Lexington council votes to add up to 5,000 acres to growth boundary

For the first time in nearly 27 years, the Lexington council voted to add up to 5,000 acres to Lexington’s urban service boundary.

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted 10-3 during a Thursday meeting to add between 2,700 and 5,000 acres.

Councilman Preston Worley, who originally pushed for adding 5,000 acres, said development would not take place immediately.

Under the plan approved Thursday, the city directed the planning commission to develop a master expansion plan that could address costs of expansion and how the new land could be developed. The planning staff has until Dec. 1, 2024, to develop that plan.

That expansion area master plan can’t ensure that affordable housing is built in that area, planning staff said Thursday.

“We can address minimum density,” said James Duncan, the director of planning for the city.

Worley had originally proposed language that would identify land between Athens Boonesboro Road and Interstate 64 but due to threat of a possible lawsuit, the council ultimately voted to remove that language. The direction to the planning commission was to find between 2,700 and 5,000 acres to be added to the expansion area.

Adding 5,000 acres along Winchester Road and Athens Boonesboro Road was originally pushed by pro-business and development groups.

If the planning commission has not developed an expansion area master plan by Dec. 1, 2024, the land can still be added, under the proposal passed Thursday.

For future growth or expansion, the city would finish a data-driven approach that was started in the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. Those plans still need to be completed. The council agreed to set an Aug. 31, 2026, deadline for that future plan for expansion to be completed.

Duncan emphasized the planning staff and the commission can’t do an expansion master plan for the new acres and a long-term plan for future growth at the same time. The expansion area plan would have to be developed first, Duncan said.

The vote on the boundary is part of the council’s proposed changes to the 2045 Comprehensive Plan, which guides growth over the next five years. The 2045 Comprehensive Plan is used to determine what development can go where.

What council members said

The council members who voted against the expansion plan were Vice Mayor Dan Wu, Hannah LeGris and David Sevigny.

All three expressed reservations about the city adding land without an appropriate plan to address infrastructure, housing and other concerns.

Others said it was long past time for the city to address its housing crisis and need for land for more jobs.

“It’s simply not affordable to live in Lexington,” Worley said. Rents and home prices in Fayette County have skyrocketed, he argued.

LeGris said expanding or adding more land to the growth boundary will not guarantee the development of affordable housing. Nor does it guarantee housing prices will go down, she said. Moreover, the cost of expansion has not yet been decided, she said.

“What I’m concerned about is a piecemeal process,” LeGris said.

The council is expected to take its final vote on the 2045 Comprehensive Plan in June.

The council made a series of motions concerning changes to the planning commission’s recommendations during Thursday’s more than three-hour meeting.

None of those motions and substantial changes were made public prior to Thursday’s meeting. The Lexington Herald-Leader requested council changes prior to the meeting, but the city denied the request becayse proposed changes were still in draft form and therefore did not have to be released under the state’s Open Records Act.

Why debate matters to city’s future

The fight over whether the city should expand its growth boundary is one of the city’s long-time and thorniest issues.

It has not expanded the growth boundary, where development can occur, since 1996 when approximately 5,400 acres were added to the boundary. Nearly half of those acres are still available for development. The city has had a growth boundary since 1958, one of the first in the country.

The Urban County Planning Commission voted earlier this year to keep the current boundary but build on the work of two reports — the Sustainable Growth study, which looks at when Lexington will need land for housing, industry, commercial and retail development and the Goal 4 report, which recommended more than 27,000 acres for possible future development and more than 97,000 acres for preservation if and when the city decides to expand.

A key factor in determining land suitable for development is sewer and water capability.

The city is currently in the process of updating a previous sewerability study which will be completed by late July.

Those that have pushed for expansion of the boundary have argued housing prices and rents have skyrocketed. The city needs more land for businesses and jobs. A tax on wages is the city’s main revenue source. Black residents are being forced out of downtown neighborhoods because of gentrification, they have argued.

Neighborhoods have consistently fought any infill development, they have long argued.

Others have argued housing prices and rents are more complicated than supply and demand and available land. Multiple cities across the country and Kentucky are also dealing with rising housing prices and rents but have no growth boundary. Moreover, expansion is costly. The city has not yet determined how it will pay for any future expansion nor has it provided any incentives or framework to ensure affordable housing is built on any land included in an expansion.

What the 2045 Comprehensive Plan says

The 2045 Comprehensive Plan mirrors many elements of the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. Some of the changes include a greater emphasis on sustainable growth and green initiatives. Some of the changes adopted by the council include setting a 2050 deadline to be carbon neutral, more emphasis on affordable housing and affordable housing initiatives.

The plan also emphasis racial justice and equity and using land use policies to rectify prior racially motivate land use policies such as deed restrictions that kept Black homeowners out of certain areas and “red lining,” where banks would not lend money in largely Black and other minority neighborhoods.

Those who voted in favor of changes that included adding up to 5,000 acres: Worley, Brenda Monarrez, Whitney Elliott Baxter, Liz Sheehan, James Brown, Chuck Ellinger, Tayna Fogle, Jennifer Reynolds, Fred Brown, Denise Gray.