People deserve to live in safe, solid housing. In the Martin Luther King neighborhood we have good, old houses of all sizes, some with a great deal of history behind them. We want to keep our housing and stabilize our neighborhood, instead of having our people get forced out as downtown becomes a more popular place to live.

The MLKNA is working to secure the H-1 (Historic) designation for our neighborhood. This is a way for us to protect our neighborhood buildings. We recently lost an irreplaceable historic carriage house on MLK. We can do better. We can take pride in protecting and caring for our historic buildings, in which so much of Lexington's history unfolded. Realtors who sell properties like ours have told us that, over time, H-1 will protect our property values.

Part of the MLKNA is already H-1: Constitution and Third between North Lime and MLK. Lexington has about 2,000 buildings in a dozen historic neighborhoods, including parts of the Northside, Cadentown, Aylesford (university), Central Avenue, and Bell Court neighborhoods. Nationally there are 1200 similar districts.