Why a plan that will guide growth in Lexington for the next five years has stalled
A final vote on the five-year plan that guides development in Lexington has been pushed back after developers and neighborhood groups raised questions about a key section of the plan.
The 2019 Comprehensive Plan will guide growth in Fayette County over the next five years. In 2017, the Urban County Planning Commission and the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government voted to maintain the city’s current growth boundary after several rounds of contentious hearings. That means most development is restricted to the existing urban service boundary.
Whether to maintain the current boundary is typically the most controversial part of the five-year plan. The second part — which outlines the goals and objectives of the plan — is typically uncontroversial.
Not this year.
A section of the 2019 Comprehensive Plan unveiled this fall called Placebuilders has both neighborhood groups and developers concerned — but for very different reasons.
It was those repeated concerns that led the Urban County Planning Commission to delay a final vote on the 2019 Comprehensive Plan that was originally scheduled for Thursday. Planning staff will go over how Placebuilders will work for the planning commission at a meeting on Feb. 21. The commission’s final vote could come as early as a Feb. 28 meeting, when the public will be allowed to weigh in again.
Chris Woodall, manager of long-term planning, said changes have been made to Placebuilders in response to some of the concerns raised from developers and neighborhoods.
“We are trying to plow the middle ground,” Woodall said. “Our public input process has been very involved and we have heard from more than 11,000 people. We have also done a lot of studies and looked at best practices across the country.”
Placebuilders was designed to incorporate the goals of the comprehensive plan into a guide for development. Those principals include emphasizing density, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods and commercial developments, encouraging multi-modal transportation and boosting infill and redevelopment.
There are 27 different land use categories with separate requirements in the plan. Some of those categories include “downtown developments suitable for high-density residential” and “corridors suited for medium-high density development.”
To argue for a zone change, a landowner requesting the change must show that it’s in compliance with certain goals of the comprehensive plan. For example, if a landowner wants to change the zoning from single-family residential, called R-1, to R-3, a zone that allows apartments and other multifamily buildings, the landowner must show that increasing density on the property is in compliance with certain goals of the comprehensive plan.
Some developers contend Placebuilders is too stringent and too vague. There is no map of the zones, for example, which means developers will have to guess which zone their land best matches.
Bob Quick, president and CEO of Commerce Lexington, urged the commission to remove Placebuilders from the comprehensive plan because it will make infill development too difficult.
“It is already hard enough to find properties for existing businesses to expand or new industries to locate in Lexington due to the limited inventory of available, shovel-ready land inside the urban service boundary,” Quick wrote in a Jan. 9 letter. “The Placebuilder creates a new development checklist that is very challenging in today’s market and will make it harder to do infill and redevelopment.”
Bruce Simpson, a lawyer who represents neighborhoods and developers, was more blunt in a Jan. 10 letter to the commission. Kentucky case law is very clear on what communities can and can not require when a developer applies for a zone change. Placebuilders goes beyond what state law and the courts ruled is required.
“The 74-page Placebuilder section is much more than a guide. It is a legally prohibited ‘straight jacket,’” Simpson wrote in the letter.
Jacob Walbourn, a lawyer who represents both neighborhoods and developers, said the plan is so vague he’s concerned it will cause even more confusion for neighborhoods opposing zone changes and for landowners who are trying to develop a property.
Moreover, when a zone change is challenged in courts, judges look at whether the development met the criteria for that zone change. When that criteria is too flexible or vague, it will be difficult for a judge to determine if the zone change was arbitrary or without merit.
“The prospect of additional appeals due to unclear standards is an expensive proposition for everyone involved in this process — developers, neighborhoods and the LFUCG (and thus by proxy, the taxpayers),” Walbourn wrote in a letter to the commission.
Walt Gaffield, president of the Fayette County Neighborhood Council, said he doesn’t want the plan to go forward without Placebuilders. The current comprehensive plan, adopted in 2013, allowed too much flexibility with not enough oversight, he said.
“We would have a problem if the amount of flexibility in the plan stays without Placebuilder,” Gaffield said. “It also greatly encourages increased communication with the neighborhood. There is also greater transparency. Under Placebuilder, the developer has to lay out what is now called a final development plan and compliance with that plan starts there.”
Woodall said Placebuilders is not too vague nor is it restrictive. It’s a guide and is meant to be flexibile, he said.
“We’ve heard from the development community that the plan is too restrictive and at the same time and in the same meeting we’ve heard from the neighborhood that it’s not strict enough and there is not enough protections and safeguards,” Woodall said.
He said the city’s planning staff removed much of what was perceived as mandatory language in the plan to make it clear that developers don’t have to meet all the requirements.
“We are trying to encourage all of these conversations (about what a development) will look like as early as possible,” Woodall said. “We are trying to make it a collaborative discussion between staff, any neighborhoods and the developers. That’s when you get the best results.”
Still, Walbourn said he’s worried that neighborhoods opposed to a development will not know how to fight it because Placebuilders is so long and complex. And hiring a lawyer is expensive.
“It is very difficult for a citizens today,” Walbourn said of understanding how zone changes and the comprehensive plan works. “For a more complicated comp plan, some neighborhoods don’t have the resources or money to hire an attorney.”
This story was originally published February 1, 2019 at 3:47 PM.
