... ideas, and we're here for the Council Planning Committee Meeting, and I welcome all of you who are here. And we are going to continue our work on the Student Housing Task Force recommendations. And first up on our agenda today is Keith Gaines, who is one of our... Well, you're not just one of our Clear Officers, you are the head of the CLEAR unit. Is that correct? No. No, I've promoted you. You've promoted me. I just promoted you. Well, we'll, we'll let you tell what you do, but, um, Keith, uh, at the Student Housing Task Force, uh, toward the end of our work, Keith had a brainstorm about a potential pilot program. And so we wanna hear from him today to present his idea, and then we'll have questions from council members. And, um, then we will be hearing from Tom Harris and crew, from the University of Kentucky. So welcome, Keith. Thank you. One of the things, um, I guess like a lot of the neighbors and people who originally, who have originally, um, dealt with all the problems around UK and, and some of the sleepless nights and things that, uh, this issue has caused, um, has kinda transferred onto me and to some, some sleepless nights. But one of the things for my sleepless nights, it's not because of the problems, it's, uh, sometimes been staying up wake at night trying to come up with some solutions. Um, I think that from Town and Gown and the Quality of Life Subcommittee, that a lot of the problems have been identified over and over, and what we have to look at is what are the solutions? And I believe that, um, there's more than one issue here that, um, has been looked at, uh, a- through the council. One is the final boxes. One of them has been game day. Uh, I believe that those are separate issues. And then we also have just the, the beginning of school that we deal with and the behavior, as well as the overall housing, um, issues that have come up with students living, um, and with the residents. One of the things that I was most concerned with when I was looking at this and, and looking at what the issues are and what the problems are and some of the solutions is, what can I come up with that could be implemented, uh, fairly quickly that, um, everybody can live with, that we can compromise on? And this last weekend, it kind of brought some stuff home to me. Uh, I went on a trip and went to, uh, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and New York. And while I was there visiting some of these places and looking at the, you know, the original copies of the Constitution and, and those type of things, it kinda hit home of what somebody or a group of people can do if you work together on solutions and you're willing to compromise and come together with those compromising, um, thoughts and really work together. And that's what I would like to challenge everybody to do, uh, whether it's students, university, the city, um, property owners, is to maybe let some of, of the issues that are conflicts go by and look at solutions. And that's what, um, I hope that I've kinda put together with my proposal and, um, working on that. And I've worked very closely with everybody, um, to try to, to get a consensus and, and things that everybody would be willing to compromise on. If you look through the proposal, a lot of what is in there, um, really i- is building a partnership. And that's kind of, um, the, the term, where the ship came from, we want everybody on board. And, and that's a big thing with the program is, is to have everybody on board. There's a little piece that's required from everyone if you go through here and look at it that, uh- ... that requires a little bit of effort, a little bit of compromise, and it's a partnership. And I think that that's, that's a key thing, is making it a partnership. This, um, original, um, idea has been changed a little bit. There's, there's, uh, a basic pr- program participation, which you'll see is very, very basic. It's just to be part of the program. Um, it's, it's more of a notification. Uh, one of the things that I've realized in, in doing my job, and I'll, I'll kinda go over that. Um, which... As the university area and neighborhood coordinator for the CLEAR unit, uh, and working with everybody, I realized early on that there's sometime a lack of communication, that some of the problems can be solved by just simply communicating what the problems are and looking to the resources to solve 'em. And if there's issues at some of the houses, a lot of times, the property owners may never even be aware of the issues. That's the basic program participation is you just give a name, contact number, and if there's an issue that's happened at your property, then you're notified of that. And basically, it's a, uh, informal timely notification of issues that, uh, the program would provide stickers for the houses of people who wanna be participants. You would have a different sticker for each level. One of the levels would be the silver level, which is the basic, and the other one, in my mind, would be like a gold sticker that designates you as a preferred program participation participant. Um, if you go down through there and look at some of the stuff that's under the preferred program, um, I don't know, there's not really reason to read each an individual one, but it's basically a way of providing, um, a minimum set of standards that would be required by the property owners, and it gives them benefits. For this program right now, uh, it's the, probably happens to be one of the best times to do something like this. I know that there's been questions of whether voluntary program will work, but based on economics, uh, talking to some of the property owners, there's more rental property that has not been rented than they've ever had in the past. And whether that's from the new larger complexes being built, or the economy, or whatever it is, the benefit for being a member of it would be promotion. And as an example, if three of you all had houses that were for rent and two of you wanted to be on the program, and you go through and meet all the criteria, which would mean inspection, and you go through and do the inspections, then there's a criteria for the leases that would be minimum requirements for leases. And above minimum, uh, actually above what minimum code and fire inspection would require, you're gonna have to meet a little bit above that, and that will be defined out, what that is. But once you, once you're a member of the program and you get the seal of approval and the sticker on your door, um, then hopefully we can do something. Uh, when I was doing some of the research that other cities have done working with the university and having a program, uh, where it does a, um, basically a promotion of off-campus housing properties that have met the minimum standards or actually above minimum standards. So, what that's doing is it's giving, uh, basically a seal of approval that these houses have been inspected. And once they've been inspected, and they meet the safety requirements and those other requirements that are built into the leases and requirements which are above the minimum, and you get the seal of approval, then it would go on a website, uh, preferably for off-campus housing students that parents and students could use as a resource to look at for a safe, uh, environment for them to live in. And by this promotion, if out of the three people who have rental houses and two of 'em agreed to do this and be promoted, uh, with this economic times and, and the promotion of this, what that would do, um, when parents and students go to look for housing, they, they look at the list and say, "Well, you know, this house has been inspected." And it has been at that time, at the date of inspection, was deemed to have passed the code safety requirements. So, my thought is that those would be the ones that would rent quicker. And as those rent and the person who's not part of the program, uh, does not rent their house, it would basically, by economics, force them to eventually become part of the program. If they don't become part of the program eventually, as the program would grow, there's probably a reason for that. And in the past, we've done a lot of comprehensive sweeps through the university area. And this actually maximizes the city's resources, because as you go by, if you know that a house has already been inspected, and it would actually be inspected, um, better than what we do when we do comprehensive sweeps, 'cause we don't go inside the houses. We just do 'em as a exterior walk-around type sweep with code enforcement and, uh, other agencies. ... and you see the s- the sticker on the house, but you don't have to waste your resource and time to go look at that house. Then you go look at the house maybe that, for whatever reason, has not joined the program. And... that's one of the, the benefits, from the city's perspective is you kinda maximize your resources instead of spending all your time looking out, um, at every house. You, you're, you're... know you're gonna be looking at these on a regular basis. I've spoken with the fire department on this issue, and their resources, being as limited as they are, um, kinda thought it might be a good idea on this that they do two initial inspections, um, maybe one one year, one the next year. And then after two, uh, passing inspections, then they would not be required to inspect them on a yearly basis. They would go to three to five years on... from the fire marshal part of it. But code enforcement and their housing would continue to inspect them on a yearly basis. And that's normally who was, um... handles this in the past, uh, anyway. There would be a, a set amount of fines and fees that would be built into the leases. These set fines and fees, um, would not init-... always be- be charged, so let's... if you have a house that has trash and debris, uh, that's left outside after a party, then, um, it's not an automatic fine, but the notar- the, the owner would be notified of this issue once it becomes noticed. So as an example, if on a Saturday night, there's a party and somebody, um, sees this, uh, uh, if an officer goes to the party, they realize there was a party there that night at 3:00 in the morning, then they would contact, uh... at this point it would be me, uh, by an email, and I would check the email and say, "Okay, this, this house was gone to by the police. They had a party. There was trash and debris and other, um, type situations there that are violations." And the property owner or their, their representative would have a certain amount of time to go to that property and abate the problem. That, once again, would maximize the city resources because it would not put, um, code enforcement into doing some of this. It would cut out on that. It would also work in a more timely fashion because when code enforcement goes to a lot of these places, they have to send out the notices, and once the notice gets there, there's a, a certain amount of time, whereas under this program, it would be required that the, uh, property owners, um, abate the problem, depending on what it is, in a timely manner. And so that's a- another advantage of the resources, uh, being saved for the city and actually getting it taken care of quicker than what it would through the normal process. The fines would be broken up into, um, similar way to an extent of how we do our fines, uh, with police department. You have a fine for a, a running a red light, but then you also have court cost. Uh, the fine for running a red light may be $20, and your court costs are a hundred and... whatever on, on that. But, um... so the fines are actually divided up into a, a certain portion. And on here, it would... it shows that 65% of it will go to the property owner if there is a fine levied. And when I say if there's a fine levy, a fine would not automatically be levied. If the property owner goes there and said, "Hey, look, y'all had a party last night. You need to get out here and clean it up," s-... people who live there come out and clean it up, and they've taken care of the, the, the problem at that time, then there's probably not gonna be a fine issued on that unless it's a continual problem. If the, the people are not around to do it, and the property owner has to clean it up or have somebody come in to clean it up, at that point, then there's an administrative fee to the property owner for having that taken care of, just like it would be as a, a, a fine or, um, fee for code enforcement to come in and abate the problem. But once again, this happens a lot quicker. Another percentage of the fine would go to, um, what I call the program at this time, even though there's nothing set up for that to go into. It could be held in, um... I don't have a place actually for this money to go, but 25% of it would go into the program if it actually became a program itself. And that could a- actually fund the program and initiatives for that or things that come out of the program. And one of the things that is currently being done now is, um, three game days this year. Last year, it was one game day. Three game days this year. Um, the fraternities and sororities have gotten together through the IFC, and they actually go around, and we've mapped out an area after the games that they actually go and clean up on Sundays. Well, that requires gloves, trash bags, and resources, so money out of the program, out of that 25%, would go to help fund those type of programs that are, are being used and to come up with money for those type of things. And then, um, the remaining 10%, uh, it could be done quarterly or, or ever how it gets set up, would actually