Where should Lexington’s growth boundary expand? Task force will study that question.
Vice Mayor Steve Kay announced Tuesday he would appoint a task force that will meet to determine where the city should expand its growth boundary and what rural areas would be protected if and when the city decides to expand its growth boundary.
Kay and Lexington-Fayette Urban County Councilman James Brown will co-chair the task force. Other council members who will also serve on the task force are Amanda Bledose and Kathy Plomin, who represents the rural area of Fayette County.
The task force will also have members that represent other key constituent groups -- the Fayette Alliance, neighborhoods, builders and Commerce Lexington, Kay said during a Tuesday council meeting.
Kay said the goal is for the group to complete its work by this fall, when the city begins discussions on the 2023 Comprehensive Plan, which is typically when the city decides whether to move or expand its growth boundary commonly called the urban service area.
The city has not moved its growth boundary since 1996.
During debate on the 2018 Comprehensive Plan, the city decided to do a study that would use objective data to determine when it was necessary to open the growth boundary. That study, called the sustainable growth study, took years to complete.
On Tuesday, the council’s Planning and Public Safety Committee opted not to vote on moving that sustainable growth study forward, after council members raised questions about the study.
Brown, who chairs the planning and public safety committee, said the committee will likely take up the sustainable growth study at its meeting in May. If the committee approves the study, it will go to the full council for a vote. The study has previously been approved by the Urban County Planning Commission.
Several people from the building and development community told the council Tuesday they had concerns with some of the data used in that study.
“It does not provide an accurate assessment based on market realities,” said Bob Quick, president and CEO of Commerce Lexington, the city’s chamber. Land the study has deemed vacant is not necessarily available for development. For example, some of the land identified as vacant are in Federal Emergency Management Agency flood plains, Quick and others said.
Others said the city had proposed in 2018 that it would do a study to develop quantifiable data to determine if and when Lexington should expand but also promised that it would identify land for future growth and determine rural land that should be preserved.
That hasn’t happened yet.
Kay said the city had to do the study first before it could move to the next step --determine areas that could be developed.
Dick Murphy, a lawyer who represents developers, said it would take years for development to occur after the city votes to expand.
“If a decision were made today to expand, it would take about six years for the first home to be available for occupancy,” Murphy said.
Debate on the 2023 Comprehensive Plan will begin in the fall.
