Controversial student apartments near UK gets approval after developer makes changes
A six-story apartment complex on Lexington’s East Maxwell Street will soon move forward with construction after it returned to city planners this week with a design closer to the one originally approved in December 2023.
The Lexington Urban County Planning Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve the final development plan after postponing a decision in December when the developers showed a final proposal that varied too dramatically from the original.
“We are back on a better track and hope we can stay there,” said Maureen Peters, a resident who raised questions about the differences in the two designs at a Dec. 12 planning commission meeting.
The planning commission approved a zone change for several properties on East Maxwell Street, between Stone Street and Lexington Avenue, in December 2023 for a new apartment building geared toward housing University of Kentucky students. Stavroff Land and Development’s proposal includes 238 units near UK campus.
In December 2023, at the time the development was approved — despite pushback from neighbors — the developers presented a rendering of the project that showed a building with large windows, varying types of facades and six town homes on the Stone Street side with doors into the property.
Those design elements were to break up the size of the building.
At the Dec. 12 meeting, developers presented a new rendering of the building that showed fewer windows, removed the six town homes on the Stone Street side and deleted third-story balconies that helped break up the mass of the building.
Lawyers and representatives of Stavroff said the changes were necessary because after the zone change was approved, the developers discovered Kentucky Utilities needed a 20-foot easement on the Stone and East Maxwell street sides of the building.
A note on the initial development plan says the final plan must be in “substantial compliance” with the initial plan. That’s done so developers can not “bait and switch” and show a different building after getting initial approval.
Jon Woodall, a lawyer for Stavroff, said after the December meeting, the developer again went back and again looked at the renderings and were able to restore most of the original elements that were part of the December 2023 design. The balconies with plantings could not be restored due to some liability concerns, he said.
Woodall said there was also a change in architects between the initial and final designs. Woodall said he may have failed to communicate to the architects the requirement the initial and final designs are largely similar.
Graham Pohl, an architect who was also on the planning commission in December, raised questions about the plans at the Dec. 12 meeting. Pohl recommended various changes to the plans to bring it back to the original design.
Pohl, no longer a commission member but in attendance at Thursday’s meeting, said he had reviewed the changes and felt the latest version was a substantial improvement over the previous month’s design.
“My feeling is that they have really worked hard and have listened to what has been said,” Pohl said during Thursday’s meeting.
Not every commission member felt it was the commission’s business to judge the final designs.
“This is getting dangerously close to us designing a developer’s project,” said Commissioner Bruce Nicol.
The plans call for the demolition of multiple homes in the area currently used for student housing. The location of the new multi-story apartment complex has been controversial. In 2019, a zone change for a larger apartment complex proposed by a different developer, was denied by the planning commission.
This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 10:11 AM.
