Why Lexington is considering rezoning part of Nicholasville Road that’s mostly rental homes
In an unusual move, the city of Lexington is considering pursuing a zone change for a neighborhood largely comprised of University of Kentucky student rental housing off of Nicholasville Road.
By initiating the zone change, the city will be able to re-zone the area that includes 94 properties on portions of Waller, Elizabeth, Crescent Avenue and University streets to encourage more dense and mixed-use development.
The area is largely zoned single-family residential, R1, or two family residential, R2, with some professional office space, said Sally Lambert-Warfield during a Tuesday Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council Planning and Public Safety Committee meeting.
Only six of the 94 parcels are believed to be owner-occupied, city staff said Tuesday. The 94 parcels are owned by 41 property owners.
Imagine Nicholasville Road, a study which took more than a year to develop, recommended the city increase housing types and allow more mixed use development in the area around the university. Imagine Nicholasville Road also encouraged development of larger surface parking lots in the Fayette Mall area, proposed a new rapid bus transit system and recommended multiple intersection improvements.
The city’s Infill and Redevelopment Committee, which looks at how to make it easier to encourage infill and redevelopment, will send letters to the 41 property owners and engage with nearby neighborhood associations to get feedback on whether the owners and the renters would be supportive of a zone change. There will also be meetings in the near future.
“We are not proposing what the zones may be,” said Lambert-Warfield, a legislative aide who staffs the Infill and Redevelopment Committee. “We want to talk to neighbors.”
If those property owners and neighborhood associations are not supportive of a zone change, the city can choose not to pursue it.
“What we like about this is there are a lot of pauses in the process,” said Lambert-Warfield.
If the community supports the zone change, the city’s infill and redevelopment committee would return to the council’s Planning and Public Safety Committee to initiate the zone change. That zone change would then have to go through the Urban County Planning Commission for approval before coming back to the council for final approval.
Those meetings with property owners will be in early May.. The letters should be sent out Tuesday, Lambert-Warfield said.
Councilwoman Amanda Bledsoe said she has come concerns about the process.
“I will be very interested to see the neighborhood feedback,” Bledsoe said. “Higher density is needed. But those are largely single-family homes.”
Vice Mayor Steve Kay, who is on the Infill and Redevelopment Committee, said there are other commercial properties that might be appropriate for this same approach. For a variety of reasons, the committee looked at the neighborhood near UK first.
Councilwoman Susan Lamb, who sits on the Infill and Redevelopment Committee, said they have “talked about infill until we are blue in the face,” Lamb said. This proposal was to make it easier for infill to occur, she said.
“We don’t want to displace people,” Lamb said.
