The ¶¶ ¶¶ Welcome to the Council Planning Committee. And today is October the 19th, and we're going to go ahead and convene the Planning Committee meeting. if we can get all of our raucous crowd to settle down out there. There must be excitement in the air. So welcome. It's good that everybody's happy. This is a good thing. So the first item on the planning committee's agenda today is the downtown Lexington building inventory. And we have quite a constituent of folks here. And I think they're going to be led off by Betty Kerr in our Division of Historic Preservation. And we had this issue on our agenda back in the spring. or even late winter and asked for it to come back to us because we were especially interested in how the building inventory could be used. So with that said, Betty, we'll pass them on. I'll turn the microphone over to you and let you go ahead and lead us through. The packet has information from pages 1 through 24 for those who have a packet. Welcome. Yes, indeed. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. I am Betty Kerr, the Director of the Division of Historic Preservation. And as Council Member Gordon said, this is about the downtown building inventory, which we made a presentation to you about the inventory itself. a number of months ago, and so I thought I'd start with a very brief recap of what the inventory consists of kind of categorically. No attempt to certainly go through all the properties or areas that it encompasses, but to just kind of sum up and give you a quick overview. And then we're going to talk briefly about opportunities of tools that could be used to help steer positive change as it occurs in our downtown area, including the area, of course, that is what was inventoried as part of the study, and also those same tools could be used further afield than that, certainly. We also, some of the staff internally have been meeting informally to talk about incentives and opportunities and regulatory processes and so forth that might be used for that. And so Chris King, the Director of Planning, Harold Tate, the Director of the Downtown Development Authority, and Billy Van Pelt, who, of course, is our PDR person but also does the courthouse overlay process. We've all been meeting informally and talked about many of the things you're going to see reflected in the main portion of this presentation. They are all here, I think. I'm saying that so glibly, my goodness, and we've multiplied. We also have Bill Salley from Planning with us as well, and Brandy Berryman from the Downtown Development Authority. So between us all, I hope we're able to answer your questions, and if not, as always, we will find out the answers that you need. To start, and we might, can we cut the lights down, Ted? And the building inventory, just to give you the quick reminder, it was created to provide a base of data, a very succinct, short amount of information about a series of properties in our downtown Correa area. And each property was evaluated for its architectural style, the era in which it was built, its specific date if it's known, a brief history, and then categorized relative to the intactness of its architectural character. The area we were asked to create the inventory for is encompassed within the map, and of course you have all this in your materials. But it's bound on the north by 2nd Street and Constitution Streets, on the south by High Street, on the east by Elm Tree Lane, essentially, and on the west by Jefferson Street. I thought we might zip very quickly through the categories that were assigned to the various areas. They include outstanding, significant, contributing, non-contributing, and post-1965. And with that, be aware that these categories were driven by what is the architectural identity of the building and how intact is that architectural identity. And it was done on a building-by-building basis. And then you would take that base level of information and look as it then assembles into blocks and blocks and their relationships to each other and so forth and so on. So we won't go through all these in detail. I know you've seen them before. But just be aware that the outstanding category is ones where the buildings are very much intact and retaining their architectural features. The significant level, your mid-range level of the three in terms of their architectural integrity, that one they are quite intact but not perhaps as fully so. And then your contributing ones are ones that play a substantial role in the streetscape. They're important to their adjacent neighbors, but they may have had some substantive alteration, particularly first floors, storefronts in downtown, as you well know, change time to time. But when second and third floors have been robbed out of their architectural features and so forth, that sometimes will be why the building has landed in the contributing category versus in the significant or the outstanding category. But it still has a role to play in terms of being an important part of the streetscape, an important part of a contiguous row of buildings frequently, and that sort of thing. The non-contributing, these are buildings which have been severely altered to the point they've, what we would term, have lost their integrity, or may have just, in a stylistic sense, had challenges in the first place. Might be one way to put that. The post-1965 category, we just identified those buildings built after 1965. We did not, at this point, take on the mission of determining their architectural significance. the closer you get to the present, it becomes more and more of a matter of somebody's opinion in terms of what is going to be its role in the architectural identity of a community. I brought just a few samples, and we'll go through these very quickly. But these would be the first couple in the outstanding category. This is on Cheapside. We've put the historic name of the building, Fayette Safety Vault Company, built about 1890, given a little bit of brief history, known to be designed by the architect H.L. Rowe, a very significant architect of the late 19th century. And then we've noted on all the properties whether they're within a design overlay. In this instance, this building is within the courthouse area design overlay, as well as being part of the downtown Commercial National Register District. The next one is the Lexington Laundry Building on Main Street, one that everybody I think is quite familiar with. Built 1929. It's a superb building. Obviously, it has an outstanding in its category, has a sentence or so talking about its role in the street, streetscape, and a bit about its architectural style. We have way more information about all these structures, as you would imagine. But this is meant to be a thumbnail. Go to one source document and get a quick look and then hopefully contact the preservation office and get a lot more information, not only about its history and architecture, but some of these tools we're going to talk about that are available, how the National Register process works, et cetera, et cetera. This is, again, a property both in the courthouse overlay and the National Register District. The Masonic Temple, this is a significant level of category of building because predominantly of its first floor alterations. Its second and third floors are quite intact. It's had some window changes, but the rhythm and the massing, the volume of it is all very nice and very significant building. It is part of the Broadway West Short Street National Register District. And something like the old Greyhound Bus Terminal, this is part of Central Christian Church's properties today. 