Below is important information about the meeting on July 23rd about the proposed expansion of the mobile home park next to St. Martin’s Village Neighborhood.

Please check out our GoFundMe to help our community fight this rezoning and expansion of the mobile home park.

Thank you to all those who came to the Planning Commission Zone meeting on August 22, 2024. Here is a video from that meeting and a link to the LFUCG page with the agenda.

The following are videos from the July 23rd Meeting regarding the zone change.

The following documents and images are further information we received at the July 23rd meeting.

Getting the Word Out

Michelle Davis, the President of our St. Martin’s Village Neighborhood Association has been interviewed by several news outlets. Here are links to some of those articles.

Article from Lexington Herald – Lexington mobile home park gets OK to expand despite opposition.

Newsbreak posted a link to the interview from the Lexington Herald.

Interview with WKYT- Proposed expansion of Lexington mobile home park causing controversy

Interview with Spectrum News- Residents of historically Black Lexington neighborhood concerned about proposed zoning changes

For those who don’t subscribe, this article written in the newspaper. 

The Lexington council has rejected the expansion of a mobile home park on Price Road after hearing concerns from the adjoining St. Martin’s Village, one of Lexington’s first Black suburbs.

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted 10 to 1 Tuesday to deny a zone change from a single-family residential to a mobile home zone for 16 acres at 421 Price Road next to Suburban Pointe, a mobile home park with more than 500 mobile homes.

The vote came after a hearing that lasted more than four hours in a packed council chamber. More than 20 people spoke against the zone change.

The Urban County Planning Commission voted 7 to 1 in August to recommend approval of the zone change, but the commission recommended restricting access to St. Martin’s Village streets after multiple residents told the commission it did not want the mobile home park’s streets to connect to the neighborhood.

Several council members said it was a tough vote.

The expansion of the mobile home park would provide much-needed affordable housing, they said. Yet, the historic Black neighborhood, created at a time when Black people were barred from owning property and obtaining home loans, should be preserved and protected.

“We need more affordable housing. We have said that over and over,” said Councilwoman Jennifer Reynolds. “It comes in all shapes and sizes.”
Still, the concerns of the residents of St. Martin’s Village were valid, she said.

Councilwoman Tayna Fogle, who represents St. Martin’s Village, said too many Black neighborhoods have been gobbled up by development.

“Our Black neighborhoods are under attack. You can’t find them anymore,” Fogle said. “Please leave this community alone.”

Expansion of mobile home park would create affordable housing

The proposed expansion would have allowed Suburban Pointe to add 52 new lots. Some of those could have mobile homes with up to four bedrooms. If the expansion had been approved, Suburban Pointe would have had more than 600 lots. The plans also show athletic courts, a community center and a dog park.
Nick Nicholson, a lawyer for Suburban Pointe, said the city’s comprehensive plan, which guides development and determines what types of development can go where, stresses the importance of different housing types and more affordable housing.

Mobile homes are affordable and allow people to own their own homes, Nicholson said.

“This is true affordable housing, workforce housing project,” he said.
And, he said, the majority of the residents in Suburban Pointe are minorities.
The comprehensive plan also stresses using underused plots of land inside the city’s growth boundary. The property at 421 Price Road is currently unused agricultural land, Nicholson said.

Traci Wade, the city’s planning manager, said the city’s planning staff had recommended approval of the zone change
St. Martin’s Village pushes back

Bruce Simpson, a lawyer for St. Martin’s Village, said the neighborhood is not like others in Lexington.

Founded in 1955, St. Martin’s Village was Lexington’s first Black suburb. Black people had few other places to live, as deed restrictions kept them from buying in other parts of town.

Those deed restrictions have since been struck down by the courts.

But people stayed.

St. Martin’s Village is a large family, he said.

“It is more than just a color on a map. It’s more than a development plan,” Simpson said. “These are real connections with real people who had no place to go in 1955.”
Simpson said the comprehensive plan does not call for the expansion of mobile home parks.

