Lexington has spent millions protecting farmland. Should taxpayers have access?
The city of Lexington wants a board that oversees a farmland preservation program to determine if it’s possible to allow public access to nearly 33,000 acres taxpayers have paid to protect.
The Lexington-Fayette County Urban County Council Planning and Public Safety Committee voted unanimously Tuesday to refer public access of the purchase of development rights farmland to the Rural Land Management Board, which oversees the program that was started in 2001.
The program purchases development rights for farms, guaranteeing that land will remain farmland.
The decision came after a dust up on whether a presentation by Councilman David Kloiber about the proposal to allow access to protected farmland should be presented during Tuesday’s meeting.
Councilwoman Kathy Plomin, who represents rural Fayette County, asked the council to postpone the presentation because Beth Overman, the executive director of the purchase of development rights program, and Gloria Martin, the president of the Rural Land Management Board, were on vacation and not available to answer questions.
Plomin said some of the information in Kloiber’s presentation about the purchase of development rights program was not accurate.
“The staff person should be available for a fact-based perspective,” Plomin said.
But the committee ultimately voted 5 to 3 to allow Kloiber to proceed.
Kloiber, who is running for mayor against incumbent Mayor Linda Gorton in the November general election, said his research showed the city has spent $61 million since 2001 to buy the development rights for farms. With state and federal money, the total amount spent was $110 million. Most, but not all, farms qualify for matching federal funding.
Gorton has been a supporter of the purchase of development rights program.
Plomin later said the total amount spent, according to her records, was $62 million in local funding and $48 million in state and federal funding for a total of $110 million.
According to the purchase of development rights website, it has protected 30,552 acres, with 2,046 acres under contact as of October 2021.
In comparison, the city has spent $18 million on affordable housing since its affordable housing program started in 2014, Kloiber said. That money has been leveraged to draw down $14.2 million in state and federal funding for a total of $32.2 million.
However, city leaders said the council has recently allocated an additional $10 million of American Rescue Plan Act funding, or federal coronavirus relief funding, for affordable housing. The city also allocated $2 million in the current-year budget that begins July 1. The fund also receives payments from loans.
“Therefore, since 2014, there has been $32.2 million allocated for the affordable housing fund,” said Susan Straub, a spokeswoman for the city. In addition, the city has spent more than $6 million in other federal funding on affordable housing. It also has a second federal program for low-income homeowners that currently has more than than $4.8 million available for affordable housing and supportive services.
In addition, there are other means to protect land, including the city’s planning commission and its zoning ordinances, Kloiber said. There are also conservation land trusts that land owners can put land into without public taxpayer investment.
However, the purchase of development rights program guarantees that land will be protected in perpetuity, he said.
Protecting farmland has been a priority, he said but “is there additional benefits to the community?”
Kloiber said he had talked to some purchase of development rights landowners about allowing public access to some of those acres prior to Tuesday’s meeting.
Insurance, liability questioned
But some questioned why the council was moving forward with the presentation without input from the administrator or the chair of the Rural Land Management Board.
Brittany Roethemeier, executive director of the Fayette Alliance, which advocates on behalf of rural land owners, said several purchase of development rights landowners met with Kloiber and expressed multiple concerns including liability, insurance requirements and questioned whether the federal matching dollars used to pay for those purchase of development rights would allow public access.
Roethemeier, who also asked the council not to pursue the issue until Overman was available, said the members who met with Kloiber never heard back about those concerns.
“After that call neither I nor anyone in the group ever heard back from CM Kloiber addressing those concerns or to further discuss any ideas on what might be possible in light of those concerns before it was brought to council committee today. And there was no mention of the valid concerns raised related to public access in the presentation today,” Roethemeier said after Tuesday’s meeting.
Rothemeier also questioned why funding for the purchase of development rights was being compared to funding for affordable housing. It’s not accurate to compare the two funding streams. The rural land and the agricultural sector contributes millions of dollars and jobs to Fayette County’s economy, she added.
Robert James III, the vice chairman of the Rural Land Management Board, said the purpose of the purchase of development rights program was to protect soil in Fayette County, which has some of the highest quality soils in the country. Once that land and that soil is developed, the city can’t get it back, he and others said.
Moreover, the city gives economic incentives to businesses to locate or to bring jobs to Fayette County.
“We don’t ask businesses to permit public access to their properties,” said James.
Councilwoman Amanda Bledsoe recommended the council send the public access issue to the Rural Land Management Board for its recommendation. The board could return as early as Aug. 23, the next meeting of the Planning and Public Safety Committee.
Bledsoe said her daughter rides horses and must use a shared-use path between the barn and where she is riding. Visitors, cars and other distractions on horse farms can affect horses and the safety of riders, she said.
“Shared recreational use is complicated,” Bledsoe said.
This story was originally published June 22, 2022 at 10:28 AM.