1947, it's on Short Street at the head of the Esplanade. It is a significant building. It hasn't been particularly altered. It is not an outstanding example of its time period, but it's certainly a very good example of its time period. And then in the contributing category, this is something like this garage complex on North Upper Street, the old Featherstone's Garage, one of our early parking structures, enclosed garage structures in downtown, a nice piece of industrial architecture. It does play a key role in the identity there along Upper Street, and it's part of the Northside National Register District. And then on West Short Street, another building that, to give you some idea of the kinds of things we would call contributing, you can see this building has had alterations. Its first floor has had several changes over time, I would suspect, in terms of its storefront identity, and it's lost its window-opening rhythms on an up-and-down perspective, The sides to sides are still in place, second floor band of windows, third floor band of windows, but the scale of them is not quite what it should have been. So it's part of the courthouse overlay district as well as the downtown commercial National Register district. And then for a non-contributing sample, parking lots throughout the inventory area were designated as non-contributing, and they are, of course, wonderful opportunities as spaces for potential new infill of new parking garages where appropriate and as needed. So it's important that these were identified throughout the inventory. No one's suggesting that surface parking lots are a thing of beauty, but they are necessary to have spots for the automobiles and an important part of as we steer the future of our community. The other example for non-contributing is a government-owned complex, actually, which is here right adjacent to City Hall building. This is the police station and county clerk's office and parking garage complex. And it is, I don't think anybody would suggest a thing of architectural beauty, but it is a functioning complex at the moment and may be an area that down the pike some future opportunities will arise. And then the last sample of another post-1965 building. This is, again, Festival Market, which you're familiar with. And as I say, we didn't create any subcategories. We just noted the era in which these buildings date from. And then the Merrill Lynch building on Vine Street, this is now the Community Trust Bank, another post-1965 building, as so many on Vine Street are. Now, all of these categorical designations for the inventory purposes have been mapped, and the map that I distributed to you in the print copy is a little more legible, I hope. These things are always a challenge to read, I think, in terms of presentations. But this was created by the Downtown Development Authority, for which I thank you very much. And they have, as you can see, color-coded the properties tied to the inventories categories. And I would note that there has been, as I know you all are well aware, because several of you sit on the committee, a committee put together really a task force that's the Downtown Guidelines and Form-Based Codes Committee that is studying right in the cusp of studying so much of this. And so I know there's going to be a great deal of discussion. What we've brought forward today is just a little thumbnail of some of the regulatory and incentive processes that are out there, and they're certainly not limited to these, although these are the main player categories. But there are always other things that may exist or may be created, I would note. Overlay districts, you're familiar with them to a point. We have the H-1 overlays, which ring the downtown core area. We have the courthouse overlay, which is in the heart of the downtown area. One tool available to you and to this community is to increase the boundaries of overlay districts such as that and or to create new overlay districts using similar sets of criteria. You could also create new districts that may or may not have the same similar design criteria as their basis. The overlay is the umbrella that is the mechanism for creating these or for having a process in place that then people would participate in as property owners. An overlay district can address demolition. It can address renovation of existing buildings. It certainly addresses new construction most frequently, as well as smaller things such as signage and paving and so forth. It can address whether historic windows should be retained. It can choose not to address things such as that. So the possibilities in terms of the levels of what are to be reviewed are somewhat open-ended, those possibilities. And it's partly driven by, obviously, what is the intent of the outcome. These overlays can also be created for a very specified or limited array of items, such as building heights, setbacks, lot coverage, parking locations, and so forth. This is not unlike the tool you may know as the ND1 overlay, which is where certain key things are selected and an overlay is put on the geography that is decided upon, but categorically it is finite in the sorts of things that would be reviewed. And usually that can be done. It can be done either way, but it usually is done such that it's what we call an over-the-counter review, that being that certain parameters are set forth. in downtown, like a zero lot line setback on Main Street. And if you were in suburbia, just as an example, you know, maybe a 20-foot setback is the norm. The height of buildings could be included in that, or your side-to-side setbacks, the volume of the buildings, whether you want to allow parking in the front or if parking should always be at the rear, these sorts of broader concepts. Design guidelines or standards can be adopted to reflect what is to be reviewed. This would mean that you're going to have there be potentially a review body, but not necessarily. It could be structured to be an administratively handled process, but again with standards or guidelines that go with that. And the regulation can be regulatory, frequently is, or it could be advisory. There are pros and cons to both directions. Form-based codes, I know you all have talked a good bit about form-based codes, and Chris King is our king of form-based codes. So the shopping list that you have before you of just some key things to think on about that is very brief, but it