go back to a, um, qualified neighborhood association. ... after a certain period of time, you divide the money up to the neighborhood associations that are around the university and actually put some money back to the associations, um, 'cause they're the ones that are actually, um, I guess, dealing with a lot of the issues that come out of the, where a fine would come out of. So, there should be some benefit back to them. Um, you know, the benefits of this are that the units are inspected and provide safe environment to live. There's a database, which is a resource for the students when they're looking for off-campus housing. Um, rather than just going and taking their luck at whether or not it's a safe place- Mm-hmm. ... and taking somebody's word for it, it's designated that it has been inspected. Uh, I think that it's, uh, being voluntary, but it will economically influence other property owners to participate. By the lease agreements, the renters are required to maintain a higher standard. Uh, it would promote UK in the fact that they would be able to have a database as other universities and colleges that I've looked at, um, would have, that would give, uh, a resource to show that these places have been inspected and that they have met above minimum standards and it would maximize the city's resources. I think that everybody in here under stake holders, uh, you know, whether it's the university, the city, the, uh, property owners, the students, uh, will benefit. And once again, it's very cost-effective for this program, because it has almost little or no co- well, very little cost to actually implement. There is, we're already using the resources to do a lot of these things, uh, when we do the sweeps. I've worked with code enforcement and talked with David Jarvis on this, and, um, he says that initially with the, as a pilot program, that they could do this fairly easily with the inspections from their standpoint of it. Uh, the fire department, um, speaking with them on meetings, um, they think that this could be something that could work. And, um, working with the students and th- the property owners and the neighborhood associations, um, I just think it would be a benefit for everybody and it's something that could actually be done and is in the process of already working and have property owners that are willing to submit their properties to these inspections. Um, so that, that's a, a positive right there. If people are willing to already put up properties to be inspected, that we can get this started and, uh, the, the process has actually already started. Uh, we have a, a plan in place. We have people who are willing to let their, their properties be inspected, uh, the leases, uh, working with the student government, uh, and the wording on what the minimum requirements for leasing in here is, uh, I think that they're on board with, with what we've worked out. And working with the, the neighborhoods, I think that it, it's a point of contact to have a, um, a basically, a, a point of contact, which is no more than I've already been doing as far as what my position is right now. It's just a little more structured way of doing what I've been doing for the last three and a half years, so. It also kinda falls into, um, in the student housing task force recommendations under, um, the expanded enforcement or the, kinda the, some of the no-brainer parts of it, is to resume and contact regular com- comprehensive sweeps by the division of code enforcement in affected neighborhoods. That would still be done. Uh, it's nothing that would be changed on that other than you're maximizing your resources, because if you start building properties that have become part of the program, you can cut down on the amount of time that's required to do these sweeps and you can focus on more of the problem properties than the ones who have, um, brought their properties up to the requirements and above the standards. Uh, under the hiring freeze on approved additional positions in the division of code enforcement, I think when there was the management study done, that there was a recommendation that the housing community development move two positions from there to code enforcement. And I think that if you could take a position from that and put one housing inspector so that there's a consistency, uh, that was one of the concerns that, um, was brought up, that you don't want somebody coming through that gives you one set of standards and somebody else coming through looking at another set of standards when they do the inspections, that you could bring one person over and, and that, uh, code enforcement could use them for the university area and that person would be consistent and they would be the, uh, person doing the, uh, inspections. Uh, number seven under that was improve the system to better document violations and ensure sharing of information about complaints between responsible divisions of LFUCG. Uh, that's, would also fall under this, 'cause that's what this is. It's actually a way of documenting the complaints and they come through and, um, a lot of times I kinda feel like the, uh, the guy on the commercial with the cellphone service, where I've, I've got the- ... people behind me, because that's what I felt like over the last few years, and it's grown. Um, I've got code enforcement, I've got the fire department, I've got solid waste. I've got Charlotte Turley that's, that's there. I've, I've got the group of people who I've resourced off of and who we have communication with and built relationships with to, um, kind of consolidate what I do around the university, and I'm able to call these people, and they have been very responsive to handling the problems that come up. Um, that's pretty much the, the program itself. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer those questions. Thank you very much. Um, we do have, uh, Officer Gaines, some council members who have questions, but I wonder if first I see David Jarvis here. He's our Director of Code Enforcement, and if you could just, uh, respond to a few of the things that Keith said in terms of your ability within code enforcement to- Sure. ... do some of these things. I'd be glad to. Thank you. Uh, good afternoon. Uh, we're very excited about the program. Uh, actually I think this really gives the, an opportunity for the responsible property owners in the UK area to sort of distance themselves from some of the problem properties that we are, you know, experience, I mean, we've all seen or read about. Um, and again, it, we, we enforce the International Property Maintenance Code, which is a minimum standard. Uh, we can tweak that to really achieve a higher standard when it comes to rental properties in and around the UK area if they want to be a part of this program. Uh, we can run the program through code enforcement. Again, as Officer Gaines says, um, we can, we can borrow a code enforcement officer, uh, from Housing Community Development. Um, we currently do the sweeps anyway. We're there. Um, we're doing the inspections, and this will just us, just give us a, an arm and an opportunity really to, um, to get inside a lot of the properties, uh, on a voluntary basis, and it, it really works well, you know, with the partnership with the, with the city, with the police department, with UK. I think UK's gonna be a big buy-in, um, once that they, you know, allow, uh, or they put this information in the, you know, the freshman handouts. Or we can, and we can put this on our website. As offer- Officer Gaines said, uh, you know, when you come to town, you're looking for good, safe, clean, affordable housing in and around the UK area, there's gonna be a database there. It's been inspected. Uh, you know, we, our officers have been in there. Uh, the places are clean. They're safe. Um, so, again, we're very excited about it. So you don't have a concern about resources within your- No. ... division? No, not at all. Okay. Thank you, David. We have several council members who have questions. Uh, first is Council Member Feigl. Thank you, Chair. First, I want to commend, uh, wow that's loud. I wanna commend Officer Gaines for taking the initiative to spend his personal time to try to put together a plan, uh, that addresses a problem that is a perennial problem for our community. Um, what we need to do is to do, find a solution to the problem, and I think that it does have to be a, um, a combined effort between all of the stakeholders. As the university continues to grow and add more students to the student population, uh, we do need to plan ahead for that. And I don't think that uni- the university would, uh, would want us, as a city, to be in a position where, when students came to visit the university that they could not find, um, housing that was, um, either safe or where they were indeed, um, wanted . So I do think it's a bigger issue, and I think that we need to work together, um, to try and address the issue as a total issue. Uh, I think it's multifaceted. I think what you're proposing is, is great as a start, but I think it, it needs to go a step further, and we need to, to do some incentivizing to, uh, encourage, um, developers to come in and build additional student housing developments so that they have, um, designated places to live. They do want to live together- Mm-hmm. ... and, um, you know, if we can, um, provide those opportunities in certain parts of town for them to live together and not infiltrate into the neighborhoods, I think that would be great. Um, so I do think it's multifaceted, and I would like for the planning committee to continue to work on that. Um, but what I would, would ask, uh, regarding your proposal is, is, is it necessary to have defined boundaries, um, of a university area or... What I'm trying to decide here is, as we look at some of these, um, prohibitions that, that you're suggesting, which I agree with, um, one in particular is using charcoal grills on decks or wooden porches. Is that a violation citywide? It is? Okay. I just wanted to, to be sure that we weren't creating, um, a rule for this particular area that didn't apply to or that would have implications for other parts of town too. So, my question, though, is does this require university area boundaries? I, I don't think so. I think there's areas that are outside of what we consider the university area. Um, Big Bear Lane, for example, uh, has a lot of student housing there, and it, it could possibly grow from that. If it's student housing, it's student housing, and I don't think that if we, in my personal opinion, designate it to a certain area, and people are living outside of it, um, I would like for that to be safe and inspected also, so. Um, you know, if it's being promoted as student housing and somebody's looking at it, then I think that you could do it with any location. So, it would be up to the director of this program to actually, um, add additional properties to be, um, policed as they became more apparent as student properties? Is it- Yeah, I think that, um, as far as the policing part of it, uh, the way it's designated once again is by sticker. Hmm. Uh, if... And my example would be if at two or three o'clock in the morning there is a call of a loud party or a large party at a, a property, an officer goes there and knows that that's part of the SHIP program, then there is somebody they can contact, which would be, um, at this point right now it would be me as the, kind of the coordinator of everything. And it would be my responsibility to not- notify the property owner and let them know that they need to go take care of the problem. Uh, you know, code enforcement can do it, but, you know, if it's on a Friday night, um, you know, plus it's not gonna be by that Saturday or Sunday and then Monday comes in, and then you go through a process. Whereas, under this program, the property owner would be able to be contacted, uh, within a reasonable amount of time and abate the problem themselves, which actually would take care of the problem a lot quicker than what the current process a lot of times currently is. And it wouldn't matter where it's at. If they're designated under this program as a student housing, um, SHIP program house, then it, you know, it's simply designated by the sticker and, um, it's voluntary to, to join. All right, thank you very much. Council member Blues. Thank you madam chair, and thank you Officer Gains for, uh, for putting forward this plan and, and for coming and, and speaking with us today. Uh, I th- I think that, that a v- a voluntary plan has a lot of attractive features, and, and, and one is, uh, that, that we have people working together to improve a, you know, a, a, a difficult situation. One of the problems I, I see however, and, and, and have to wrestle with it I, I guess, is that w- what this, what this plan would do, assuming that it works at all, and I think that's a, a difficult assumption to, to make, but l- let's say that it, that it, that it does and that we get 50 volunteers to, to start it up and to provide in their properties safe, uh, uh, reduced density, cleaner, uh, housing. What about all those who don't volunteer? Uh, I, I think that, you know, as, as Council Member Stimmet said when we were discussing the moratorium, this is not just a student housing issue, it's a city-wide issue, and Council Member Fargo touched on that a moment ago. If... My concern is, how do we make rental housing safe, period? Under a situation in which we can't get inside houses, and in which, from what I heard through four hours of, of, of, uh, uh, of public comment in our, in our earlier meetings, uh, it seems that landlords are