Rezoning, expansion of service boundary up for discussion in Versailles

Once again, a fight is brewing over the potential development of farmland in Woodford County.

On Thursday night, citizens will state their positions for or against the proposed rezonings that would turn Edgewood Farm into space for professional offices, single-family homes, apartment complexes, light industry, retail businesses and possibly a new hospital. The farm is on the eastern edge of Versailles, along U.S. 60 between the new Kroger and Paynes Mill Road.

The farm owners and a development company have asked the Versailles-Midway-Woodford County Planning Commission to amend the 2011 comprehensive plan and to rezone 407 acres for the various uses. Last year Versailles City Council expressed its intent to annex 336 of those acres. The rest of the land already has been annexed.

The current comprehensive plan, which outlines local policy on land use, says Edgewood is a rural district and should be preserved for agricultural purposes. Much of the land was grown in corn last year.

A nearly 30-acre parcel at U.S. 60 and Paynes Mill Road is designated for professional office use and would be where developer CRM Companies of Lexington seeks to put a new hospital, according to a preliminary development plan filed in January. Versailles is now served by Bluegrass Community Hospital, a 25-bed facility owned by LifePoint Hospitals Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn.

Opponents say the development is a bad idea, not just for the loss of productive farmland but because it would expand the urban service boundary of Versailles before the comprehensive plan has been updated with the help of citizen comments.

“If we’re not adhering to the comprehensive plan, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on,” said Billy Van Pelt II, chief executive officer of Woodford Forward, an organization that promotes agricultural use of productive farmland and the “highest and best use” of urban land. “The Edgewood Farm is a rural district that’s intended to stay agricultural.”

Woodford Forward says there are 1,377 acres of vacant land within the urban service boundary of Versailles. That boundary is a planning strategy designed to protect rural areas and farms from the intrusion of urban uses, while providing sufficient land for urban development where public services such as water and sewer lines can be provided efficiently and effectively.

Woodford Forward takes the position that any annexation and rezoning should occur within the existing urban service boundary. The Lexington-Frankfort Scenic Corridor, another group, also opposes the annexation, rezoning and expansion of the urban service boundary.

On the other side, the Woodford County Economic Development Authority supports the zone change and expansion of the urban services area.

John Soper, chairman of the authority, wrote in a letter on file with the planning commission that it was a “false narrative” to say 1,377 acres are available in the urban service boundary.

Of that 1,377 acres, less than 130 divided between two sites is available for a hospital, and both are inferior to the proposed Edgewood site, Soper wrote.

Once land is sold on Big Sink Pike for the baking plant announced last week, there will be no land available for light industry within the urban service boundary, Soper wrote.

Finally, Soper argued that most of the 1,377 acres are being actively farmed and are not for sale. Other land zoned for residential is not platted and so it isn’t for sale, either.

“How can land that is not for sale be cited as available?” Soper wrote.

There are other arguments against the development. Residents along Williams Lane north of Edgewood Farm tell of episodes of flooding, which they fear will worsen with the development.

Williams Lane residents Clark and Amy Bailey wrote in a letter to the planning commission that when rains fell in 2011, they had water entering their basement “even with constant indoor and outdoor pumps running and sandbags in place.”

“This water that continued to leak into our home was from horse pastures and was contaminated with horse manure,” the Baileys’ letter said. “Our barn and paddocks eventually filled with water, making our property uninhabitable for animals. We had to move the horses to a friend’s barn/paddock.”

The debate about this development is reminiscent of another over the rezoning and annexation of 241 acres known locally as the “Backer property,” also on U.S. 60 east of Versailles.

Woodford Fiscal Court denied the rezoning of that property in 2006, and Woodford Circuit Court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed that decision in 2010. The Kentucky Supreme Court denied discretionary review of that case in 2011, and Versailles City Council voted to annex the property in 2014.

This story was originally published March 1, 2016 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Rezoning, expansion of service boundary up for discussion in Versailles."