is, as you know, done, this steerage of the built environment, done as part of the zoning code, and it focuses on regulating urban forms and not so much the land use that is underlying. It addresses things such as the form and mass and scale of the buildings and how they relate to each other, but again, this is done through the zoning code, not through criteria, not through guidelines or through other standards. Those standards are written into the zoning code, I would suggest. It focuses on things such as the relationship of building facades and their own relationship to adjacent buildings and then to the streetscape and so forth. Frequently, your form-based codes address the big picture, if you will, and they're not particularly detail-oriented. So you will not necessarily see form-based codes that talk about retention of cornice features or having a cornice. It may address heights and heights relating to each other and floor-to-floor ratios relating to each other. but how you finish it out might not be included in something such as a form-based code. It can include such items as architectural standards and landscaping, particularly as it relates to public areas, and signage standards broadly for selected areas. And those standards are usually defined and set forth reflecting whatever is determined to be the character of the area in which they are to be applied, and often taking into account the characteristics and the context of the public space. Now, on the incentive side, that's kind of on the regulatory side, in the incentives end, there are several excellent incentives out there to encourage the revitalization of historic structures and or new construction in areas to further improve selected spots, downtown cores and elsewhere. The Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credits. Everybody calls this the Historic Tax Credit. To participate in this tax credit, properties have to be on the National Register of Historic Places or become listed on the National Register of Historic Places and hence be eligible for that. They do have to be income-producing. The rehabilitation has to be substantial, which in many of these projects is not the problem. But sometimes a project can have been in not so bad shape and fixed up and still meet those standards. You do need to be working with a depreciable building, which I think goes without saying. Now, the tax credit, it's a very appealing tax credit. It's a 20 percent credit, and this is a credit against the taxes owed to the federal government. It is not a line item deduction, but a credit, and that's pretty key. The renovations that are done have to be certified by the National Park Service, and that is based on the Secretary of the Interior's standards. So there is review process that happens both at the State Historic Preservation Office and then at the Department of the Interior. And I would say we have Mark Denon with us today, sitting here on the front row, who is our State Historic Preservation Officer. And he has very nicely come over to be here, and I think we'll have some comments for you all. And I'm sure also wouldn't mind answering a few questions if, indeed, those come your way. There is also available a 10% tax credits for buildings built before 1936 but not eligible for the register. There are not too many of those around if they're frequently eligible for the register, if they are architecturally intact. But there are some examples of that, and so we don't want to lose track of the fact there is that possibility. The state rehabilitation tax credits, these are premised very similarly to the federal tax credits in terms of the standards they're reviewed by, the fact it needs to be listed on or eligible for the National Register. But there are a couple of exceptions. The state tax credit really was created with an eye toward property owners who live in their own homes, a homeowner situation. So the 30% that you see at the first entry of this is limited to homeowners. And I guess somebody could live in the entirety of a downtown commercial building and hence be a candidate for that. But the lion's share of your commercial properties will fall under the second category here, which is 20 percent tax credit available for certified rehabs. And this requires a minimum investment of $20,000 or meeting a formula, which is called the adjusted basis. And we won't go into the details of that, but certainly can help anybody who needs that information. the tax credit for the state level cannot exceed $400,000. I should mention there is no cap on the federal tax credit program. As I mentioned, it has to meet the same standards as the federal tax credit participation, but that's reviewed and approved at the Kentucky level, the state heritage, Kentucky Heritage Council. And there is currently, just so everybody will be aware, a $5 million cap set by the legislature on the Kentucky tax credits on an annual basis. And so if we're fortunate, and lots and lots of communities around the state have wonderful projects go forward, the downside to that is that everybody, while they still all get to participate in that tax credit, it may be that it has to be apportioned down so that no more than the $5 million in credit in TOTO is given. So it's a little bit of a luck of the draw and dependent upon what other projects go on in the same tax period that you're working with as to what happens with that. The next one is new market tax credits, and this is something I think you're also familiar with. It is, again, a federal tax credit for qualified equity investment in areas. CDEs, they're referred to as community development entities that are designated. The projects, they have to be in low to moderate income areas, and the investor banks, they purchase these and provide equity capital through the bank's investment to further commercial and economic development activities in underserved areas. The CDEs, if you will, community development entities, there's a corporation or a partnership that has to qualify as an entity and its efforts, and then an application process is involved, and it is, I understand, quite competitive. But an excellent tool if you're in the right category and geographically and so forth, the right project for that. The Kentucky Tourism Tax Credit, this is one that allows developers to basically expand or create new tourism projects, and they have the ability to recover 25% of the cost of the projects. And I thought that sounded really good. It is complicated in that they have to demonstrate that that project is indeed a destination, a tourism destination. And they demonstrate that by tracking where their people are coming from and then what they can write off. And to meet this is the return to the developers is approved and they keep track of their admission tickets. They put forward their food sales, gift sales, and lodging. And that's the premise upon which the tax return comes back to the developer. The developer has 10 years to reach this 25% threshold, and the expanding attraction