. Um, a couple of things. It is 1:00, so we wanna go ahead and get started with the planning committee for September 22nd. And we have one issue on our agenda today, and that issue is the report out from the student housing task force. And we do have a quorum of committee members. Um, I thought, committee members, I would ask you if this plan suits you. Um, we have lots of people who would like to speak. We have... Have you counted these? Maybe... 40. ... 40 or 45 people who would like to speak. And so in the, uh, following what we usually do in a council meeting, I thought we would let the chair of the student housing task for- force, Mike Moiser, give his report, and then allow people to speak. And what this might mean is that, um, I don't know how the time will go, but what it might mean is that we need to set a special meeting then to continue our discussion, depending on how long the speakers go. Does that suit committee members? Yeah. So if that suits committee members, I think that's how we'll proceed. Um, and when you do come before, at the podium to speak, um, when that time comes, if you will state your name and your address. That's our standard. And you'll have three minutes to speak. And we ask that if you don't have anything real new to add, because we have so many speakers, that you limit your remarks to new information and new opinions. So with that said, I think we'll go ahead, and I wanna thank Mike Moiser for chairing this task force. And if you will go ahead and work us through the plan, the proposal. Madam Chair, members of the committee, my name is Mike Moiser. I am the chair of the task force. I'm also a member of the Town and Gown Commission, and I've been past president of the Aylesford Association. Um, what I'd like to do today is just sort of walk you through the process we went through over the last 15 months to prepare this report, give you a little bit of background about how we went through the process of trying to identify the issues and come up with some proposals for your consideration. Um, at the outset though, I wanna say that we view this as the beginning of the discussion relative to some sort of legislative or other means of addressing these issues. In other words, we, we view the end of our process as providing you with what we hope is some meaningful information that we've gathered during the last 15 months for your deliberations. Um, this process was, to put it mildly, difficult. Uh, that had a lot to do with the makeup of the task force. This task force had four distinct minorities within it, and they were pretty evenly balanced. We had four neighbors who were members, and one of those resigned earlier this year. We had four landlords. We had the vice-mayor, and at various times fi- uh, times, five different council members who were serving on the task force. We also had our two universities very well represented in this group. Uh, Lisa Higgins-Hoard, who is here today and is the UK Vice President for Community Engagement was a member. Tony Blanton, the UK Dean of Students was a member, and Robert Brown, the Director of Residence Life at Transy was also a member of our task force, as well as the UK Student Government President. Um, we had 15 meetings over a period of 15 months. Uh, they were well attended. We often had landlords, uh, students, and neighbors show up at those meetings. We periodically reported at the Town & Gown Commission meetings about how we were getting along, uh, and we actually did site visits to three neighborhoods where there are a lot of student housing. Two of those were close to the university and one was Big Bear Lane, which is actually a surbur- suburban location. During the process of collecting information, specifically talking about the enforcement of existing laws, we met with all of the agency heads of the various, uh, arms of government charged with enforcing laws that relate to all housing, including student housing. The report which you have went through a series of 10 drafts, uh, often hammered out word by word at our meetings. Uh, where there was not consensus on a point, we tried to indicate that. Where there was a minority that dissented on a point, we tried to indicate that as well. Um, I think if you look at the report as a whole, what we tried to do was start at the beginning. So we've given you a history of issues related to student housing going back to 1981 when the question first came up to the law department of how single family houses that had traditionally housed a traditional family were now being converted to student rentals, and w- we tried to carry you forward through that process, through what happened in the 90s with the, the family definition proposal, uh, the party plan, all the things that have happened over the years relative to these issues. Then we asked a series of questions, and those questions, uh, focused on two primary areas. One was, are the laws we already have on the books being adequately enforced? And I think as you'll see from reading the report, the answer to that question was not really. Um, and I think there's two components to that that are related to other parts of the report. The first is that there are a couple of agencies that are really burdened more than other agencies with dealing with hou- student housing issues, and those are the Division of Code Enforcement and the Division of Building Inspection. And the problems those agencies face in dealing with student housing issues are very similar. One problem is just trying to get people who won't cooperate to cooperate, uh, either by forcing them through fines or the administrative process to do what they need to do. And the second issue has to do with trying to get people who've done the wrong thing to undo those things. And that's a much more complicated issue, but the task force viewed that as very significant for the community, because if the rule becomes the best way to get something done is to not ask for permission, it not only creates a difficulty with the people who do that, it makes those people who apply and ask for permission feel like they're wasting their time. So we've sort of walked you through some specific, uh, issues related to co-enforcement, uh, staffing and funding that we think would have an immediate impact. And when you look at those issues, we've grouped those at the end of our report as things we all agree could be done right away and make a difference. Um, and I think the landlords who are here today that served on the task force will probably tell you that. Uh, they want enforcement to be fair. I think the neighbors want it to be fair. I know the students want it to be fair. But we do have to have enforcement, and we need to have it, uh, in these areas if we're gonna solve these problems. Um, we call those, euphemistically at our meetings, the no-brainers, and I would, I would recommend to you that you consider trying to deal with those as quickly as possible, because I think they will make a difference. We then started talking about what kinds of things are driving the need to do something, and I wanna make a couple of points about that. One is I think it's very important to make a distinction in your mind between land use issues and density issues, uh, in a general sort of way. The recent controversy about vinyl boxes, um, is a land use issue. It has to do with how you develop a property. But I would suggest to you, as our report does, that a lot of things that happen in these neighborhoods are driven by density, by a large number of people trying to occupy a property that was originally developed, uh, with less people in mind, and the difficulties related to parking, the size of the building, um, all those issues that come with trying to develop a property after the fact. So even though we've identified density as, as a, uh, an issue in driving all these things, I think you have to be careful about separating out very specific things related to building buildings versus other issues. This report, I would suggest to you- ... does not try to fashion or suggest to you some proposal that will deal right now with the vinyl box issue. I really think it's separate. What we have tried to do is come up with a list of things that have been done either in other communities or which have been suggested by various members of our task force that might deal with the issue. And what we did, again, because we were so evenly divided in terms of minorities within our task force, was we tried to give everybody the opportunity to vote for three of those proposals. So, we used a weighted voting system. We cast our votes, and the list that you have in the report of various policy recommendations represents the ranking that was assigned based on those votes. Um, there's a lot of different kinds of proposals in there. I think that, uh, you know, and we certainly know, that you will have to consider the fiscal implications of any of those proposals. That is, what kind of money's gonna be required. Uh, and the other thing that we put at the end of the report, but it's certainly not the least important thing, it's the most important thing, is that we don't think anything's gonna work if we don't have everybody involved. That means the students, the neighbors, the city and the universities. And they've all gotta work together, and it may require us to sacrifice in terms of funding and efforts and commitment and time and, and other things to get this done. But it's certainly the feeling of this task force that we've done a good job of exploring the issues, of identifying them. And the last thing I wanna say, again, is that we view today's meeting and these discussions as the beginning of discussions about what might be done. Uh, I viewed our task as providing you with as much background and information as we could. It certainly was not our intention to tell you, "You need to do this or to do that." But we did want to give you a sense, by ranking the proposals, uh, where, where support lie within the task force for those various things. Would you like to... I, I'd like to hope everyone's read the total report, but, um, life being the way it is, maybe they haven't. Um, would you like to just, um, read through the, um, proposals, Mike? You want me to start with the enforcement proposals? Yes. And, um, not to get into depth at this point, but just to read through them in case there are people who will be speaking who aren't as familiar with this as you are. Okay. Um, well, in the area of enforcement, th- and again, these are items we've identified for immediate action, and they're, they're listed on page 11 of the report. The first one is to approve adequate abatement funding each budget cycle for the Division of Code Enforcement. The most effective tool Code Enforcement has in dealing with a situation that they can't get the owner to correct is that they can hire a contractor to come in and clean up the mess and then put a lien on that property owner's property to pay for that contractor's, uh, time and expense. The difficulty is that if they use that money up too early in the year, then they don't have that money available to deal with the issue. And what we discovered was that the Division of Code Enforcement typically runs out of that money in the early spring. So, for the rest of the year, they don't have the ability to do that. So, we think that the funding each budget cycle should be adequate. And I'd like to add to that, they get that money back because the law department goes out and enforces those liens, the fines are levied. So, the Division of Code Enforcement does a very good job of recycling that money back to the government and to the budget. The second item is lifting the hiring freeze on approved additional positions in the Division of Code Enforcement. This is very important because of a whipsaw effect it's had on inspecting properties. The Division of Code Enforcement wants to do, at least every four or five years, comprehensive inspections of all the properties around UK to make sure they're being safe and well-maintained. But they can't do that if they don't have enough staffing, and right now they're sort of falling behind on how soon they can do that, so we'd like to have those positions filled. Uh, the sweeps, which are listed as item number three, is dependent on that staffing, and we think those should resume. Uh, number four deals with increased fines. One of the things we discovered is there are some landlords who pass on to the students the fines that are imposed by the Division of Code Enforcement. Well, there's two problems with that. One is it creates a, an issue for the students, and I understand that. The other is it creates an issue for the neighbors, because if all the guy does is pass it on to the students, then nothing ever gets fixed. And we're mad, and the students are mad, and, and the community suffers as a result. So, for repeat violators, we think we've probably got to step up the fine system a little bit. Uh, the other thing we'd like to do is move violations of code enforce, or not code enforcement, but, um, building inspection out of the criminal process in district court and move it into an administrative hearing process like we have for code enforcement. That's worked so well, we think it would work w- well with building inspection. Uh, and we think there needs to be better systems in place to share information between the Division of Historic Preservation, Building Inspection, Planning, et cetera, about problem situations. Finally, we think we need to draft and adopt a definition of fraternity house and sorority house to put in the zoning