57 new homes coming to Lexington near a historically Black neighborhood
Over a year after the Lexington Urban County Council shot down a plan to expand a mobile home park next to the St. Martins Village neighborhood, a new plan for single-family homes on the same property has been approved.
But if and how those homes will connect to the historically Black neighborhood is still up in the air.
The Lexington Urban County Planning Commission approved a plan for 57 new houses to be built at 421 Price Road. The property separates the Suburban Pointe mobile home park from the St. Martins Village neighborhood, built in the 1950s as a suburb for middle-class Black residents who could not buy homes in other subdivisions due to racial deed restrictions.
While a plan proposed in 2024 would have allowed new mobile homes on the site, the plan approved by the commission on Feb. 12 features similarly sized single-family homes to those in St. Martins Village.
The planning commission approved the 2024 plan and a needed accompanying zone change to build the mobile homes, but the Urban County Council overrode the commission’s approval after a contentious public hearing.
The new plan for 57 homes does not require a zone change, so the council will not have a say in whether the plan for new homes moves forward.
The property is not the first proposed development near a Black neighborhood that suffered defeat a year ago, only to make a comeback after new changes.
In December 2024, the planning commission disapproved a seven-story student apartment complex at the edge of the historically Black Pralltown neighborhood near the University of Kentucky.
A scaled-down version of that plan was approved by the commission last month.
Local residents support the homes, but streets may be a sticking point
St. Martins Village neighbors who spoke at the meeting were supportive of adding single-family homes on the site, but voiced widespread concern about the plan extending three streets — Tibbs Lane, Dominican Drive, and St. Martins Avenue — to Price Road.
Those three streets are stub streets, which abruptly end and do not have a cul-de-sac. Stub streets are common in neighborhoods and developments throughout Lexington and are built to be connected to any future developments on adjacent properties.
Neighbors did not want those connections to be built, fearing they could provide a shortcut for residents driving from Price Road to Georgetown Road or vice versa.
“We want you to recommend closure of the three streets that connect to St. Martin’s Village,” Bruce Simpson, an attorney representing the St. Martins Village neighborhood association, told the planning commission. “That’s our number one goal: preserve the neighborhood … if you do that, we’re good with the plan.” Nick Nicholson, an attorney representing the Suburban Pointe, said that city regulations required the development to include those street connections.
The developer is willing to remove those connections to appease the neighborhood, although that requires action from the city council and is outside the planning commission’s authority, Nicholson said. While the council will not vote on the housing plan, it will decide whether those road connections are made. Once the right-of-way for those streets is ceded to the city, the council has the ability to close the connection by adding a landscape buffer, barricades of some kind, or modifying it to include a sidewalk connection but no roadway connection for cars.
That process largely happens in discussions between the council and the city’s environmental quality and public works department, city attorney Tracy Jones told the planning commission.
While such a decision would come to the full council for a vote, it is unclear when such a vote would take place.
