By Carla Blanton, Lexington For Everyone Board Member
Your local bank, which you trust with your life savings, secure your mortgage and take out a car loan.
Your favorite mom and pop retailer and restaurant, where you find that special gift and celebrate that important milestone.
Your homebuilder, who creates the house that you make a home and make memories.
Your Realtor, who helps you navigate the process of making the American dream of homeownership come true.
Your local Goodwill, which takes your donations and does so much more through job training and placement for people who have employment barriers.
The professional associations that represent these local business owners, as well as Goodwill, Lexington for Everyone and Commerce Lexington are sounding the alarm about a massive, sweeping set of proposed regulations that may soon pass the Council without the regular committee process, which would include comprehensive public input.
The proposed ordinance is in response to House Bill 443, which simply seeks to provide clarity to the existing zoning processes already in place in each community. What the ordinance would do is the exact opposite. It means anyone who wants to build homes, which are desperately needed in Lexington, or create a business, would have to pour over more than 400 pages of technical, bureaucratic requirements.
The new regulations would all but guarantee that every development would require a waiver, which could cost $10,000 to $15,000 – not including any added costs by the actual regulations themselves.
Where is the cost-benefit analysis? Why the rush to pass the ordinance? Why bypass the regular committee process and stifle public input?
The rush – much less the regulations themselves – isn’t necessary. A sponsor of House Bill 443 confirmed it. And no other community in Kentucky is taking these sweeping actions. Not one.
If these regulations are truly a good idea, then they will still be a good idea a month from now after public input. But the truth is that these regulations send the signal that Lexington is closed for business. Contact your Councilmember, and let them know that this proposed ZOTA is bad for our community.
Carla Blanton is a board member of Lexington For Everyone, a nonprofit organization that promotes equitable and affordable living and working opportunities for all by advocating for sensible and inclusive land use policies.