A renewed plan to build an affordable apartment complex near Prospect was recommended forapproval Tuesday night and will now head to the Metro Council, which will have final say on the proposal.
The plan discussed Tuesday during three hours of presentations and public comment before the Louisville Metro Planning Commission is a slightly scaled-down version of a 2016 plan to build a four-story, 198-unit affordable apartment complex for seniors at 7301 River Road.
At the time, the proposal from LDG Development drew some 1,000 petition signatures in opposition of the development, with residents saying it was too large, lacked adequate public transit access and exposed future residents to possible negative health effects due to its proximity to a gas station.
Out of an audience of about 100, more than a dozen Prospect residents and those who live nearby took to the microphone at Tuesday's meeting at the Kentucky Country Day School theater to raise those points and others in speaking out against the proposal.
Mammoth. Oversized. Massive. Immense. Monstrosity. All were used by opponents of the development to emphasize how it would be a bad fit for Prospect, towering over everything around it, adding possibly hundreds of residents to a village of about 5,000.
Prospect Mayor John Evans centered his comments chiefly on the “enormous size” of the proposed building, comparing its proposed length, at nearly 500 feet, to nearly two football fields.
“It’s impossible to say that that would be compatible with the surroundings of our small town,” Evans said, adding that if the project were half the size, he wouldn’t be fighting it.
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Speakers raised a litany of concerns, from a lack of sidewalks to limited employment opportunities to insufficient parking spaces to support new residents. Multiple residents accused Louisville-based LDG of using a vulnerable population to make a dollar, sticking them out in the county with little support.
Cliff Ashburner, a Louisville attorney representing LDG, rebutted the assertion.
"Nobody is putting anyone anywhere," he said. "Underlying many of the concerns that I heard was a feeling that people who don't make as much money ... are going to be moved around like pawns on a chessboard, and that’s just not the case.”
Ashburner argued multi-family, affordable housing was needed in Prospect, an affluent community in far eastern Jefferson County dominated by single family homes, as it aligned with aims of the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, a long-range planning document meant to guide growth and development in Louisville Metro during the next two decades. The extensive plan emphasizes expanding and ensuring diverse housing choices, facilitating mixed-use neighborhood development and ensuring long-term affordability and livable options in all neighborhoods.
The need for affordable housing in Jefferson County was made clear in a 2019 study by Louisville Metro Government and the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund. It found that Louisville is short about 31,000 apartments for households making up to 30% of the area median income, which at the time was $71,500.
LDG is seeking to rezone the property for multi-family use. Its refiled proposal includes some changes to the 2016 plan, including removal of the age requirement and 178 apartments (20 fewer units) on three stories, instead of four, at the nearly 10-acre site, which is located near a Kroger, at the intersection of River Road and Timber Ridge Drive.
Current plans, which could be adjusted, call for 123 one-bedroom and 55 two-bedroom apartments. The proposed apartments would be for those making between 40% and 80% of the area median income, which in 2022 for a two-person household is between approximately $27,000 and $54,000.
Altered plan, same commission vote
Back in 2017, the Planning Commission also approved the Prospect Cove plans, but in a bipartisan and rare reversal of that body’s recommendation, the Louisville Metro Council voted 14-11 to deny the project.
Affordable housing advocates and LDG criticized the move at the time, saying it illustrated classic “not in my backyard” sentiment. LDG Development took the matter to Jefferson Circuit Court, alleging in a still-pending civil suit that the Metro Council’s vote was discriminatory and was in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause and the federal Fair Housing Act.
At Monday night’s Prospect city council meeting, following a discussion about the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on litigation over the complex, a resolution formally opposing Prospect Cove passed with five in favor and one abstention.
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Planning Commission members Tuesday seemed unpersuaded by opposition comments.
Before the body issued its unanimous approval decisions, board member Te'Andre Sistrunk said the lack of public transit and sidewalks was concerning, but that “most plans don’t tick all the boxes.”
"The question that we always have to ask ourselves is what comes first, the development or the infrastructure?" he said. "Very rarely do you get all at the same time.”
Member Suzanne Cheek said people could make the choice for themselves.
“I think it is needed out there,” she said of the development. “People are going to make their own intelligent, independent decisions about whether they want to live out there.”
The new proposal will now head to the council'sPlanning and Zoning Committee before moving to the full council.
This story may be updated.
Business reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at [email protected], 502-582-4000 or on Twitter @mattglo.
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