overwhelmingly, uh, opposed to any kind of, of, uh, permitting process and, and an inspection program. But there is a difficulty. How do we, in the first place, how do we deal with this safety issue? And that recent, uh, voluntary inspection revealed that we've got a lot of violations, even in, in, in, in residences where landlords were quite, you know, quite generously, and, and, and, uh, we should be grateful to them, uh, open up their residences for, for inspection. So I think we have to, to, to deal with that. I don't think it's satisfactory to say, to be able to say, "Here are, here are residences that are safe. Take your chances with the rest." So I, I, I, I think we have to deal with, uh, you know, with that, with, with that problem. Uh... I wonder too how w- we can get done what needs to be done in the real crisis areas. For example, the, uh, under landlord obligations in your, in, in your plan, uh, you say that landlords will limit resident density. What will be the, uh, what will be the process? Uh, w- what will be the obligation? I mean, I, y- you could say that you could, you know, put- ... have one fewer resident. But, but clearly something more needs to be done there. Do you have something in mind on, you know, on that kind of, uh, uh, on that kind of- Yeah. ... of, of, of process? Where are you looking at on? Well, I was looking at your, uh, yeah, page two up near the top. One of the bullets says, "Landlords will limit resident density." And I've, I've- Is this the most common, I mean, the most current version that- No, that's the version I've got, which we've, we've received with the student housing task force, uh, board. Okay, there's a- Council member, could you say again what page and where you're looking? Well, here- If this is the one that he's looking at through the student housing task force, which was attached to that- Yeah. ... there's a newer version of it. Oh, I see. The version we're working with, I think, is the one in today's packet. Is that correct? Yes. Yes, I'm sorry. So- Well, I've got, this is appendix 14 in, uh- There's a newer version. Okay, a newer version. There's a newer version, and it's in today's planning packet. Okay. So anyway, where am I behind on, on this density thing? Okay, um, well, one of the things that, w- that came up with, when it was talking about density on that, it wasn't talking about the actual overall density of how many people are living there. Uh, some of the, the leases that are currently in effect actually limits how many people can be on the property. Uh, so for example, if you have a five bedroom property that, uh, the leases currently would require, or the requirement where you could have no more than 10 people on the property without, um, prior approval from the property owner, that was, the density was actually worded bad on that, and it's been removed from there. I see. Um, one of the things when I was talking with student government and, um, is the fact that, and I, I kinda have to agree with them, that if you're limiting the ability to have people over to your properties, it can be done on, uh, the landowner can increase the restrictions, if they want that in there. But as far as a minimum restriction, working with the students, um, and we have to teach a little bit of res- personal responsibility, and that's what, um, working with the students is part of it. If you're gonna have a party, um, at some point we have to say that you're gonna have a responsible party, uh, in the position I'm in as a police officer, I've never gone somewhere and said, "Well, you know, there's no parties allowed." You just have to be responsible and respectful in the neighborhoods when you do it. And so actually, that part of it, from the minimum standards on the leasing requirements on this, was removed. But as a property owner, you could still have above and beyond anything that's in this, more stringent leases that could still do that. So that part of it was taken out, and I do agree with you on the fact that there shouldn't be certain properties that are just designated as safe properties. This program was kinda designed for something that could be started immediately and get some impact going. Um, it's not that we can't continue to work on the bigger picture, but for the university and student housing, um, I, I would think that on this, uh, the faster that you can get something going, even if it's voluntary to get e- Landlords may not realize that there's issues with their, their places and are willing to fix 'em, but we gotta point 'em out what the problems are, and if they voluntarily let us in, and they're willing to be part of the program, um, kinda like Mr. Jarvis said, you're gonna step it up and, and at least get ones who are willing to do it to get their properties safe and inspected, and then you can Let me address that also. Properties outside of this program will still be addressed by code enforcement like we do now. We'll still do neighborhoods sweeps. We'll work on complaint bases. I mean, we'll eradicate any areas that we feel are, are, you know, dilapidated sources of housing, and I mean, and w- I think we've done that. I mean, look at the trailer park initiative that we've taken on, and, you know, Newtown Pike has solved our Davis Bottom problem obviously, um, so there are no real pockets of, of dilapidated houses anymore in Fayette County like we had at one time. And I think once we move along through our regular code enforcement process, we'll address those issues and, and, you know, properties outside of this program will be addressed. Uh, there will be inspections done and comprehensives, um, we have probably 15 comprehensives going on now with, uh, apartment complexes in Lexington that, uh, each officer will des-designate an apartment complex and do a comprehensive door to door, in and out. And we will still continue to do that. But this program w- really is designed to address the immediate need in the UK area, to address this population boom, trash, parking, the, the, some of the issues that we can't get our arms around right now. So anyway, if, I hope that answers your question, so. Well, it does and I'd, uh, you know, I'd ... As you know, I appreciate all that you have- ... you have done, uh, in, in the city and of course, in my, my district as well, and, and, and your work has been stellar. Uh, I, I, but I, I do remain, uh, concerned that, that, that whatever we do on a voluntary basis and, and, and whatever kind of cooperative enterprise we can get moving will be to the good, but we really do need to review, uh, our, you know, our ordinances where they are ... When we have a situation in which, in which, uh, building inspection, for example, has, has difficulty telling whether a, a lawn has been graveled, uh, and, and, and so on, where we can't get into a, uh, inside a house to see what actually is being- ... done within it, and whether building permits are being, uh, uh, obeyed and so forth. I think we're, we're gonna have to address that, uh, in, uh, in a way that, uh, you know, it, it, that, that will require something, um, stronger, more structured, uh, and less vulnerable than a voluntary effort- I, I agree. ... alone. I agree. A- and one, one of the things we're hoping this program will do, with the voluntary effort, m- maybe we won't have to devote so much resources into addressing these houses in and around UK, because say we have 50 or 100 that are in this program, well, that'll alleviate the need to inspect those on such a more regular basis and we can concentrate on some of the areas of town that, you know, needs some more concentration. You know, right now, UK is just bleeding us dry as far as the resources go. I mean, literally, I have officers in that area game days, I have every day, I have a housing and a nuisance officer designated just to these areas. And we don't have that anywhere else in town but UK. So anyway, I hope that helps. I, I, I appreciate all you're doing and, uh, as I said- And my candor, right? ... we've, we've got, we've got some real work to do, uh, on this, and I appreciate what you're doing and, and Officer Gaines' proposal. I think there are several council members who have yet to, to, to weigh in on this. And, and so thank you, Madam Chair. Councilmember Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Officer Gaines, for coming forward and bringing this proposal. I guess I wanna start back is when they were looking at different ways to go about this issue, one of 'em was brought up, I guess, from the Ohio State plan, is this kind of an offshoot of that? And what's the differences between the two on how you came up with this one? Ohio State plan was brought up in Town and Gown, and it was brought forth after a trip to Ohio State. And I don't wanna tag this as a Ohio State plan, because there are a lot of other university area plans. Um, University of Michigan has something, uh, similar to this, that they do off-campus housing, um, and part of the office of that, they do conflict resolution. So Ohio State and Michigan can agree on something you're saying? I- it appears that they can. Okay, just checking. Um, but there, there is, um, other, a lot of other places, um, City of Raleigh, um, BYU, Bloomington, so I mean, there's a lot of places that this is, some of the ideas have come from. What I tried to do was pick and choose what I thought could be implemented and implemented quickly, because the frustrations from the people who are living in the neighborhoods, um, and from being on Town and Gown, we've talked about a lot of the same problems. We've talked about the problems for quite a few years since, uh, when we went back and looked at the history of some of the things through Town and Gown, it's the same problems. So what I was trying to do with this is come up with a solution that could be tailored towards what we could do now that would be, um, something that could be started. And not that we can't grow from it and expand it, change it, but this could be started, um, pretty much immediately. The common denominator between the ones that you talked about with the Ohio State, Michigan, Raleigh, are all those, the university is, is participating in that or, or not? Uh, they're participating to a certain extent. Uh, all of 'em have different ways of participation. Uh, some of 'em, once again, do something similar to this, to where basically they, they put a list of houses up that are, have been inspected, met certain criteria, they've got checklists that, um, they have to go through. I think, um, in Michigan, for example, they've got 550 area landlords that, um, are part of their program, and they have to kinda go through a, a process like this would be. Um, there's little bits and pieces taken from everywhere. I'm, I'm great at stealing ideas. I'm glad the university are here, and I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say after you speak. I guess the way that this pilot program is set up, and I'm kinda confused, who would be kind of the clearing house, the website that would be the, that would keep this up on administrative daily process to know, um, the ones that have been inspected, the ones, the houses that have volunteered to be on there, the landlords? Who, who is in charge of that? Because I think some, some of the other programs probably had the university as the clearing house. In this situation, how is it set up? It, the way it's set up currently, and once again, it could change- With your pilot program. ... with my pilot program is a lot of the stuff that's in here is what I do on a daily basis now. Uh- But where, where would it be set up then, as a, as a website or where you could find that- The website would be preferably set up with the university, because that's where people are going, students and parents would go to look for student housing. Um, that, that would be the obvious, in my opinion. So you'd be the kind of clearing house person. And would you do the daily administrative ke- uh, of the uploading on the computer, all the different things, or would you work with the university on that or- I think it would be a partnership in, in, in my ideal world to look at it, that it, it's a partnership that I work with the landlords and with the inspection part of code enforcement. And once it gets approved, then that information would go to the university or wherever it would be placed on the, uh, website for students and parents to look at for housing. And you, you talked initially of that pilot program of 50 landlords or thereabouts, have, have you already have landlords that are willing, that you could do the 50 right away and- I don't have 50, but I think that 50 would come forth, um, fairly quickly. I've got over 25 that- And I, and I think this is kind of... I, I'm glad that you're presenting this, but I, I, as I think Dr. Blue said, "While the ones that are gonna be on, they're gonna be the responsible landlords." And I don't know if we have this big issue with the responsible ones as maybe possibly there's an issue as the irresponsible ones that- ... we need to address, and how do we go about doing that? Well, the two ways, once again, what we've discussed, um, David, is the fact that when we do our sweeps, if you go to a house and it has a sticker on it, you can bypass the house. It's been inspected and it's gonna be inspected again in a year. So you know that that one should be kept up or is being kept up. That way the resources that they're using, um, can focus on the ones who are not willing to be participants, that are not willing to join a program. And then also, back to the beginning, eh, economically, if you've got two people