gets the incentive, as I mentioned, due to the increased sales on things such as were listed. But not every project certainly could participate in that, depending on the nature of the project, but if they were eligible, it's a terrific program. And then tax increment financing, TIFs. I think you all probably could give talks on TIFs yourselves. at this point. You've reviewed several, I know. But it does use the future gains and the taxes to finance current improvements that will be created by those gains. And it counts on that surrounding properties increase in value and encourages new development in the same vicinities. And then the the increased investment in site value tax increases in turn come back and result in increased tax revenues, and that is indeed the tax increment, as you know. The TIF dedicates the resulting revenue toward funding public improvements in underdeveloped areas, and as you know they are limited being used in that, where development might not might not otherwise occur. And it does result in not just, it's been in several projects around the country where we've seen it being done in creating projects and allowing them to happen that otherwise really might not ever happen, certainly that communities couldn't make fly. So the TIF is an exciting tool. It's complicated in the sense of all the players into it, and I know you all know that well, but it's a wonderful thing out there. And then I got behind myself or ahead of myself, I'm never sure which, preservation easements or conservation easements. These are a tool that have been around for quite a while, and they're in various forms. Sometimes they're on a facade of a building only. Sometimes they're on multiple facades. They can be on land in terms of being a conservation easement. But it is where a private property owner gives up a portion of their legal right to a building and to a nonprofit entity or a government that holds that easement. And the purpose of it is to protect it from detrimental changes over time and to preserve its appropriate character and significant context and so forth. It's considered a partial interest in real estate. It is not certainly one where the owner has given up any ownership. They do own the building outright still, but they have indeed transferred that specific set of rights tied to what's to be reviewed and protected to that other easement holding organization. And the government today holds four or five of these easements, and certainly if the folks are interested, could hold more. It is both a gift and a responsibility to accept these easements. But they're another wonderful tool to help steer the preservation and long-term commitment to seeing to the preservation of some of these iconic properties. It can be processed, by the way, as a federal tax deduction. So, again, there is incentive, obviously, to the property owner to accomplish that. Frequently you'll find that property owners who participate in conservation easements or preservation easements, they are interested in the tax credit certainly, but they're almost always as interested in that they have concerns and want to see that whatever their asset is is truly protected for the future. With that in mind, if there are questions, as I've mentioned, there are several of us here, depending on categorically what you need more information about, who will be the appropriate parties to help give you further details. and we're just delighted to have the opportunity to visit with you all and look forward very much to furthering discussion about all these sorts of things with the task force that is currently looking at all the downtown, of which several of you are seated, and others of you that aren't, I know you'll be hearing more about it. But I'd be delighted to take questions. Betty, thank you very much. And Mr. Denon, is that D-E-N-N-A-N? E-N. Welcome, and welcome to everyone from LFUCG. While we're getting council members logged in, Betty, is the downtown Lexington building inventory online? Yes, indeed it is. It is on the web, and if you go to the Division of Historic Preservation website, there's a link to pull it up there. The entire document is online. Okay, very good. And you'll want to stay close. Absolutely. for questions. Council members, I've asked Vicki to set the five-minute timer. Is there any council member who has objections to that? If not, we'll go ahead and use it. Okay, very good. We have Council Member Feigl up first. Thank you, Chair, and thank you all so much for being here, and thanks also for the tremendous amount of time and effort that went into this document. When you had presented this earlier in the spring, I was very intrigued by what you were doing, and I just felt like I needed more information about how we would take this document and integrate it into our planning department so that it became an effective document rather than just placing it on a shelf. And the first question I had actually, Linda has already asked, and that is, is this information available on the website? And you've said it is. Is it available in the detail that you talked about? You said these are just thumbnails here. But is it available in the detail with the chart showing all the different rankings? The details are not online. Some of them are several pages long in terms of each property. Right. And then, like, if somebody has a property and they see on the inventory it's on the National Register, if you start at places, we do have information about what the National Register means. means, there's a link to go to that. But it's actually so helpful if they will contact our office and ask for assistance with some more information, because then we're able to look at that spot specific and talk to them about this is what an overlay means, this is what the National Register means, these are tools available to you. So it needs some human interaction as you drill down. And we look forward to providing that assistance to people as they would like. Okay, and that was my next question is, is there assistance? Because I know that many of these programs that you have to apply for are very complex and probably very lengthy. So you do have someone in your office that will help fill out the paperwork? Yes, specifically to the historic tax credits, both on the federal and state level, and then other entities such as Downtown Development Authority and planning. We all work with each other quite closely, and we steer people to whose specialty it is to help them with that piece as it applies to them. You really don't want me counseling anybody about TIFs, for example. Bad idea. But we do steer you to the one that can. Well, and I guess I think you probably answered an additional question, and that is, you know, where do we go from here? And so you are incorporating this information into the discussion on the form-based codes. Yes, very much so. So I think that's a very good next step. Let's see if I had any other questions. I was looking at, I'm going to ask you a question about TIFF. Well, let me get my specialist. Would you like our specialist in TIFF? Well, actually, this is probably project-specific, so I might just check with him later. But seriously, that's one reason we all wanted to be here, was in case you did have specific questions about each of those areas that some of us focus on particularly. Well, I'll go ahead and ask my question. I don't know that Southland Christian Church has looked into the possibility for a TIFT on the Lexington Mall project, But I just wondered if you do have, if there's some limitations on who can use the TIF. Pretty much anybody can use the TIF. They just have to make sure they meet the majority of the requirements, that being low income, underutilized, you know, all those factors involved. So then a lot's going to depend upon the makeup of who's coming. To be honest, a church coming for a TIF I've not heard of. