‘Very angry’ neighborhood demands Lexington council reverse decision on moratorium
A Lexington councilman urged his colleagues Tuesday to reverse an earlier decision to exempt properties along Nicholasville Road from a six-month moratorium on demolitions and zone changes as the neighborhood seeks an historic designation.
“Eight members of the council did a disservice to my constituents in the Pensacola Park area by voting to delete a portion of the moratorium area,” said Lexington-Fayette Urban County Councilman Jake Gibbs during a Tuesday council meeting. “It’s an understatement to say they are upset.”
The Pensacola Park neighborhood requested the six-month moratorium to protect properties in the area as it applies to become a historic neighborhood, frequently referred to as an H-1 overlay. That application process can take more than six months to complete.
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted 8 to 2 during a Feb. 7 meeting to exempt properties on Nicholasville Road from the proposed moratorium after hearing from two Nicholasville Road property owners who opposed it. The vote was taken at the end of the meeting, after Gibbs and the neighbors who supported the moratorium had left the meeting.
The properties removed from the moratorium were the odd-numbered addresses from 1733 to 1915 Nicholasville Road. The moratorium still includes addresses on Chesapeake Drive, Goodrich Avenue, Lackawanna Road, Norfolk Drive, Penmoken Park, Pensacola Drive, Rosemont Garden, Suburban Court and Wabash Avenue.
A final vote on the moratorium is expected at Thursday’s council meeting.
Gibbs warned the council during a Tuesday work session that the neighborhood is not happy with the council’s 11th-hour changes. The move also could hamper Pensacola Park’s application to become a historic neighborhood, he said.
“What you have done is discriminate against one area,” Gibbs said. “There are a lot of people who are very angry about how this played out.”
Neighborhood leaders said they were “appalled” and “astonished” the council made last-minute changes to the moratorium after those who backed the moratorium left the Feb. 7 meeting.
“The members of the Pensacola Park neighborhood are astonished that the temporary moratorium, which they have been told is a matter of course with all H-1 overlay applications and which has broad support from the neighborhood, was unilaterally changed by a councilperson without input from the neighborhood, Councilperson Gibbs or the historic department,” wrote Candice Wallace and Juliette Symons in an email.
“The neighborhood is further questioning the motives of the councilpersons who voted in favor of changing the moratorium boundaries in the face of such support,” Wallace and Symons wrote.
Tim Condo, a preservation specialist with the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation, also urged the council Tuesday to return the Nicholasville Road properties to the moratorium to preserve the neighborhood’s historic district application.
“There is no harm in the moratorium,” Condo said. “It does not permanently prohibit those property owners from making changes after that review period elapses.”
T.L. Wise, who owns property on Nicholasville Road, urged the council to exempt the properties because he was not notified of the proposed moratorium, among other arguments. A second property owner who urged the council to exempt the properties is not actually in the proposed historic district.
Some council members who voted in favor of exempting the properties said during the Feb. 7 meeting that the situation was unique because they had never had individual property owners oppose a moratorium. Others said the 2019 Comprehensive Plan, which guides development in the city, also encourages more infill development on the city’s major corridors, including Nicholasville Road. A final vote on the 2019 Comprehensive Plan is slated for Feb. 28.
How they voted
Council members who voted to exempt the Nicholasville Road properties: Jennifer Mossotti, Amanda Bledsoe, Jennifer Reynolds, Kathy Plomin, Fred Brown, Josh McCurn, Susan Lamb and Richard Moloney.
Those who voted against changes to the moratorium: Vice Mayor Steve Kay and James Brown.
Members who abstained from the vote because of potential conflicts of interest: Chuck Ellinger, Preston Worley and Angela Evans. Ellinger owns property on Nicholasville Road that is in the area that has been exempted from the moratorium. Worley and Evans work for a law firm that is representing a landowner in the historic overlay area.
This story was originally published February 20, 2019 at 11:04 AM.
