Greenspace

Greenspace is key to successful neighborhoods. It has the benefits of improving air quality, providing social interactions, and improving public health.

Education

School sites should be appropriately sized for the needs of the community and designed to be an integral part of the community, rather than sequestered and closed off.

As Horse Capital of the World, horse farm style plank fences have become part of the cultural landscape of the Lexington Bluegrass region. Large portions of the major greenways are owned and maintained by LFUCG, and efforts should be expanded to incorporate horse farm style plank fences.

Protecting significant natural habitats, within the Rural Service Area and within the Urban Service Area where feasible, maintains biodiversity and protects habitat, native biota, and wildlife corridors.

As outlined in the 2017 Rural Land Management Plan, Lexington has had a long history of taking positive action to ensure the community’s rural heritage is preserved from unmanaged suburban sprawl. In 1958, the Urban Service Area Boundary was created to manage development, and has become a pioneering landmark for planning across the nation.

Bluegrass Farm-to-Table was founded in 2015 with a mission to promote the development of a more vibrant local food economy by supporting food-related agricultural development. It has 21 partners including the government, universities, schools, farms, private entities throughout the community.

Enhancing and strengthening the current Planning process to increase protection and responsible development when environmentally sensitive areas and/or trees are involved would help increase protection of tree stands, rare trees, natural habitats and wildlife within the urban service area in appropriate areas.

Availability and accessibility of greenspace is essential for human growth and development. As suggested in the 1994 Greenspace Plan, the benefits of creating a comprehensive greenspace system go far beyond leisure and aesthetics, and are fundamental to the future economy and quality of the environment of this community and the entire Bluegrass Region.

Lexington’s Zoning Ordinance (Subdivision Regulations Section 6-11) requires developers to evaluate a site’s geographic and topographic characteristics, including steep slopes and sinkholes, as part of the development planning process. New development is recommended to study the site’s geographic context in contours and watershed distributions before making master plans.

The urban forest plays an important role in supporting and improving the quality of life in urban areas. A tree’s shade and beauty contributes to the community’s health and softens the often hard appearance of urban landscapes and streetscapes.

Green infrastructure provides numerous environmental benefits, such as stormwater management, with limited disruption to natural land. It can serve as an urban oasis in the regional ecological system and create linkages within the greenspace network.

Lexington allows community gardens on public property such as parks and greenways, in areas where appropriate. Seedleaf was founded in 2007 with a mission to nourish communities by growing and sharing food in Lexington. The nonprofit grew three gardens in 2008, 10 gardens in 2009, and has grown steadily since then.

Since 2016, the stormwater manual has required the use of green infrastructure for stormwater management for both volume and water quality control.

Incentives should be explored to encourage new development or redevelopment to achieve green building standards.

Lexington’s neighboring cities have excellent examples for sustainability partnerships.

Development should provide greenspace or other community gathering spaces within walking distance of residents, especially if these amenities are not otherwise provided.

Strategic and walkable placement of amenities and greenspace is important as it provides for a high quality of life, but also because it reduces the vehicle miles traveled.

STAR Communities is a nonprofit organization that works to evaluate, improve, and certify sustainable communities. They administer the STAR Community Rating System (STAR), the nation’s first framework and certification program for local sustainability. Cities and counties use STAR to measure their progress across social, economic and environmental performance areas.

Agritourism is an increasingly important part of Lexington tourism, and with recent developments like the creation of Horse Country, which has accounted for over 70,000 horse farm tours alone since its inception, and Boone Creek Outdoors zip line canopy tours, the timing is right to continue with that momentum.

Visitors to Lexington frequently remark about the scenic beauty observed while driving through the farmland on the way to a destination. Trips to horse farms, distilleries, breweries, or any of the other tourist hot spots become as much about the journey as the destination.

According to the 2018 Parks and Recreation Master Plan:

“The Bluegrass Sports Commission previously approached the city about a partnership for the development of a sports complex to promote economic development.

Walkscore is a website that scores neighborhoods based on a formula that assesses a neighborhood’s walkability, bikeability, and multimodal service on a scale from 1 to 100. In reviewing local Lexington scores, some areas scored much higher in walk and bike scores than others.

The design of a city, its public spaces, and public infrastructure have important correlations with quality of life, social development, and other key components of human wellbeing. Likewise, appealing cities are more likely to attract a creative, innovative, and skilled workforce, and the investments that are needed to drive the urban economy.

Before the beginning of the 21st century, with world-renowned soils and the risk of losing farmland to large lot residential and other development, Lexington started a Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) program. The program has been in existence for nearly 20 years, with PDR easements protecting farmland for food security and for conservation of environmentally sensitive lands.

