Overland Park, Kansas

Overland Park: A Comprehensive Infill Toolkit, Not Just Pre-Approved Plans

The Challenge

The average single-family building permit in Overland Park was for a home over 5,000 square feet. The city's building safety policies were scaled for homes that size, which made it more difficult and expensive to build smaller housing types. Pre-approved plans alone wouldn't solve the problem if zoning and building codes still made small-lot construction impractical.

The Approach

A code stress test revealed where Overland Park's zoning code, building code, and Kansas statutes were blocking smaller construction. Pre-approved plans alone wouldn't change that. The team pursued building code and zoning reforms alongside the plan catalog because those reforms are what make the plans feasible to use. Waived permit fees add an incentive on top. The result is a coordinated package where each piece reinforces the others.

What Changed

• 20 plans curated from our catalog for smaller single-family homes and duplexes, ranging from under 1,000 to about 2,200 square feet.
• Three companion infill policies adopted alongside pre-approved plans: cottage courts, tandem (flag) lots, and waived permit fees for qualifying builds.
• Building code standards reformed for smaller structures, so builders aren't held to requirements designed for much larger homes.
• Plans available at no cost and permit fees waived, reducing pre-development costs for anyone building missing middle housing in the city.

In the News