Planning Commission to Consider Multiple Rezoning Requests
Lexington’s planning staff has recommended postponing all eight rezoning requests scheduled for the Planning Commission’s Thursday docket. These requests include three significant housing proposals located within the county’s 2023 expansion areas, collectively proposing 2,721 units across five petitions that specify a unit count. Staff reports indicate that applicants have not yet demonstrated how their plans align with the Urban Growth Master Plan’s regulating plans and the 2045 Comprehensive Plan.
Among the specific proposals, the staff report for OK Gentry’s rezoning request states that the plan does not agree with multiple standards of the master plan’s regulating plan for Area 5. For Ball Homes’ rezoning request, staff noted that the justification letter lacks substantive discussion of the Urban Growth Master Plan beyond the land use element, and the fire division is requesting a second access for the proposed 560-unit development. Anderson Communities’ Andover Commons request, seeking to rezone 123.13 net acres for a 1,240-unit neighborhood, has already been postponed once. Staff for Up Campus’s rezoning request are inquiring about the project’s alignment with the 2026 Downtown Master Plan and the extent of public outreach conducted. The council previously voted down a student-housing rezoning for the same subdivision’s Maxwell Street and Kalmia Avenue frontage in November 2025.
The Planning Commission’s Subdivision Committee recommended approving the companion development plan for The Dean Lexington, contingent on the council’s future approval of the zone change. The Zoning Committee recommended postponing the Tom Collins Farm rezoning request at the applicant’s request, with the Subdivision Committee having flagged concerns about the loss of significant trees and a street that dead-ends. Staff also recommend postponing the zone change for the Turner Commons expansion and disapproving two variances that would eliminate the 20-foot yard and vehicle-area buffer along West Main Street.
In other planning news, a 24-hour campus market and smoke shop is seeking a conditional use for half of the former Arby’s building at 507 S. Limestone. The Urban County Council refused the rezoning of this building in 2023 when Dutch Bros sought it for a coffee drive-through. Augustin Escobar has an application for a two-story house on a vacant lot at 420 Hawkins Ave. near East Fourth Street.
Three text amendments are on the docket with staff support: Goodwill’s attended-donation-center amendment, the staff rewrite of the industrial zones, and the downtown zoning rewrite. The Urban Growth Master Plan amendment, which will establish standards for the 2,800 acres added to the urban service area in 2023, has a second work session scheduled for October 15 and a public hearing on October 22.
The Board of Adjustment recently approved Southern Cookhouse & Bar’s request for live entertainment at 844 Hays Blvd., with the condition that no external amplification of outdoor live entertainment be permitted. The Board also approved Shiloh Baptist Church’s childcare center on East Fifth Street and Engman Avenue. The Technical Review Committee is scheduled to address Sayre Christian Village’s Phase 7 nursing-home rebuild on Wednesday.
The Planning Commission is scheduled to convene at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in the council chamber at 200 E. Main St.