LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A Jefferson County judge has affirmed the Metro Council’s decision in 2017 to block a zoning change for Prospect Cove, a proposed four-story apartment building for low-income seniors that was adamantly opposed by residents of the predominantly white, affluent suburb where most homes are single-family.
The March 9 ruling by Jefferson Circuit Judge Ann Bailey Smith is a setback for LDG Development in its multiyear request to salvage the project.
The affordable housing developer is asking Smith to reconsider her ruling, while continuing to press claims against Louisville Metro government alleging the rejection of Prospect Cove discriminates against Black, old and disabled people in violation of the U.S. constitution and the federal Fair Housing Act.
“We feel there is ample evidence that supports our position,” said Christi Lanier-Robinson, executive vice president of LDG Development. “… We remain committed to providing high quality affordable housing to hard working families and seniors throughout all of Metro Louisville.”
The Metro Council in 2017 voted 14 to 11 to reject a zoning change for Prospect Cove. Mayor Greg Fischer refused to sign the ordinance, saying Louisville needs affordable housing in all corners.
Smith said the Council based its decision in part on the scale of the apartment complex, which means it was not an “arbitrary” action subject to being overturned.
“Prospect Cove is, in fact, ‘massive’ … and even more so when compared to the single-family structures in its immediate vicinity,” Smith wrote.
The city of Prospect, which vehemently fought the development despite it being just outside its municipal boundary, applauded Bailey’s decision.
“It’s always been the city of Prospect’s position that it was inappropriate to locate this huge development in or around Prospect,” said Grover Potts, an attorney for Prospect.
Cathy Kuhn, executive director of the Metropolitan Housing Coalition, a nonprofit that wants to see fair and affordable housing throughout Jefferson County, called the judge’s ruling “disappointing.”
“We know that about 46% of senior households are rent-burdened and so this affordable housing is really, really important,” Kuhn said. “The fact that we are creating more housing in other parts of the city where there is not already a concentration of multifamily and subsidized housing units is so, so important for our city. We must create housing opportunities in every section of our city.”
‘Putting low-income housing units in nice neighborhoods’
Planned on a vacant plot near the Prospect Kroger store, Prospect Cove would be restricted to tenants over age 55 and allow its financiers to qualify for federal low-income housing tax credits. The complex would have 198 one- and two-bedroom units.
LDG Development declined to specify the rental rates it would charge for the units, but testimony before the Metro Planning Commission in 2017 indicated rents of $750 to $1,000 a month.
The project generated a torrent of opposition from neighbors in Kentucky’s second-wealthiest zip code, 40059.
To back up its claims of unlawful discrimination, LDG’s lawsuit references comments from its first neighborhood meeting about the project in 2016, in which attendees worried that Prospect Cove would “lower the social standard” in the Prospect and new residents would crowd into their apartments like “refugees from Syria.”
Prospect residents would insist their opposition wasn’t about keeping racial minorities out of the area, and that they weren’t opposed to affordable housing being placed elsewhere -- or even at the proposed location for Prospect Cove, but with fewer units than LDG proposes.
“People work hard all their lives to move to neighborhoods that are nice and have low crime areas. My husband and I both grew up with nothing and worked hard to get where we are,” Sherri Koselke wrote in a public comment for the case record in 2017.
“We have black, Asian, Mexican and other ethnic groups that live in our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods. They are good neighbors. They did the same thing we did. They worked very hard to be able to buy a home where we live. If people want to work hard, they can do well. Putting low income housing units in nice neighborhoods is not going to solve that problem.”
In addition to the predominant complaints about the size of Prospect Cove and its impact on traffic, Prospect residents offered a number of explanations as to why low-income seniors would be better off living somewhere else.
These included public transit, access to jobs, cost of living, pedestrian safety, fire safety, gasoline vapors and, as one doctor explained, the “mental-health hazard” of clustered living conditions.
“Dozens of studies have shown that when people are bunched together, regardless of the economic status they’re living in, there’s an increased rate of depression. And with it, an alarming increased rate of suicides,” Dr. Clifford Kuhn, who described himself as a University of Louisville psychiatrist, told the Louisville Metro Planning Commission in 2017.
“If you haven't bought gasoline in Prospect lately, it's 20 cents more a gallon. Come to our Kroger, it's a little bit more expensive than the rest of the city,” Prospect resident Matt Straub told the planning commission. “We'll be putting an indirect tax on these low-income people if you put them in Prospect.”
Two physicians testified to planning officials about an overlooked problem: the apartment building’s proximity to the Kroger station and the risk of tenants being exposed to gasoline fumes.
“And it just wouldn't make sense to put a bunch of elderly folks, and especially close together, very near something that's potentially a health hazard,” Dr. Fred Rosenblum, who described himself as a U of L pulmonologist, told the commission.
Despite the fact that the building would have been built to fire codes, some said the Harrods Creek fire department wasn’t equipped to handle a fire and it would be dangerous to put seniors on high floors.
Prospect resident Barry Weinshenker told the Planning Commission it would “absolutely absurd” to have “handicapped people” in a four-story building.
“If I was … in an apartment on the third or fourth floor and there’s a fire, and there will be a fire, okay, one of three things would happen. I either get toasted, run over, or died of smoke inhalation,” he said.
