We need more housing, not more McMansions. City should stop Castleton plan | Opinion
What Lexington needs is a lot more affordable to mid-range housing.
What Lexington does not need is more McMansions on giant lots that take our best agricultural land out of use forever.
According to Herald-Leader reporter Beth Musgrave, the family of Irish millionaire and Ryanair founder Tony Ryan plans to subdivide Castleton Lyons, a historic, 1,000-acre horse farm out Newtown Pike, into 16 different lots.
This is technically allowed in the agricultural zone of Fayette County; there’s a limit of a minimum of 40-acre lots. That means giant single family houses on giant single lots.
If this were going to be used for dense affordable and accessible housing, it would be a good discussion. But we certainly don’t need more big houses for more rich people on some of Fayette County’s most valuable soil.
Some of the parcels are larger. There’s also a small chance that surrounding farms in that area may buy some of those lots and keep it farmland.
Let’s hope this is not about pique or spite.
The city turned down a plan by son Shane Ryan to spend $5 million to secure development rights for the farm. The plan could not get matching federal funds because of foreign ownership.
The Purchase of Development Rights program had proposed using local money for the purchase, which according to Musgrave, would have been “roughly twice what the city allocates to the Purchase of Development rights program each year.”
The city nixed the plan because it was too expensive. So, the Ryans decided that without being paid not to develop, they would go ahead and do so.
If the Ryans no longer want a Fayette County farm, there are plenty of other alternatives. Sell the property for the millions it’s worth. Or they could donate it to an organization like the Bluegrass Conservancy and get a heap off their tax bill.
The plan will be reviewed on July 3 at an Urban County Planning Commission subdivision subcommittee meeting. The full planning commission will review the plans at a July 11 meeting.
The local landowners who live near here and the Fayette Alliance were able to quite quickly shut down a soccer stadium near this site. Maybe they can do it again.
Public opinion should also stop this greedy plan to make a rich absentee owner just a little richer, while leaving Fayette County agriculture immeasurably poorer and still, once again, without affordable housing.
This story was originally published June 13, 2024 at 1:26 PM.
