Affordable Housing Parking

Supporting affordable housing through parking reform

Affordable housing providers have long indicated that Lexington's parking requirements present significant barriers to providing housing for those that desperately need it. This Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment (ZOTA for short), passed by the Urban County Council, looks to support affordable housing through parking reform. It is direct implementation of Imagine Lexington, and is one of many projects that are in various stages of development to match our regulations to the vision of the Comprehensive Plan.

What changed?

Instead of requiring developers to provide the greater of 0.9 parking spaces per bedroom or 1.5 parking spaces per dwelling unit, the approved changes now require 1 parking space per dwelling unit. This brings the required parking in line with that of single-family houses.

0.9 parking spaces per bedroom

1.5 parking spaces per dwelling unit

1 parking space per dwelling unit

Affordable housing often has more bedrooms to accommodate families. This typically would require the higher parking generator in the existing regulations to be applied.

Why change it?

The previous parking requirements were often a limiting factor in the creation of affordable housing projects.

According to the 2017 Housing Demand Study, Lexington has a need for affordable housing:

There is an unmet gap of 6,000 affordable units. Given Lexington’s average size of 2.3 people per household that equates to at least 14,280 residents seeking affordable housing (defined as housing totaling no more than 30% of a household’s annual expenses).

Parking and vehicle ownership considerations:

Upfront/ongoing maintenance costs of parking at the current levels leads to less money to develop/maintain units, and consumes more land, leading to fewer units and less open space for occupants.
On average there is less than one car per household for those households with the greatest need for affordable housing, those who make 60% of the Average Median Household Income (AMI) – the current regulations require up to three spaces per unit in most cases.

This revision does not change the developer's ability to provide additional parking as needed or desired.

Ultimately, the comprehensive plan’s goal of maintaining the Urban Service Boundary is predicated on implementing the policies and regulation changes within the plan, including supporting affordable housing supply. Over 10,000 people contributed to the development of those policy recommendations.