By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Boone County Fiscal Court approved a resolution petitioning the Planning Commission for a text amendment to the county’s zoning ordinance that would list short-term rental units as conditionally approved uses in all the zoning districts of the Graves Road interchange.
County Administrator Jeff Earlywine explained the mix-up that led to the resolution.
“I ask the court to think back a couple of years to 2021, when this court adopted two separate ordinances around the same time,” Earlywine said. “The first ordinance dealt with implementing the recommendation on the Graves Road interchange special study, which resulted in three or four new separate zoning districts, Graves Road residential district, commercial district, and business park district. In a separate issue around the same time the court had petitioned a special study from the planning commission involving the promulgation of regulations for short term rental uses.”
He said at the same time, due to an inadvertent omission from the planning commission, the court failed to incorporate within the new zoning districts the language relating to short-term rental uses as either a permitted or conditionally permitted use.
“Since that time we have actually had several residents that live up in the Graves Road area that expressed an interest in going through the application process to designate their unit for short-term rental use,” Earlywine explained. “We had to advise them it was an inadvertant omission, but that we couldnt really help them. So they didn’t have the same right and opportunity as anybody else in the county.”
He told commissioners that they had two ways to fix the problem; they could wait until the next zoning update, but the court didn’t feel that it would be fair to those residents and others who might be interested. Or, Earlywine said, they could initiate a text amendment, and work through the planning commission, bringing the report back to the court to see if commissioners would be inclined to incorporate those amendments into the Graves Road zoning district, the same as all the other zoning districts across the county.
“This resolution would simply direct the staff to move forward, make the application,” he said. “The text amendment process would go through the planning commission like every other text amendment. You all would see it in about 90 days and you could decide then if you want to follow through with the text amendment.”
Commissioner Jesse Brewer asked if this would make the Graves Road interchange on an equal footing with all the other areas in Boone County, that the same rules would apply to all areas, and Earlywine assured him it would.
Brewer motioned to have the staff move ahead with the application, and Commissioner Chet Hand seconded the motion.
Judge Executive Gary Moore clarified that no one in that area had applied for the short-term rentals as of yet.
The area in question consists of 2500 acres of land at the Graves Road Interchange.