Amy Wallot/LFUCG
Liz Sheehan
Ever since Lexington became the first city in the country to create an urban service boundary in 1958, the topic has fueled debate. The discussion resurfaced in 2023 when councilmembers voted to expand the boundary for the first time in more than 25 years.
Dan Wu
The urban service boundary is one of many variables in the city’s Lexington Preservation and Growth Management Plan (LPGMP), which was previously part of the city’s five-year comprehensive plan. Earlier this year, the LPGMP separated from the overall plan to allow more focused attention on growth and preservation.
Two leading voices in current discussions are Fifth-District Councilmember Liz Sheehan, a University of Kentucky psychology professor and chair of the General Government and Planning Committee overseeing the LPGMP, and Vice Mayor Dan Wu, who sponsors the policy. Business Lexington spoke with them about proposed changes, prioritizing infill development, addressing the housing crisis, and more.
Tell us about proposed changes to the Lexington Preservation and Growth Management Plan.
Liz Sheehan: In the past, discussions about our urban service area have been tied to our comprehensive plan review that happens every five years. That plan, which we last did a couple of years ago, is about the vision of our community, not just how big our urban service area is. For instance, there are entire sections on our environmental goals, transportation, jobs, the economy, and housing. It’s basically our entire vision for the growth of our community and what we want it to look like 20 years from now.
Previously, our discussions mostly revolved around the “expand or don’t expand” issue related to land use, so our last two comprehensive plans have said that plan should not be part of those discussions, but rather its own data-driven process. It’s separating those long-term goals and vision from the specifics of expansion language so that they can both be discussed on their own.
Dan Wu: It seems like every time we have a comprehensive plan conversation, the oxygen gets sucked out of the room by the expansion question and winds up overshadowing a lot of other equally important stuff. There’s been this binary for too long of either being for preservation or for growth, which has thrown out any nuanced conversation. My hope is this program and the changes we’ve made help to change that narrative so we can have a much more data- and needs-driven approach to the planning.
Aside from the growth boundary, what is the biggest issue you’re looking to combat in these discussions?
Sheehan: We are currently in a housing crisis, particularly when it comes to affordable housing and people that make 80 percent or less of our area median income. Overall, housing availability has been scarce at all income levels, so a big part of the conversations we had during the comprehensive plan were what calculations would go into determining the LPGMP. Using a predictive formula, we process what our housing needs will be for the future to help us set what land needs are and to guide future development.
Wu: A lot of those conversations factor in more when you get into the master planning phase. For example, the areas we just expanded two years ago are having their development informed by everything from walkability to proximity to services, mixed-use, and density. Both are big discussions that needed their own space.
A big issue related to the service boundary is prioritizing infill development, which a majority of the public seems to support. Where do things stand there?
Wu: No matter what the growth study gives us, the first step is to look at our policies and regulations that feed directly into our infill process and how we can make them better. In terms of how much vacant land we have, that’s something I want to take a look at. It’s always a dicey proposition because what one person considers vacant may not be available. A vacant or underdeveloped property is one thing, but it’s another thing if the owner of that property doesn’t want to do anything with it. We currently don’t have any mechanisms in place to force or incentivize them to do that, but it is something we’re looking at.
One thing I’d love for us to take a look at is surface parking lots in our downtown — they make up something like 30 percent of the area. To me, in the middle of a housing crisis, that is not the best use of our land.
What’s next for the LPGMP?
Sheehan: The next meeting of our General Government and Planning Committee for council, which I chair, and the LPGMP will be items on the agenda at our Dec. 13 meeting. We’ll be discussing this particular program and the draft language that you can look at on Engage Lexington. We’ve been getting community feedback since our last meeting on this item in September. Our goal is to bring that draft to a vote in the council later that month so that it has time to go through the planning commission and other necessary steps prior to its August 2026 deadline.
Wu: In the past year of working on this project, we’ve been really diligent about building in a lot of public input by having meetings with major stakeholders and letting that input guide our discussions and planning. But ultimately, whatever we pass will not be perfect — I don’t think a product like this ever will be. We’re just trying to get it to make sense so we can maintain the balance that makes Lexington unique.