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Urban Planning Advocate Says Lexington Should Look At Revising Zoning Laws Before Expanding USB

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As Lexington City leaders continue to debate whether to expand the Urban Service Boundary a national advocate for the promotion of the “urban way of life” says Lexington has plenty of developable land inside the city limits but for what he labels as overly restrictive zoning laws.  Nolan Gray is a native Lexingtonian and the policy director for the Center for Market Urbanism.

In a recent interview with WUKY Gray said any conversation about expanding Lexington's USB must also include discussing its outdated zoning laws.  He says that kind of restrictive thinking tends to blunt innovation and smart growth.

"Most of the property within the urban growth boundary is zoned for single family detached housing.  That means only your standard kind of home with two or three bedrooms and a garage can go there, you can't build apartments in a lot of areas even if there's a lot of demand for housing, which can lead to rising housing costs," Gray said.

The result of the restrictions, according to Gray, is counter-productive and unintended consequences:

"You might see an industrial area that needs to be redeveloped and the best way to redevelop that might be high density mixed use apartments, it might be housing for young professionals, housing for students, but in many cases that's very hard to build.  So what ends up happening when you have these tight restrictions in the city and a growth boundary is that increasingly people are forced to commute from outside of the city itself," Gray said.

Proponents of expansion say more land is needed to address Lexington's growing shortage of affordable housing.

The Urban County Council is taking public comment on the issue Tuesday afternoon.  The hearing gets underway at 5 in Council Chambers.