When Lexington For Everyone started, we said Lexington needs housing and places to work for everyone who wants to live here.
We worked with others to modestly expand the land use boundary for the first time in 26 years in areas along the interstate. City leaders are working to develop a master plan to guide development for housing and jobs in the expansion areas by December 2024.
But we’re also working with nonprofits, banks, builders, the city and Transylvania University to transform a former baseball complex inside the boundary to improve housing affordability. We’ll keep working on solutions to make Lexington for Everyone.
Why? Lexington is an incredible place, but there is much work to be done to advance jobs, homes and equity for our community, which currently ranks as the third hardest place in America for Gen Z to buy a home. Many have been blessed to raise their families here, but increasingly, their children will have to leave Lexington to work and live.
We’re losing people, losing jobs and losing the next generation. That trend can’t continue. The community must:
- Continue to invest more in affordable housing. Lexington for Everyone advocated for more investment in affordable housing, and the new budget invests more than ever. Lexington has a crisis for both affordable housing for low-income families and housing affordability for essential workers and first-time homebuyers. The median home price in Fayette County is more than $300,000 – double what it was 10 years ago. For a household that makes 80 percent of median income ($49,220), the maximum affordable home price is $167,000. Only 19 homes/townhomes were for sale at that price in June on Realtor.com — and one had no bedrooms.
The rent prices also are soaring. The website Apartment List ranked Lexington as the city with the second highest rent increases — five times higher than the national average.
Across the nation, the black-white homeownership gap is larger today than it was in 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was signed.
- Regularly evaluate the land use boundary to ensure adequate and appropriate growth. Although housing affordability is a national issue, Lexington’s land use policies have made challenges worse. According to PVA David O’Neill: “Approximately 500 new homes, excluding apartments, are built in Lexington each year, but that has not always been the case. The annual supply of new homes is down significantly (about 75%) over the last 25 years, bottoming out at 500 in 2011 – the depths of the recession, where it remains to this day. What effect on home prices would one expect from such a shift in supply vs. demand?”
In addition, Kentucky Housing Corporation is conducting a comprehensive statewide housing supply gap analysis for each county and the projected housing shortages in 5 years. It shows that Fayette County needs 22,000 more units.
We can’t increase supply in a meaningful way without regularly evaluating and adding more land. Infill is an important strategy, but it cannot be the only solution. Less than 4 percent of vacant and available land for development inside the current urban service area. City leaders in Portland, Oregon, review their land use boundary and add more land each year to meet community needs. If we wait for a generation for each update, then we’ll always be playing catch up.
- Streamline land use processes to make room for everyone. It currently takes an average of 283 days to get through the zoning process in Lexington, according to a consultant hired by the city. That’s 30 percent longer than it takes in Louisville. Most cities across the country are under 100. This regulatory inefficiency means more costs to develop property, which further increases home prices and disincentives affordable development.
We’ve taken positive steps forward this past year in conjunction with the council, but more work needs to be done.
You can stay involved by signing up for our newsletter, following us on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) and contacting council members at councilmembers@lexingtonky.gov to let them know that you want the city’s investment and regulations to support housing for all incomes and stages of life.
That’s why we’ll keep working on solutions. Together, we can make room for everyone.