This week, Council will decide whether or not grant a public hearing for a zone change that would allow a 210 bedroom student apartment complex to be built on South Limestone near UK’s campus and at the edge of the Pralltown neighborhood. The zone change being requested would turn a number of properties on South Limestone into a Corridor-Node (CN) zone. The CN zone is a brand new zone which was created as part of the Urban Growth Management ZOTA passed by Council earlier this year. It is one of Lexington’s densest zones outside of downtown, and this development plan is the first plan to request the zone. The Planning Commission voted 5-4 against the zone change. Residents from Pralltown advocated against the development, worrying that it would further change the character of the  historically Black neighborhood, erase more of the neighborhood’s history, and increase property costs, leading to displacement of historically Black residents. Pralltown is one of Lexington’s oldest Black neighborhoods. It was founded in 1865 as a neighborhood open for recently freed slaves to purchase homes in. You can learn more about Pralltown here. Pralltown has seen significant changes over the past several decades. Due to its proximity to UK’s campus, homes in the neighborhood have been bought and redeveloped by private student housing companies, replacing longer-term residents with students. The neighborhood is now predominantly student housing with very few owner-occupied units. None of the properties related to this zone change are currently owner-occupied. In the Council Work Session on November 19th, Council debated whether or not to add the zone change to the November 21st Council Meeting docket for First Reading without a public hearing or whether to schedule a public hearing where the developer and neighbors could speak for and against the project. After a failed motion by At-Large Councilmember James Brown to place it on the November 21st docket without a public hearing, Council instead decided not to place it on the docket and not to schedule a public hearing. In essence, the zone change is currently in limbo and waiting for some kind of decision from Council. Council must vote for or against the zone change by January 22nd. If they fail to vote on it before then, the Planning Commission’s vote of disapproval will become the official vote and the development cannot move forward. This is Council’s last week of meetings, so they must decide whether to place the item on the December 5th docket for First Reading, or they can decide to schedule a public hearing for early January. The developer, Subtext, is seeking a public hearing to persuade Council to approve the zone change, despite the Planning Commission’s vote of disapproval. Subtext’s attorney, Nick Nicholson, has said that Subtext is willing to scale down the development by not building as far back into the neighborhood. The original plan called for demolishing the commercial buildings on Limestone between Prall and Montmullin Streets and 13 student rental buildings along Prall and Montmullin Streets in order to build the apartment building. According to Nicholson, Subtext is willing to reduce the development’s impact on Montmullin Street by leaving six buildings intact that were originally proposed for demolition, reducing the overall size of the building and removing 7 existing student rental houses instead of 13. Subtext has also offered to donate $1.5 million to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, or reserve 15 units in the project to be rented to residents who make 80% or below Area Median Income. The post Council will decide how to approach a zone change for development in Pralltown appeared first on The Lexington Times.