who are on the program and they're keeping their houses rented on a consistent basis, um, then you have other people who are not renting because they're not part of the program, they're not being promoted as having been inspected as safe, um, housing, then through economics, if they're not renting it, renting it, then they're either going to, um, you know, join or they'll ... When you're talking about stickers, I know that's a m- a nominal cost, but there's still gonna be some cost too. Wh- where do you see the startup costs are coming from to pay for the program? I think that initially for 100 stickers, um, it's somewhere around $500 to start. So you're saying it'd be a pretty nominal amount. Would that be something that come out of the code enforcement or out of the public safety or would they, something we'd have to designate funds for? I think that, um, I, and I don't want to speak for other people, but I think that there is working as a group together, um, as a partnership that I've, there are people who would put up the money to actually start the program. To do some pri- private-public partnership? Yes. Uh, council member, after we could find the money and with in-house to start the program. You know, a couple of abatements alone in the UK area are over $500. So I mean, you know, th- we can- So that's probably the biggest expense is gonna be the stickers? A- absolutely. I mean the in- in-house, I mean, you know, we've already got the people on staff. It's just a matter of doing the inspections. We're doing those now anyway. Why not just concentrate on the ones that, you know, want to volunteer, provide the sticker for the, for the property. You know, get UK to put 'em on the website. We can put 'em on our, our website, the code enforcement website. So do sort of a, you know, double exposure there. And a-again, we can, you know, we can absorb the cost, the initial cost. And a-again, as Officer Gaines says, once the program gets up and running and if there are fines levied, you know, the 25% could come back to the program to, you know, just for administrative cost or for supplies even. Um, so... D- does the money go now if they come in to fine, does it go to the general fund or does it go back? General fund. That's what I thought. And we could do that even with this program, it could go to the general fund. I mean, it's, it's all- But when you, but a- ... it's all one pot of money, so. Can we designate it that it goes to this or does it have to go to the general fund? I'm sure you could. Sure. I think we have to change the ordinance probably to do that. Probably. But we could. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing wha- how UK wants to participate in this, 'cause I think we have a good opportunity here for a partnership. And thank you to Officer Gaines for bringing this forward. Council member Lawless. Oh, thank you so much, Officer Gaines and, um, David Jarvis, Charlotte Turley. It's been really exciting watching the teamwork over the last couple of years. I have several comments and questions, but I think I'll hold them if it, if it's okay until after we hear from the University of Kentucky. I think this is a great first start. It, uh, is, and I wanna reiterate, this is not about the moratorium in the third district nor was that about student housing. It was about, um... So I just want to clarify that, but I'll wait until, uh, we've heard from the university folks. Thank you. Council member James. Thank you, Chair. Um, thank you. It looks like you took some time on this and I do, um, appreciate it. Have, has anyone in the law department taken a look at what you put together and given any opinion? No. Okay. I would be interested in having you at least get them, let them take a view. Um, I have a couple of questions about the tenant rights, um, and what prevails, um, in a court of law, um, because, um, I'm trying to figure out if a pilot program rule and regulation and guideline would prevail over an existing, um, city ordinance, state, uh, or federal tenant, landlord tenant kind of thing. 'Cause th- like, things like cigarette butts, are cigarette butts considered litter? They are, yeah. They are. So if I see somebody throwing a cigarette butt out of a window, I can let an officer know and they could be cited for littering. There is, um, I think there, there actually used to be a program to where you could call that in. There would be a letter sent. But as far as actually citing them, it's, um, you know, for us as a police agency to cite them, you could go down to district court and actually file the complaint. For that, we actually have to see that happen in our presence. Okay. Or something along that line. So you can't make like a citizen's arrest or something for- You could give it a try. ... cigarette butts? No, I don't think so. Um- Okay. But most of the stuff, kind of what you're looking at and, and one of the things that I really tried to do on this, and I understand having the law department looking at it, but a lot of the stuff that you're looking is and a lot of people's leases and currently in effect. It's actually, through the Landlord Tenant Act, it's a lease that's, it's not between the city- I know, that's why, that's, see that's kind of where my framing is, is I don't understand why we have to, um... It sounds like a contract between a landlord and a tenant. And what happens in my district now or has happened in the past, if I had a property that was considered a nuisance property, the landlord was held accountable for making sure that those things were adhered to. The tenant themself may have been cited for whatever, you know, the illegality or whatever was going on, but overall, that's noted as a nuisance property. And that landlord, Ricky Lynn, worked a lot with us and they are held accountable. In this case, it doesn't feel that way. It's still the same. The only difference is we're working as a partnership with having the landlords being voluntarily part of this and having the- the people who sign the leases up front know that they're part of this program. They're being held to a- a little bit higher standards. And- Is it a higher standard or is it the standard- It's the standard of the- ... that should exist? It's... Well, for the leases, it depends on what you're... I mean, everybody's lease is different. There are minimum sets of standards for the leases in here that you, that would be adhered to or having the leases to be part of the program. Uh, one of the things that I kinda could use an example for that is there's really no ordinance or law or regulation when you ride around and you see like a outdoor chair, uh, like those camping chairs, sitting on a roof somewhere. There's... And I don't think there's... There's nothing against that. Mm-hmm. But under this, under a lease agreement, the landlords or the property owners can restrict you from saying, "If you're gonna rent this property, you can't sit on a, sit on my roof. Even though, you know, you can get out the window and go do it because, in my opinion, it's an unsafe act. It's just a matter of time before somebody falls off the roof." So it's a lease agreement, but it's working in conjunction with everybody as a partnership. So if there's a party at night, at 3:00 in the morning and an officer goes there, they report back to me what they saw. Uh, there was, you know, 75, 100 people there. There was, um, you know, a keg. There was, um, you know, trash and debris all over. So at that point, it's a notification to the property owner, which in the past, the property owner would have no idea that this problem existed unless he drove by his property every day, he or she drove by their property every day. And that's not reasonable. So actually, it's adding a whole lot of eyes and ears and- and people bringing in information that goes to the property owner that lets them know, "Hey, there was an issue." So it's a benefit to the city because it gets abated quicker if there isn't a problem. If it's not taken care of by the property owner or by the people who are living there, then it still goes into the same thing as a nuisance property and they come in and do the same process as before. It's no different than that. This is just working as a partnership for notification that there is a problem and- and it doesn't have to be even the police to go there. If a resident in a neighborhood has a certain issue with the property, um, it's the same way. It's a notification. There's a- a single point of contact that they can let know, "Hey, there's trash and debris." And then the property owner is notified and because they're on the program, uh, to be, stay on the program, you're required to take care of it. Well, I- I need help in figuring out why it's different where you're speaking of than anywhere else because in the neighborhood meetings that I attend, if a neighbor has an issue and we have, say, a CLEAR officer or a community policing officer, maybe that's what you're talking about is a CLEAR unit or something of sorts, they can express to that CLEAR officer, "We're having a problem with 119 whatever." And that officer can say, "Okay, that's been a problem in the past. We're gonna do this whole phase of the citing thing and con- contact the property owner because they are ultimately responsible for what happens on their property regardless of who's doing it." Right. Um, and I at no point do I... I mean, I'm guessing... Well, a lot of places I'm probably talking about don't even have leases. Um, but the l- the owner of the property is still held accountable. I'm having a difficult time why, u- I'm trying to understand why we need this versus what Ricky Lynn is already doing with the nuisance properties. If- Well, the- ... especially if there's a con... I mean, I'm talking about places that only have leases. So if you have a lease, to me, that would be something that would be even easier in the current text to enforce rather than creating a new program and transferring people over to other divisions. Well, you've gotta get, um, the issue where you're talking about, there's no inspections done on those properties. So that's a resource that they would need to have those properties inspected and- and because it's a university area and that's what we're dealing with right now, um, we're looking at getting these properties inspected and to be on the program, you're gonna have to be inspected. The leases will have to have some standard, um, regulations in the leases that would be required by the property owners to be part of the program. Uh, the- the way you're talking about the process is no different than what we're doing now. You're right. Currently, if there's a- a property that somebody's from the neighborhood calls in and says this is a- a problem, the difference is if that's the way I'm doing it now and I call David up and he comes, the pro- the problem's on a- a Friday night and there's trash that's been dumped everywhere or whatever the issue is, they come into work on Monday, they- they get the- the notice that that's a problem. They go out and they inspect the property, then they send notice. And then the notice has a certain amount of time to get to the property owner. Then the property owner has another s- amount of time to actually come and fix the problem. Under this program- Let me, uh, stop right there. Is that by ordinance? Yes. So we could take our current policy and revise it to fix, that way comprehensively throughout the city, we could be correcting the problem. Is that something... Do you... Are you in agreement with that? That you're saying the way it exists now, which is an ordinance that this council passes is a problem? Well, I think that it's done, set up by between the judges. You have to give amount of notification. I don't see how you could speed that up through- ... a legal process. It's like they have to, legally, they have to give so much notice. Uh, the courts require it. The, it's just like, you couldn't say, "On Monday, I'm sending this notice and on Tuesday you have to have the problem fixed." So let me ask David something. Yeah. What do we control about that ordinance that could improve it? Well- If we can't control the amount of time that the legal system takes, what is it on our end that we'd be able to do? I think the way the ordinance is written now, it addresses normal everyday property. I mean, you, we go out, we cite a piece of property. We give them 14 days to comply. If they don't comply, we either clean it up or fine them. That works, but now when you have a concentration of so many properties, doing that all at one time, that's what this program is designed to address. The everyday properties that we come across in Lexington, the ordinances, the way they're written now are fine. I mean, you get fined, you get abated, I mean, there, there's cost involved. What this program is designed is this just- this massive amount of properties in one area. And I think that's for, you know, that's probably the confusing part is that this is designed for such high-density property in and around the UK area. Okay. Thank you for that explanation. Right. Okay. And I don't think that's the confusing part for me. The confusing part is that we, as a city government, are insti- are encouraging this when I just Googled the cities that you mentioned and their universities are the ones that are leading that charge. So I think that's where my confusion is, is they have the website set up. They have it where the landlord comes in, talks with them about what it takes, what the lease needs to say, and they have that program set up. And so they're establishing that database knowing