KSHB 41 reporter Claire Bradshaw covers eastern Jackson County, including Blue Springs and Grain Valley. Share your story idea with Claire.
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The Blue Springs City Council will hold a public hearing and vote Monday for an amended housing development plan on the south part of town — and neighbors outside of city limits have renewed concerns.
CJR Builders and IMR Homes will present the updated plan for Sullivan Ranch, a proposed single-family home neighborhood at SE Wyatt and SE Litchford Rd that failed to pass last fall. The latest plans did not get a recommendation from the city's Planning Commission at its recent meeting.
Last fall, CJR Builders proposed building 218 homes on 70 acres. The developers have reduced the plan to 151 homes with larger lot sizes after hearing concerns from neighbors. The lot sizes still aren't large enough for neighbors liking, but Charles Robinson, president of CJR Builders and IMR Homes, said the housing market doesn't call for that.
"Now you're looking at price point of homes that's going to be well over a million dollar homes. The comps in that area currently, that the neighboring communities are talking about, their homes fit within the price point of what we're currently looking to propose to build," said Robinson, referring to the selling prices of the proposed homes being between $500,000 - $800,000.
The land for Sullivan Ranch is in the city's land bank and is included in its 2014 Comprehensive Plan to be developed someday.
Residents still have concerns about Litchford and Wyatt roads not being able to support increased traffic, potential increased flooding from run-off and too many people living up against hunting land. Robinson said his team has revised plans to meet neighbors concerns by adding another detention basin and will make city-required road improvements before they start building vertically.
"We feel like we've heard the city, we feel like we're being very accommodating. We're not putting up multifamily, we're not putting up condominiums or town homes, we're putting up single-family homes," Robinson said.
Unincorporated Jackson County residents Whitney Huddleston and Miles Huddleston are new to the area and the fight against large housing developments. They said the changes do not change their minds.
"Our infrastructure is poor. It could essentially lengthen the response times for EMS. Getting even a bus down this road is a struggle," Whitney Huddleston said.
"We don't have to be right on top of each other," Miles Huddleston said.
The Huddlestons found out about the proposed development from their next door neighbor, Adam Kriz, who said he has been around for three fights against housing developments.
"The City Council needs to understand that they've already approved one for over 200 houses, and that they need to see what happens with that and the roads and how everything is the safety reasons and the road conditions with the first development before they even consider starting a second one. It's only going to get worse. We're not against development. We just want something comparable to what's already out here, and it's just not something that we need," said Kriz.
Multiple neighbors said they do not want CJR Builders to be building in town because it was disbarred by the City of Kansas City and cannot do contracted work for the city for one year, which expires in August. This is what the City of Kansas City provided about the disbarment.
Kansas City disbarred CJR Construction Group on August 5, 2025.
Following an investigation, the City determined that the company failed to comply with prevailing wage requirements by:
- Not paying the rates prescribed in the contract or properly classifying employees in the correct wage categories, regardless of whether restitution was later made.
Additionally, the City noted that a repeated act of negligence is deemed to exist when the same or substantially similar violations occur three or more times within the preceding three-year period. As a result, CJR Construction Group has been disbarred from contracting with the City for a period of one year.
Robinson again addressed neighbors concerns about his company being reputable.
"It was related to the Kansas City Airport project, where we had subcontractors that we hired that did not pay their prevailing wage to their employees. We stepped in to pay for that. We've covered their costs. All restitution on behalf of our subs has been paid. Everything has been cleared," said Robinson.
The Blue Springs City Council meeting is Monday at 6:00 PM inside the Council Chambers at the Howard L. Brown Public Safety Building located at 1100 SW Smith Street.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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