ordinance. Uh, we, it was explained to us by the Dean of Students that they really don't know how to enforce because they don't know what the law is, because there's no definition presently in the zoning ordinance relative to whether a fraternity or sorority is operating off campus in, in existing, uh, residential housing. So, we've, we've given some definitions in the appendix that'll be very useful to look at, and we like the first one the best. Then we get... We move out of the enforcement actions, which, again, we called the no-brainers, and we move into expanded policies. And of course, this is where all the controversy is gonna be, because this is new stuff. ... uh, but the number one policy option that emerged out of our task force was to adopt some sort of spacing or density limits on student homes. Now, I wanna explain to everybody here how we came to that. One of the things that people like me feel like, and I live in Aylesford, I don't live on Linden Walk, so you know how close to the campus I am, is that it works good with students and owners if there's good balance. It's different in my neighborhood than it is, for example, in North Elizabeth Street. So I think what made this proposal attractive to a lot of us on the, on the task force is that you're actually trying to limit the density, you're trying to keep that balance within the neighborhood. The way this would work is that there would be some sort of restriction on the number of student houses per owner-occupied houses in that area. Existing homes that are being used as student rental would be grandfathered in. You can't make 'em take it back. But over time, those might turn back into owner-occupied if somebody stopped using them as student homes. There'd also be a program to buy homes that nobody wanted that went on the market and refurbish those, sell them to somebody to live in, but continue to own the land so that the community can control that. The second, um, proposal that made it to our list was the, uh, rental licensing, and we recognize this is gonna be, this is probably the most controversial proposal, and, and I've gotta tell you, as somebody who's really interested in what's going on with student housing, uh, I realize what a massive undertaking it would be to try and enact an ordinance like this for the entire community. Having said that, there is a lot of housing in other parts of the community that is formerly single-family residential housing that's being converted to multi-family, with a lot of the same issues. So that's number two on our list. Number three is what's called the Ohio State Plan, and Craig Harden and his group first brought this to the attention of the Town and Gown Commission I think in 2007, maybe even earlier. And they've tried to set up an office of off-campus student housing, basically to work with students to grade properties so you know the quality of the property you're getting, uh, and then try to get property owners who are on the list in dealing with student housing to comply with all the existing laws and have good, deep, decent, safe housing for the students. Uh, the fourth proposal was actually made by Diane Lawless. That is to consider creating a small fee, called an off-campus housing fee, to be paid by UK and BCTC students to fund initiatives rate, related to off-campus housing. Now, we all recognize that any of these proposals involving creating an office and staffing and all of that's gonna require funding. So, to her credit, I think, uh, what Council Member Lawless was trying to do was come up with a way that we might fund some of that. The fifth proposal is to revise the definition of family in the zoning ordinance. Um, this was something that was proposed back in '98. Um, it's a difficult constitutional issue, because it has to be a non-discriminatory definition, and there's splits in the supreme courts around the country of how they've dealt with that and what's been held constitutional or not. Uh, but that did make our list as number five. Number six deals with trying to wrestle with the parking issue. Right now, it is legal to park in backyards, but as many of you know, often those parking areas are not paved, they're not screened, they're not striped, uh, and that creates problems both for the students and the neighbors. So there ha- there were a lot of discussions about the possibility of trying to, uh, come up with a way to park cars in the backyards that would involve non-in- uh, non-pervious surfaces so that we could let the water, uh, not become a problem, but also, uh, create screen parking that wouldn't bother the neighbors. And, uh, finally, there was a proposal that was submitted by Bill Lear to create what's called a university district that would be a special taxing district, and you draw a line around a certain area and you'd impose an additional tax and that tax would be used to, uh, enforce the laws better and to deal with infrastructure issues. And then, as I said earlier in my comments, our final recommendation was that whatever we do, we gotta make sure that we get the students, the university, the government, uh, and the landlords and the neighbors all together to try to work together to come up with something that'll be, uh, effective. Mike, thank you very much. I wanna give a special, special kudos to you, because I think you did a wonderful job pulling this together and working with lots of different folks who represented different interests, and I thank you for your hard work. I was glad to do it. I'm sure there'll be quest- questions for you eventually, but, um, right now, committee members, we have 81 people who have signed up to speak, and at three minutes apiece, that's 243 minutes, which is beyond this meeting. So, um, m- it, it's up to you if you want to go ahead with our three-minute rule and then we'll just have to have another meeting to continue the speakers, or wha- what's your pleasure? Would you use your mic please? I, I think that three minutes is, is historically what we've always allowed, and I just, uh- Okay. ... have a problem limiting these folks. Okay. So when we, at 3:00 we have to end, so those who haven't had an opportunity to speak, we'll be setting another meeting, and I'm sorry to tell you that, but that's how it works, if you can come back. Um, now, we'll go ahead and work through our lists and, um... We'll have a three-minute limit, and some of you have yielded your time to other people, which is fine. Um, if you will please come to the microphone, uh, when I call your name and state your name and address, and I'll kind of queue you up for who's next, who the next two are. And we're happy that you're all here. So, and if you're in the ballroom downstairs, and you hear your name queued up, please come up. Um- Madam Chairman, b-before you start- Yes. ... I have a quick question. Th- there's a, uh, I know as part of this body of work, Officer Keith Gains had, had put some work together, um, and I know that from, from a number of the homeowner, or the landowners, that there were some things in that recommendation that were very favorable, that they agreed with. I- is that work rolled into this? Is that separate? I- I'm just curious. Um, Officer Gains, and I appreciate your being here, Mike, did you want to speak to that? Yes. Offered, Officer Gains has served on the Town & Gown Commission for some time, as you know, and he came to us, actually, um, at the meeting where we did our final vote, it took two meetings to do the votes, and presented us with his proposal. What we did was we specifically mentioned it in the report, and then we made it an appendix. So it's, it's the only proposal that's actually mentioned in the body of the report. Okay. And we did attach it as an appendix. I, I think that, you know, one of the things that, that I hear from, from folks that have approached me up to this point is, is that there's a lot of support for his work and, and what he's brought to the table, not only from the l- the, uh, owner side, but from, from the student side. So, uh, certainly anything that, you know, w- we can have that, that, uh, uh, as it rolls into this and as we, we hear comment, it's gonna go in a lot of different directions here. I just wanna make sure that we, we come back to, to that. I think there's a lot of phenomenal points that he's, he's put into it. I agree. And, and, and Keith Gains is a valued member of our university community. Um, what we tried to do, Mr. McCord, with all of this, is we tried to include every proposal that was made to us. And it's my understanding there's a couple that have even been circulated today. Okay. So as I say, this is the beginning of the discussion, and I hope there'll be additional proposal, because these issues are not easy to deal with. Sure. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Yes, and, and for those of you who have your packet, Officer Gains's proposal is Appendix 14 in our packets. So it is included and, and, um ... So we'll move along, and if you have new information to add, um, when I call your name, please do. First up will be Craig Harden, uh, second will be Hays Cannon, and third will be David Burton. And please state your name and address. And you'll have three minutes, and we do, we will have a timer. So unfortunately I'll have to be rude and cut you off at three minutes. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'm Craig Harden. Uh, 228 Lexington Avenue. Represent, um, the University Area Housing Association. I was a member of the task force, I'm a member of the Town & Gown Commission, and a landlord, um, in the area. Um, I think I have someone else that's gonna yield some time to me also. I'm gonna try to present the University Area Housing Association's, uh, response to the task force report. And I think it'll take me a little bit more than three minutes, but I think Kevin Martin back here is on the second page, if that's okay, uh, if I run over. Kevin, Kevin Martin? Kevin Martin. He's on the second page. Okay. What? About three or four down? Is that right, Kevin? Yes. And you've yielded your full three minutes? Where's Kevin? That's correct. All right, you have six minutes then. Okay. And I'll try to hurry. Thank you. Um, th- uh, the, um, the task force, uh, again, I w- I would also like to compliment Mike Moizer who did a great job, um, a very difficult process that we went through here. Uh, we were a minority on the task force, uh, on, uh, as far as the landlords were concerned. Uh, it was set up that way. Uh, we also sent you a memo, uh, that I'd prefer not to read. But, uh, it was sent to the council members about a few things that, in the task force, we think you should know. But I don't w- intend to discredit the task force. Task force did do some really good work, and, uh, and we wanna, we wanna, uh, focus on the positives, which is what the University Area Housing Association is all about. So, um, w- with that said, uh, we believe there's two, um, important issues, um, that are needed to be defined. They relate to behavior and planning and development. And, um, we appreciate being invited to the table to participate. I wanna jump right to our recommendations, which are at the bottom of our fir, uh, the first page there. Um, and just tr- I'm a s- there's some assumption here that everyone has read a lot of the, a lotta information, so I'm gonna kinda jump through this, uh, as quickly as I can. Um, our recommendations, um, are that we support the expanded f- enforcement options we listed there. That's the, uh, recommendations on page 11 of the final report, the expanded options. Uh, we do support those, and those are things that we think that the, uh, Council Planning Committee, uh, could, could recommend. They need to be looked at, but there's some action there that we think we agree, and I think we all agree, that, that could take place. Al- although these options need to be done selectively, we generally support the idea that the existing laws need to be inf- enforced effectively in order to not have additional over-regulation and duplication of laws. Continuing on with things that we support and then looking at the policy options, um, we went to item three. Our first, um- And we, we had a lot of consensus, we thought, on the task force, until the s- the, um, the second vote. Uh, we... It was the first earlier vote, actually had a lot of consensus with the, uh, Ohio State plan, and, uh, that's listed as Appendix 12, um, page 17 in the council packet. And, um, and, uh, we just thought that this plan would require the participation of UK. If the University of Kentucky can be convinced to participate in this, in the solution, then we think this would be the most logical choice of plans to support both students and strengthen the neighborhoods, while creating goodwill in the community. Some initial private funding is available, and, uh, this plan had support in the student housing task force from all parties, um, we thought at, uh, except UK, at the time. Uh, if that... UK will not part- help participate in that particular proposal, then we like, uh, what was presented in Appendix 14, which is Officer Gaines' Preferred Student Housing Pilot Program. Um, this plan would be the least cost of all right now. Uh, there's wouldn't... It's basically using resources that are already being used by the city. Um, Officer Gaines has kind of stepped out there and volunteered, uh, and he's just done a great job of building consensus, so we would want to, uh, throw support behind that. We think he's done a terrific job there. Um, so those are our policy, uh, uh, selections. Um, then there's a couple other things