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I've not heard of that. Well, not heard of, but I just wondered if there were any reason why they couldn't. Right. Be happy. But remember, it can all be used for public improvement. Chris is trying to say something in the background. They don't pay taxes, I guess. They don't pay taxes. They don't pay taxes. So let's go ahead on the make-up. Well, that was logical. Okay. I think that's all the questions that I had for right now. But I do, again, want to thank you for coming back and expanding on the first presentation that you made. And I think it's very interesting, and I'll look forward to seeing this, how this merges with the form-based codes. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Madam Chair. Eddie, when was it that the presentation was made of this originally? Was it in April of last year? At the library just down the street? It was approved by the, I'm trying to remember, it was late last spring of last year. And then made a presentation to Council in the summer. And then it was approved by the Historic Preservation Commission last fall. Okay. So my question really lifts off of some of the comments of Council Member Feichel when she used the language of documents or studies landing on the shelf. At that meeting in the library, I'll never forget when Bill Johnston introduced the history and that this had actually a similar, very similar exercise, an examination. we were told that night, which was news to at least me, and I suspect many people there, that a similar examination was conducted in 1995, I believe, was what you then confirmed. Was it 1995 or 1996? Sometime in the mid-90s. Back in 1994 and 1995, there was a committee established by the then mayor, Pam Miller, to talk about downtown and base of information about these buildings, not the identical parameters, but a lot of the downtown core buildings, a smaller area, was created at that time. One thing to keep in mind, the architectural survey process of our downtown area and all of Lexington and Fayette County, we have surveyed thousands of buildings over the years, and it's been an ongoing process since actually 1979. So we've been building this database, if you will, of information for a very long time. But putting it into a concise, compact inventory, such as was requested in the more recent times, is what was done for this venture, what we were asked to do this time. And the context of my question is, what is different in this exercise and where we may be going than what was done in 1995? The conditions under which that study were undertaken, the imperative for that study, the urgency of that study, what was the difference between in that period and today? And the reason I'm asking that question is real clear. It's because in the intervening time, we lost 14 buildings that were identified as outstanding or significant in that study. That is the Morton's Row block. So that represented an institutional memory loss of significant proportions, in my view, that we didn't even know that was there. And so decisions were made without adequate knowledge of that history. The mid-1990s one, the whole committee, it never, the committee never finished its work, I guess you would say. So that material, lots of material, was provided for that downtown committee on a whole range of things, and it never furthered. And so the inventory of buildings was one piece of that. But the information about the history and architectural importance of these buildings has been available since the survey forms were initially done in the early 1980s on anything anybody wanted to ask about. And so we've, in various different times over the time periods, created shorter versions of that information. To create the inventory you have today, the one that we've just discussed, we did reevaluate everything, current time, and walk it all and research it further and see what had been changed and what was still intact and all the things to be sure that the information was as current and up-to-date as possible. But there has been a lot of information available through our office and through the state office, which copies of all those survey forms are sent to over time, for many, many of our buildings and our whole community for a number of years. Well, I'm still trying to get at what is different and unique about today because we are moving toward some level of public policy. that will perhaps be different than it was before. We had a design area review board and overlay zone, and it included design guidelines. And now we're looking at design guidelines again. And when we come to a point, which we did with CenterPoint, where a council or a legislative body is presented with big decisions, that creates a lot of tension. And if we don't have a depository of knowledge, institutional knowledge, that we can reach to, then we can be left at sea. this institutional knowledge existed, but we really didn't have it. I'm trying to understand what then we can do differently today if we have desired outcomes that are different than what we did in 1995. And I assume that's why we're having this presentation. Is my question clear? We didn't do a lot of things, apparently, you're saying. It just sort of quit. And, I mean, for whatever reason, I understand policy and politics and all of that sort of thing. I just report the news. That's right. That is what was the outcome in the mid-1990s, was that that committee didn't, their whole effort just didn't further. But the design area, the courthouse area design overlay zone, that was created when? 1999? 2000. 2000. Okay. 2000. So certainly some of the things that had been discussed at that and all I think did come to be as processes. but anytime there is interest on no matter what side of an issue and people want information about their buildings, our office has got a legion of materials. And for those buildings at Centerpoint, we provided a great in-depth amount of information to anybody who wanted it. And we gave out a lot of it, I'm glad to say. So it's nice to know somebody reads these things. But we did additional research tied to those buildings being under consideration, and all that material was out there for anybody who wanted it, and the good news is a number did. Okay, yeah. Vice Mayor. Thank you, thank you. Okay. We'll go to Councilmember Blues. And anyone who's already spoken, Councilmembers, if you want to log on again for another five minutes, just log on. Councilmember Blues. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Betty and team, for this presentation and a kind of reminder of what you did a year or so ago. I think that this may not respond completely to the Vice Mayor's question, but I think that what the significance of the downtown building survey is that, well, it brought buildings that we see every day and don't really, you know, there's a line in Huckleberry Finn about how we see things without really seeing them. And that's what happens with the familiar facades and the buildings that we pass by every day. And the study brought them into real visibility. I think that also at the meeting in the library at which the survey was presented, It was pretty firmly established that, and I remember the mayor saying this, that downtown, its buildings, are a community, a vital community interest. And I think that the survey brought that more clearly into focus. And reflecting back on our very recent meetings in the Form-Based Codes Design Guidelines Task Force, I think that among other studies, such as the downtown master plan, courthouse area, as that's been defined, And this has helped us to begin to come to a definition of the area that we really want to focus on. And you've been part of that discussion, you and Billy and Chris and Harold and Brandy and Bill. I think that it helps us to really see what it is that we want to protect and to preserve. It clearly helps us to see what the kind of projects and buildings that in the future we would want to discourage, perhaps to prohibit and gives us a sense, too, of the kind of architecture that we want to encourage and to promote the sort of creativity that we want to inject into our downtown area. So I think that this survey has its place in what I hope will be a serious effort to put together all of the studies that we've collected over the years into a meaningful set of proposals that we can bring to council, I hope, within the next several months. That's a hope, but we have a good group working on it, and I think we've already seen some progress, at least in defining the questions and the opportunities. I didn't use up all my time. You have 45 seconds. Would you like to use it? No, Madam Chair, but I'll donate it to anybody who would use it. All right. Okay, I had a couple questions, and I'm not sure if they're for you, Betty, or maybe Mr. Denon. We'll give it a stab, and if I may, I think Mr. Denon does have some comments he would like to make. Okay, I think we will. So at whatever time you'd like. Okay, and my one question for you is on the slides where, well, for instance, that last preservation, conservation, and facade easements, the upper left-hand photo. I know it's not the Alamo, although it makes me think of the Alamo, but where is that? Well, it has the two horses. Say that again, please. Page 23 of the packet. Ah. Where is that? That is the former Sonier Brothers Ironworks. It's a stable historically. It became Sonier Brothers Ironworks, and it's now home of the livery, the horse livery. Well, several of us recognized it but didn't place it. Saw on your alley. Okay. And then does Mr. Denon have responsibility over page 19, the state rehabilitation tax credits? And if so, I'd like to ask you a question. He does indeed. Do you mind to step to the podium? Thank you for being here. And then I think we'd all enjoy hearing what you have to say. Betty mentioned in the last paragraph of that state rehab tax credits that there's a $5 million statewide cap each calendar year. Do you know in 2009 and 2008 how much of that $5 million was used? It actually changed. There was legislation for the state tax credit program changed in 2009, which took effect this year, just as of April. The cap had been $3 million up until basically now, things that tax credits were getting in now. So we were working with less of a pool of money. It has all been used every year. Okay. And in actuality, until this past year, and we are assuming that's because of the economic conditions, we have had to prorate that program down more each year so the people who were taking advantage of the tax credit program actually got less of what they were deserved, basically, from the projects that they worked on. It is becoming a more popular program every year. And I think the legislature saw both the benefits of the program from an economic development standpoint and also the popularity of the program and did make the decision to raise that cap to $5 million. How much of it's been used this year, do you know? There's a deadline, so we have not used it. We will get projects in on April 29th of next year. At that point, we will assign the credits that everybody gets. I see. And are churches eligible? Yes, they are. That are on the National Register? Yeah. With the state program as opposed to the federal program, an entity does not have to have a tax liability necessarily, so nonprofit organizations or churches are eligible for it. Do you know if it has been used very much in Lexington over the years? It has. I don't have a listing of the number of projects, but absolutely. We work on both the federal and the state tax credit program with property owners in Lexington a great deal. Very good. I know that there may be more questions, but I would welcome comments from you and anything you'd like to say before we go on with further questions. Thank you. Let me reintroduce myself. I am Mark Denon. I'm the director of the Kentucky Heritage Council, which is Kentucky State Historic Preservation Office, and I am Kentucky State Historic Preservation Officer. I would like to first mention the downtown Lexington building inventory. I'd like to commend the Division of Historic Preservation for that effort. I think it was a great effort which will help Lexington. As Betty said, the survey information exists in more detail. It has existed for a number of years, both in Lexington, in Betty's office, but also at the Kentucky Heritage Council, too. So we are a backup. If people are looking for information, we can also help with that. The difference in this inventory is it gets more specific. It kind of boils down the information to, I guess, a more accessible format with less information on each individual building, but also categorizes the buildings in the categories that Betty described, which I think is helpful as well to define some significance of the buildings, which surveys generally don't necessarily define the significance in that clear-cut way. So I think it will be a useful tool for Lexington. And I want to clarify, inventories and survey work are informational in nature. They do not offer protections to buildings. It's just basically information that define significance of buildings. It