LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Lexington Planning Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a 55-lot single-family subdivision on Price Road while directing residents of the adjacent historic St. Martins Village to take their fight over street connectivity to the Urban County Council. In a separate and more contentious vote, the commission approved a 45-unit affordable senior living facility on Old Schoolhouse Lane over vigorous neighborhood opposition, with at least one commissioner voting against it.
The two cases consumed much of the afternoon session and both turned on a similar tension: residents seeking to preserve the character of established neighborhoods against developments that staff said met all applicable regulations.
Suburban Point: 55 lots, three contested streets
The first case, a preliminary subdivision plan for the Suburban Point Subdivision Expansion at 421 Price Road, would create 55 single-family lots, two open space parcels, a detention basin and new streets on a large undeveloped parcel near Georgetown Road. The property is zoned R-1D, the same as the surrounding neighborhood.
The plan drew opposition from St. Martins Village, a neighborhood that residents and a historian who addressed the commission described as the first subdivision specifically established for Black homeowners in Lexington, dating to 1955. Residents said three stub streets — Dominican Drive, St. Martins Avenue and Tibbs Lane — were never designed to handle traffic from new development and that connecting them would erode the neighborhood’s historic character and quiet residential feel…