we wanted to add in for support. Uh, in planning and zoning, with the recent things and the, um, the, uh, oversized vinyl box editions over in the Westwood area like that, uh, we don't want to be associated with that. We don't think that's right, and, uh, and we wanna, we wanna make sure that it's clear that we, uh, that we support, uh, the ND1 overlays. We think those can be used very effectively in, uh, in, uh, preventing that, uh, and we should use existing laws on the books to, uh, to en- to stop that type of activity. Um, we... Uh, in addition, uh, we think that one thing could be added, uh, as well as the ND1 overlays that will, uh, dramatically reduce that and that's the addit- additional parking requirements for off street. So where am I time-wise? You have 10 seconds. Okay. There's 50 seconds left. In the six minutes? In the six minutes. Okay. So, um, so I'll just, uh, we've listed there, but we think that, uh, adding some parking requirements off street would, um, would, uh, would be, um, useful. Uh, the things that we oppose are all listed on page three, and, uh, the, the Penn State reduc- density reduction plan, I've listed a number of things there and why we, we think that that's just not a... It just doesn't work for Lexington. Rental licensing obviously is, is not needed. The existing laws are already in place. We've listed some, uh, bullet points there, uh, stating some of our reasoning there. We also think the definition of family should be left alone. These students should be allowed to live with who they want to live with. It's perfectly normal, uh, to live together for both social and economic reasons. While you're going t- to college, they should be able to live where they go to school. Craig, thank you so much. Your six minutes is over. I'm sorry to interrupt you. That's all right. But I appreciate your attendance. Thank you. And next, if you'll come on up and queue up, Hayes Cannon, David Burton, and Talbot Baldwin. And... Hi, my name is Hayes Cannon. I live at, uh, 585 South Upper South Hill Station. I'm a junior here at the University of Kentucky, and I'm here, obviously I'm concerned of the housing plan. Um, I feel like one thing that really... Eh, eh, it seems like hasn't cooperated well is the city and the university, and that we need to realize that Lexington is a college town. I mean, there are students here. We are all over the place. We help run it, and I feel like there needs to be a lot more cooperation through that. And the other thing is the same reason that you don't want us in your neighborhood, we don't want to live in your neighborhood either. We really don't. We like living next to each other. We like being able to hang out and all that stuff. I understand that there are some problems that are going on, and I agree, they need to be addressed. They really do. But there needs to be more done as far as what we already have set in place. I think going and saying, "We've got problems, let's look at Ohio State and Penn State and take their plans," I really don't think that's the answer. Let's deal with what we have, how we can deal with it, and find a way to make it better. Reach out to us as students. Please come talk to us. Have a meeting, call for students. We would love to be here. We would love to work with you. We would love to work with the university and the city. We just don't want this to happen because this isn't fair to us. It's complete... You... It's the same reason we feel discriminated against, is the same reason a community of... Uh, completely a Hispanic community or an African American community or a s- a lower social class community would feel discriminated against if you came in and said, "Well, you have to move away from each other." It's not right. We are here to have fun. You all were in college once. You were there once. You know you had a good time. We're looking to do the same thing. We want to be safe. Obviously, I think we all agree if UK was a wet campus and we had more patrol, it'd be a lot better. But since we're dealing with what we can, we want to be safe. We want to do this the right way. And as far as parking goes, you want to pull us out of these back lots, out of the back parking spots, be prepared to have people parked in front of your driveway so you can't get out and you're running through your freshly mowed front lawn and all that. It's... We will park in the back and force it, that's fine, but if you come out and you move us down Tates Creek, we're gonna migrate. We're gonna start a college community over there. Bars are gonna move over there. Restaurants are gonna move over there. ... the students are gonna move there. We will move together. We're not gonna separate because you say in this certain ordinance that we can't stay together. It's gonna happen. You're -- it's not gonna be stopped. And it's just something that needs to be addressed and that -- let's just move our efforts and work together to try and fix this before we do something that's really gonna make a lot of people mad. It's gonna be a lot better if we can just work together, get this done the way we want it. And parking, you move us there, the parking's gonna be worse than we ever even imagined. You're gonna move their cars out of their houses and put them on the street. You're gonna move people away from campus. The reason we live there is so we can go to class on time. How many times we heard college is about grades, it's not about party? You move me 25 minutes away from campus, I'm gonna miss a lot more class. Thank you so much for your comments. Next -- next on the agenda is David Burton. And -- and next is David Burton, then Talbot Baldwin, then John William Cole. And if -- you know, if you clap, that uses peoples' speaking times. I love to clap and support people, but it will mean that we go more heavily into more meetings. So you could go like this. I've sort of got ... So, David, name and address, please. David Burton at 2109 Bridgeport here in Lexington. And, um, at the risk of deja vu, I do want to ask the question to the audience, if it's permissible, if you're a student here and you are against this, would you mind standing up? Okay. If you're someone else from the community and you're against this, would you mind standing up? Everybody who's against it, if you'd stand. Thank you very much. You're against everything, or -- I a- ... are you asking about the entire- Well, the, uh, the way the sign-up was done, there was a for and against. So these are the people who signed up against. And I say against, because, um, the top proposal is a mirror image of the Penn State plan, when it comes down to it. It limits density, uh, which calls for the burden to be borne primarily by the property owners who rent and primarily by the students. So the reason why 99% of the people in this room stood up is because they are a- a group that's feeling that they are not being treated fairly. I agree with Mike when he said that we all need to come together on this, everybody come to the table and everyone work at it together. I agree with that. The problem with this proposal as it stands now, the number one proposal, it puts all the burden on the property owners who rent and it puts the pro- and it puts it on the students. It lays it squarely on their shoulders. So we're mad. And that's why we showed up, and that's why 99% of the people here are here to speak against the number one proposal. I just wanted to make sure that was documented. The, um, the issues here are complex. And I've been at this for a while, I served on the task force, I've been involved in this for many years. And to- to try to nail it down, because I think that is what's at issue here, there's two things going on that would greatly benefit. One is the univers- as -- as the university's expanded and people have moved, uh, off campus, it's put pressure on neighboring neighborhoods. That's no doubt. Particularly, what's happened is some people have, uh, built additions on single-family houses inappropriate. It's made people mad. If I were in their homes, I'd be mad too, and that needs to be addressed. And it can be addressed by existing laws, closing loopholes in the zoning laws, and it can be addressed, and it should be targeted and addressed, and it should be done quickly. Um, the other problem that we face is some of th- the students do misbehave on occasion. It's hard to believe, but there are a few out there who do. 95% behave well all the time. They're great neighbors. They're gonna be our -- uh, they're gonna be our professionals. They are not the people who burn couches. But, hey, you know, here we are on the Lexington Herald-Leader again today. They are so ... Who ... We gotta find this man who's burning this couch and stop him immediately. You see, 'cause most of the students are well-behaved, and just to throw them into a pile and say, "Well, you can't control yourselves, we're just gonna have to split you up and push you out," that's unfair to them. That is so discriminatory. In fact, unless there is a plan that really addresses where the students will live, then it's irresponsible to make any steps that direction. Thank you very much. David, thank you, and thanks for your service on the task force. Um, next we have Talbot Baldwin, John William Cole, Joe Howard. How are you all? I'm Talbot Baldwin. I live at 136 Old Lafayette Avenue. Really would like to thank you all for the opportunity to speak here today. Uh, I'll be brief. I know there's a lot of people here that wanna talk. But this situation, to me, feels almost surreal. Uh, you know, for years, ever since I started at UK, you know, whenever I tell old alumni, friends at other schools, about the current conditions h- here at UK, in and around campus, they look at me in total disbelief. They first can't even understand that the campus is dry, which I know a lot of people in here can't either. But when I explain the high levels of police involvement, enforcement, you know, that's when they just look at me and say, "I don't even wanna hear you finish." You know, my- my parents have told me, "Oh, back in the day, you know, we'd party on campus. We'd walk back to the dorms. We were all safe. You know, if we got picked up by the police on the way home, well, they'd just take us back to the dorms." Uh, my sister attends Transylvania, uh, University and lives off campus and, uh, the students over there are afforded this luxury. They have been picked up, taken right back home. But, uh, for UK students, clearly the times have changed. And, uh, you know, I'm not here to debate the issue of a wet campus, even though I think that this is the main reason that we're here at this juncture right now. Uh, the way I see it, UK pushed everyone off campus and into the surrounding neighborhoods when it went dry. Now, UK now, they didn't want, they didn't want the liability, so we'll just make it the city's problem. Uh, so now the city's tired of us and wants to push us farther away off campus. Now, pushing us farther away from campus will clearly cause a multitude of problems, uh, not just for the students, but for the rest of this town that never thought a bunch of college kids would be living in their neighborhood. A student should be living as close to their classrooms as possible. And, you know, being an academic institution of higher learning, UK should feel the same way and accept responsibility for the wellbeing of their students, because the fabric of this very campus is being torn apart. Um, you know, incoming kids, uh, to UK now, I look at, they just look at me like, "This is awful." You know, if I had to do it all over again, if I was coming into campus right now to UK, I would probably try to go somewhere else. Um, my question to you all is this, if neither UK nor the City of Lexington wants to deal with us, then whose problem are we now? That's all I've got. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Talbot. Um, we have John William Cole, Joe Howard, and Scott Fielder. Is John William Cole here? Okay. Um, are you Mr. Cole? No. No. You're Joe Howard. Now- I am. ... is Scott Fielder here? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Did you yield your time to Joe? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So Joe Howard, you will have six minutes. Sure. Mm-hmm. Please state your name and address. I think there's another person that wanted to yield their minutes, but I, I'll try to be brief. Okay. I know we're, uh... I think the council is well-versed on my views. Um- And your name and address please. My name is Joe Howard. Uh, I'm the attorney for the Sherrill and Sutherland. I'm the attorney for the Lexington Apartment Association. Uh, my address is 200 Southland Drive, Lexington, Kentucky 40503. Um, I've been dealing with this issue for, for years now, and my predecessor, John Schroeder, uh, Judge Schroeder now, uh, dealt with it prior to, to my, my stint. Uh, I want to point out several things to, uh, this, this committee. Um, number one, I don't think anybody has really looked at the economic devastation that this will bring to the apartment community. Um, in essence, what you have here is inspections means vacancy, and vac- and vacancies mean mortgages are not met. So you have a problem that I don't think you really realize the scope of the problem. You have 78,000 rental units in Lexington, uh, Fayette County. You, um, in order to inspect all those properties, you're gonna have to hire all these code enforcement people at a time when I think Lexington is contemplating freezing all the salaries for their police officers and their fire department. Um, you're gonna, you're not gonna have enough time to inspect all these places. Uh, it's an, clearly an unfunded mandate. Um, but the, the sheer economic burden, you're look, you're looking at, just for the apartment association, over $9 million if y- if- if our apartments are down, in just er '18,000 units are down one month because they're not inspected, you're looking at $9 million just for the Air Apartment Association, which is 18,000 units, and the city has 78,000 units when you consider all the condos, apartments, duplexes, and single family housing that are renting in the community. The numbers are staggering, and at a, at this economic time, uh, the l- largest recession in US history since the Great Depression, you're adding woe to investments in your community a- at exactly the wrong time. Um, second of all, I think if, um, if we all stood up and jumped off the ordinances that the council have passed over these many years, I think we would break our leg. Um, there are, there are vast ordinances, there are fire marshals, there are code enforcement, there are building inspectors, there's law enforcement, police agencies. You have all these different agencies that are tasked with taking care of people's behavior, and I, I know some of this goes back to the game day task force and goes back to people burning couches, but you have to face the fact that when 80,000 people are anywhere, you're gonna have a few people that act poorly. That's just statistics. If you put 80,000 people in a close proximity, some of them will act badly, and, and some, some, uh, property owners may act poorly, but that is no reason to destroy an industry for a few bad apples. Um, next, I wanna talk to you, put on my legal hat and talk to you a little bit about discrimination. The, uh, courts in Maryland and New York, at the very least, have shut down this exact proposal on constitutional grounds. It is viol- it is a violation of the 14th Amendment for equal protection of the students. It is a violation of the right to privacy, and those courts have uniformly said, "No, it's unconstitutional." So I, I want you to realize if you go down this path that you're going down a path that is fraught with danger and will bring about legal battles most certainly, uh, and long and costly legal battles. And at the end of the rainbow, I believe that the courts would find that this is also unconstitutional in Kentucky. I think, um, other people have, have talked about the, the green, the green, uh, that they want to walk to their school, and I think that's a wonderful thing. I think it was the mayor's proposal that we reduce our carbon footprint and is- this is exactly the kind of thing that will increase our carbon footprint and go against our mayor-stated goal of becoming a green city. Um, I think that's about all I have to say. Uh, I will give somebody else a chance. Thank you very much- Thank you very much, Joe. Uh, next up is, uh, Todd Sills, Dennis Sills, and then Jeff Marshall. And if you'll state your name and address please. My name is Todd Sills, and, uh, my brother, Dennis, is going to yield his three minutes to me, and my address is PO Box 911023. You live in th- in a PO box? It's, it's a little bit- It's a little cramped, but- Big one. ... I like it. You want my home address? Is it high density? 817 Tiffany Court. Thank you. Okay. That's for the record. We do record these meetings. So you'll have six minutes. Okay. Well, my name is Todd Sills and I am with the Sills Brothers, and we are a family of four brothers and a sister who have invested in student housing around UK for about 20 years. Uh, many of you might know my parents, Bill and Etta May Sills, and my uncle Jimmy, because this family has been investing in the Lexington community for over 60 years. Um, I'm here to express my outrage at this task force that has clearly, was clearly formed from the beginning to push the student culture away from their natural community near UK, where they have lived for generations. I am outraged that this task force would bankrupt the businessmen and women who would- had been serving this culture for, for generations. I want to take exception to the often described student housing report character of land use. It was ascribed, it describes the business a- of, of creating student housing as not complex, where a single family home is simply rented to a group of students. Let me educate you and tell you that 90% of the properties that we own were in a state of complete collapse when we bought them. These properties were condemned by the city, they were boarded up, grass grew several feet high, roofs and floors were caved in. These were old shotgun houses and old grocery stores from the 1920s. We bought a 19th century gate house that was used for horses and buggies. We are a family of carpenters with remodeling skills that span 60 years. We spent far more money remodeling these properties, making them functionally new again, than we did buying the property itself. This remodeling includes installing new electrical boxes and wiring, new plumbing, new carpet, new framework, new drywall, new cabinets, new carpet, new hardwood floors, and modern appliances. We have paved and striped parking with grass space that was approved by the city. Every single renovation received a city permit and was inspected by the city. We played by the rules and we operated clearly within the law and the contention of the law at that time. Now, a very small minority wants this changed. This investment c- continues every year as we continue to employ painters, cleaning ladies, landscapers, carpet cleaners, and handymen to keep these properties in a high state of repair. Millions of dollars, millions of dollars were invested by the Sills Brothers alone. These dollars have meant jobs for many hardworking men and women. Our kids, nieces and nephews are among the thousands of students that have lived in these homes. We have always invited parents to come visit these homes to show them how nice they really are. We had the nicest looking houses on the block. These homes are beautiful, they're safe, and very appropriate for the students, this culture that lives there, and we are proud of them. What is not beautiful is the ugliness I keep seeing out of this task force. This task force is clearly prejudiced against students and the property owners that rent to them, and we are tired of it. And, and I, we're tired of these get out of town ideas. This council and task force would not dare try to force our Black, our Hispanic, our gay and lesbian communities, our senior citizen cultures in Lexington to move. This council and task force would not dare drive the businesses that serve these cultures out of business. These students are a culture also. They did not appear this year. They had been living in the UK area for generations. You don't have to be a protected class in order for prejudice against you to be ugly. This is prejudice, it is ugly, and we are tired of being attacked. We are tired of being shunned. Dr. Steven's prejudice against this student is ugly and you need to reject it out of hand. We need new u- leadership to engage student needs. Maybe someone younger who can relate, maybe someone who remembers what college was like, maybe someone who is not anti-business. We simply want to be engaged. We need leadership that can accept the students for what they are, a culture that has been existing in this area for generations, a culture that has special needs. I want to remind the task force and the city council that the students are the majority, the absolute majority that lives close to the university. The landlords are the majority of the property owners. We need a council and a task force that listens to the majority and works with us. I want to make an appeal to the greater business community in Lexington. If you allow the council to down zone this area and put us out of business, damage the restaurants and the student services center built around this area, you might be next. A task force might be formed to get rid of you, destroy your business, harm your family, and put your employees out of work. A task force might be formed because of one man's vendetta or a minority view that changed the rules and caused you great financial harm. Finally, I want to appeal to the families of Lexington, if you are struggling to send your kids to college or plan to in a few years, reject these anti-student measures. These measures are going to hurt your kids, not just my kids. Committee members, this is majority, look at them. Look at them all. This is the vast majority. How can the task force spend years on this study and be so removed from what the wishes of this majority are? The task force chairman talked about balance of the task force, he talked about involvement. It does not look balanced. We have complained from the beginning that it was not balanced and that the task force was stacked against us. Look at your speakers that are getting ready to come before you. Look at how many are for the proposal and how many are against it. Does it look balanced to you? Look at the audience again. Does it look balanced? Does it look like we were involved? If we weren't involved, you would not ... we would see more balance in this room. We were not involved. Do not revise this proposal. Reject it completely. Todd, thank you so much for your comments. The task members are out of touch, the task members have failed us, and- Your time has expired. Okay. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you so much. Um, we appreciate your being here. And my last line is, get a new task force, start over, a new chair. Thank you. Jeff Marshall, Brenda Wills, um, Chuck Powers, and I see Richard Murphy. Madam Chairman, I think Jeff Marshall- Are you- ... is yielding his time to me, and is, has, has Greg Martin yielding his time to me. Now, are they here? Marshall, Greg Martin. Jeff? You're Jeff Marshall. And then, who else is here? Greg Martin. And are you s- both signed up? I think I am. I'll find you here. All right, Richard Murphy, name and address please. And that means you will have nine minutes, right? I'll, I will- Three of you. Okay. Do you need less? I'll, I'll use less. All right, thank you. Um, Madam Chairman, um, I rep, I'm the attorney for the UAHA, the University Area Housing Association. You've heard, uh, two of our officers speak. I'm gonna cover other, other items. UAHA was formed in 2001 during a previous controversy, and members came to me and were not happy with the way another landlord association was responding to issues that came up with the city. That, that association was taking an entirely antagonistic position to city proposals and the UAHA is composed of landlord members in the UK area who want to work with you and want to solve the problems that you, that we find ourselves in. Uh, UAHA does not support the actions that have taken place on, uh, Forest Park or Westwood Court, as, as been mentioned to you. There are two problems: the out of scale additions to houses, and the behavior issues has been mentioned. We support the Ohio State plan because we feel that there has to be university involvement to deal with the conduct issues that have been raised. We support Officer Gaines' program. We think it's a good first step to that proposal. Um, two of the pr- two of the proposals we do not think will work, that is spacing of student residences and landlord licensing. We feel that students should be encouraged to live as close to UK as possible so they can walk or bike to class. It cuts down on, on our traffic and it cuts down on our carbon footprint. We have a legal problem with the spacing requirements as set forth in the Penn State plan. I'm just gonna read you one sentence out of the Maryland court case which invalidated a similar plan, the highest court in the state of Maryland. In that case, the area around the University of Maryland had noise, litter, parking, and behavioral problems, which the ordinance was trying to address by spacing out those residences. The court said, "To differentiate between permissible residential tenant classes by creating more strenuous zoning requirements for some and less for others based solely on the occupation which the tenant pursues away from that resident," being a student, "is that sort of arbitrary classification which is forbidden under our constitutions." They mentioned the US Constitution and the Maryland Constitution. We in Kentucky also have a prohibition against arbitrary classification in our Kentucky Constitution Section 2. New York courts have ruled the same way. Um, landlord licensing will not solve this as well. In addition to the problem we should men- mention before, the American Planning Association studied this a few years ago in a publication I think you have received, their Zoning News, Coping with Colleges. They again talked about landlord licensing. They said, "If a primary concern of residents is noise from late night parties or the behavior of tenants, linking a reduction in density to a reduction of these impacts is tenuous and speculative. A review of research and planning literature finds no indication of links between density of occupancy and a reduction in the type of disturbances that often lead to cities narrowing the definition of family. In other words," they say, "In other words, this is an approach that likely will not fix the problem, studied by the American Planning Association." Um, I want you to all remember that when a landlord rents a piece of property, under the law, that landlord gives possession and control to the person who live there. Possession and control. Landlords