“It’s come out of nowhere,” Simpson said. “It’s (mobile home zone) not a recommended zone to start with.”

Simpson said manufactured homes may be affordable on paper. People may own the home, but they don’t own the land. Mobile homeowners have to pay rent to the mobile home park owner. Those potential owners will have to pay to maintain the private streets and other infrastructure included in the plan, he argued.
The comprehensive plan also mentions enhancing neighborhoods, he said. This zone change will hurt St. Martin’s Village, Simpson argued.

“African-American neighborhoods are in jeopardy in our community,” he said.
St. Martin’s Village is not the first Black neighborhood to push back against proposed neighboring development.

The Urban County Planning Commission recently voted to turn down a zone change for a student apartment complex on South Limestone Avenue in Pralltown, a historic Black neighborhood. That zone change now will go to the Lexington council. A date for that vote has not been set.

Simpson said manufactured homes are affordable. People may own the home but they have to pay rent to the mobile home park owner. Manufactured home owners will have to pay to maintain the proposed private streets and other infrastructure.
“It’s not fair to St. Martin’s Village,” he said. “They have maintained a community that shines as a model.”

Concerns over street connections

Neighbors in St. Martin’s Village raised concerns during Tuesday’s hearing about connecting the expanded mobile home park to streets in their neighborhood — Tibbs Lane, Dominican Drive and St. Martin’s Avenue. All three currently dead-end into the property at 421 Price Road. The plans show a primary entrance on Price Road for the new section of the mobile home park.

Virgil Covington, a long-time resident, urged the council not to open those streets to the mobile home park. Covington said those streets have never been open.
“They don’t need to be opened up now,” Covington said.

City subdivision regulations require connectivity between neighborhoods. Increased connectivity helps cut traffic on collector streets. It’s also a public safety issue, city officials have long said. Police and fire vehicles need multiple ways in and out of an area.

Nicholson said Suburban Pointe showed the connections to Tibbs, Dominican and St. Martin’s Avenue because city regulations required it. Suburban Pointe is OK with not allowing those connections, he said, and agreed with the planning commission’s decision to close those streets into St. Martin’s Village.

Nicholson said they have agreed to a vegetation buffer — trees or other plants — between the new portion of the park and St. Martin’s Village.

‘Not wanted and not needed’

Several residents urged the council to deny the expansion on Tuesday.
Michelle Davis, president of St. Martin’s Village Neighborhood Association, has lived in St. Martin’s for 67 years. She, like many others who spoke against the zone change, has lived in the same home for more than a generation.

“It was the only place my parents could buy a home,” Davis said. “It has been a safe place to live and raise a family.”
When her mother was sick, her neighbors took care of her. “My neighbors were my second parents.”

Davis urged the council to turn down the zone change.

Ann Greene has lived in St. Martin’s Village for 60 years. She’s 91.
“We could not buy a house in any other part of the city,” Greene said. Black people weren’t welcome in other parts of the city. Greene said she sometimes feels that they still aren’t welcome.

“Our streets are narrow as it is,” Greene said. Traffic is a problem in St. Martin’s Village. It can’t handle more traffic. Greene urged the council to turn down the zone change.

“I am here to bitterly object to any disruption in our community. We don’t need it,” Greene said.

Rep. George Brown Jr. , D-Lexington, said his parents lived in St. Martin’s Village and his sister lived there. Brown is also a former Lexington council member.
“The story of the village means something,” Brown said. “Don’t put something in their neighborhood that is not wanted and is not needed.”

Council members who voted to reject the zone change: Whitney Elliott-Baxter, Jennifer Reynolds, Tayna Fogle, David Sevigny, Kathy Plomin, Shayla Lynch, Chuck Ellinger, Hannah LeGris, Liz Sheehan, Dan Wu.

Fred Brown supported the zone change.

The developers could appeal the decision to the Fayette Circuit Court. No decision on an appeal has been made.