Lexington planning body rejects zone change for new office building on Nicholasville
A Fayette County planning body Thursday denied a controversial zone change that would have allowed the razing of a 1920s era home on Nicholasville Road.
Thursday’s 5-4 vote to turn down the zone change was the Urban County Planning Commission’s second vote on the zone change.
After a more than three-hour hearing in January, the planning commission dead-locked on an application to change the zone from residential to professional office at 1918 and 1922 Nicholasville Road. Under commission rules, the commission could return a month later and vote again.
During the January meeting, Carolyn Plumlee, a planning commission member, abstained from the vote because she had jury duty earlier in the afternoon and did not hear the entire presentation. Planning commission member Patrick Brewer had to leave early and was also not there for the vote.
Both Plumlee and Brewer were at the Thursday meeting and both voted against the re-zoning.
The fight over the property, though, is not over. The planning commission’s recommendation to deny the zone change must be approved by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council. The council could vote to reverse or uphold the planning commission’s recommendation.
Plumlee said she did not support the zone change because it would detract from the surrounding neighborhood. Plumlee said a core component of the city’s comprehensive plan, which guides development, is respecting and protecting historic neighborhoods. Brewer agreed.
The commission did not hear any new testimony before Thursday’s re-vote.
Julie Butcher, who owns the property, applied to change the property’s zoning so she could raze the Dutch Colonial home on the corner of Nicholasville and Edgemoor Drive and build a two-story office building.
In 2008, Butcher had applied for a similar zone change but ultimately withdrew the application after staff recommended disapproval. In 2008, the comprehensive plan, which guides development in Lexington, indicated the property should remain residential for a variety of reasons. But the 2018 Comprehensive Plan emphasizes density on major corridors such as Nicholasville Road, planning staff said during the January meeting.
The planning staff supported the zone change.
There are other commercial zones in that area, including a bank, restaurants, a gas station and a hotel.
The entrance to the property would be on Edgemoor Drive.
More than a half dozen people from Southern Heights Neighborhood Association told the planning commission in January the property was within the boundaries of its neighborhood and was a key buffer between the neighborhood and commercial property on Nicholasville Road.
Traffic on Edgemoor Drive into the neighborhood is already problematic. Making a turn onto Edgemoore from Nicholasville Road is nearly impossible at certain times of day, they argued.
Nathan Billings, a lawyer for Butcher, argued during January’s meeting that traffic from the property will be minimal and the road has enough capacity to handle traffic to and from the proposed property.
Development on that section of Nicholasville Road has been controversial in the last two years.
Directly across Nicholasville Road, the Pensacola Park neighborhood recently became the city’s latest historic district. That designation was prompted in part over concerns about a townhouse development at the corner of Nicholasville Road and Penmoken Park that was approved by the planning commission in December 2018. The townhouses have since been changed to single-family homes.
