Lexington must boldly reimagine how we build, grow

I’ll cut to it. It’s high time for Lexington to boldly reimagine how we build, with vigilance, vision, and a willingness to ask tough questions about who our growth is serving.

The Aylesford neighborhood has seen this up-close and personally in the last year, and the experience is a cautionary tale for neighbors across the city:

Last fall at city hall, hundreds of concerned citizens successfully mobilized in defense of one of the last remaining pockets of historic, affordable housing in the downtown corridor.

Two weeks ago, some of those neighbors woke up to eviction notices: 45 days to vacate. Making way for an out-of-state private equity firm’s luxury student housing complexes, while working-class residents are pushed to the fringes of Lexington or out entirely as housing costs continue to rise. It’s been a wake-up call to three distinct structural vulnerabilities regarding Lexington’s growth.

First, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government currently operates with no policy or plan for the placement of private student housing. Even more concerning? There’s no formalized vehicle for collaborative planning between LFUCG and the University of Kentucky — the two largest entities in our city.

Out-of-state developers have been all too happy to exploit UK’s rapid enrollment growth in the absence of a shared, binding strategy between the city and the university. Too often, these developments jack up prices on students and their families and distort the local rental market. Worse, this type of development cannibalizes our existing affordable housing stock with no replacement.

Second, the current planning and development process often treats community input as an almost-bureaucratic hurdle rather than a foundational pillar. By the time public hearings are scheduled, the project has already gathered immense financial momentum behind closed doors, and the dynamic transforms public forums into battlegrounds where developers view neighbors as obstacles to be bypassed, and neighbors view developers as invaders to be repelled. The adversarial model exhausts everyone, is risky for investors, and has, to-date, failed to produce cohesive, thoughtful urban design.

And finally, our neighborhoods are struggling to establish our collective voice. In recent years, Lexington’s neighborhood associations have experienced significant attrition. To be clear, running an active association requires time, energy, and consistent leadership, but when neighborhood associations languish, our communities lose. Without a structured network to connect with each other and communicate with city leadership, neighborhoods can’t help plan for our own future, leaving neighbors atomized and cynical while decisions come from on-high.

We can do better in pursuit of a more vibrant and livable Lexington.

First, we can rebuild the bridge, formalizing the relationship between our city government and our state’s largest educational institution. This requires the restoration of the “Town and Gown Commission.” This commission should be an active body tasked with, in part, creating a binding, transparent, collaborative policy for UK-related development.

Second, we can mandate robust early-stage neighborhood collaboration. Neighborhood associations and local stakeholders should be treated as integral to our urban planning and development processes, with best practices for community engagement readily invested in.

And finally, as residents, we can revive and strengthen our neighborhood associations. This means stepping up, filling vacant leadership roles, and re-establishing these organizations as pillars of community life. Active neighborhood associations can craft proactive neighborhood plans, bring neighbors together, and broadly build the social cohesion that makes a place worth living in the first place.

Lexington is incredibly fortunate to have the data, the talent, and the drive necessary to model what 21st-century urban growth can look like, but we must first internalize a fundamental truth: growth for growth’s sake is a recipe for failing our neighbors — eroding our historic character and social fabric, and leaves us with consequences we cannot easily fix.

We can choose a stronger path forward. One where Lexington grows with intention, and keeps our people at the center of the blueprint.

Carrick Moon is an organizer with the neighborhood group, Aylesford Action.