Every Day We Delay exposes consequences of housing supply shortage
Housing scarcity affects the daily lives of all residents —from skyrocketing home and rental prices to greater sprawl to the potential loss of our future workforce and economic competitiveness.
There is a real and growing cost of inaction, so we must attack the housing shortage with a sense of urgency.
We can only solve this crisis if we acknowledge the scope of the problem and work together every day on solutions. If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we will just get further and further behind.
Join the 30 by 30 Campaign
The crisis is real and growing:
- For households earning $75,000, only 21% of the homes sold in Fayette County in 2025 were attainable.
- Lexington ranked seventh highest in rent increases in the country in 2022 and had a higher percentage of rent increases than New York City in 2023.
- Lexington had a 1 percent decline in its under-30 population while the surrounding counties saw an increase.
- By 2030, Lexington will have more people over age 65 than under 18 for the first time in its history.
- Lexington was named the third most difficult place for Gen Z to buy a home.
The solutions require creativity and collaboration. They include:
- Create a housing goal and tracker: Cities such as Madison, Wisconsin, have set a goal of 15,000 new homes and created an online housing tracker to hold themselves accountable.
- Cut red tape: The city’s own study of the planning process shows that it takes more than twice as long to get through the development process here than the national average.
Since that time, Lexington has added or is contemplating adding more than 530 pages of additional regulations. - Analyze vacant/underutilized/corridor land opportunities for infill and redevelopment and create connections to facilitate that redevelopment.
- Create/incentivize public-private partnerships for workforce housing.
- Expedite infrastructure to the expansion area for new housing units.
- Study the long-term capacity of the sewer system to ensure we are planning properly for the future.
Email your council members and ask them to support these common-sense, balanced proposals. Find individual council members here or email all at CouncilMembers-Email@lexingtonky.gov.