are not parents. Landlords are not bosses. Landlords are not the University of Kentucky. Landlords have very limited control over what happens inside that unit once they rent it, by law. They do have to provide a safe, decent, clean space to live and our Division of Code Enforcement and the Division of Fire are very, uh, uh, good on, on, on enforcing that and have full power and control to enforce those laws as they do. Again, you've discussed funding issues with those agencies. How do you solve the problems? As far as excessive additions, you have the ND1 Overlay District, which was adopted a few years ago, and as I recall the discussion then, it was adopted precisely to deal with the issue of what they call the vinyl box additions. That is a tool you have, it exists, it has been passed, it is in the ordinance books, and if that is an issue, we feel ND1 Overlays should be used. Second, um, increased parking requirements. This may sound counter, counterintuitive because people have been trying to decrease, for some reason, parking requirements to student areas, which puts more parking on the street. But increasing parking requirements by requiring one space for every bedroom above four does two things. One, it takes parking off the street. But number two, it also prevents additions. Why does it do that? Because you have a limited amount of space on these lots, and if a, an owner knows they have to not only have space for the addition, but for the parking as well, that's gonna cut out most of these additions by itself. I've talked to many people in our, our association, the UHAHA and they said, "Well, how about if parking were required?" And they said that would stop these additions in their tracks, because there's simply not room to roo, to put that additional parking, which is needed in these neighborhoods, plus put additions to the buildings on there. And again, finally, we feel that student conduct issues will not be fully addressed until the university is fully engaged in that. That's why we support the Ohio State plan, we support Officer Gain's plan as well because that is a step in the first dir, in the, in the direction toward doing that. We thank you for your attention to this, and we thank you for everybody's service on this issue. Thank you very much, Richard. Um, and I should've apologized up front if I massacre any names. Um, I'm just about to, I think . Uh, Brenda Wills, Josh Pascuchi? Pasqua. Oh, Pasqua. And Anthony Humphris. Brenda Wells, 4160 Kentucky River Parkway, Lexington. Uh, I am the Executive Director for the Greater Lexington Apartment Association. Uh, I'd like to say once again, we've brought this up at previous meetings, that I'm very disappointed that the Greater Lexington Apartment Association was not invited to serve on the Student hou, Student Housing Task Force, uh, as we are an affiliation of the National Apartment Association, which represents 5.9 million apartment homes across the nation. Our association alone represents over 18,000 apartment homes in Lexington and the surrounding areas. The resources that we have at our fingertips could have been instrumental in gathering information from other, uh, university cities across the nation. Uh, therefore, the National Apartment Association and the Greater Lexington Apartment Association respectfully ask that members of both the Planning Committee and the Council at Large refrain from adopting dup, duplicative policies that impose unfair and costly mandates upon rental property owners. Uh, I think our attorney, Joe Howard, has said what we needed to say, and I think some of our members are gonna be speaking as well, uh, but, um, I, I just wanted to pass that onto you. I think we really could've been instrumental to that task force committee, and we did ask to serve and we were refused. So, thank you. Thank you, Brenda. Um, Josh Pasqua, Anthony Humphries, and Rick Bryant. And Anthony, if you'll get queued up there, please. Ma'am, if it please you, uh, David Putoff has agreed to, uh, loan me his time. Pardon me? I said, if it please you, David Putoff has agreed to loan me his time. David... And is, he signed up? What, what's your last name, please? All right, thank you. That'll be six minutes. My name is Josh Pasqua, I'm a resident at 210 Floral Park in District 3 with Ms. Wallace. Um, to begin, I like to say that, uh, many of the proposals that were put here go against many of the, uh, policies that we already have on the books. Uh, one policy I would like to reference is the Comprehensive Plan, which calls for infill. By restricting student housing and forcing us away from campus, you're basically going against that policy. Uh, for instance, you're... And to address that, you're gonna have lots of empty houses there since students can no longer live there, which will deteriorate the property values around. So whether you're students or permanent residents, no one wants property values deteriorating. Um, you also have, in Lexington, the Live Where You Work program. Well, us students, our profession is students. We wanna live near the campus. That's where we work, that's where we study. So I don't know why we can't do that when there's programs out there that advocate for other pe- other professionals to live near where they work. And obviously, I don't need to go into how parking's already impossible, so I'll skip that entirely. Um, I'd like to also address, uh, Mayor Newberry's, uh, vision that he set forth at creating Lexington as a creative center. Uh, that plan calls for, uh, educated professionals, uh, specifically from our graduate programs, to come back to Lexington, live, and help develop this area. However, we are the people that are gonna be those graduates. And as students, we were basically being alienated. I think I speak for most of us when I say that I don't really feel like coming to live in a univ- uh, town that's discriminating against students. Um, so I'll go back to the outright discrimination. Students should not be segregated into a particular neighborhood if no one else in the city is being, uh, done the same way. Segregating a student, a section of the population historically leads to persecution, which is what I see happening here. Basically what's happening is you're trying to lump all your problems to the side and forget about it. I don't thi- I think that's very unfair. What this policy is gonna do is basically create student slum, uh, sections. Again, deteriorating property value and instead of, uh, ameliorating your issues of trash and crime, you're instead just going to concentrate it and cause a, a huge spike. A lot of these problems can be, uh, addressed by neighborhood involvement, which s- uh, is addressed in the OSU program very, very briefly. I think that topic should be, uh, have a lot more focus on there. Um, currently there is little to no community in the neighborhoods because students are such a transient population. However, that problem can be easily s- resolved. On my street, for example, my roommates and I made it a point to, uh, introduce ourselves to our neighbors. We had cookouts over the summer that we invited our neighbors to. They invited us to their cookouts. We were able to, uh, place a face to the neighbors around us, to the people that we would be affecting. Um, so excuse me, let me catch my point. Uh, because of this, we are much, obviously much more conscious on what we do around, uh, our neighborhood. Conversely, our, uh, v- right next door neighbors, they didn't really get to know anyone. In fact, the first instance we met them is when they were lighting fireworks off in the middle of the night. So there's a very stark contrast between mys- uh, my house, which was trying to do the responsible thing and get community involvement, whereas the house next to us has been labeled a party house, has had cops visit. They obviously, they didn't know anyone. They don't care about what's happening. So again, problems are being addressed. We've had, at my house, we've had lots of people over before, but because we know our neighbors, we're able to ensure that noth- none of the issues that are often brought up, such as trash in neighbors' yards, people, uh, causing disruption, noise complaints, all of those are addressed because we have communication between our neighbors. Again, community involvement is the s- answer to this. I don't need to go into fair housing issues since we've obviously had lots of legal opinions on that. But I would like to, uh, speak to one pre- uh, part of the proposal that spoke of the House Buy Back Program. Uh, already our economy is kind of in an issue. Uh, I don't know where this funding is going to come from. So I'm asking you, if we already don't have enough, uh, budget to hire the people to enforce it, how are we also going to be buying back these houses? It just doesn't make any sense. So I guess I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much, Josh. Next is Anthony Humphris, and then Rick Bryant, and then Janet Cowan. I think JC Bisic was gonna give me his three minutes if I need it. Will you tell me the last name, please? Uh, Bisic. And is he here? Okay, very good. You'll have six minutes. 'Kay, thank you. I'm Anthony Humphris, live at 1108 Fontaine Road, and um, I wanna just kinda bring this down to a personal level if I could. Um, I'm a graduate of Transylvania and I've been a neighbor to college students for over nine years now. Um, and I, I'm on the board of my neighborhood association where I lived for over seven years with college students right next to me that were my residents, and I've got about 100 students there. Uh, my business is called Full Life Properties. I'm a small business owner. I pay for my own health insurance. I'm trying to make it out there. I'm also a campus minister at UK. I've been doing that, this is my 10th year, and I specifically work with fraternity men. Um, I've got a two-year-old, uh, daughter at home, Riley, and a wife on bed rest who's a graduate of Ohio State that wanted to be here desperately, but she couldn't make it. Um, so with that in mind, I can empathize from a lot of different angles with the issue. I can empathize as a neighbor and I can empathize as a property owner. Um, and um, as, as a person who has a family that is a property owner, this will literally break us financially. Um, it's, my wife told me yesterday that it's, it's like we're losing our job. I said, "No, it's worse. It's like we're losing our business, so we don't just lose our income. We have tons of debt that we have to try to pay back." So this is a face of a property owner who's going down, not only his family, but the other subcontractors that I give work to, and several others. Uh, so it's a real issue. And as you can see, I'm not the Grinch, or I'm not Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life, you know. Um, and as far as my work with the fraternity men, uh, and what I do with them, I would probably no longer be able to do that, which is kind of ironic, uh, because a lot of people claim that they're a lot of the reason for this problem. And they represent... What I do with them, we represent about 13... Is it 13? No, 16 different fraternity and sorority houses, um, where they actually talk about biblical values and things like loving your neighbor, that sort of stuff. Um, I've had tenants that have wro- wrote me letters, uh, "You and your wife are truly wonderful people. We couldn't ask for better landlords." Um, there's several others. Uh, we've done, and I'll pass this out, but every month, uh, we send out a newsletter to our tenants. And, um, I'm not sure how to get this around to you, so I'll leave 'em here. Um, but the UAHA could easily get these newsletters out to their tenants, where it clearly communicates expectations and what the repercussions are, which costs basically nothing. Uh, there's stuff in here about trash and safety with keeping your windows locked, that kind of thing. Um, that's an idea. We've actually done a cookout for the tenants in the neighborhood and the neighbors around there to meet each other. Um, a lot of the things that we're talking about here, they're already being done. Uh, so there's not really a need for, for more stuff, uh, to happen. Um, and since I do work with college students, obviously it's plain to see what's on their hearts today. Um, I know that even Mayor Newberry, he kind of set forth this vision of transferring Lexington into what he calls a creative center, where young creative people with advanced degrees drive the local economy. So where are the young people today and how are they feeling? I'm pretty sure they're feeling alienated by the very city that wants them to hang around after they graduate to help drive this local economy. Um, so that's no way to achieve that vision for Lexington. Um, I've spoken, and I'm jumping around a little bit here, but we've spoken with, uh, Susan Stafford at the University of Colorado, uh, where they've passed similar, uh, rules like this. And, and she will tell you that it was a mistake. And she'll talk about the, how much more unsafe it is, how much more it's actually costing the city to keep up with because of all the things going on under the table. Um, so it's, it's not a good plan. Um, I think Officer Gaines is basically volunteering in a sense to be the off-campus director that UK won't set aside money to hire right now. So for me, that makes sense. Um, and, uh, and I, I, I think a problem with the plan that we have right now is that all the parties involved, there's skepticism and no one trusts each other. So if we do something that penalizes a group of people, they're