VisitLex’s 2018 Visitors Guide and the VisitLex website are packed with information about attractions, accommodations, dining, tours, and events of all kinds, plus great maps, with one of them showing the locations of horse farms. The VisitLex website includes horse farms in both Fayette and other counties, which is beneficial for regional tourism.

Mobility, social interaction, and physical activity enhance the quality of life of children, the aging population, persons with disabilities and the economically disadvantaged. The removal of barriers to independent travel reduces the need for more costly alternatives such as paratransit, private transportation services, and ‘hazard’ busing for school students.

Town Branch Commons will be a strip of Bluegrass running through downtown Lexington, roughly following the path of Town Branch, Lexington’s first water source. It will link the city's two major trails, Town Branch Trail and the Legacy Trail, to provide 22 miles of uninterrupted trail connecting downtown to the rural landscape.

The current Downtown Master Plan focused largely on specified projects and proposed infill locations. Since its adoption, the identified projects have largely either been completed or jettisoned for one reason or another. Further, the broad focus on infill lot identification did little to provide guidance on how those properties should develop.

Regional parks can provide multiple community-wide benefits relating to public health, recreation and environmental protection. They serve the city as a whole, in comparison to smaller parks, which meet local needs.

For decades, Lexington embraced strong Euclidian zoning as a way to protect residential uses from the negative externalities of incompatible land uses. However, the market has seen a significant shift in residential consumer preferences, to which Lexington must respond and address with more modern zoning regulations.

Having thoughtful design standards that are both flexible and responsive to diverse conditions is an essential component of moving toward a community filled with special places that are inviting and memorable.

Open space is key for livable, sustainable communities. Whether a commercial development or residential neighborhood, how people will interact and move within a space needs to be considered. Successful, usable open space requires both private and public open space areas, designed and incorporated intentionally into the fabric of all development.

Lexington’s history can be told in many ways, but none better than to look around and see the cultural places, the important structures, and the natural landscapes that created this community.

With many Fayette County schools due for expansion and/or renovations in the coming year(s) and the additional group of new schools slated for construction, consideration must be given to the significance of site design that extends beyond the building and into the natural landscape that immediately surrounds the property.

The 2018 Goals & Objectives for Imagine Lexington call for creating a new process for determining the when, where, why, and how of future USB modifications. This advocacy for a new way of looking at the USB is the cornerstone of this Comprehensive Plan, and is the next evolution of the nation’s first urban service boundary.

The last major overhaul of Lexington’s Zoning Ordinance in 1983, much needed in the wake of the City and County merger, also included significant revisions to the Land Subdivision Regulations. There was a focus on raising the bar for future development and ensuring that public infrastructure be built to standards that more adequately addressed public health and safety.

Imagine Lexington is full of policies that guide how development should occur throughout the city, and all of them are important. However, it can be difficult to ascertain by simply glancing at the text of the plan what developers should be aiming for with new proposed development or redevelopment.

Plans are only as good as their ability to gauge measurable results in a timely fashion. To know if a plan is reaching desired outcomes, it is imperative to track the successes and failures so future adjustments can be made and successes replicated. Imagine Lexington is crafted as a policy-based plan with very specific goals in mind.

The first Infill & Redevelopment Committee was created in 1996, which led to the 2001 Residential I/R Study, official adoption of the defined Infill & Redevelopment Area in the 2001 Comprehensive Plan, and subsequent regulatory changes to implement the Plan.

State statue provides direction on the findings necessary for proposed map amendments or zone changes. The primary threshold to clear is that the proposal must be in agreement with the adopted comprehensive plan.

The Bluegrass identity sets Lexington apart from the rest of the world. It is vital that this identity be preserved and maintained through the designation and preservation of greenspace; growth should strike a harmonious balance between development and preservation.

Stone fences are iconic to the historic and cultural landscape of Lexington’s rural heritage. They play a unique role in the region’s identity and contribute to the scenic views, rural corridors and rolling hills.

Lexington is not alone in reaping the natural and historical benefits of the Bluegrass Region, as the surrounding counties all have similar assets, as well unique cultural and historic draws that make the region an attractive tourist destination.

Regional planning efforts in the past have been difficult endeavors for many reasons; however, there is a shared goal among staff from all of Lexington’s regional neighbors to advance the basic principles of urban planning.

The focus of sustainable development is to raise the standard of living for current residents without precluding the same opportunity to future generations. There are three facets to sustainability through which all proposed development should be reviewed: Economic, Social, and Environmental.