In both words and actions, Davis’s intent is clear: Undermine planning and zoning in Clark County

Will Mayer | Clark Coalition

This com­men­tary first appeared in The Winchester Sun.

The recent con­tro­ver­sy over com­ments made by Magistrate Chris Davis con­cern­ing plan­ning and zon­ing has sig­nif­i­cant impli­ca­tions for the future of Winchester and Clark County.

Whether you fol­low the actions of the Fiscal Court or not – if you pay tax­es in Clark County or rely on local ser­vices (law enforce­ment, fire, EMS, roads, etc.) – you will be impact­ed the deci­sions the Fiscal Court makes about how we grow as a community.

In our posi­tion state­ment of October 3^rd, Clark Coalition pushed back against Magistrate Davis’s pro­pos­al to seek changes or poten­tial­ly “do away with” the zon­ing ordi­nance. Let us be clear: We stand by our posi­tion state­ment and analy­sis of Magistrate Davis’s com­ments with­out reser­va­tion. That he has since attempt­ed to walk back some of those com­ments does not change the fact that he said them.

In his orig­i­nal com­ments to the Planning Commission, Mr. Davis declared Clark County is expe­ri­enc­ing “a hous­ing cri­sis.” Declaring some­thing a cri­sis should not be tak­en light­ly. The impli­ca­tion of doing so is to sus­pend the nor­mal rule of law– in this case plan­ning and zon­ing– and give gov­ern­ment offi­cials extra­or­di­nary power.

Residents of Clark County are no doubt expe­ri­enc­ing a nation­wide trend of high­er hous­ing costs. This is large­ly the result of high­er inter­est rates, infla­tion, high­er mate­r­i­al and labor costs, and a tight­en­ing in cred­it stan­dards which is a lega­cy of the sub­prime mort­gage cri­sis. However, it is not, as we detailed in our posi­tion state­ment, “due to a lack of devel­opable land in Clark County” and we would chal­lenge Mr. Davis’s moti­va­tion for label­ing it a crisis.

Elected officials have a duty to be well-informed

In January 2023, Clark Coalition’s board of direc­tors met with Magistrate Davis to present research and data and dis­cuss growth in Clark County. In that meet­ing, it was clear that Mr. Davis had a lim­it­ed under­stand­ing of plan­ning & zon­ing, as well as region­al devel­op­ments con­cern­ing land-use.

For exam­ple, he had no knowl­edge of the process then tak­ing place in Fayette County – name­ly the LFUCG Goal 4 work­group which was the dri­ving force behind the rec­om­men­da­tion to expand Lexington’s Urban Service Boundary.

Though Mr. Davis has been pre­sent­ed with the facts of Clark County’s huge inven­to­ry of devel­opable land with­in the cur­rent urban plan­ning bound­ary, and the dis­par­i­ty between rev­enues and costs of res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment– he choos­es not to acknowl­edge them because they do not sup­port his aim of pro­mot­ing devel­op­ment in the far reach­es of west­ern Clark County.

It is crit­i­cal that elect­ed offi­cials are well-informed, and that the poli­cies they enact are sup­port­ed by facts. That is part of the rea­son Clark Coalition exists – to com­mis­sion and con­duct high-qual­i­ty research so that our elect­ed offi­cials can make the best deci­sions for all of us.

Intent and context

A review of Mr. Davis’s body of work leaves no doubt as to his intent. At the December 2022 meet­ing of the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee, Mr. Davis was afford­ed over ten min­utes to advo­cate for an alter­na­tive devel­op­ment plan of the US-60 cor­ri­dor. Notably, that meet­ing did not per­mit pub­lic com­ment by pri­vate citizens.

In December 2023, he took a red pen to the Comprehensive Plan’s fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of “con­cen­trat­ing… devel­op­ment adja­cent to exist­ing devel­op­ment.” He fur­ther elim­i­nat­ed an objec­tive which sought “eval­u­ate the ben­e­fits and fea­si­bil­i­ty of merg­ing city and coun­ty government.”

Mr. Davis also led the effort to site the county’s new fire sta­tion north of the inter­state, despite the 2019 Fire Study call­ing for it to be locat­ed along Boonesboro Road, where thou­sands of local res­i­dents are cur­rent­ly under­served. Mr. Davis’s action has a real and detri­men­tal impact on the insur­ance pre­mi­ums that those res­i­dents pay.

It is clear from these past actions and his recent pub­lic state­ments Mr. Davis is rep­re­sent­ing his own inter­ests and not those of the cit­i­zens and tax­pay­ers of Clark County.

In an attempt to dis­cred­it Clark Coalition’s posi­tion, Mr. Davis cit­ed a let­ter writ­ten on October 8^th by Planning Commission attor­ney Robert Gullette. In that let­ter, Mr. Gullette asserts that “at no time did Mr. Davis call for the elim­i­na­tion of the Planning Commission, nor did he make any com­ment which could have rea­son­ably be [sic] inter­pret­ed to even have insin­u­at­ed that this was his desire.”

It is regret­table that Mr. Gullette has insert­ed him­self into the sit­u­a­tion with­out hav­ing full knowl­edge of the facts, as we have out­lined above. Mr. Davis’s com­ments are only the lat­est exam­ple of a long line of actions in which he has sought to under­mine sound land-use plan­ning in our community.

Clark Coalition sup­ports strong plan­ning and zon­ing, and respon­si­ble, data-dri­ven growth in our com­mu­ni­ty. Weakening or elim­i­nat­ing plan­ning and zon­ing would be a seri­ous mistake.

Will Mayer is the exec­u­tive direc­tor of Clark Coalition, a 501(c)4 non­prof­it whose mis­sion is to advance smart growth, sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and gov­ern­ment trans­paren­cy in Winchester-Clark County.