only gonna feel less trust and, um, and we need to set up a system that has positive reinforcement in it. For example, if I volunteer for a program, a preferred housing program, then, you know, make sure that my property doesn't go vacant for X amount of time or whatnot. Um, so we just need to come up with a, with a win-win for everybody. Uh, but mainly, I just want to say that I'm kind of the face of a property owner. You've seen several others. It's gonna be bad for us, and, um, I think there's other ways we can handle this to make it a win-win for everybody other than the, uh, rental licensing and the change in the definition of the family. So thank you. Thank you very much, Anthony. Next up is Rick Bryant, then Janet Cowan, then David Stephens. Oh, Bill Lear, you don't look like Rick Bryant . Rick lost some hair there . For- fortunately, yeah, fortunately for him. Are, are you- I believe Rick is going to yield his time to me. Okay. Also, I believe Jill Tice is, and I'm- Jill, I'm sorry. Jill. Jill Tice? Okay. And you were both signed up? Yeah. All right, thank you. So Bill, you'll have three, s- nine minutes. Six is- Oh, six is plenty? All I want. Bill Lear, 732 Lake Shore Drive, Lexington, Kentucky. I'm one of the principals, uh, in Touchstone Properties, uh, which does own and rent some properties in the area that we've been discussing. Uh, I wanna just touch base on three things briefly. Uh, one is broad stroke public policy. Um, grow up, not out. Live where you work. You've heard those, those phrases. Uh, learn to walk, learn to bike, stop driving. For as, as long as I can remember, at least going back to the mid-'90s, that's been the mantra in Lexington, uh, where we've held the line on expansion of the urban service area boundary and decided that more density close to the center of town is better, not worse. Um, I'm gonna come back to some of the practical and legal problems, uh, of the preferred, that is to say the task force's preferred alternative, but the most important public policy objection to it is that it flies in the face of all of those other things that I just mentioned. The College Town Plan, again, aimed, uh, among other things, at getting more housing units into the College Town area, not taking residents out of the College Town area. Uh, there's a diagram, which I won't put up. ... uh, that, that UK prepared, uh, based on student addresses in 2007 and it shows that 55% of the then students lived within f- wi- within two miles of the University of Kentucky. That is exhibit A of how we ought to have the town work. Uh, exi- exhibit B of how we not ought to have the city work is to take all those students and spread 'em all out throughout Fayette County. It's contrary to their best interest, it's contrary to the community's best interest. What we haven't done as good a job of as we could have and should have, is handling the impacts of that density. And I'll talk about that in a minute. Now, the preferred, the preferred solution from the task force is problematic for a host of reasons. Number one, the whole idea of dispersion. It's based upon an amendment, a concept of amending the zoning ordinance to say, "Over time when people stop using their houses for student housing, they can't go back." It's a non-conforming use type of thing. The problem with non-conforming uses is they're allowed to, to last as long as the sun shines. Unless and until there is a, a, uh, decision to discontin- continue that use and an intent to abandon the use. You gotta stop it and you gotta intend not to start it again. So you could pass that kind of overlay and 20 years from now, unless you went out and physically bought houses, you probably would have no less student housing in the area that you're trying to deal with. Um, how are you going to find student housing? I'm a student at LCC, or what used to be LCC. Uh, I'm a student. I'm a student at Transylvania. I'm a student. It's not just UK. You gonna say that you can't have another house next to me if I happen to be an LCC student? Many of them are non-traditional and they live a lo- a lot of places. There are 11,000 of them. Rental licensing. Uh, 78,000 rental units in Fayette County, but the big problem with trying to address that in a university town is that thousands of the move outs and move ins occur at the same time. How many inspectors do you think it would take to go in every, every unit that's used for university housing within a period of two or three weeks or a month and inspect 'em? Hundreds. Seriously, there are... The, this chart that UK, um, prepared shows there were 6,295 UK housing units with it, just within two miles of campus. And they move out and move in basically two times a year, the end of, end of, uh, April, 1st of May, or right about the 1st of August. Insurmountable problem in my opinion. Limiting the number of persons per unit. Dick Murphy wrote, uh, an opinion on that when he was in the law department in 1981 and talked about how difficult it is to deal with the issue of what is a family and how many unrelated persons there are. That issue has not gotten any better, uh, in the, the nearly 30 years since then. It's still a very knotty problem. And from a practical standpoint, you don't know, you don't know, we don't know if you picked out a number like three unrelated persons, how many different units that would, that would affect in Fayette County and how many people it would move and how many new units you would have to build to accommodate those people. Uh, the home builders would probably be licking their chops at the notion of building that many more units and having that much more ground to have to accommodate the same number of people. Now, what's the issue? The, the real issue is not the clustering of, of students around the University of Kentucky. We ought to be for that. The whole community ought to be for that. The real issue is handling the impacts, the trash and debris, which are particularly bad at move in and move out time, parking, uh, especially on street and off street, uh, the parties, which we tried to deal with before, and the vital boxes. Um, you've got ordinances on the book to deal with virtually all of those. There are a couple that need to be tweaked, but what makes any of us think that when we've got all those ordinances on the books and they're not being enforced now, we're gonna make things better by putting a bunch more of 'em on the books? Thank you. Thank you very much, Bill. Next on the agenda is Janet Cowan, then David Stephens, then Molly Davis. I'm Janet Cowan. I live at 612 Columbia Avenue and I am the history. I've lived here in my house, um, happy to say we've just paid it off. I, I own it and I don't wanna have to move. I would be one of those seniors that someone referred to that is being forced out of my neighborhood. We're not opposed to students. I'm a resident. I li- I live in my neighborhood despite all of my friends who live out in homes, um, outlying areas say, "Why do you do it? Why do you continue to fight this? Why don't you move out?" We had n- a neighborhood meeting the other night where we have professors and doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs and students and every color, every race, every religion that live in our neighborhood and that's why we wanna live where we live. We like it. I've had some of the most wonderful students live next door to me. They watch my dogs, they've house sit for me. I don't have a problem with that. And what, um, a lot of you guys sitting in this room don't realize that if you didn't have some of us protecting your interest, you wouldn't have a good place to live. The guys who live across the street from me came over one day and said, "What do we do? We are, we don't have water. You know, they, it's leaking." We help them. Use your neighbors. Be a good neighbor. I've heard several of you speak, and you have been. Um, I like what Mr. Murphy said, I like what Mr. Moizer said, and I really appreciate what Dr. Stephens is trying to do. I have a young lady who drives in from way out Tate's Creek where she lives, to park in my driveway to ride her bike to school. I got a call from her the other morning, said, "Can you come get me? I've just had a wreck." What we want to see is a green neighborhood. We want to see a safe neighborhood. I live on Columbia. Somebody said, "Do you enjoy playing chicken, getting out of your driveway, driving down your street?" We don't, and we don't like the students or anybody else who drives down my dri- my street to do that. I don't know what the answer is. I've sat on committees, I've sat on task force. I don't know. But I applaud those who did sit on this committee and did try to work something out. Also, for those who think they weren't represented, uh, re- represented, there were five landlords, five people from UK, four from LFUCG, and three residents. So we weren't represented either, and I agree more than anything that UK needs to step up to this table. They kicked drinking off of campus and put it in our neighborhood. They need to come back and with the no smoking issue that's coming up, we don't wanna become another ashtray either. So something has got to be done. Thank you. Thank you, Janet. David Stephens, Molly Davis, and then Robert Boone. Thank you, Madam Chairman. It's good to be back and, uh, but on this side of thing, it's a little bit different, I'll tell you. The, I would refer you to this morning's paper. There was a op-ed piece in it that I think says pretty much what I have on my mind. But I would like to rebut several of the ac- uh, assertions that have been made here today. One, this plan that, uh, that the task force has chosen as their number one option doesn't, uh, include apartment houses. It is only for single family and duplex R1, R2, not apartments. There are many apartments that are being s- constructed right now for students, South Broadway, perhaps on Angliana, and those are not being, not part of this issue. Inspection, I have been to, uh, Bloomington, Indiana and to Bureau of State College where they have rental inspections and they're done every two or three years, not at change of tenant, so that they can be done and scheduled over time and do not have to exclude people, uh, or hold a place open while they're waiting for an inspection. The Pennsylvania State Courts have considered this issue and thought it was constitutional and, uh, not a violation of the United States Constitution. The properties would also be grandfathered, so those people who have investments and are, have economic interest in the properties now would still be, uh, able to continue that activity until they stop. Uh, with the new apartments being constructed for students, uh, it looks to me like I see more signs going up in the neighborhoods all the time and I think there would be a gradual loss of student houses in those neighborhoods, which could be converted back to single family or duplex homes. They do so in, uh, Borough of State College. I've been to there, as I mentioned, and visited those places, and it's working there. I'd be happy to answer any questions, uh, if the committee has those. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak, and it's nice to see so much interest. And David, for the record, what's your number on Lake Shore? 620 Lake Shore Drive. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sorry I didn't give it. No problem. Uh, Molly Davis, Robert Boone, and Charlotte Boone. Thank you, Chairwoman Gorton, sort of chairwoman. Um, I'm speaking, I believe, for myself and for Robert and Charlotte Boone. They ceded their three minutes each to me. So you will have nine minutes. Yes, they are downstairs where there is a large group gathered, um, probably a different proportion than what is up here, about half in favor and half not in favor. So do not think that everyone here is not in favor of it. Um, I'd like to thank everybody on the task force for their time over the past months, um, being involved on this. I, I learned of it rather late. Um, I'm a resident of 1406 Elizabeth Street. I have lived there for 10 years and for three years before that at 1415 Elizabeth Street. I was one of the people who often thought that someone else would take care of the problems that I was feeling and encountering every day with, um, living in a student neighbor- a neighborhood quite, uh, uh, with a lot of students and near UK. I moved there because it was affordable and it was really great to be so near UK. I had gone to school at UK as well and I parked on that street when I went there. Um, but what I learned is that when there are probably 10% of people who live and own their homes some place versus about 90% of students, it really changes your experience. Um, what I'd like to kind of note also is that the time of the meeting, if it could be at a different time, you might see a different population here than students and realtors. I know that they have quite a different kind of schedule, one that can allow them to come at, for two hours during the middle of the day. Most working professionals can't do that. If we could have meetings at night, it would be a great, a great help, I think, and you'd see a different kind of population showing up. My understanding is also that on the, uh, task force, there were four, four residents, four neighbors. Um, so the people who made comments that the landlords were underrepresented, uber- underrepresented might also be the case for residents and neighbors. We were all minorities, as someone said. We wouldn't be here today if everything was okay. I think we all know that. And there has to be some