Growth, safe streets, budget: These topics have dominated Lexington council in 2026
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council is in summer recess through Aug. 10, but elected city officials have already debated and passed policies on several key issues in the city.
In the council’s work so far, several key programs, developments and regulations have been approved by the council — including the largest budget in city history. Here’s a look at some of the biggest items the body has worked on in the first half of the year.
Several initiatives, manuals aim to make streets safer
Council committees have made several moves this year aimed at making Lexington’s roads safer for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers.
The biggest step toward improving roadway safety has been the move toward adopting the Complete Streets Design Manual. The manual sets new rules for how city streets and roads are built.
The environmental quality and public works committee advanced the manual in June. The full council will vote on the manual in August.
Rather than prioritizing travel speeds for cars as the previous city road manual did, the Complete Streets Manual prioritizes safety. Nearly all street types require wide sidewalks, street trees and bike lanes separated from car traffic by a curb buffer. Most intersections are recommended to be roundabouts or traffic circles to reduce potential car accidents.
The council’s general government and planning committee advanced an ordinance banning parking in bike lanes. The ordinance would penalize drivers for parking in bike lanes up to $100, although delivery drivers can park in the bike lane for up to 10 minutes to load or unload items. The full council will also take the ordinance up in August.
New plans for future boundary expansion, infrastructure funding
For 68 years since the creation of Lexington’s urban service boundary, there had not been a formal system for how or where to expand the boundary. Each expansion — and some retractions — of the boundary have been done with different, inconsistent processes.
But in February, the council adopted the Lexington Preservation and Growth Management Plan.
Under the program, Lexington Division of Planning staff would calculate how much land, if any, is needed for housing to meet Lexington’s expected 20-year population growth. The planning commission and council would hear those projections every five years.
If the data indicates Lexington needs new land for housing, the city council would kickstart the new process to add the identified number of acres and potentially remove land that has remained undeveloped despite having been inside the boundary.
The council and city staff started working on the growth management plan after the controversial vote to expand the boundary in 2023.
Another problem the city was tasked with in the wake of the expansion was figuring out how to pay for the expected $570 million in infrastructure costs necessary to develop the new expansion areas.
The council’s budget, finance and economic development committee advanced a new infrastructure plan for those areas in June.
The plan would require developers to pay for the majority of shared public infrastructure in the areas like roads, sewers and sidewalks. That shared infrastructure could cost as much as $345 million, the city estimates. The full council will take up the plan in August.
For developers who are first building in an area and will likely have to bear the brunt of those infrastructure costs, the plan sets out a reimbursement plan.
Future developers who benefit from the initial developer’s infrastructure would have to pay the city a privilege fee that would then go toward reimbursing a portion of the first developer’s expenses. Interest would accrue on the fee for up to 20 years as a way to incentivize property owners to quickly develop land in the expansion areas.
Lots of energy around solar panel debates
A major argument in city hall over the past several years has centered on whether Lexington’s rural farmland should house large-scale solar panel installations, often called solar farms.
Opponents argue solar farms could destroy Fayette County’s soil quality, while proponents argue rural land is best suited to build renewable energy needed to lower carbon emissions.
In 2025, the planning commission and the council adopted regulations for solar panels throughout Fayette County. Those regulations specifically banned ground-mounted solar on farmland if it is larger than 2,500 square feet.
But a small group of council members, led by 5th District Council member Liz Sheehan and 10th District Council member Dave Sevigny, pushed back on the ban. After failing in August 2025 to amend the regulations to allow solar farms, the two council members formed a work group to revisit the topic. The work group met through January 2026.
That work group’s time resulted in a proposed revision to the city’s solar regulations that would allow solar farms, although with more rigorous requirements than Sheehan and Sevigny tried to get past in 2025.
The council ultimately voted to send those regulations to the planning commission for consideration in April. The commission will vote in its July 9 meeting whether or not to accept Sheehan and Sevigny’s language that removes the solar farm ban or to follow planning staff’s recommendation to keep the ban in place.
Mayor Linda Gorton, who has spoken out against rural solar projects, has touted a proposal from Edelen Renewables to construct a 357-acre solar installation on the former Haley Pike landfill as an alternative to building on farmland.
The council approved that project in March, even after being heavily critical of the contract. Many members argued the lease payment from Edelen Renewables to the city was too low.
Additionally, the project faced opposition from the Lexington Model Airplane Club, which has held flying events at Haley Pike since the early 2000s and has now been displaced by the solar installation.
Largest city budget is still a tight budget
In June, the council finalized the budget for fiscal year 2027, which runs from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027.
While the budget is the biggest in Lexington’s history with a $546 million general fund, it is not flush with flashy projects. Increasing expenses and slower revenue growth compared to the first half of the 2020s mean the city does not have as much leeway in how money is allocated.
The council made relatively few changes to Gorton’s proposed budget, adding $2.75 million in spending — largely from a capital reserve account that the city has invested money into in prior budget years.
The budget includes $5.1 million dedicated to an enhance winter response. That money will go toward purchasing more snow plow trucks, additional salt and more contracts with private companies to tackle future winter events similar to those the city has struggled with the last two years.
Thanks to a new property tax approved by Lexington voters in 2024, the budget has $7.5 million allocated for new parks capital projects. Some of those are a new walking trail at the Kelley’s Landing park on the Kentucky River, a new playground at Addison Park and a new gazebo at Woodland Park.
Five new staff positions are included in the budget. Among those is a development liaison, who will work to help developers navigate the city’s planning processes and regulations. That position was a top priority of the council and advocacy group Lexington for Everyone.
