Candidate Questionnaire, Tate Ohmer

Tate Ohmer

Housing

Studies show Lexington needs about 22,500 new housing units across all types to fill the housing gap in our city, but 75% of the needed units are at or below 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI).

What strategies and locations do you believe Lexington should prioritize for housing growth in order to address these needs?

• Answer:

The Housing shortage is a city-wide crisis and must be addressed across the entire community.

Lexington has a sizable and ever-growing number of apartments, and a solid number of large single-family homes: what is truly lacking is the middle, the starter home– be it in the form of condos, townhomes, or triplexes. The inability for Lexingtonians to transition from renter to owner has put intense pressure on our rental market, driving up rental costs. This has left younger families unable to establish themselves and the older generation unable to find accessible and affordable housing.

The root of the solution then is to make it easier to build smaller but ownable properties. This can be done by expanding Lexington’s diversity of housing options. For example, South Bend, Indiana has had success with creating a catalog of pre-approved building plans that can be built affordably and quickly by-right. Through creative initiatives like this we can make it easier to build responsibly while preserving the style and charm of our neighborhoods, filling the housing gap.

Expansion

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council recently adopted the Preservation and Growth Management Program, which created a data-driven method for considering future expansions of the Urban Service Boundary (USB).

What factors do you believe are most important to consider if an expansion of the Urban Service Boundary was proposed to the Council during your term?

• Answer:

Land is Lexington’s most precious resource; ensuring that we use our land effectively is crucial. I would be cautious that expansion would solve the underlying problem of adding dwelling units. Lexington’s agricultural industry is a backbone to both our local economy and our identity: subtracting from it would be a major loss for the community at-large. Only once our stock of vacant land has been utilized would I support an expansion. In this case, it is important that expanded territories are treated equal to Lexington’s pre-existing stock, and that development leads to denser, walkable neighborhoods as opposed to detached and independent suburbs.

Agricultural Preservation

Agricultural industries, and the farmland that supports them, have an economic impact of $2.6 billion every year on Lexington-Fayette County’s economy and support more than 16,000 jobs across all twelve council districts.

What policies do you support that promote Lexington’s iconic and productive farmland and protect it from irresponsible future development?

• Answer:

I am dedicated to supporting our agricultural industry, a key and inseparable part of our community. Lexington’s farmland should not be treated disrespectfully. I believe we can make use of a multitude of policies, such as land use regulation or zoning reform, to support Lexington’s development interests without infringing on our productive and iconic rural acreage. It is important we give a voice to Fayette County residents beyond the urban service boundary and ensure that our most iconic economic sector remains strong.

Transit

Land use policy and public transit are closely linked. How do you think Lexington can prioritize transit oriented development moving forward and what strategies do you support to improve our city’s public transit system?

• Answer:

I believe that we should zoom out from thinking about transit oriented development as merely the expansion of existing infrastructure options. If we take the time to think about where people are located and where they want to go, instead of building infrastructure that leads to ever longer connections, we can actually work to shorten the distance. Anyone who has been on Nicholasville Road around rush hour or a home game knows that our traffic problem is bad and getting worse. The core of this growing issue is simple: people are taking more car trips, and these trips are getting longer. As more and more Lexingtonians are priced out of town but maintain their local jobs, the stock of daily commuters increases. As small neighborhood staple businesses feel the pressure, people drive further for groceries, for restaurants, for community, and for a night out.

My long term plan for transportation is two-pronged. The first prong is to reduce the need and length of drives by expanding walkable infrastructure both within and between existing neighborhoods. I have taken interest in Toronto’s “Neighborhood Retail and Services Initiative,” which allows certain corner lots in residential areas to be treated as light commercial for particular uses such as cafes, restaurants, and small-scale retail. I firmly believe that by strengthening opportunities within neighborhoods, we can reduce the total number of car trips taken. The second prong is to prioritize pedestrian and bike transportation through the expansion of safe, separated, shaded, and accessible pathways.

Downtown Area Master Plan

LFUCG recently adopted a new Downtown Area Master Plan. As the community works to increase the vibrancy of our downtown while also creating new housing opportunities, which implementation items from the Plan would you like to see prioritized and why?

• Answer: 

The Master Plan is immensely ambitious and presents a wonderful future for both our downtown and our city as a whole. However, without a standing organization with the strength and capital to implement it, I doubt we will see much progress on a great many of the plan’s aims. To quote Mike Tyson, “Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth.” I wholeheartedly support the creation of an independent and non-governmental, yet municipally backed, Downtown Community Development Corporation, modeled after Cincinnati’s 3CDC. This CDC would have the ability to directly build the beyond-needed affordable housing and mixed use development stock. From the city hall side, I would work to see the expansion of parks to include bordering streets and the additional planting of trees along our streets to promote walkability.

Data Centers

Lexington currently has a moratorium on data centers until October 31, 2026. How do you think Lexington should address the growing demand for data centers?

• Answer: 

Lexington should not, as it is seeking to do now, regulate data centers based on size but rather by utility usage. People are, rightfully, upset by the prospect of these centers coming to town and driving up costs. In building barriers based on square footage alone, we are blatantly missing two crucial points. First, that land goes for an absolute premium in Lexington and there simply aren’t the countless-acre plots to support these things, and second, that the energy intensity of data centers per square foot has been growing, and by all accounts will continue to grow. I will not support any development, regardless of its size, that would drive up your power or water bill, or cause a noisy nuisance to our existing communities.

Renewable Energy

What policies would you support to increase urban renewable energy development, like commercial and industrial rooftop solar, in Lexington-Fayette County’s built environment?

• Answer: 

The first point I want to make is that I will not support the destruction of our existing green land for the creation of solar farms in Lexington. In a city with as many parking lots, large commercial buildings, and industrial facilities as ours, there are endless opportunities for green-energy incorporation. To better promote walkability, we can even look to the Netherlands to see solar-integrated walkway coverage. Any conversation around large-scale green development must and should include our bordering counties, who have the industrial land stock to support solar farms.

Student Housing

As enrollment at the University of Kentucky expands, Lexington neighborhoods are feeling the pressure of increased demand for student housing. What growth strategies would you support to balance the need for student housing with the concerns of longtime residents?

• Answer: 

While I understand the University of Kentucky’s need to house its growing student body, we must recognize our need to house our existing long term and working class communities. This academic year, the University of Kentucky has 38,000 students, just over 10% of the city’s entire population, but just 8,500 beds on campus. This 29,500 bed gap is up 28% since 2010, leading to the growth in pressures on our longtime residents. The University reports that desire for on-campus housing has increased since the pandemic, and that students who live on campus on average do better academically than those who do not. It then seems common sense to me that the city and university should work together to encourage the construction of larger and denser on-campus living facilities to both give UK students the on-campus housing they’d benefit from, and protect our existing communities.

Urban Service Boundary

Lexington’s historic and productive agricultural lands feel more pressure each year for development of all kinds. Why do you think it is important to protect our Rural Service Area, and what policies do you support (in addition to the PDR program, vital for conservation) or would you like to see implemented to continue safeguarding it?

• Answer: 

Our stock of historic farmland is so inseparable from our existence as a community that we would become both unrecognizable and unremarkable without it, even without considering the sheer economic force and impact they provide our city through horse racing, tourism, and employment. Our urban-county founders set out to protect our farmlands through then-unique measures, like the urban service boundary in 1958 and Purchase of Development Rights in 1996. In pledging our city to be responsible protectors of our rural half, we must be responsible with our urban half. We must recycle underutilized land, update zoning laws to accommodate the missing middle of affordable and ownable properties, and ensure that we can protect what makes Lexington special.