Council Approves FAR ZOTA
After postponing the issue for a month, at its September 24 meeting Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council approved a Zone Text Amendment (ZOTA) that increases the floor area ratio (FAR) in residential zones R3, R4, R5. Here is a link to a map of the county showing those zones. I posted a brief description of the FAR ZOTA on September 17.
After a fair amount of deliberation and consideration of what I was hearing from constituents I voted to approve the ZOTA. It received unanimous approval. Here are what emerged as the most important factors in my decision.
I understand and share the concern expressed by many people that there had not been adequate awareness of the proposed ordinance leading up to the vote originally scheduled for the September 17 Council Meeting. This was not because of any lapse or failure on the part of the planning staff or Commission. They followed all usual procedures, but this is not a usual time, and the lack of the opportunity for in-person public input is a serious handicap. Council voted unanimously to postpone the vote for a month to compensate for these special circumstances.
Also, because of COVID-19, I had suspended meetings of the Infill and Redevelopment Committee, where normally there would have been an opportunity to hear from planning staff about the Planning Commission’s work on this issue, an opportunity for input, and an opportunity to share that information more widely. Those meetings will resume next month. Going forward, we need to do more to ensure that all voices are aware of proposals and have the opportunity to be heard in a timely fashion.
On the substance of the ordinance, constituents raised a number of valid concerns. Planning staff provided responses to these concerns, but some people continued to voice opposition and to suggest amendments and further delay of the vote. I am not going to go through all the issues raised, but there is one major concern I feel the need to address directly because it underlies most of the specific objections raised, and that is the issue of increased density.
Some people expressed explicitly their concern that increasing density is, or will become, the dominant and over-riding value in decisions about zone changes and Zone Text Amendments. I believe that is not the case, and I am committed to doing what I can to assure that it does not become the case. Increased density is an important component of our long-term growth strategy. But in any Zone Text Amendment or zone change before us, the planning staff, the planning commission, and the council will always need to balance the need for increased density with the full range of values in the Comprehensive Plan, most especially the value of enhancing existing neighborhoods. One consideration will always need to be whether any proposal that increases density does so only where it is appropriate.
The decision on the FAR ZOTA was not an easy one for me, but I came to believe that, on balance, the opportunities for positive development that this ZOTA brings outweighs the possibility that it will be accompanied by negative impacts on the neighborhoods in the affected zones.
