LEXINGTON, Ky. — Lexington’s Planning Commission got its first look Thursday at a sweeping zoning ordinance rewrite designed to ensure the development standards laid out in the city’s Urban Growth Master Plan survive the shift to ministerial review under state law, while also receiving updates on a newly signed growth management ordinance, proposed floodplain protections and a long-range vision for the Blue Sky Parkway industrial corridor.
The work session, held Feb. 19 at the Phoenix Building, covered five substantive items in roughly two hours, with no formal votes taken. The session served as a policy preview for several initiatives that will come before the commission for action in the coming months.
Closing the House Bill 443 Gap
The most consequential item may have been the one with the least fanfare. Planner Daniel Crum told commissioners that staff is drafting a zoning ordinance text amendment — a change to the city’s land-use regulations — that would convert the recommendations embedded in the 2024 Urban Growth Master Plan from advisory language into enforceable, objective standards.
The issue stems from House Bill 443, a 2025 state law that limits local planning commissions’ discretionary review of final development plans to objective health, safety and welfare standards. Under the current framework, commissioners can evaluate preliminary development plans against the master plan’s goals for road connectivity, pedestrian infrastructure, shared commercial driveways and other design elements. But once a project advances to the final development plan stage, it is reviewed by staff through the Technical Review Committee using only the rules already written into the zoning ordinance.
Crum framed the change in simple terms: the plan currently says developers “should” do things like share driveways and provide interpersonal access between commercial sites. The text amendment would change “should” to “shall” — but only within the boundaries of the roughly 2,800 acres added to the urban service area under the master plan.
Staff plans to present draft language at the commission’s next work session. If the timeline holds, the amendment could be initiated in March, filed in early April, reviewed by committees in May and heard at a projected May 28 public hearing before going to the Urban County Council for final action.
Floodplain Rules Get First Major Update in a Decade
Senior Planner Eve Miller introduced a separate zoning text amendment targeting Article 19, the city’s floodplain conservation and protection regulations, which have not been substantively updated since 2016. The article was originally adopted in 1983.
Among the most significant proposed changes: a prohibition on creating new residential parcels that include floodplain land. Miller noted the policy would have the greatest impact in the new urban growth areas on the city’s east side. She said the move could also help homeowners avoid mandatory flood insurance requirements that are sometimes triggered when even a sliver of floodplain touches a residential lot.
The proposal also would update flood rate maps — currently referencing 2008 and 2014 data — to allow the city to use whatever maps are most current, ban dumpsters in floodplains, and tighten procedural rules for the Floodplain Appeals Committee.
Commissioner McClure raised concerns about unintended consequences, citing past cases where developers channelized streams into culverts or dumped fill to eliminate floodplain designations rather than work around them. Miller acknowledged the concern, calling it “a really wonderful point,” and said staff is working with the Division of Engineering and Division of Water Quality to avoid pushing developers toward environmentally damaging workarounds. She noted the challenge of crafting rules that account for the unique conditions of every parcel, particularly in the post-House Bill 443 legal landscape.
Blue Sky Parkway Reimagined as Industrial Campus
Consultant Sam Castro of TSW Design presented the commission with a three-quarters-complete small area plan for the Blue Sky Parkway corridor, envisioning a 20-plus-year transformation of the industrial area into what he described as an executive office-industrial campus.
Near-term improvements would include adding a 10-foot multi-use path and sidewalks along Blue Sky Parkway — where none currently exist — installing a three-way stop at Cutters Hill to address speeding complaints, and rebuilding a culvert that overtops in less than a 100-year storm event, cutting off access to the rear of the site during floods. Engineer Matt McLaren of Gresham Smith said the road at Cutters Hill would be raised about two feet to maintain safe passage during major rain events.
The longer-term vision includes a central spine road bisecting the parkway’s long, narrow parcels, new signalized intersections on Athens-Boonesboro Road to manage truck traffic, and a regional stormwater facility that could handle runoff for the entire front half of the site. Castro emphasized the plan is market-dependent and that property owners should not expect overnight change, noting the area’s energy is being driven by the nearby soccer stadium and the potential for more than 6,000 new households along Athens-Boonesboro Road.
McLaren also recommended installing empty PVC conduit beneath any new sidewalks and paths to allow future power and telecom redundancy — a low-cost investment, he said, that would prevent costly disruptions when utility providers are ready to extend service.
Growth Management Program Now Law
Planning Manager Hal Baillie reported that the Urban County Council approved Lexington’s Preservation and Growth Management Program on Feb. 12 and the mayor signed it into law the day of the work session. The program, now codified in city ordinance, establishes a formal framework for evaluating when and whether to expand the urban service boundary.
Baillie said the next step is a public notification for a comprehensive plan amendment that would formally incorporate the program as an element of the city’s Imagine Lexington plan. That amendment is targeted for the commission’s March 26 hearing.
Vacant Land Inventory Shows Consumption Underway
Baillie also presented the division’s annual data review, reporting that staff processed 774 applications and permits in the past year, including 15 zone change requests — nine approved, one denied, four still in process and one indefinitely postponed.
On vacant land, Baillie said staff completed an updated inventory the morning of the work session. The data shows vacant acreage within the urban service area rising between 2022 and 2024 — a direct result of the boundary expansion — but beginning to decline between 2024 and 2025 as development consumes newly available parcels. Infill activity was noted in the Coldstream area and in economic development zones north of the I-64/I-75 interchange.
Baillie cautioned commissioners to focus on acreage rather than parcel counts, since a single large property subdivided into hundreds of residential lots inflates the parcel number even as overall vacant acreage shrinks. He said the vacant land metric will be a key input for the newly adopted growth management program going forward.
A pointed exchange arose when a commissioner suggested that downtown surface parking lots without a primary use should be counted as vacant. Baillie pushed back, saying surface parking is a permitted principal use in downtown zoning districts and that classifying occupied properties as underutilized risks echoing the logic of urban renewal, which historically targeted minority neighborhoods for demolition. He drew a clear distinction, however, saying his concern was about the broader principle of labeling any lawful use as underutilized — not about protecting parking lots specifically.
The commission’s next meeting is a zoning hearing scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 26, at 1:30 p.m. in the council chambers.