is up to local government and the regulatory laws that local government has to put teeth into that type of information through local ordinances, and Lexington is very good at that process and has ordinances in place to protect buildings and through the overlay district structure so that buildings can be protected and only can be protected in how local government chooses to define those laws and how strong local government makes those laws through the overlays and the ordinances that are in place, as well as through the good workings of architectural review boards who should have a good knowledge of the laws and the buildings and what their purpose is, and also through very well-designed guidelines, which need to be clear, which can be or must be objective, which an architectural review process can say, this is what our guidelines say, so this is what we must do, without getting into a subjective interpretation. I think that Betty did a great job in laying out the regulatory process and how that can work to the benefit of Lexington. And I was really very pleased to hear that a task force has been put in place because I think that not only the regulatory process, but also the incentives that are in place should be examined very, very closely by that task force and understood very, very well by that task force in order to make any kind of recommendation. And finally, I'd like to say it seems quite clear to me that the only way that any local government that Lexington can help what Lexington becomes is to plan ahead. And the only way you can plan ahead is by examining all the tools you have in place and implementing those tools in the way that gets you where you want to go. So in that way, you will be planning your future instead of reacting to things that just happen to come along. So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for Mr. Dunn? Betty, I appreciate that you invited him to be here. We're very happy about that. Are there further questions for Betty Kerr or comments? Council Member James. Thank you, Chair. I do have one question, Betty. On the list, on the mapping and the inventory, were each of the property owners of each of these notified how their properties were being classified? No. When you do an inventory or a survey process, we really didn't go in but very few buildings. And so it's from the street viewing and then archival research and so forth accordingly. Since the designations don't hold, the categorizations don't hold any legal ramifications, there was no need to alert property owners. But if a property owner visits with us and says, well, why has my building got this level of designation or attribution versus another, certainly it's very easy to explain that. And we would so welcome the opportunity to talk to some of these property owners about what they have, because some of them are sitting on the most fabulous properties. And it would be perhaps an opportunity to help them get more enthused about it and know some possibilities out there, not just in terms of process, but what they have. They have some wonderful stuff. And on the website, is there an Excel spreadsheet or something that easily lists all the property addresses? The mapping has a list on the access that lists everything by street address, and then you can also go and get the inventory information by street address. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Chair. You're welcome. I have one quick question. Are the incentives for revitalizing historic structures, are all of those on the website, our website? Not currently. And they are, well, they are in different pieces on the web. DDA has got on part of it. Planning has got on. Chris, do you have on your planning website any incentive materials all between us and DDA? We do have on our infill website. On the infill, okay. Okay. So one of the things that might be an outcome of when the task force has done its work is, and I'm just thinking ahead, is to perhaps create a central source that then could link back out or however it might be handled. But I think that's a very helpful idea. And for developers or builders or property owners who want to go this route, finding a central listing of incentives might be helpful before they come for permits or whatever. Right. It would be really good to link all that together. Excellent idea. And I think between the various pieces, a central spot could be collected where, and then it could direct them back out to the subsets as needed. I think so. Good thought. Is that something that's doable now? I think we could probably pursue that now. Could you put your good heads together and figure that out? And we'll just think of the best place to earmark it such that people know to find it. Developers, look here. Potential fixer-uppers, look here. Well, and even a link from the historic building inventory. Could do that. It could be we could cross-link at three or four different places. Yes. Well, we'll talk amongst ourselves, as they say, and seriously work toward that in the near future. Okay, very good. Thank you so much. Thank you all for being here. Our next item on the agenda is tree-related regulations, and this is in your packet, pages 25 through 40, And this is the second time our committee has looked at this. So if you recall last time that we heard this item, we asked for the home builders to be involved in the process. And I know that Karen Angelucci is here. You are still the president of the chair of the tree board. I've sat on recently. Okay. And so you're actually coming back to us, and I welcome you. Thank you. You have the packet, and they're numbered, so we can go through them one by one if you'd like, just to rehash. Some of this is cleaning up some amendments and making them more tree-friendly. Some of them are pasted bonding issues. Excuse me, are any of these 100% new since you were last here in the planning committee? No, they're not new. They're all the same. We did meet with Home Builders Association, and they were very, very receptive in our ideas. They came to the table with their ideas, and we merged them, so there's a few changes in the type and burbage. But we came to a very nice meeting, and we're all friends. Oh, good. That's always good. Do you want to do about a 15-minute walkthrough quickly of what you have here? Sure, that's fine. Number one is Article 18 of the zoning ordinance. Page 27 of the packet. We'll get people started. Page 27. I'm going to, you know, a lot of the verbiage is just what that is, but Bob Carpenter has broke it down and made it very nice and easy to understand. So I thought I would relay his words, and he can't be here today. He's at a certification meeting. But the first portion of Article 18.4 is to provide guidance and a clear standard for trees installation. There's a standard we call ANSI A300, and it covers all the facets of tree care and how people should plant the trees and take care of the trees. And this amendment will just provide better guidance and clearance for developers so they'll know