Lexington council should not open growth boundary without plan for affordable housing | Opinion

Ask a Lexingtonian who is knowledgeable about local politics whether or not to expand our Urban Service Boundary (USB), and you’re likely to get a heavy-handed opinion either vehemently for or against. Ask your average Lexingtonian about expanding the USB, however, and they might not even know what you’re talking about. But ask any Lexingtonian about whether or not something needs to be done about our ongoing housing crisis, and nearly all of us have a heavy-handed opinion: Yes. For God’s sake, please, somebody do something.

For years now, city leaders have overseen gentrification and displacement in parts of the city that have endured decades of under-investment in every area except policing. They’ve also overseen a booming short-term rental economy that took hundreds, if not thousands, of rental units off the market, while standing by as investors gobbled up thousands of properties, expanding their portfolios to get richer, and hiking rents in the process. In response, they’ve formed task forces, passed anemic policy, set aside less of our annual budget for affordable housing than they do to subsidize our golf courses, and generally seemed to hope everything would be ok.

Well, it isn’t, and now those same city leaders who did too little while Lexington became a place where only the white collared, wealthy, and visiting can afford to live without stress, have happened upon what they claim is a clear solution to our housing woes: expanding the Urban Service Boundary. Freeing up more land for development, we are told, will finally yield the housing stock we so desperately need. Development — not of the land and properties sitting vacant inside the current boundary — but of land that sits further away from the city’s center, is the answer.

Except no one seeking to expand the boundary seems willing to answer exactly how the expansion will get us more affordable housing.

Affordable housing, or even more accessible housing, doesn’t just happen. Like money, it doesn’t grow on trees. It has to be planned for, incentivized, forced. As Director of Planning, Jim Duncan, made clear at the Committee of the Whole two weeks ago, the division of planning cannot compel developers to build affordable housing. Only city council can do that.

The dirty truth about our housing troubles in Lexington is that they didn’t just happen. Our leaders — elected and otherwise — created the conditions we’re in by refusing to pass (or resisting the passage of) bold policies. They’ve also refused to fund solutions. So make no mistake: while many of our leaders — elected and otherwise — give grand lip service to being able to provide affordable housing through USB expansion, unless they put forth a planned for, incentivized, and forced path, we’ll not be getting any.

So what could they do, if they were serious about providing affordable housing — and housing for our low- to mid-income neighbors — through expansion of the USB? A lot. They could offer incentives to boost developer interest in providing such housing. They could pass inclusionary zoning requirements. They could pass a budget that subsidized creating more housing to meet the needs of working Lexingtonians who are barely getting by. The thing is: They could have already done all this, and they haven’t.

So what’s going on here? Why are we being told we’ll get affordable housing when there is no path to getting any? I won’t speculate as to the motives of those members of council and the public who are most vociferous in their calls for expansion, but I will say this to all those council members who truly desire to give us more affordable housing: Provide a path. Withhold your vote to expand the USB until council puts policies and/or funding in place that will guarantee we get the housing you claim you’re after. A handful of people stand to make a lot of money on this vote on June 15. Don’t let that be all that comes out of it.

Reva Russell English is an organizer, farmer and artist in Lexington.