sort of solution, I believe. My understanding is that by coming today, we are able to encourage this plan to be, go, to go further to council. I did not realize that it was sort of a thumbs up or thumbs down today, based upon how many people showed up, or you could have show up. Perhaps it's my misunderstanding. Just for the folks who have spoken about the ordinances, how many the, how many there are, and how effective they are, they are not effective. They're not doing their job. If they were, we wouldn't all be here. Recently, a house at Forest Park had a 1,500 square foot addition added onto it. It's part of the infill and redevelopment plan. It's a 900 square foot house. We were told in a letter by Dewey Crow that it could've been even larger, this addition. I believe Kathy Franklin forwarded that to th- members of the council. So the ordinances that we have, I believe that are, they are not being very effective. Um, I think it would be great if the planning department of LFUCG were involved. I'm not sure why they weren't, as they are a team of professional planners, um, 20 or 30 people who could have good input to this process. I believe they certainly should be a part of it. It should not go to a consultant. Um, and I speak as a consultant who has worked on plans. I know when we had the infill and redevelopment plan, it was done by someone from out of town. I think our local planning department should be involved. They live here. They have responsibilities here and they are, care about things. Last of all, someone mentioned the MD Overlay. The MD Overlay takes a lot of time to implement. We don't have the time to implement that. We need to address that right now. Um, so in closing, I'd like to say thank you very much for your time and effort. And I would definitely like to see this carried forward. Thank you. Thank you, Molly. Um, we have James McKee, John Mickler, and Steve Olshesky. Or is it Gene McKee? I'm so sorry. Is there a McKee here on Helmsley Lane? John Mickler? Steve- Hi. ... Olshesky? My name is Steve Olshesky. I live at 220 Westwood Court. Unfortunately, when I was coming down here, uh, I didn't get here in time to, to get up here. At first, I had to get in the overflow room. And then the reason it took me so long to come down here is because as I was driving out of my street from Westwood Court, by the way, I live down at 220 Westwood Court, there are eight houses, eight houses, between me and Elizabeth Street on Westwood Court. And Diane, let me ask you quickly, did you circulate my email that I sent you over the weekend? Do you know? Hmm? Okay. I've had about 400. Okay, then that, uh, that's fine. Then maybe not. I, uh, I sent, I sent my, I sent my council member a, uh, a, a list of proposals and I said, you know, "Look, the only reason I'm sitting down to write this email is because at Friday night at 10:00 PM, it took me..." I, I'm not given to exaggeration. I want to say five minutes, but I'm afraid, uh, uh, just to be fair, I'm gonna say three, but really it was more like five. You know what I'm saying? To drive past eight houses to get from my house to Elizabeth Street. Why? 'Cause it was Friday night at 10:00. The pedestrian traffic, pedestrian traffic, down at the end of, of the culvert there. Yeah, so today, when I was on my way down here, I had to wait 10 minutes for H&H Pavement to get a couple of different people out to move the two trucks they got parked in the middle of the street. One's full of asphalt and one's just a regular work truck. I, I was in a hurry to get down here or I would've stopped to see which new set of development is going on. But you guys don't seem to get it. And I mean, I'm telling you honestly with, uh, you know, kind of a, you know, the most sincere way I know how. I've come down here before and you probably recognize me or remember me talking. There's a problem, and I don't know if you realize this. And it's ongoing. And I don't know if you realize what that's about. And it's immediate. It's going on right now, today, today. Today, it made me not get here in time. I mean, this, this, uh, with all due refect, uh, I mean, I'm still . I wish I could speak as good as this law student over here. This guy, this guy's talented. Uh, with all due respect to Miller, Griffin & Marks, this pro- task force proposal is whack. Putting students on every other house and, oh, you're dreaming. Here's the thing. You do have a problem, and I have outlined some specific solutions, and that's fine. But why don't you just realize that this task force has brought you back a half-cooked loaf or whatever, and you're gonna have to start over. And maybe in five or 10 years, we can get back to this problem again, like we did 10 years ago and 20 years ago. I mean, this is an ongoing problem. It's an immediate problem. It gets progressively worse. And I, and I see my time's up, but you can tell, I got lots more to say, so that's why I put it in an email, and I hope you do get that eventually. Thanks. Thank you very much, Steve. And next we have- Steve, I did look for it, but- Well, then . ... and I will get to it and pass it on. Thanks. And then- Uh, James, is it McKee or Kee? It's McKee. And then John Mickler. I wasn't gonna forget you. I know people are having to come up from downstairs. And then Sheila Pennington. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to, uh, speak today. I would like to rebut- Please say your name and address. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm, uh, James McKee. I live at, uh, 216 Helmsley Lane in Versailles, uh, Kentucky, but I own property, uh, here in Lexington. Mr.- I would like to rebut, uh, the math previously mentioned that half the people down, uh, in the room downstairs are for and half against. I, I don't think that's quite accurate. I think there are probably more, uh, against this. Um, I would like to, uh, go on record as saying I'm a home builder and real estate broker. I own property in the area. And, um, one thing that I have not heard mentioned is, um, just the real property rights that, uh, people have when they purchase property under a fee simple title, which I purchased mine. You do have rights that come with that property, and I think that's probably one of the first places that we should all start on this, so. I know there are a lot of issues, and, uh, I think it needs a lot more investigation, but that would be a great place to start. So thank you, uh, for your time and attention today. Thank you very much, James. John Mickler, Sheila Pennington, and then Stephanie, maybe A-O-A-R, on Woodland Avenue? Welcome. Thank you. Uh, I'm John Mickler, 415 East Maxwell Street, Lexington, Kentucky. I live in the middle of one of the student neighborhoods, um, and I enjoy living with the students. And for me, I sometimes think that we listen to issues like this, and people respond to certain things that they he- that they feel are, um, against them. But I think it's a situation where we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are some good things in this report. If we all lived together responsibly all the time, we wouldn't need ordinances of any kind. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Do I think it's good for students to live close to campus? You bet. We're advocates of more bike lanes. We, uh ... Do I think it's good that every backyard from Euclid Avenue to Maxwell Street is graveled? No. I would like to see students find ways to get around without the automobile, and I think it's our responsibility to try to make that happen. So there's, um ... I think responsibility is really the key, and I think we need to look at that as we continue this conversation forward. Um, one other thing that was mentioned about ordinances, it seems to be something that I hear a lot, and that is, "Just don't make any new ordinances. Just, just, uh, enforce the ones that are on the books." Well, those of us who have lived in the neighborhood for a long time have certainly seen that that's not always done. And I don't know if that means a new ordinance or if that means that we need to enforce the ones we have, or possibly a combination of both. But, um, to say that the ordinances are not effective may be pointing the finger back at the city government, and you may need to look at saying, "How can we make these ordinances more effective?" But I reiterate one last time, I enjoy living close to campus, I enjoy living with the students, and I hope we can work in a responsible way together to continue this dialogue forward. Thank you. Thank you very much, John. Uh, Sheila Pennington, Stephanie A-O-A-R, and Sammy Saintcholar? Name and address, please. My name is Scott Fielder. I'm at 529 Millpond Road. Um, I'm speaking on behalf of Sheila Pennington, who is- Okay. Are you signed up? Yes. Okay. Uh, so you'll have six ... Up to you. I just need a few minutes. Uh- Okay. ... most of ev- everything that has been, that I had to speak on has been discussed. Okay, very good. Um, I just want to throw some numbers out that, uh, actually Sheila Pennington had put together. Uh, the Greater Lexington Apartment Association represents approximately 18,000 rental units. Um, statistically, about 55% of those turn over y- every year. Um, so we have, uh, about 9,900 additional units that are turned. So, basically 27,900 apartments would be- would require inspections once a year. Um, at an estimated cost that I think we've seen proposed of $50, we've got a cost to owners of $1.3 million. Um, quite a lot of money that, that a small owner would have to pay. Um, we know with that type of inventory, the properties would require a huge deficit and vacancy loss very quickly, an average rent of $750 per month, which isn't too uncommon, times the 9,900 turnovers, uh, would result in monthly vacancy loss of $7,425,000. Uh, that's if we have to wait for a one-month inspection. Uh, not taking into account there may be some re-inspections along the way or wait periods longer than the one month. Uh, there's no way we can feasibly pass that type of money onto our residents, um, especially affordable housing type units. Uh, if an inspection took approximately one hour to complete, it would take one inspector 13.4 years with no vaca- no vacation or holidays, just to handle the inspections. Um, and that's only the in- the units the Greater Lexington Apartment Association represents. That's 18,000 units. This would mean the city would have to hire at least 15 inspectors for the Apartment Association l- units alone. You'd also need to consider that the inspectors would need vehicles, tools, phones, insurance benefits, et cetera. They'd also need to be bonded and insured since they're entering people's homes. It is w- it is with much respect that I ask you to reconsider your vote to pass any recommendations as it pertains to student housing and rental licensing. If behavior is at the base of the proposal, there are ways to handle these issues with forcible detainers and evictions, or substandard housing is the issue, please allow code enforcement to do their jobs. I assure you, the great students and landlords of this town far outweigh the bad. Thank you. Thank you very much, Scott. Um, Stephanie, are you here, and then Sammy Saint Choler, Jody Williams? Hello. I'm Stephanie Horr. I live at 349A Woodland Avenue, and Sammy Choler is actually my roommate, and she has requested to yield her time to me. Very good. Thank y- Okay. I just want to clear something up. In terms of, um, those in favor of this being misrepresented, I just want to throw this out there that a lot of the students today are being misrepresented, in all honesty. I'm missing class right now, but fortunately, my teacher has allowed me to be here, and a lot of the students couldn't do that. So my three roommates and I recently moved into a four-bedroom house on Woodland Avenue. We chose to live there because it is primarily within walking distance to UK's campus. All in our junior year and finally out of campus dorms, we are all enjoying the fact that we can live together and we have our own freedom of living on our own. Now, imagine our extreme disappointment that we hear that this could all be changed soon. I am here today to ask everyone to think about what you all are about to do. As college students, we have many concerns about this decision, because it is going to affect us the most. My roommates and I are all from out of town. Three of them are actually from out of state, and we strongly believe that Lexington would not be as well known as it is today if it were not for the University of Kentucky. I'm from Louisville, and trust me, UK posters and billboards are everywhere, so we've heard of it. Therefore, it is safe to say that Lexington is a college town, and a well-known one at that. As a college s- town, Lexington strongly supports the J- UK students, and we are very grateful for that. Our choosing to, our choosing to attend UK was to get the entire college experience. Part of that experience for us is to get the chance to live in a house off-campus. Does this city want to be known for not welcoming its students to be able to experience living off-campus? Putting this into l- an economic perspective, no college student is going to be able to afford $600 or more a month for rent. This is not even including utilities. Obviously, this is not affordable to any students who th- they themselves have to pay for their own housing. Not to mention that we've already heard, and it's been emphasized, that this will financially hurt homeowners themselves when they lose all their tenants due to high renting fees. With this proposal, many students