‘We have made progress,’ city says as advocacy group pushes for 30K new homes in Lexington
Days after a Lexington advocacy organization announced a campaign to pressure Lexington to build 30,000 housing units by 2030, Mayor Linda Gorton’s office has said she must “take into account the true costs to the community” of building that much.
Lexington for Everyone launched the 30by30 campaign last week, asking the city to set a housing construction goal of 30,000 new units in the next four years. Citing numbers from a 2024 housing study claiming that Lexington is short over 22,200 units, the nonprofit known for its advocacy work to expand the urban service boundary said Lexington needs to fill its housing shortage sooner rather than later.
“If we’re going to make a meaningful difference on the affordability and availability of housing, then we must do things differently and intentionally,” Ray Daniels, president of the group’s board, said.
Raquel Carter, who is challenging Gorton for the mayoral seat this election cycle, is a former board member of Lexington for Everyone.
Susan Straub, a spokesperson for the city, said Lexington has made progress in bringing new housing to the city.
“We have built or renovated approximately 4,000 units to help those who need subsidized housing,” she said. “We have opened new land to development. We have streamlined the development approval process. We have made it easier and more attractive for developers to build workforce housing.
“There is more work to do, but we have made progress.”
The city’s affordable housing fund, created in 2014, has used $60 million since its inception to support affordable housing projects built by private developers, according to Straub.
Lexington is required by ordinance to reserve the equivalent to 1% of the previous year’s general fund revenue for the affordable housing fund. In the current city budget, that comes out to almost $4.9 million.
The same 2024 study on Lexington’s housing shortage found the city would need to spend nearly $270 million over the next 10 years to close the gap in affordable housing units, nearly four times as much as the city has spent since 2014.
That gap in subsidized units is over 17,000, according to the study.
In 2023, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted to expand the city’s urban service boundary for the first time since 1996. The new expansion areas total 2,800 acres of new land available for developers.
What effect, if any, the boundary has on Lexington’s housing prices is hotly debated.
Mayor Gorton vocally opposed the expansion and let the council’s vote pass without her signature.
House Bill 443, adopted by the state legislature in 2024, required Lexington to revise many of its planning regulations and processes to be more objective and measurable.
Other zoning reforms passed in recent years have removed parking requirements, allowing for more density in many areas of Lexington and allowing developers to get automatic zone change approvals for certain subsidized housing projects.
When asked if the mayor supported adopting Lexington for Everyone’s housing construction goal — or any housing construction goal — Straub said there were many factors to consider.
“The mayor has to take into account the true costs to the community — a build-out costs millions; the impact on current taxpayers; and, being practical, the availability of the workforce to build that many homes at the same time,” she said.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg set a goal of building or preserving 15,000 affordable housing units by 2027. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Louisville is just halfway toward that goal with one year left.
Louisville allocated $12.5 million, around 1% of its current $1.2 billion budget, to the city’s affordable housing fund.
“(Gorton is) happy to meet with Lexington For Everyone and to discuss the goal they have set,” Straub said.
