"Kentucky airport to pursue condemnation of 14 acres on adjacent farm"

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Airport to pursue condemnation of 14 acres on adjacent farm
By Brandon Ortiz
The Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader


Blue Grass Airport lawyers will ask Fayette Circuit Judge Sheila Isaac next
month to allow the airport to condemn almost 14 acres of historic Stony
Point Farm to make room for an expansion of the primary runway's safety
areas.

But five sisters who own the 200-year-old farm, used to train horses, are
fighting to keep the land.

In court filings, the attorney for the McKinney family argued that the $35
million project will build a "giant earthen mount" on the 154-acre farm's
only piece of flat land suitable for galloping and exercising horses.

Attorney Wayne Collier also wrote that the airport did not follow federal
regulations by adequately considering alternatives to intruding upon Stony
Point, land the U.S. Department of Interior declared eligible for the
National Register of Historic Places.

But airport officials said they had to acquire land south of the runway
because they are boxed in to the north by Versailles Road and Keeneland Race
Course. Keeneland is a national historic landmark with federal protections
of its own.

Airport Executive Director Mike Gobb said the law is clearly on his side.

"This project is going to happen," he said. "We can demonstrate we need this
property. We can't do anything else."


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