Is Lexington Turning Against Infill?
Last Tuesday, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted to deny a rezoning that would have facilitated additional infill housing within walking distance of the University of Kentucky and downtown.
Dilapidated buildings along Lexington Avenue and East Maxwell Street. Image via Google Maps.
The proposed eight-story, 208-unit building at Lexington Avenue and East Maxwell Street would have replaced 12 dilapidated buildings currently in use as student housing with 575 new student beds. Despite surging demand for student housing—and the approval of planning staff—the project floundered after months of opposition from neighboring landlords and homeowners. The issue may soon head to the courts.
The episode marks a distressing trend. As I have written previously here on Strong Towns, Lexington faces a housing shortage that is bad and getting worse, with an estimated 40,000 new homes needed by 2025. With horizontal growth hemmed in by an urban growth boundary and infill growth capped by inherited land-use regulations, the city is on a collision course with a coastal-quality housing affordability crisis.
Drafted after months of public engagement, Lexington’s recent comprehensive plan—Imagine Lexington—found strong support among local residents for making walkable infill development easier, and planners have acted. Back in 2018, the council approved changes to the city’s out-of-date mall zoning districts, allowing more mixed-use housing where malls and big box stores used to sit. In late 2019, the Planning Commission passed an accessory dwelling unit ordinance, which allows homeowners to convert unused basements and garages into small apartments.
But for every two steps Lexington takes forward, myopic local groups are forcing the city to take one step back.
A big part of the problem is Lexington’s system of historic districts, which lock many of its wealthier inner suburbs in amber. Along Nicholasville Road, residents have scrambled to adopt dubious historic designations as a way of blocking housing construction within walking distance of UK’s medical campus.
Across town along East High Street, another group successfully made a similar push to block the development of a new mixed-use downtown, leaving the project in legal limbo. Part of making Lexington amenable to infill development will involve reining in the use of preservation toward exclusionary ends.
But it isn’t just misapplied preservation rules. Lexington’s zoning is highly restrictive in its own right, leaving it easier to build a suburban McDonald’s downtown than it is to build townhouses or storefronts. Under current zoning rules, building apartments is illegal in much of the city. And where apartments are allowed at all, tight rules controlling the massing of the building or requiring off-street parking make many projects infeasible.
This has forced even run-of-the-mill infill projects to go through what can often be a long, expensive, and unpredictable rezoning process. Along Tates Creek Road—one of the busiest corridors in the city—a modest proposal to build 14 townhouses barely squeaked past angry neighbors. Elsewhere, a three-story, 125-unit senior housing proposal, which the local council member breathlessly characterized as a “monstrosity,” wasn’t so lucky.
There is no sustainable path to infilling Lexington by way of rezonings. To do that, Lexington will need to make key changes to its zoning code, such that quality infill projects can be built without going through a raucous review process. Happily, city leaders have a lot of options for reform.
In walkable neighborhoods or neighborhoods near busy bus lines, off-street parking requirements can easily go. Onerous density restrictions on apartments where they are already allowed could also go. But why not open up more of the city to apartments? Along existing commercial corridors—many of which are struggling due to the rise of online retail—Lexington could allow a mixture of retail, offices, and apartments, killing two birds with one stone.
Amid all these hyper-local planning fights, it is important to remember that Lexington stands at a key fork in the road. With demand for housing surging, doing nothing will only worsen the affordability situation and drive more development outside the growth boundary, pricing families out of the city and worsening Lexington’s untenable traffic situation. If Lexington is going to live up to its ideals, now is the time for reform.
Top image via Britt Selvitelle.
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