The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council has multiple high-profile issues before it, including how industrial solar and data centers can be regulated.
Those discussion are coming amid significant pushback over the city’s use of Flock cameras.
WEKU’s Shepherd Snyder spoke to CivicLex’s Aaron Mudd on where the council stands on these issues.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Shepherd Snyder: Great to be talking with you. Thanks for being here in the studio. The two big things that council has been discussing kind of through the summer has been industrial solar and also data centers. And I know the planning commission had these big public hearings on both of these items, and now they're both back to council for them to discuss. Do you want to talk about solar first?
Aaron Mudd: Yeah, sure. It might be good to just kind of review where things stand right now. So Lexington city council is considering whether to allow large-scale solar projects on agricultural land in Fayette County. Recently, council voted 8-7 on Aug. 18 to restore language allowing large- and intermediate-scale ground-mounted solar in agricultural zones. That was an initial vote. The ordinance they're considering is expected to come back to council for a final vote on Sept. 10.
And this is kind of a reversal from last year when council voted against allowing large-scale solar farms on rural land. The issue came back to council from a working group that spent about six months developing proposed rules for large-scale solar. So it is important to note that council has not yet given final approval to these projects. The Sept. 10 vote would be the final vote on these proposed zoning changes that they are considering.
Snyder: The thing that interests me about it is that just earlier this summer, when the planning commission was doing their public hearing, they kind of upheld that initial, recommended ban to keep industrial solar out of Fayette County's rural areas. And it was a pretty narrow initial vote. But council, I think, approved, what was it, to allow solar in 1% of rural lands?
Mudd: The council has previously reverted to some more permissive language than what the planning commission was proposing, which was more restrictive and not really allowing for large-scale solar in any agricultural zones. This proposal would allow large-scale projects, larger than 5 acres, as a conditional use in Lexington's agricultural rural and agricultural urban zones. It would also allow intermediate scale, so a little bit smaller.
A conditional use doesn't mean a developer automatically gets approval. The project would still have to go through the conditional use process, which is reviewed by Lexington's Board of Adjustment. And as you mentioned, there would still be a cap on large-scale solar in Lexington's agricultural areas of no more than 1% in Fayette County's total acreage that could be used for large-scale ground-mounted solar. So, that's about 1,800 acres.
Snyder: There's been an interesting debate (between) who wants this to happen, at least in these rural areas, and preservationists, people who kind of want to preserve those for other usage. The debate's pretty interesting to me. Can we kind of talk about that a little bit?
Mudd: Yeah, so this is something that has kind of hinged on Lexington's identity versus a desire to meet these net-zero goals. Council has a stated goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas gas emissions by 2050. And proponents of this ordinance say that it's not really enough to just do rooftop solar or solar in parking lots. There needs to be some space for these larger scale projects, with limitations. Then there are people who oppose that and want to keep the agricultural zones strictly for agriculture. They see that as a key part of Lexington's identity. It's the horse capital of the world, has some of the most fertile soils in the world, is what they will say. So yeah, it's a real tug-of-war between those two groups.
Snyder: Yeah, and pivoting to the other big topic that's been going through council, kind of throughout this summer and it seems like it's going to continue at least through the fall, is data centers. Off the top of my head, there was the Lexmark sale, and that kind of alerted council, they voted to enact a moratorium, and then they also had the planning commission set up these zoning ordinances and guidelines for how data centers can be developed. Can we kind of talk about that background before we get into where we're at now?
Mudd: Yeah, so as you mentioned, you may remember in June that they voted to temporarily pause data center development, and that moratorium is effective through at least Oct. 31. It followed some reporting from the Lexington Herald-Leader that a data center developer had acquired the former Lexmark property on West New Circle Road in Lexington, and that did take a lot of council members by surprise.
Council had been working to update its local zoning laws to better regulate modern data centers, but I think that prompted council to kind of speed up its timetable a bit. At that same meeting in June, council also directed the local planning commission to start developing changes to Lexington's zoning laws to regulate data centers. And in July, the planning commission went through its own process to develop the draft zoning updates that included a meeting that had a lot of public comment and stretched on for several hours.
Snyder: I feel like that speaks to just the amount of buzz this topic is getting, because like we said earlier, there were hours and hours of public comment to the planning commission already. And I remember being at the meeting where they held that public comment, and the planning commission ended up writing in a bunch of extra restrictions to how data centers can be constructed or zoned. Can we go into those restrictions?
Mudd: Yeah, so there was an initial draft of the zoning ordinance that proposed a complete ban on data centers in Lexington's agricultural zones, and it proposed allowing only minor data centers, which are 50,000 square feet or less, in certain commercial and industrial zones as a conditional use. That's provided they can meet several operational and environmental standards like noise, water and energy consumption.
And as you mentioned, in July, the planning commission recommended its own revisions, including further limiting minor data centers to no more than 40,000 square feet and capping their energy capacity at 25 megawatts. So right now, the ball is really in council's court as to how it will decide how to proceed.
Snyder: How likely do you think it is that council makes a decision on whether to pass these, or do something before that moratorium, or could they extend it?
Mudd: Well, I think anyone who's looked at this topic, they've probably discovered that it's a very nuanced issue, and data centers are kind of integrated into just how the internet works. There is a desire by some council members to make a carve out for smaller server rooms, or banks and businesses that use that kind of infrastructure while also having restrictions on these hyper scale data centers that tend to freak people out.
Snyder: Yeah, used by the artificial intelligence industry.
Mudd: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Snyder: Speaking of AI, there is a third topic I want to get at, and this is kind of interesting because — correct me if I'm wrong, but council isn't hearing anything related to Flock cameras currently, but there's been a lot of buzz and kind of pushback against Lexington's contract with Flock and its usage of Flock cameras. Can we talk about that for a little bit?
Mudd: Yeah, I mean we saw this at a (Aug. 28) council meeting where we heard a lot from local residents about the city's contract with Flock, and I think I counted at least 20 people who showed up, there may have been more, to speak on the issue. Flock wasn't on the agenda, and speakers who want to address items that aren't on the council meeting's agenda typically have to wait until the very end of a long meeting.
Most of the speakers called for the city to end its contract with Flock Safety and restrict the use of automated license plate readers, ALPRs. There were a small number of residents who spoke in favor of the cameras, saying they make them feel safe and safer in their neighborhoods.
Snyder: There's no action currently being taken on Flock, or no action being heard on Flock, but it does speak to this kind of wider, more statewide and nationwide discussion about these sort of cameras and potential invasion of privacy.
Mudd: Yeah, that's right. Residents raised concerns about police misusing the cameras and possible invasions of privacy and false alerts. We saw that residents spoke about those concerns. We've also seen those concerns play out at the national level. You may know that last month, the Washington Post published an investigation finding dozens of cases of police using Flock cameras to stalk women without their knowledge. Here in Kentucky, a Shively police officer was arrested for allegedly using Flock cameras to track his ex-girlfriend more than 2,000 times.
Lexington Councilmember Emma Curtis, who was the only council member to address the Flock cameras at that meeting last week, she said she doesn't believe local police have misused them. However, she said they do more harm than good and that she opposes them. Curtis wasn't on the council when Lexington began using the cameras and expanding its local Flock network.
Snyder: They entered that contract in, what, 2022?
Mudd: The pilot was in 2022, and they've since expanded it to, according to the city's website, about 125 cameras.
Snyder: Right. Okay, I think that's all I've got. Anything else you think is worth mentioning?
Mudd: No, I think that's it.
Snyder: Alright, it's a pleasure having you.