full acknowledgement of what our city ordinances are, the local state ordinances, and they're making that very, very clear. And so if that property is not included within, or is not abiding to what those guidelines are, they can't bring in the right lease or they don't, they're not, you know, allowing for inspections or whatever it is, then they're X off that list. I don't, I feel from, just from reading through it, that it feels like we're, it feels like we have a comprehensive problem with our code enforcement, building inspections, such kinds of things, that I don't know that this is our baby. I mean, I know it's something we need to be attentive to, but it feels isolated. It feels like we're not solving the bigger city issue. And I understand what you're saying, Officer Gaines, that this is a small piece of it, at least we can do something. I don't think that's what this government is, we're, government as a whole, on a neighborhood issue, do think a neighborhood association could hel- pilot it themselves and potentially do that and start, have you talked to neighborhoods specifically, an association to see if maybe they wanted to pilot it and let, take it through them and see within their association? Maybe they could offer incentives to join, you know, an association, you get a reduced fee or something like that if you're part of the program? Do you know if that conversation's happened? Um, I've not had that, that conversation with them. Uh, the problem that I think you have with that is you've got multiple neighborhood associations. Sure. And I've taken this because under, as part of the CLEAR unit in the UK neighborhood area coordinator, uh, this is what I'm doing. This is already what I'm doing. Absolutely. And it's, and it's no different. There's, there's nothing really being added here other than the fact that we're starting to pull people together, and it could change. I mean- Sure. ... not saying that we couldn't give that up. Um, but what this does for me is it actually starts to bring people together in partnership rather than everybody kinda doing their own thing. The thing with the neighborhood association is, um, you know, you have to have somebody that's one point of contact that can keep track of what places have been inspected. Yes. And since we're doing the inspections, in my mind, the common place would be within the government to keep track of that. The other thing is, um, to get this kinda, to get this started is, is having a relationship or a rapport with everybody. Uh, I think that at this moment, there's a lot of, um, some distrust between different entities and groups, and at this point right now, and I may be speaking, um, I'm, I may be thinking differently than what other people think, but, um, as a point of contact and kind of administering this, that, at the moment, I'm kind of trusted to work on everybody's benefit, that I'm not one side or the other. Sure. I'm kind of a neutral party on this, whereas if you put it in a neighborhood association or something, it becomes sometimes a battle between the association and a property owner or a student or whatever. Like under the one in, um, uh, Michigan, you know, you have conflict resolution- Yes. ... which is, um, part of it, and that's something that could come out of this and, and, but you gotta have a neutral party. Sure. And if you put it into the neighborhoods, I don't consider that always a neutral party. Sure. Well, and we, we've talked a little bit, and I don't know specifically what the language is, but we've talked about is the gov- is the government, um, have the role of conflict resolution. Um, I don't know for sure what the answer to that is, but I, I mean, I don't want you to think that I'm anti this plan. No. I think it's a really good start. I think- Mm-hmm. ... as Council Member Lawless said, and Council Member Leoes, it gives us something to chew on and to try to, to hone in on. So I won't, I won't criticize it, I'm just critiquing. Oh, I understand that. But I'm gonna a- I'm gonna, just gonna point a couple of particular things, um, so w- uh, other people can ask questions. Um, but are you familiar with the B seal, um, that used to be in effect for the mobile home parks where you had to get a B seal on a mobile home? Okay. Do a little bit of research on that. It's a failed program. And it is a very similar program to what you're talking about, which is, there is supposed to be a log of, you know, an, someone applies for and it notes that they are, um, a mobile home and they get an inspection and people come in. It, it fell off the face of the earth. Nobody kept up with it. I think it were on the books from, I don't know, 1970 something, I don't know, and the sweeps that, um, David Jarvis talks about had to occur reactive to a failed seal program. And so as you're looking at this, I know it looks hopeful, but you have to look at what's gonna happen when you're not in the role that you're in. Um, and that's why I think the responsibility has to go back to personal responsibility for the tenant and for the landlord because you're not gonna always be here as passionate, as engaged, and as informative as you are. You'll do all this and then you'll get promoted somewhere and you won't be here, um, and then somebody will have to start all new, so then the responsibility lies back with the community. Um, so that's why I'm trying to not take anything away from you, put the responsibility back into the community so that we know what our responsibilities are as neighbors and as landlords and as tenants. So, that's what I want the plan to be able to be sustainable, um, and not guarded or overseen 'cause you shouldn't have to have a huge role with it. It should be our personal responsibility to do that. So, that's where I'm leaning. But look at the B-, look at the B seal, uh, seal and see how that worked. Also, just again, the lease language, uh, you talked about you're gonna talk... I really think we need to hone in on that and make sure it's very comprehensive and that it's thorough and that it passes the smell test with, um, the Human Rights Commission, landlord, tenant, lease and all that kind of stuff. Um, but I do agree with you that, um, teaching personal responsibility is key, um, but I think we should start with education. I think landlords and tenants need to know what they, what they're responsible for. I think the sweeps are reactive. I don't think they're a good idea, um, but I think it's a rental issue. I don't think it's a student issue. Um, and I'm gonna have my eyes wide open because I've got some, I've got nonprofits that start, um, what could be looking like student housing in other areas that are doing that in my district, um, and having same, similar issues. So, it's not just a student housing issue, it's just a rental li- absentee landlord kind of thing or lack of knowledge about what they're supposed to do. So, I'm, I'm here to help. I wanna help, but I just, I think we, we just gotta make sure that it's sustainable, whatever we do. But I appreciate your work. Right, and then I agree. Um, one of the differences with one of the things that you mentioned was the education part. We do a huge education campaign at the beginning of every year, passing out flyers, um, working with the university to put it on website, of what's responsible. I think we actually even do a, um, there's been press conferences to do this. And we do it through the university, but what's unique about the university area is the turnover, the transient amount, because most of it, they're here for a shorter period of time. Uh, people who... and not to say that all rentals last for a long time, but you have such a huge amount in a concentrated area of turnover. And we're starting to see a little bit of effect from the education. We started it three years ago and it's starting to grow, um, and I, I think we're seeing that, uh, because students are passing it along and the information is being passed through, um, and working with the property owners, it's actually now being passed out by property owners when they do their leases- Okay. ... of what we're expecting. But I do agree, it should be something that's sustainable, um... Is a year lease... Are they, leases usually a year? I don't know. Anybody want- 'Cause I, I think we need to check what the terminology at it. Are leases usually a year? Are they a year or nine months or how's that- So, usually, typically, in university area, they're a year. One year? Okay. That's something I'd really like to watch, um, to give some, you know, just to make sure we're on pace because I, I could see where you would have more overturn. Um, I had a niece that went to Transy and she lived in two or three different places throughout the semester. So, if you, um, if you're only inspecting once a year and the problems are caused by tenants and not the landlord, I don't know if it's really comprehensive to do annual inspections. You may need them more often. Well, I think that this is for the bigger stuff, for the, the safety, um, latches on doors and the things that the fire department's currently looking at. Um, I think when they do their inspections, they're looking at things that wouldn't have been in changes much, now batteries or smoke detectors coming down. Um, you know, that could happen the day after somebody moves in. Absolutely. Um, but with the leases, I think that, you know, looking at the leases that the language that's in here, a lot of it has been taken directly from the leases that they've been using for quite a bit of, of time. And once again, this isn't... Other than just kind of coordinating, which is no more than I'm doing now, um, it's no more... It, it's just bringing all the parts together because the leases with these things in it are a lot of already out there. It's not we're putting something new in 'em. Understand. Just to be part of the program, you have to have this in there. So, you can't have a landlord that has a very minimum lease. Um, so it's using... Standard language. Yeah. Okay. And I do, I think, I hope that the university would say, "In order to be part of our program, you need this minimum standard language, um, to be..." And also with the language and then I'll move on, is under the part that talks about what kinds of things would cause tenants to receive a fine, I think you should just watch your lang- the, the, um, syntax of your language 'cause it looks like if you pick up trash, you get a 50 to- ... five to $50 occurrence. Just watch your not picking up trash is actually where you would be fined, right? Not picking it up. Th- this is- Okay. This was just... This is not the actual- Okay. ... what will be the final program. I mean, this was just things that we're taking out of- Sure. ... these. I mean, I completely understand. I'm just wat... Your cu... Your syntax is just a little bit off. It just kinda throws off the reading. Thank you. Thanks, Madam Chair. We have Council Member Martin and Council Member Beard, and then we'll hear from UK. Thank you, Chair. Officer Gaines, thank you so much for, for spending time and thinking about this. It's... Good ideas are hard to find, and this is a good idea, and I, I am very, um... This is a very attractive plan and, and I think it would be a, a wonderful way to encourage landlords, uh, to voluntarily participate in the plan. Um, but, but I wonder whether it goes far enough. And so, I, I want to sort of go into that a little bit. Um, th- this is really two separate issues that we've been talking about. One is, how many residents are allowed to live in a structure in a single-family zone? But that's a different issue than, what are the behaviors and conduct of the citizens in our neighborhoods, whether or not they live there and whether or not they are students? I believe that our conversation today is the second, is what is the conduct of our, uh, of our citizens and neighborhoods, whether or not they are residents there or whether they are our students even? And so, one, the one, uh, thing I wanted to talk about was that. Um, someone passed out a, an article from the Washington Post, um, from, I guess, uh, September 12th, which talks about the University of Maryland was, uh, uh, basically in, stepping up enforcement in order to, to, uh, p- to prevent things like burning couches in, in, in streets. Um, I think if someone's burning a couch in the street, they need to do jail time. That's, that's unacceptable in this town. Um, I, I think that... My gut reaction is that we need a serious, uh, increase, uh, of legal enforcement in our, in our neighborhoods that are experiencing problems. And if the UK neighborhoods are experiencing problems, we need to, uh, uh, a rather significant increase in presence and officers on foot, officers in squad cars, uh, if we have problem streets, going up and down, uh, the streets multiple times during, during evenings where we're anticipating, um, uh, a- activity and things. But, uh, I, I think folks, folks need to get fines if, if they are, uh, you know, lying out in the middle of the street, uh, you know, drunk, uh, then they need... you know, that, they, they need to... There are rules against that. And this is no different than the rules in any other part of town. So my, my first instinct is that we need very visible increased enforcement in, in neighborhoods, not just the UK neighborhoods, but any neighborhood where we're having significant problems. One of my concerns, and I think Dr. Blues talked about this a little bit is, is not so much the good guys, but the bad guys, uh, the folks who wouldn't be participating in this program anyway. Not all the, uh, of our