Democratic Socialist candidate for Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council At-Large Herbert Lynn has pitched a new “vacancy tax” on empty housing units as a signature solution to Lexington’s affordability crisis — a proposal he’s promoted while citing housing figures that do not withstand basic scrutiny.
But local experts contacted by The Lexington Times say the city likely does not have the authority under current Kentucky law to implement the kind of vacancy tax Lynn is proposing without significant changes at the state level — and possibly more.
During a recent Reddit “Ask Me Anything,” Lynn claimed Lexington has more than 63,000 vacant housing units, a number he cited as justification for taxing unused housing stock. When asked for a source, Lynn linked to a third-party site, Synergos Technologies, whose data listed Lexington as having roughly 576,000 occupied housing units — a figure that far exceeds not only Lexington’s population but even the total population of the broader Lexington metro area…