Week of June 1, 2021

Written By Richard Young

🔦 Highlights

📺 - Watch this: Sustainable Growth Task Force

  • While the Council might be on break this week, important issues before governmental bodies never stop! This week, we'll be watching the June 2nd meeting of the Sustainabe Growth Task Force to see the direction they are taking their crucial work around of one Lexington's most contentious issues.

    If you don't know, here's the Task Force's goal: "developing an objective, transparent, and reliable framework to inform long-term land use decisions involving the Urban Service Boundary (USB) and its role in protecting the urban and rural balance that makes Lexington unique."

🏃 - Do this: Complete our Public Comment Survey

  • We've received over 800 responses to our Public Comment survey, but we're not done yet. We've extended the deadline for the Friday after our presentation of preliminary findings in June to the General Government and Social Services Committee. Make sure to take it if you haven't yet!

🗞 - Read this: All of the budget coverage

💡 This week in City Government

Tuesday, June 1

No Public Meetings


Wednesday, June 2

🏘 - Infill & Redevelopment Steering Committee
📺 - 10:30am on June 2 via Zoom
📖 - Read the Agenda

Highlights:


🚜 - Mayor's Sustainable Growth Task Force
📺 - 1:00pm on June 2 via Zoom
📖 - Read the Agenda

Highlights:

  • The Sustainable Growth Task Force will discuss how the City of Lexington is growing, the conditions of developable land across the county, and what aspects should determine how Lexington grows or if it should expand the Urban Services Boundary. Read more about this here.


Thursday, June 3

🚧 - Planning Commission Subdivision Committee
📺 - 8:30am on June 3 via LexTV

🎨 - Public Arts Commission
📺 - 12:00pm on June 3 via Zoom

🚧 - Planning Commission Zoning Committee
📺 - 1:30pm on June 3 via LexTV
📖 - Read the Agenda

Friday, June 4

💦 - Stormwater Stakeholder Committee
📺 - 9:00am on June 4 (no link available)

🚲 - Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee
📺 - 12:00pm on June 4 (no link available)

🏃 Get engaged

🖐 - Public Comment Survey
Deadline Extended!
In case you didn't know, we just released a survey in partnership with the City of Lexington to examine and reimagine the public comment/input process. We'd love to hear from you about your experience interacting with City Government, and how you think it could be better.

Interested? Fill out the survey here before June 18.

💰- Budget Workshop
Join us for our first in-person budget workshop of 2021 on Monday, June 14, at 6pm! We'll take a look at LFUCG's FY21/22 budget, which is currently before council for approval. We'll also look at how the budget process works and play an interactive game! Registration Required.

Register here.

Social Distancing & Capacity Guidelines:

  • Capacity of 20 people; social distancing will be encouraged.

  • We strongly encourage unvaccinated people not to attend our in-person, indoor events.

  • Masks will be strongly encouraged and we will have extra masks available for anyone that would like one.

  • Please be respectful of our rules and keep the safety of your neighbors in mind.

🏘 - Lexington Forum - Real Estate Market Analysis and Affordable Housing

On June 3rd at 7:00am, the Lexington Forum will be hosting a conversation on the current state of Lexington's housing market, including the state of Affordable Housing. The conversation will feature Justin Landon, CEO of Lexington-Bluegrass Association of Realtors, Charlie Lanter, Lexington Fayette Urban County Government's Director of Grants and Special Programs, and our very own Richard Young!

$25 registration fee includes breakfast. Register here.

🅿️ - Rethink Parking
The Division of Planning has put out a call for community members to help gather data to evaluate the current parking situation in our city. Learn more and take the Parking Survey here.

🗞 Did you miss it?

🏢  - May 25th Committee of the Whole

  • Council Budget Links presented their recommended changes to the Mayor's Proposed Budget. They were approved as indicated below.

    • $40M increase for a new Sports Complex for Parks and Recreation (Rejected)

    • $3M increase to create a new Police Facility in the East Sector (Approved)

    • $1.2M increase for a new ladder truck for the Division of Fire & Emergency Services (Approved)

    • $150k increase for Human Rights Commission (Approved)

    • $24k to increase the Citizen's Advocate position from 20 to 25 hours per week. (Approved)

  • Council Members are also recommended individual funding priorities to the budget. These include:

    • $750k for improvements to Shroprshire Ave. (J Brown, Approved)

    • $150k for a design study for improvements to Phoenix Park (LeGris, Approved)

    • $90k for a new Sustainability Coordinator position (Kay, Approved)

    • $50k for the Lexington History Museum (Plomin, Approved)

  • 📰 - From the Herald-Leader on this meeting:


🏢 - May 25th Council Work Session

  • New Circle Investments, the developer of the proposed hotel in the Distillery District is requesting the City of Lexington subsidize their development by issuing them $39M in Industrial Revenue Bonds for their development.

  • The Council approved the subsidy for the development, and it will be up for its first reading on June 10.

  • The proposed $37.4M development will feature a luxury hotel, including a rooftop bar, full-service bar, and more.

  • The awarding of an Industrial Revenue Bond would mean that the City of Lexington, Fayette County Public Schools, the Lexington Public Library, and LexTran (among other agencies) would not receive any Property Tax income from the property unless an individual agreement has been reached - called a PILOT, or Payment in Lieu of Taxes.

  • In last week's Council Work Session, representatives of the Lexington Public Library objected to the Council hearing the presentation of the Industrial Revenue Bond since they had not been contacted by the developer at all.

📰 - More good reads from our friends at the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Richard Young
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