landlords are bad people. Some of them are very fine people and, uh, not all of them are, are trying to break our zoning laws by building 12-plexes or 8-plexes on the back o- of, of their little cottages. And so, it's not the rule-followers that we're really talking about, it's the rule-breakers that we're talking about. Um, and, and I use that as an example. Uh, th- the same goes with, with behaviors and uses. It's not so much, uh, folks that are, are gonna be the rule-followers that we're worried about. It're the folks who ignore the rules and who don't care about the rules. And so, one of my concerns is, uh, whether, um, you know, a, a, a landlord that, that builds a, a, a, a large facility on the back of their small, small cottage is gonna par- participate in this program anyway. Th- and, and those are the ones who you would really wanna capture with this. And I'm not... don't know whether those folks are gonna get captured by this program. Um, to, to the extent there, there is enough demand for housing in the UK area, they may not be impacted by the fact that they're not on the certification list. They may still have plenty of, of demand for, for their rooms and may be able to rent anyway, whether or not they're on this list. But I'm also concerned that, that folks who are either committing crimes or committing code violations might receive a different type of treatment than someone who doesn't participate in, in the, in the plan. For example, if you have two houses on a street and one house is in the, in the program and the next door house is on the, on the, on the... is not on the program, would our officers or code enforcement officers treat folks standing out in front of the one house different than they would than standing in front of the next house? And to me, that, that, that raises serious due procition and, process and equal protection, uh, concerns. All our citizens sh- should receive the same treatment, uh, wh- whe- whether or not they're signed up in this. And I don't know whether we have the authority to say, "You're standing in front of a, a certified house, therefore, we're not gonna take you to jail, but because you're standing out drinking or something. But you're not standing in front of a certified house, therefore we're gonna take you to jail." I think there's some problems with that, and we should work through those issues. So kind of where I'm leading is I'm wondering whether this, th- the, the, the, uh, the fines system, uh, needs to be separated from the certification system. I would think the, the benefit of the certification system is either being in it or not. If you're in it, y- you have participated in, uh, in voluntary compliance with a list of things or you're at least complying with those things. Uh, and that puts you on a, a, a list that makes you attractive to students coming in. And, and staying on that list is a reason to do that. Um, and if, for example, there, there are problems with that house, irrespective of the, of the fines or, or legal penalties that would be assessed, they'd get kicked out of the program. And so that would -- I think that would be a reason in itself to, to, uh, to, to encourage, uh, participation. The fines having w-- fines different from one house to another, boy, I, I just, I would really want someone to look really hard at that. Um ... One of the things I'm thinking about, and I apologize that one of the, uh, the, the, the hazards of being a councilman is being able to spring things on folks. And so I apologize. I went out and whispered to Mr. Byers, uh, about an idea about, uh, about something that I'd like him to maybe comment on. He may not have a good answer, because I think this is fairly new to him, and, and they're looking at this as well. And, and they would also have some liability issues. But one of the, one of the questions I think we should ask is, could UK require its entire undergraduate population who lives off campus to participate in this program? As a condition to enrollment in University of Kentucky, would they have to be restricted to living in student, uh, uh, certified program houses? Now, that would ... Mr. Jarvis is, uh, I- is kinda sweating a little bit 'cause that causes a lot of issues about could they inspect that many houses? Uh, but certainly, uh, it would be a, uh, a, a public safety issue for University of Kentucky to know that its students are, are in, in places that are s- that are looked at every year, that have a, a, a lease, a, a baseline degree of, of meeting safety, uh, concerns, uh, that, that, uh, satisfies b- zoning rules and fire regulations and things like that. Now, that would be a serious program to do. And I don't, this may, that just may ne- m- may not be un- uh, may not be workable, but ... I, I think the e- in the end, um, we need to be able to sh- assure that our citizens are living in safe houses that meet fire code, uh, regulations and other regulations that are designed for their safety. And, uh, and, and this would be one way to do that. The University of Kentucky has a lot of, of, uh, uh, tools at its, it is, uh, uh, uh, at its disposal because of the fact that these students, at least students anyway, are, are enrolled. Now, I agree with an- uh, Council Member James, that they're more than students involved in this. Uh, but we try to get folks a- as we can, and, uh, and this would be one way to get a significant population in, in, uh, in much more verifiably safe housing. Thank you, Chair. Uh, we have not yet heard from the University of Kentucky, four of whom are being very patient. So Council Member Beard has a specific question about your plan, as does Council Member Stennet. And so I think they'll be quick, and we'll get to you folks who've been so patient. Actually, this is a question for David. Back to this medallion or decal or whatever it is. Sticker or ... Um, a new one each year? Yes, absolutely. Different colors? Uh, dated. Huh? E- Either new colors or dated, absolutely, for that year. Ca- Can't read the date from the curb, I don't think. Probably colors, I'm guessing. Colors for sure. Absolutely. Um, and then one other question. When they burn s- uh, sofas, do they burn their own or do they go across the street and burn their neighbor's? That's, I've always, always wanted to know the answer to that and ... One of the things that we run across is when tenants will move out, they'll, the, the landlords will put the furniture out on the street. Well, you know, that's, that's fodder for the, for the neighbors. They'll, they'll grab the sofa from the neighbor's house and set it on fire. So I, we don't know where we're getting them. We found 14 in the, in the, in the backyard of a, of a fraternity house. 14- 14 sofas. ... Sofas? They were collecting them. Wow. Okay, thank you very much. Council Member Stennet, did you have a question? I do have a question. I'll hold my comments till later so that we can hear from UK, but Officer Gaines, again, who, who's gonna be the primary person for administering this program? Would it just be ... At this point right now, it would be, um, my primary responsibility. Uh, some of the administrative stuff, I would have to work that out, uh, input into, um, some of the database. Uh, but once again, other than some of the in- database input, it's really not a whole lot more than what I'm currently doing. I mean, uh, and the only reason I ask that is, I know you gotta have a busy schedule as well, but, you know, w- when years ago, about four years ago when we decided to do the alarm ordinance, I understand how much staff that's taken from the police department just to administer alarms in this city on less student housing. I can see it really getting away from us quick and creating a whole nother department to administer this. That's, that's my only fear of looking down the road is how much can you really handle yourself and how many, how many more people do you, we have to bring in to, to handle it. Second of all, have you discussed with the law department about the legality of being able to fine one home or give one homeowner a faster penalty versus another? Have you looked at that difference? Well, and, and that's kinda coming back to, um, Mr. Martin's, um ... things on there. The fines aren't anything that we're doing. There's two separ- you're looking at two separate things. Um, one of the, what's listed in here, and you see the fines in here, are leasing agreement fines. Those are already being done. Sure. Those are already in leases. If there is a violation that goes through, uh, and they have to come in and enforce it, it's no different than what ... It's actually set up just like this now. The only difference is, is, um, currently there's not a notification process to one of the property owners that there is a violation. If they were told there was a violation, then they would issue the, one of these fines that, that is in here, because most of them I think have these already in their leases. Um, and then if there is a criminal act or somebody that's, um, drunk or passed out, we take them to jail or we cite them or whatever we do, they're still, that's not changed, and, and it's not changing in this. And I think that's, um, kinda where Miss- Mr. Martin w- ... a little bit of confusion is these are strictly lease requirements that are built in there, and that gives the landlords or property owners a little bit of leverage to the people who are living there above and beyond any other criminal acts that, that may occur. So, um, this is already being done, currently as it is. And, um, so there, I don't see that there's an issue with due process. They're not being treated any differently. If you have a house that's on the program and a house that's not, and somebody is under the influence, they're still going to jail for being under the influence- Sure. ... and getting a fine. Um, it's the property that we're looking at, and the behavior that's coming from there that can also additionally, um, under notification, be imposed by the property owner for that violation happening. So are you saying they have to have a lease in order to be, take part in the program? Yes. And there's minimum leasing requirements. So you have to have a lease in place with your tenant? So a landlord ... okay. Yes. 'Cause Councilmember Gaines made a point was we have properties that a lot of 'em don't have leases and, uh, could be a month-to-month situation so they wouldn't be eligible. So we may need to look at that. The other thing is, I wanna know, you know, y- I think you referenced here only UK. Well, I mean, there's also BCTS has 10,000 students in this city somewhere, living somewhere, as well as Transy in the immediate vicinity. So I mean, we really need to give, and I appreciate UK being here today, but they're not the only ones that should be at the table when we discuss this. BCTS is growing every day and I know they're having their public forum coming up, the move to Newtownpike. There's gonna create issues in those neighborhoods as well long term. So anything we do, we need to be able to, to, to carbon footprint all over the city from my, for that matter. But, uh, when we're just looking at UK only there, there's some problems there. And the other thing is I don't see disincentives for people that, uh, really go after the problem people. Um, make it harder for them, the habitual offenders, things like that. I'd love to see that in there as Councilmember Martin alluded to. So those are just my thoughts on your plan. I'll let Councilmember Gordon get the meeting going forward. Thank you. Thank you very much and, uh, just Councilmembers Stennet, that's a great point about the other universities and I know Transylvania did have a rep on the Student Housing Task Force. So, um, thank you very much Officer Gaines, and I trust you'll stick around a- another half hour perhaps, and we'll hear from the University of Kentucky right now. And Tom Harris, if you don't mind to tell us who you are and who you brought with you, first of all, so that we know exactly who's here and what they do. