent out this month. Anyone who lived within 200 feet of the proposed laundromat and anyone who signed up to speak at the planning commission was sent the letter.
