Planning Commission postpones vote on HB 443 ZOTA

Last week, the Planning Commission decided to delay voting on the Ministerial Review of Development Plans Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment (or the HB 443 ZOTA for short) until April 10th.

• House Bill 443, passed by the State legislature and signed by the Governor last year, requires that cities’ planning and zoning regulations must be “objective” and “applied ministerially”. Essentially, the goal of the bill was to make regulations clear for developers and limit the Planning Commission’s ability to interpret regulations in a wide range of ways.
• This package of changes to Lexington’s zoning rules was designed to bring the city’s zoning ordinance into compliance with HB 443.
• You can read more about the content of the ZOTA here.

Planning Commission members were largely concerned with how quickly this large ZOTA was drafted and moved through. Several members mentioned wanting to take as much time as possible with it to make sure that the language did not inadvertently leave any loopholes or have any major mistakes once passed.

HB 443 takes effect on July 1st, 2025. If the ZOTA is not passed by then, many of Lexington’s planning regulations will not be enforceable because they will not meet HB 443’s definition of “objective.” The Planning Commission will need to make any changes they see fit to the ZOTA and then send it to Council, who may make changes of their own to the ZOTA.

Council’s last day of session before their Summer Recess is July 3rd. They are currently on Spring Recess until April 15th.