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The first Urban County Council Meeting of 2016 voted against a change in zoning needed to build two duplexes that neighbors objected to in case it became student housing.

Residents of the neighborhood in the 500 block of Pyke Road as well as other Lexington residents said they did not want the neighborhood of mostly families and older residents to turn into a heavy-traffic and party area.

The proposed plan was to change the zoning from a Single Family Residential (R-1C) zone to a Planned Neighborhood Residential (R-3) zone.

This change would allow Flying Dutchman Properties, LLC to build two duplexes, one 3,100 square feet and the other 3,600 square feet, in a lot previously used for smaller single family houses.

“For me the privacy of the area, the seclusion, it is kind of a little hidden pocket in Lexington. It would change everything,” Will Harvey, who lives across the street from the proposed project, said.  “That’s a lot of people for a very small area.”

Harvey and his business partner have been in Lexington for six years, and the two of them went to college in the city, Transylvania University and UK respectively. Harvey said he is aware of what the college housing culture is like on State Street and does not want that to become the culture of his neighborhood.

“This precedent would totally pave the way for it to become the next State Street, or an area like that,” Harvey said.

The higher density the change in zoning would allow for could increase the amount of traffic and cars parked on the street, according to Vickie Batzka, a resident of Duncan Avenue.

“They will be geared to students, I’m sorry, that will be at least 16 students and maybe more if two are partnered up. That is at least 16 cars,” Batzka said. “Increasing the density of the neighborhood and increasing the traffic that enormously, it makes it much more difficult just to get out of their own driveway.”

Another concern for residents was the survival of some bur oak trees, which have been evaluated by arborists to be healthy and as old as 200 years.

The proposed building plan was flexible and did not release the number of rooms each duplex would house or whether the duplex would require the removal of the trees in the final development plan, despite the opinion of the neighbors.

Jacob Walbourn, the Real Estate attorney representing Flying Dutchman Properties, LLC, said that his client would try to work with the neighbors’ requests in the future.

“It’s not over yet, necessarily. There is a mechanism to challenge it in court, but I have to talk to my client to see what they want to do,” Walbourn said. “There are no empty lots inside New Circle. If not my client, someone else will buy it and build something there.”