will have to choose to move further away from campus than where they live now because they cannot afford the high renting fees. Increasing the number of students that will have to commute to campus is something that no one wants. No offense, but isn't Lexington traffic bad enough? When you have hundreds, even thousands of students trying to drive to school, find a parking spot, then attempt to get to class on time, the amount of traffic and possibly even traffic-related accidents will continue to increase. Here's something to think about. When you move into a house that is next to the railroad tracks, what do you run the risk of? Railway noise. Or what about next to a busy highway? Traffic noise. For all, so for all the residents that live around any large campus, what are they running the risk of? Student noise and traffic from the campus. You see, people have to know that by choosing to live within close proximity of a college campus, that they are running the risk of students moving in right next to them. It is a college campus. That is their choice and their decision, but forcing us, as the students, to live elsewhere without having a choice or an option of where we want to live is not right in any way. This is easily stereotyping every single college student out there, that no matter what, they are loud and apparently a threat to the community. We are not saying we do not understand the frustration of having loud neighbors, but college students or not, you run the risk of having this problem anywhere and with anyone. They might not even be college students. So why punish us for just a select few's wrongdoing? We only hope that ut- that today you'll take some of our points into consideration. We respect Lexington and anyone living around UK's campus. So when you go to make your decision, just remember that we, too, understand that noise and other neighborhood problems can be frustrating. Separating students from living close to campus just because of a select few's wrongdoing is not fair to the rest of us. We thank you for your time, for listening to our own opinions and concerns, and we hope you do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you very much, Stephanie. Next on the list is Jody Williams and then Dottie Stinnet. My name's Jody Williams. I'm 3900 Crosby Drive. Um, I am the Community Manager of the Racquet Club Apartments and the immediate past President of the Greater Lexington Apartment Association. Um, just to make something clear, um, 'cause I, I went back through and, and read after Dr. Stephens spoke that the policy does state, or the, the proposal does state on page 12, um, that all rental properties would be licensed, not just the homes. So that would include Racquet Club, which is 474 apartments. Um, most of the talk has been centered around the university area, and I just wanted to focus a little bit more how it would affect a community miles away from the university. Um, just to throw a few more numbers out there, the current proposal is asking for each apartment to be inspected prior to being moved in. This, in itself, is absolutely unrealistic, which we've discussed. Um, just Racquet Club alone, um, just sitting on an apartment for three days while waiting inspection would be, um, over 50,000 a year, plus the 20,000 a year you want for the licensing fee. Um, our- our apartments get inspected by three different sets of eyes each and every time we have someone move into it, so it's kind of an insult to me that the city's now asking, or it's being proposed the city come and inspect an apartment, um, at the Racquet Club before I can have somebody move into it. Um, I think the bottom line here, just from being here since 9:30 and talking to some students, and just talking t- to people that I get the gist. I'm from Lexington. I'm- I'm born here, raised here, I graduated from the University of Kentucky, and now I manage the community, so I- I- I see all facets of it. The task force, to me, it just, it's so extreme what they're proposing that that's why there's so much interest. That if there would just be like a secondary committee or something that, where people feel well-represented, where the- the- where we don't have all these people from high-ups involved in taskforce, but you actually have some just normal students and some normal community managers and, uh, local planning involved, that we could probably ... If I would concede a few things, I'm sure the students would concede a few things, and the neighborhoods could c- concede a few things, and we could come to an agreement that's not so extreme. Um, but it just, it- it was extremely frustrating from the get-go that we politely asked to be part of that taskforce, politely asked, and we were, we were not only ... We weren't invited, which is kind of an insult, but then when we asked, we were declined on numerous attempts. And it's just, it seems absolutely absurd that they're talking ... Th- this single association that has to do with housing in Lexington, the largest one, wasn't even invited or a- or allowed to be on a f- a taskforce that's researching housing. So, all I'm asking is that, is that you just could table it, you consider some alternative options. Let us all feel like we're well-heard, and let's all make concessions each way around, and make something that's- that's- that works for the entire community. Thank you very much, Jody. Dotty Stennet, and then Shane Martin, and then we'll discuss when our next meeting will be. Hello. Uh, my name's Dotty Stennet. Address is 1544 Meade Court in Lexington. I'm the Regional Property Manager for Professional Management Group. We have rental property in Lexington. Uh, I'm also a past president of the Greater Lexington Apartment Association. Um, it appears that this rental licensing fee issue, it always comes up when there's problems after UK game day. Well, unfortunately, those things happen, and they have in years past. Uh, we have no control over someone else's behavior. Uh, I agree with the property owners who occupy their homes deal with a lot of frustration on game days, but I don't believe trying to implement spacing or density limits is the answer. UK does not have adequate housing for its students, so they are forced to live elsewhere. Parents and students who pay tuition to the University of Kentucky should be concerned the City of Lexington is considering steering the students further away from the school, which is a federal fair housing violation. This will create more pollution with additional vehicles driving to school, additional parking issues, and additional expense related to owning a vehicle. I'm sure students and their parents will choose not to enroll at the University of Kentucky if housing is not available within walking distance. Being a parent of a college student, unfortunately, it does come down to the cost. From the apartment industry perspective, if a rental licensing fee is imposed on rental units, it will not only impact our industry, but the city will be on the losing end as well. If we have to wait for vacant units to be inspected, revenue will be lost due to additional days of vacancy, which, of course, will have the usual trickle-down effect of the apartment communities not having enough revenue to pay employees, which ends up in lost jobs, which in turn would affect the payroll taxes paid to the city. I think you kind of get the point from there. Um, in order for rental properties to stay afloat, apartment units must be turned within a very short period of time, uh, to make up for any vacancy loss. If inspections are required by the city, who knows how long the units will sit empty and force apartment communities into bankruptcy and foreclosure. We have enough of that going on in the housing industry as it is. In addition, people are not going to wait, uh, when they need housing. The- they will go outside Fayette County to live. Um, I am definitely in favor of the community particin- partition- participation plan Officer Gaines is willing to spearhead, and I commend him to s- for stepping up to the plate and making, trying to make a difference. I also support the Off-Campus Student Service Center. This would better inform the students living off-campus of what is expected from them as adult students. This could somehow be incorporated with the community participation plan, and all off-campus enrolled students should be required to attend or participate in the program and sign a waiver they agree to abide by set regulations. This would also give landlords more leverage to evict when bad behavior issues are brought to their attention and they have the university to back them up. That is one thing the homeowners and landlords have in common, they don't condone bad behavior that leads to destruction of their property. I hope the city takes into account all aspects of the rental licensing ordinance and make it fair to all who are affected by their decision. Thank you. Dotty, thank you very much. And, um, I think we'll take a slight break here, council members, uh, and we may have time to hear from Shane Martin. Um, on the polling sheet, uh, I proposed six different dates and times when members of this committee could meet again to hear from folks who haven't had an opportunity to speak, and it looks like the majority of members of the committee could attend October 5th at 1:00 PM. We did propose an evening meeting and not very many people can attend that. We have actually proposed two m- evening meetings. And so October 5th at 1:00 PM, we will call a special meeting of the planning committee, and we'll hear from folks who didn't have an opportunity today. And if it suits you, we'll hear from at least one more right now. Um, that would be, I believe, Shane Martin. I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said. Okay. Well, thank you for being here. Greg Martin. I yielded my time previously. Oh. Sorry, I got that. I missed that, but you're right. Um, so then we have Kevin Martin. He's yielded to Craig. Daryl Ratliff, you'll be our final speaker as we have a council work session at 3:00. And after you have spoken, I just wanted to say a word to the group who didn't get to speak. So please give us your name and address. Sure. My name is Darryl Ratliff. I live at 772 Longwood Road. I own property on State Street, the wife and I. And, uh, I got a degree from UK in 1969, uh, as did my wife, Nancy. And, uh, we moved from Lexington, uh, and lived two years in Dayton, Ohio. After that, we moved and lived a year in Cincinnati. Then, uh, uh, I lived two years in Washington, DC. After eight years in Louisville, I got to come home. And Lexington is a garden spot. And I, I'm sure most all of us here today understand how, how beautiful the area is, how convenient it is, how reasonably populated it is, and, um, how nice it is just to have a residence r- in this area. There's many reasons, not the least of which is the, uh, horse industry. But another huge reason is because of University of Kentucky. So with great pride, ha- being an alum, uh, tickled to death with the football team at this point. Uh, I had two sons graduated in the early 90s. As a part of that, uh, we bought the property on State Street in order to have a place for our sons to live. We fixed it up. I'm another one of these small operators. I'm a mom and pop operator, don't represent corporate America. And it would be very difficult for us if any of the Dr. Stephens licensing definition of the family density issues were passed. So I strongly urge the Ohio State or Officer Keith Gaines plan to be considered. I followed the Dr. Stephens plan since the inception, and I've included a no party clause in my leases, in our leases, and we've had no problems whatsoever. We've taken a position, if we need city council or our law enforcement members to run our rental operation, we're out. We don't need the help. There's enough rules on the books to take care of us, so we don't need it. Late in July, I had a problem with parking on State Street. I contacted the local police officers. In response, they came out and they resolved the issues. I was trying to clean up the property, I couldn't get rid of the trailers in and out the driveways and there was some issues. But I got proper response, no, no issues. Few days later, I was sitting on the front porch taking a break, painting the property, Officer Gaines walks up, introduced himself. Told me about this pilot program- Daryl. ...about student housing. Daryl. I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but your three minutes is up. Okay. Well, he's, uh, already a member of our community and we really appreciate his efforts and I strongly urge your support. Thank you. We appreciate your being here. Thank you very much. Um, council members who are members of this committee have agreed that we will have a special planning committee meeting on October 5th at 1:00 PM. And if you are here today and signed up to speak and did not get to speak, I will keep the sign-up sheets, and you'll already be on the list to speak on October 5th. If you did not, if you haven't signed up to speak and want to speak on October 5th, you'll be welcome to. We will not be hearing from folks who've already spoken. So I really appreciate that all of you sacrificed your time and energy to come here. And I also thank our division of police who are in here in full force. Thanks, Mike Moizer. And we will continue the discussion. Thank you so much. Council members. Council members. And the meeting is adjourned. And, and council members will take five minutes before the council meeting begins. Five minutes. Be oh five. .