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Madam Chairman, I can do, certainly do that. Um, we appreciate the opportunity to be here. Um, I did bring, uh, my experts with me. Um, Steve Buyers, the Director of Government Relations, uh, Victor Hazard, who's Interim Vice President, and, um, of Student Affairs, and Lisa Higgins-Horde from Communi- Community Engagement. So, uh, they're, they, those two have been deeply involved with this for a long time and certainly can, can help with some of my questions. Um, I would mention I, we certainly appreciate, uh, the Chair and, and Councilwoman Lawless spending time with us and, and, uh, taking the President on a tour on Friday and the neighborhood presidents. Uh, we, we appreciate that. I think it was time well spent for everybody. So thank you for that. Um, appreciate the opportunity to, to be with you today, share a few points from the university's perspective, uh, maybe clear up a few points hopefully, and then maybe, uh, try to deal with some questions, uh, uh, from, from the committee. First, let me, uh, address a complaint and just get this outta the way that, that UK has not been at the table on these, uh, student housing issues. Um, w- we've heard that from a number of sources and, uh, the fact is we've been engaged in these issues, uh, in many ways, uh, for several years through the Town & Gown Commission, uh, which UK and, uh, Lisa chairs. Uh, we've got multiple representatives on that commission, including students. Um, they attend every meeting and are, and are engaged in that process. Um, Lisa and Bob Wiseman and others have done site visits to Penn State, O- Ohio State, other campuses, uh, to look at, uh, processes there. We have our own university neighborhood advisory council, uh, which Lisa works very closely with all the, uh, c- continuous neighborhoods, uh, and, and their committees. Um, and we've had m- and we had s- uh, representatives on the s- this student tal- uh, Student Housing Task Force. Uh, so to, we are clearly committed to, uh, working with the council, working with the city, uh, to develop solutions, uh, for everyone in this process. But to suggest that UK has not been involved, uh, in these discussions is, is just not accurate. Regarding the Student Housing Task Force, which is really what, uh, we were asked to, to address some of the issues, um, and there's obviously been a lot of good input over the last couple of years and discussion on the task force, um, we believe there's still some work to be done on that, as today. There's still a lot of questions, as many questions as there are answers. Uh, and, um, we are, we are hopeful that we can be a part of that process and not just create, uh, layers that might have some unintended consequences, uh, for the, for the entire community that, uh, are not in anyone's best interest. And while we, uh, as well as anyone understand there are budget, uh, constraints, uh, with enforcement and, and, and, uh, emphasis on code enforcement and ordinance enfor- enforcement, uh, we think that, uh, expansion of, of those, uh, inspections are vital as, as, uh, the inspections couple, the last couple of weeks have proven, uh, to eliminate some dangerous situations, uh, for, uh, our residents in, in the community. And we think that's a vital important of the process. We haven't been, uh, h- had the opportunity to spend too much time, uh, with Officer Gaines and, and the, and the SHIP program, but it seems to me that there's a lot of merit in those, uh, uh, in those concepts and those programs. Uh, obviously there's still some questions here, uh, that, that we would like to be a part of the discussion and, and help work out. Certainly, I- ... I've been accused of practicing law without a license a lot of times, and, and obviously there w- there would be some legal issues, councilman, uh, to mandating that students, uh, participate, uh, in the program. But certainly a certified list, uh, where, where students had the opportunity and parents, uh, knew that those registered on this, in this program, uh, were, were moving into, to a safe environment, which is ob- which obviously a goal. Um, we sur- support the, the goals of the policy, uh, in the student housing, the plans that, that were there, um, and presented. Obviously, there's still some questions on how they might be im- implemented and enforced. Um, frankly, the university doesn't feel like we should be telling you all what specific codes or ordinances we shou- should be put in place, but we're, we, we're committed to supporting what you do pass and working with you to, to make sure that they are successful. Uh, at this point in the discussion, um, with our budget, as well as, uh, as you all are used to dealing with difficult budgets, uh, I'm not in a position to make a specific c- c- commitment on the idea of an off-campus housing office. Um, but we are certainly open to continuing those discussions, um, to talk about, uh, how that might work, what the roles and responsibilities, uh, of such an office would be, how it might be funded, um, and, and where it might be housed. Uh, we certainly see some form of off-campus services through the university comm- community as a real possibility and something that we wanna work toward. One... I will tell you that one aspect of, of the housing plan, the additional fee assessed to all full-time students is probably not gonna be, uh, very well-received. Uh, please understand that every tuition dollar, every fee, and, and there are already a lot of student fees that, that our students have to... are faced with, but every fee, every dollar that we take away from that, we're taking away from their academic success of the students. And that student success, uh, will remain our primary goal. Clearly, our goal, uh, for the university is, is to work with the council, uh, and co- code enforcement, the police, all of the different agencies to co-exist in our neighborhood. We understand that having a campus the size of UK right in the heart of our community presents some challenges, uh, and we've gotta work through those. We've gotta work through those together, uh, but also create some opportunities. Uh, obviously, we all like the, the payroll tax that comes into, uh, to the city on this. Merchants appreciate when the students come back, uh, e- each fall. Clearly, the economic impact, um, is im- is important to, to our community. It's also important to note, uh, as, as been brought up here that we're not just talking about UK and its students, um, and, and just around the campus area. We have students that live in, uh, every continuous county throughout Fayette County. We have clusters of students, uh, well outside, uh, the campus area. Uh, as been pointed out, uh, Bluegrass has 10,000 students. Uh, Transy has 1200. And frankly, in some of these rental properties, they're not students at all. They may be college-aged, uh, individuals, but they may not be students and, uh, they tend to all get lumped in as, as UK students. And while we certainly have the majority of them, I think it's important that we bring everybody to the table in this process 'cause they've gotta be considered a- as, as well. One other misconception that, uh, seems to be per- pervasive as we talked about is that, uh, just in the last couple years, UK has grown significantly, and, and that's just not the case. While the president rolled out, uh, his top 20 public research business plan and which called for us to grow by 7,00- uh, uh, 7,000 students in the year 2020, uh, the reality with budget cuts, we just haven't gotten there, um, because we couldn't advance our enrollment until we built academic buildings, hired additional faculty, and we've just not been able to grow. The reality is, is we've been, uh, quite modest in our growth. In 2000, we had 24,000 students. Uh, this fall, w- we enrolled 27,000 students. So... And it's not really, uh, a huge growth o- over that time. Our goal, uh, with, with on-campus housing is to main- maintain our ratio in the mid to upper 20s, that percentage of students that live on campus. Uh, we currently house 29% of our undergraduates, and a lot of the issues we've talked about today are, are probably focused on undergrads as the graduate students, uh, tend, tend to be a little older and, and live in different places. Uh, we... Of the total population, we house about 24% on, on campus. And that percentage is very consistent with our benchmarks, the Ohio States, the Michigans, uh, the Wisconsins, uh, a- around the country, as well as our state universities. Um, there are a couple. K State has a little higher percentage, but, uh, for the most part, that's very consistent. And our, our plan is to, to grow our student housing capabilities and facilities as our student population grows. Um, obviously, um, with, with budget cuts and, and debt capacity issues, we've, we've had to put some projects on hold. We, we plan to redo our Cooperstown area off Woodland Avenue and redevelop that to an area that, that students really wanna, wanna be in. Um, you should know, though, that, uh, we are able to place all the students that requested housing, uh, with the university. Every student that wanted, uh, to live on campus was able to. Uh, for those that live off campus, our preference is they live close, uh, within walking distance, uh, because the academic success rate of those students is measurably higher, uh- ... this is -- it is also better for campus parking, obviously, and our community traffic issues. Um, with the addition of, of our new dorms that we built a couple of years ago, which was about 700 beds, and developments in, within a 10-minute walk of campus, um, New Town, some of the others a- around campus, 4,000 new beds have come online just within the last few years. Uh, we've supported these student-focused developments 'cause they address many of the issues that we've been talking about, and they get students closer to campus and, and again, the academic suces- success of those that can walk to campus and be a part of the campus community, uh, makes a difference. We are totally committed to the academic success of, of, of our students and the on-time graduation of our students. Thus, we have a vested interest in the out-of-class activities of our fu- full-time students, whether they live on or off campus. We will continue to strengthen our educational programming, uh, for those students and, uh, both on and off campus and teaching them to be responsible citizens in our community. Uh, we do s- a handbook for those that live off campus. It's a resource and guide and, and talks about how to be good, a good neighbor and the ordinances that they must follow when they live off campus. Um, in every opportunity we get, um, UK encourages its students to exemplify the notion of, of good citizenship, both on and off campus. Obviously, we will continue to look for additional ways, uh, where we can strengthen that effort and reinforce, um, um, that good citizenship among our students. Our hope is that, like all of you all, that our students live a safe, live in a safe, comfortable environment that provides a, an opportunity them to succeed and graduate academically at, at the university. Uh, we are committed to working with you, uh, on all of these programs, as we have been through and other, uh, to find solutions to these. So I'd be, with that, I'd be glad to take some questions, uh, for me or, or any of the good folks that are with us as well. Madam Chair. Thank you very much, Tom. And we do have a list of questions, uh, council members, and first is Council Member Lawless. Um, first of all, again, thanks to Officer Gaines, and I think, uh, the website and keeping it updated would be a great student intern project at UK. Um, so, and, and I don't think it should have to be done by our city folks. I think it should be a UK website and I, I, I didn't see anywhere where it said students would be required to live in certified housing, and I do think it is a start. Um, the thing that I feel very strongly about is beefing up the off-campus code of conduct by university students, and it has been done successfully in other places. The other day, when we were riding around, we talked some about it, and the, uh, my understanding, and so correct me if I'm incorrect, is that, um, you, the, there is an off-campus stude of coden- cos- student code of conduct , I'm sorry, um, that is enforced, but it's only enforced if it's a student to student or student to UK staff or student to UK faculty. Um, so if, say, a student gets drunk and assaults another student, they are arrested by that county police, but they also are penalized with the UK, um, code of conduct. And, um, I, I don't understand why we can't, and the university, I plead with you to, um, look at expanding that, the Board of Trustees, Dr. Todd, um, because if a student gets drunk and assaults me, um, I would like to see that code of conduct as strict as if they get drunk and assault you. Um, I don't see how it's a different, double jeopardy, in other words. Um, there are, I think that most all of the students that go to UK, UK, BCTC, Transylvania, are remarkable, well-behaved, wonderful young people, and I love UK students. I have several living on my street, always have, never have had a single problem from a UK student. Um, but it's the few that create such horrible problems that really give the landlords a black eye, the other students a black eye, um, anger the neighborhoods, makes UK look bad, and if there aren't consequences for those behaviors, they're gonna continue. And so for me, I think a huge step would be expanding the off-campus, um, student code of conduct to include infractions that would involve those if they were s- student to student or student to a private citizen, because I think it's really a shame that this has turned into something where students don't feel welcome. It, I think every single, um, neighborhood person we heard from came up and said, "We love UK students. We live in these neighborhoods because of the diversity. It's the problems of a few that create, um, problems for everybody else." And- ... you know, a bad name for students and tension and animosity in, in our neighborhoods. And so, um, I ho- I hope, I came here as a UK student in 1969. I fell in love with the community, um, and I lived over on Westwood Drive and then Forest Park for a long time and, uh, raised my family here and felt a part of the community. And I want them to feel a welcome part of our community. I want them t- to flourish, love being here, and wanna stay and make it their home. Because we're spending a lot of money educating them and I don't like shipping out our best and brightest resources. So that's my first, um, comment is, um, and I hope that we can have further discussions about expanding that student code of conduct. And also, with the, um, program that Officer Gaines is talking about, it is voluntary. It would be something, and it would include, it could include houses all over Fayette County or apartments all over Fayette County. It wouldn't have to be just those neighborhoods. And I hope that it would be the responsibility of UK and we could get some students that could get some credit for it. Got a lot of good computer students over there. So thank you very much. Thank you for your time and I look forward for, to further conversations. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, Tom, thanks for being here today. Steve, Victor, Lisa. Um, Tom, I assume that maybe your earlier comments may have had some reference to some comments that I or some others had to say about the role of the university, perhaps? We, we've gotten a number of, of comments that we have not been- Right. ... at the table. 'Cause I'd like to, um, I'd like to clarify, just so it's clear in my own opinion, um, having, you know, first I'll c- put it in context of having been elected to city council three years ago, um, I'll be the first to admit, and I've said that these issues in the neighborhoods near the campus were clearly not on my radar. Didn't have any familiarity really in a meaningful way with them. And, um, of course, I live in the downtown and, and have had an interest in the university for some time, been involved, but I'll admit that didn't know much about it until I was invited to walk the streets some three years ago, a couple of times. And, um, so my awareness was dialed up and then I was, um, asked to co-chair the Town Gown Commission and for two and a half years or more have been involved in that. Uh, appointed the task force for student housing and had been involved in that. And when my point of view on this has... when I have spoken out about the university's involvement and the university's role, it has been a function of having been formed over the last two and a half years. And not without a lot of consideration have I made the observations that the university has not made this a priority. And that only until the heat has been dialed up is it become a priority. Now, you know, we're not here to condemn or to blame. We are here to try to find resolution. But I think it's appropriate to acknowledge that had the heat not been dialed on, up on this and had we not examined these issues and tried to get at root cause, much of which, much of that root cause is the university's decisions going way back to alcohol on campus and not on campus. You know, sometimes it's unpleasant to deal with the problems and sometimes it's inconvenient to address root cause. But when we don't, we avoid the real work. The real work is to examine the problem. The destruction of these neighborhoods is a university problem and a city problem. In the dist- in my view, the destruction of these neighborhoods is a real big problem for the university over time. When the discussion about priorities is introduced, Cooperstown, you mentioned Cooperstown. And it was my understanding that last year the plan was to renovate Cooperstown, that it was in the budget or something like that. And now it's not. Other priorities have taken the place of that. I think what we're all saying is that being at the table means examining together these priorities. When the university decides that it's no longer a financing or a funding priority, that affects the city. So your decisions on funding and bonding affect the city and definitely affect these neighborhoods that are under pressure today, more than pressure, that are being destroyed. For me, when I look at, for example, the question of an off-campus office, and I heard about this a year and a half ago as a suggestion. Craig, you suggested it, I believe, and the, and the mission to exam- the, up there to examine it, there was a, um, a delegation that went to Ohio State. And the comments have been from the university that we can't afford it. Now, the way that I look at that is it's a minimum today, a minimum expectation that the university step up with this off-campus office. And for me, I can't escape the density issue, and that we just have to get there. We have to go there with the hard work of addressing these questions if we are to preserve the fabric of these neighborhoods and the value of these neighborhoods that also has enormous value to the university. I do want to say that I appreciate all the work that Lisa's done, that Vic's done on the Town Gown Commission and the work of the university overall. Having been there now for two and a half years, there's no avoiding that we got to dial it up a lot. That presence is one thing, but meaningful work is something else. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Chair, uh, Mr. Harris. Good to see you. Nice to see you. UK delegation. I, I just want to take a moment to, to, uh, to underline what Council Members, uh, Lawless and, and, and, and Gray have, have said. Uh, w- we appreciate your commitment to being at the table. We, we really do, but we've got a problem, because the council is not only at the table, but we've got something on the table, and we're gonna have to deal with it in a very serious manner. We're not... and, and so I, I hope that UK will, will, will not only be at, but also working with, with what's on there and what some of the, some of the alternatives are. I, uh, I want to especially underline what, what Council Member Lawless said about the off-campus code of conduct. UK, ex- uh, treats its, its, its students as adults and considers them as adults. Unfortunately, we have some students who need to be taught how to be adults and to, and, and to assume the adult, uh, obligations. Uh, it was unfortunate, I think, that during our public meetings, we had some students who came forward with, with almost the claim that they had a kind of entitlement to be irresponsible, uh, and, and, uh, and suggested to us that we just get real and live with it. Uh, but, but we cannot do that. Uh, as the vice mayor said, we, uh, we as a community, in- including the university, have a huge stake in preserving neighborhoods that are now being systematically dismantled and unlivable. So, I look forward to, uh, to working with the university, with the landlord, with the students, with my colleagues, because we have got to come to grips with this issue. It is extraordinarily serious. It's an issue of safety, uh, it's an issue of civic responsibility, it's an issue of common decency. It's serious stuff. So thank you for being here. We appreciate this, and, and, and we look forward to the digging into, into this in the weeks and months ahead. Council Member Beard. Thank you, madam chairperson. Um, Tom, thank you for coming. The rest of the delegation also. Um, I've been guilty of saying that UK hasn't been at the table either, although I was aware that they did have participation in the, uh, student housing task force. What I was really doing was attempting to sensitize not only this group of people up here, but also you all to the fact that I wanted you all at the table concerning the moratorium and the vinyl box issue. Um, you may think that's kind of maybe out of your purview, but, uh, one hand washes the other, and it's hard to separate all, all of this. Um, you know, eight to 10 students in a vinyl box, I cannot imagine would encourage a quality education. Uh, too much coming and going and, and, you know, get a couple of students who decide that this is going to be party night, uh, the, the rest of the people will suffer. Um, the feeling that, uh, there's going to be a, uh, large uptick, uh, of students and needing requirements for, for more housing encourages the building of vinyl boxes. And that has been said, and I mentioned this to Steve over the telephone the other day, that I was told in a planning committee meeting that there's going to be no more rooms b- built, no more beds, and that there would be seven, eight, 10,000 new students. That's not true. Well, that meant... Well, I... It's not true that I heard it or... 'cause I think there's other people- No, I believe that, I believe that you heard it, but- I didn't- ... the fact that we're not going to build additional housing for students is not true. Well, I... I, I've heard that now, but, uh, this was a planning me- committee meeting we had last spring, I believe, uh, Madam Chairman, and, uh, uh, it was a joint planning, uh, commission meeting and, um... We -- we heard it, so that's kind of why, um, uh, we felt that way. And, um, I'm -- it's -- as Steve Byers mentioned, uh, uh, he also pointed out that that wasn't accurate, and, uh, that's great- Yeah. ... that it wasn't accurate. Um, o- one other thing, how many of your student housing, um, beds are air conditioned and air conditioned, uh? All but -- but one, uh, building. And that -- that's maybe, uh, 160 beds or something like that big. Yeah. That's- Has that -- has that been an upgrade? 'Cause I've heard that complaint for some time that- I- is there a plan to upgrade that building? No, no. Has -- ha- have some of the older places been upgraded to be air conditioned? The ones that can be, yes. Yeah. Okay. 'Cause that, uh, that was ha- historically has been a complaint I've heard and pushes people off -- off of campus somewhat and ... Although, those that, uh, wanted housing, uh, were -- were very pleased to take that because they wanted to be on campus. Yeah. We've never had trouble filling, uh, that dorm. Well, that's -- that's -- that's fine. That's great. And they get a discount. Oh, okay. Tha- that's probably even greater, uh, for them. Uh, tha- that's all I had, and thank you very much, Tom. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Uh, you're welcome. And we have five minutes left. Council Member Feigl. Um, thank you, Chair. I'll try to d- do this really quickly. Uh, Mr. Harris, thanks so much for coming, and I do thank, uh, all of the other UK, um, delegates here that they have been at the table. Uh, I've seen them at the table. However, what I would go on to say is I -- I'm still looking for what UK can offer us to help deal with the problem. We've been told that you can't afford a student housing office. We've been told that we can't assess the students a fee. But we haven't been told what you can do. You've -- you've said that you're committed to work with us. But we wanna know what is it that you can do. And I -- while I appreciate every one of you that have been here and been at the meetings, perhaps we're, no offense meant, but perhaps we're talking to the wrong people. Um, I would like for us to actually have a joint meeting with the Board of Trustees, because I believe that this is a long-term issue. This is -- we have a short-term problem right now, but this is a long-term issue. And in order for us as a city to believe that there is some advanced planning to deal with the growth in the student population, we would like to hear that, we would like to talk with the Board of Trustees about what those plans are because it imp- impacts our city greatly. And I would like to -- to request that we have a meeting, a joint meeting, with the Board of Trustees. Can -- can you carry that message back? I can certainly talk to the -- to the chair, um, and -- and obviously they can do whatever they want to. Uh, typically they tend to be a policy setting board- As are we. ... and not getting into day-to-day operations. Uh, but I will certainly carry that message there. And -- and regarding the off-campus housing, as I said, I think it's something as we define what it is we all want it to be, we're certainly willing to -- to look at that and -- and try to make that work. I will look forward to your report back. Thank you. Council Member Martin, you have two minutes, you and Council Member Stemp. I think we're about out of time. I'll just keep it brief. Tom, thank you for coming, and, Steve and the delegation, thank you for coming as well. Um, but -- but I have to say, you don't come with any proposals today. And as long as this conversation's been going on, I think the folks here really expected some proposals. Um, it -- it's one thing to sit at the table, but it's a different thing to actually contribute and to come up with -- with solutions to the problem. And I think that's the frustration that I'm hearing is that I think we're all looking for solutions and UK is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. And, yeah, we can do it without UK, but it's gonna take longer, it's gonna cost more, and it's gonna be less effective. So I think we all wanna work together to try to fix this. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Stennet. Due -- due to the time, Chair, I'll just limit my comments to thank you again for being here, thank you for last Friday, and your all's willingness to have dialogue and -- and participate with... That's the start. I think that's what we need to understand. They're not saying they don't have a plan. That's just... This is the start. Also thank you for a week and half ago when you invited the entire council, uh, over to campus to discuss this and -- and economic development, other initiatives that the university is having. We appreciate that, but unfortunately only three council members bothered to show up. So you have been trying to have that dialogue and you have been trying to work. Now we need to work together on a proposal and plan, so I appreciate you being here. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for coming to that. I wanna thank, uh, Officer Gains, Tom Harris, Steve Byers, Victor Hazard, and Lisa Higgins-Hoard for being here. We are out of time and so- And David Jarvis. And David Jarvis, thank you. So do I ... One -- one thing before we adjourn is we're looking for a meeting time to have a special council meeting to continue the student housing task force work so that we do not have to wait until our November 24th meeting. So do I hear a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye? Anybody aye? Opposed? Thank you. Meeting is adjourned.