The first draft of a new Urban Service Area amendment process

In May 8th's Council Committee of the Whole Meeting, Long Range Planning Manager Hal Baillie presented the first draft of the Lexington Preservation and Growth Management Program (LP&GMP). The LP&GMP, once adopted, will establish a new process for how the decision to change Lexington’s Urban Service Area (USA) will be made. It must be adopted by August 31st, 2026.

The presented LP&GMP draft proposes the following multi-step process:

1.) Planning Staff sends a recommendation on how to address growth needs to Council

• Every five years, the Planning Commission will hear a presentation on the updated Sustainable Growth Study Report. Using a variety of data, the Report will estimate Lexington’s residential, commercial, and industrial growth over the next 20 years. The Report will also estimate how much, if any, new acreage will be needed to address future growth.
• The Planning Commission will make a recommendation on how best to meet the Growth Report’s identified needs. The Planning Commission can either recommend Council pursue policy changes that would make it easier to address future growth needs in the City’s current USA, or can recommend adding a specific amount of acres to the USA.
• If the Growth Report does not identify any new needs, then no aspect of the LP&GMP process will occur beyond the Growth Report presentation.

2.) Council affirms, rejects, or changes the Planning Commission’s recommendation.

• Policy changes that do not require changing the USA, such as reforming Lexington’s zoning regulations, would move through the typical legislative process.
• If Council decides to explore changing the USA, then the process continues as outlined below.

3.) Planning Commission reviews vacant land from previous USA expansions.

• Before moving on to determine what areas to add to the USA, the Planning Commission would conduct a review of any existing land inside recent USA expansion areas that have not been developed.
• The Planning Commission can decide whether or not to remove undeveloped land from the USA. If they do, a public hearing would be held to hear community input on any proposed removal.
• The amount of acres removed from the USA, if any, would be added to the specified number of acres that the Planning Commission and Council originally voted to pursue.
  • Imagine that in steps 1 and 2 of this process, the Planning Commission and Council voted to add 4,000 acres to the USA. Then in step 3, the Planning Commission voted to remove 1,000 acres from the current USA. After the vote to remove acreage, Planning Commission and Council would then proceed to add 5,000 to the USA to adjust for the removal of 1,000 acres.

4.) Planning Commission decides where to expand the USA.

• After deciding whether or not to remove acreage from the existing USA, Planning Commission would open a 60-day window to hear proposals for what land should be added to the USB.
• A dedicated Subcommittee of the Planning Commission would evaluate expansion proposals and make recommendations to the full Planning Commission on what areas to add.
• Areas that the Planning Commission approves for addition would undergo a Master Planning process, similar to the Urban Growth Master Plan completed last year for the new USA expansion areas.

5.) A Master Plan for new areas will be developed.

• Once expansion areas are determined, Council would allocate money for a Master Plan to be created for the new expansion areas.
• Once the Master Plan is complete, the Planning Commission would vote to approve it as an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan.

While the Growth Management Report would be presented every five years, there is a provision allowing this discussion to start in-between those five-year cycles if a special need is identified. The presentation did not include an example of what a special need could look like.

What did Council think of the draft plan?

Councilmembers’ largest questions centered on what information will be placed into the Growth Management Report, and the idea of Council being able to add acreage for a special identified need outside the usual timeline of this proposed program.

Baillie said that Planning staff is working to figure out how exactly projections for needed acreage in the Growth Management Report are calculated. LFUCG will incorporate their own data, as well as data from the University of Kentucky, the US Census Bureau, and other agencies to make this projections. However, developing what data will inform the Growth Management Report is still in the very early stages.

While the Growth Management Report would be presented every five years, the proposed draft states that in between presentations a “special need” could be identified that could kickstart this process. Councilmembers Dave Sevigny and Hil Boone specifically asked if that would open up the possibility of developers consistently trying to get land added to the USA for special projects.

Baillie answered by stating that technically Council can rezone any piece of land outside the USA any time they want. More rules and guidelines will be developed for how a “special need” would be identified and considered, and adopting those formally would ideally mean that it would be harder to advocate for land being added to the USB for special uses than it technically is now.

Planning staff, Vice Mayor Dan Wu, and 5th District Councilmember Liz Sheehan will continue revising the proposed plan over the summer. They will be hosting a Public Input Session on May 22nd from 4-7pm at the Lexington Senior Center for Lexington residents to weigh in on the draft. An updated draft will be presented to the GGP Committee on September 9th.