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At its March 28 meeting, the Lexington Planning Commission considered an application by John Adamson to renew a conditional use permit allowing a portion of the old courthouse building at 2 S. Main St. to be used as a public assembly.
The original conditional use permit was approved in April 2009 for a 15-year period, allowing a room within the courthouse be used “for private school or assembly purposes.” Adamson requested the use condition be left in place, while the condition requiring renewal every 15 years be removed.
City planner Arne Glaeser noted that, at the time, private schools and assembly halls were allowed in the C-1 zoning district with a conditional use permit, but that many of the uses in the city’s zoning ordinance were amended in 2017, and those uses are no longer included in the ordinance.
The uses permitted in the ordinance that are most closely related to the ones used in the 2009 permit are public assembly and educational facility, college/university, which are both conditional uses in the C-1 zoning district.
He provided the Commission with revised language for the use condition to accurately reflect the current uses listed in the zoning ordinance, but acknowledged that Adamson had not reviewed the language.
The Commission generally agreed with the removal of the language requiring a 15 year renewal and supported the amended language for the uses. Commission Chair Pat Bradley proposed deferring a decision to Commission’s April 11 meeting to allow Adamson time to review the revised language. Shannon Spencer made a motion to defer the application, with Jon Eastwood providing the second.
The motion passed in a 6-0 vote. Commissioner Gladys Hopkins was not in attendance.
