A visitor's guide to the park system Lexington already owns on paper.

Welcome

Lexington has a park system you've never visited.

You know the first one — the green shapes on this map. Jacobson. Masterson Station. Shillito. 109 parks you can walk into.

This guide is about the second one: 36 parcels of recorded greenway that appear on every map as open space, are assessed as open space, and are taxed at approximately $0 as open space — but belong to homeowners' associations and development companies. They are parks in every sense except the one where you're allowed in.

The system

36 parcels. 114.9 acres. 0 visitors.

Here they are. Since the 1990s, subdivision plats have carved greenway lots along Lexington's creeks and floodplains — then handed them to HOAs and LLCs instead of the city.

We have organized them, as any self-respecting park system would, into eight parks. Each has a name, an acreage, and visitor information. The visitor information is always the same.

Tier 1 — must be deeded to the city on request Tier 2 — deeded on mutual agreement Tier 3 — detention / transfer mechanics Tier 4 — stated intent only Tier 5 — no mechanism at all

How this happened

It's written on the plats.

This is the recorded plat for the largest parcel in the system — 19.7 acres on Sperling Drive, filed by Ball Homes in 2010. Note 7 promises a shared-use trail. Note 10 says the greenway "shall be dedicated to the LFUCG" and that the owner "shall dedicate the property to LFUCG upon request by LFUCG."

Excerpt of recorded plat N-731 showing Note 10: Lot 193 shall be dedicated to the LFUCG upon request by LFUCG
Final Record Plat, Gess Property Unit 6-G, Plat Cabinet N, Slide 731, Fayette County Clerk.

The request has never been made. The same clause, from the same developer, appears across the Chilesburg, Blackford and Sunny Slope plats. Other plats use softer language; some use none. That's the tier system.

Visitor information

48.7 acres could open with a letter.

Seventeen of these parcels — highlighted now — sit under plat language that says the owner shall dedicate the land to LFUCG upon request by LFUCG.

The request is the entire mechanism. No purchase. No condemnation. No ballot measure. A letter.

This site makes no recommendation. It is merely a visitor's guide, for parks that cannot have visitors.

Explore the system

Every parcel, clickable. Toggle the ghost layer to see the 150 additional parcels — about 750 more acres — that LFUCG's own GIS marks as future greenway, nearly all tagged PUBLIC_ACCESS: No.

The registry

All 36 parcels, from the recorded plats. Sorted by acreage.

ParkAddressAcresOwner of recordTierPlatDeed

Methodology

Everything on this site is a public record.

The eight park names are inventions of this site; the parcels, owners, acreages and plat quotations are not. Nothing here is legal advice, and no trespass is encouraged — these parks are, after all, closed.

Who made this? A Lexington resident. The site takes no donations, sells nothing, and collects no analytics. If you find an error, the records above will settle it.