what we expect and how we expect the trees to be planted. The second portion lists all the landscape ordinances. If you think about the corridor ordinances, if a property owner has that property, up until now, there's no teeth into making them maintain the landscaping or the trees that they have. So that's what the second portion does. It just groups the ordinances together. Some of them have really nice guidelines on you must do this and some don't. So this is clearing that up just so that all corridors and all ordinances of the corridors are the same. As far as if you have property and it's a street tree, just like homeowners, you are expected to take care of it. If you replace it or if you remove it, replace it, there's just a clear guideline. We've had a lot of trouble with people not knowing what's clear and what's not, so we're just trying to make it clear. Number three, which is Article 18.8, is just the enforcement, and that gives a building inspection a little bit more signing ability to tell the owners that they have to comply with that particular ordinance. Moving on to Article 26 of the Zoning Ordinance. This allows tree protection standards to also be applied to redevelopment and not just new. If you look right now, it states that it's in new development. I believe that, and the tree board believes that, I guess, urban sprawl is slowing down. And if they're going to do some infill and redevelopment, all developments should be considered new, whether it's redeveloped or not. We still would like to see some trees put in there. Under land subdivision regulations, that's number three in your packet. It's Article VI of the land subdivision regulations. This is street tree plantings, and this has to do the same, it's kind of the same as, it's funny, as Article 26, but it has to do with, in the past, you only had to plant trees on brand new streets. Well, if you're redeveloping, and the example that Bob Carpenter gave was Bluegrass Aspendale, where we have three streets that are new, but the fourth street on one side is not new, so therefore they got out of planting the trees there because they didn't put in a brand-new tree. So we would like that to say, not to say new collectors. We want it to be on all streets. Article 610, if a development was such a – I'm sorry, that's his communication. Going on to number four, Article 6 is responsibility. And we are really just trying to take the responsibility not away from someone, but we're just trying to – we think that the administration should have the ability to reassign this duty in the future without having to, you know, we're just, this is also like a little cleanup because we also believe that the landscape examiner within the building inspection department shouldn't be inspecting trees. They're more for concrete and no offense, but they may not know what an oak tree is. They may know what concrete or asphalt is. So we don't think they should be the ones that go out and determine that. Number five, Article 6 of the Land Subdivision Regulation Fee Assessment and Collection. We're doing this just simply to simplify it. Right now they go here and pay for a platter permit and here to pay for something, and we think it should be simplified and be paid at planning, and it would make it easier on them. The money still goes to the general fund. It's not going anywhere else. It's just simplifying it and streamlining it. Number six, which is Article VI of the Land Subdivision Regulation, timing of tree planting. This has to do with the required to plant street trees in accordance with the engineering manual. And in the past, it said within one year of the date. And we know that there's – we want to see the trees put in, but we don't want to limit them because there's certain times of the year when tree planting is better. We don't want them to rush to put them in just because they have that one year hanging over their head. Right now we have a problem with a few neighborhoods where the developer's gone out of business and they've left certain areas without trees. So this one is just removing that one-year deadline so that we just want them to do it and do it right. We don't want them to race to do it by no means. Number seven, Chapter 5, Article 3. This is really just a remnant of something that should have been taken out years ago. So I found it as I was kind of skimming the, I don't know what I was doing, but I found this. And it really just needs to go away. This has to do, if we kept it the way it is, it says that street trees, people have to pay $100 for a street tree, which they don't do. Right now they just pay a $10 administration fee. And we have brought in, which is one of the last bullets, is we're trying to address this in the bonding issue, where if street trees are put on punch lists, they're in the bonding issue. There's going to be guarantee that there's money for street trees. So we are okay with going ahead and taking out that Section 531, which apparently should have been taken out 25 years ago. It was a typo, or they left it in there. Because it would be nice if when I found it, I was so excited. I thought, oh, wow, we were supposed to be getting $100 per tree all these years, and nobody's collected it, and it's just one of those things they just didn't do. So that's number seven. Number eight is Chapter 17B. This is more or less something we've thrown in. We've had a citizen come to tree board and was really, really concerned with the invasive vines that hang on trees, and we cannot regulate private property. So we thought this would be a good opportunity to set a good example citywide of why trees should not be covered in vines. Maybe they're beautiful. Maybe you like them. They sell them at every garden center. The problem is that they may mask defects. And if it's a street tree that could be hazardous, then we're not going to know because it's covered with a vine. So this is more or less, can we go through every street and take off the vines? Probably not. But it would be nice to set a good example so that the community knows that on the street that's not a very good process because those trees could be hiding defects. And then the big one at the end, which is always the concern, is with the Division of Engineering, the Procedures Manual, Appendix E. And I may have Ed Gardner talk about that, but this is where we have gone in and actually added street trees to the punch list. That's why we opened up conversation to the Home Builders Association because it's going to have something, you know, when they go to get surety for their jobs, they're going to have to add on street trees. And the wordage has gotten to where when there's a percentage of the job done, they get their money back. So it really is just a guarantee that at the end of the day the trees are going to be there or the money is going to be there for the trees. Can I clear any of that up? Thank you. Yes, we will have some questions in just a moment. I wanted to mention that Division of Building Inspection, Dewey Crow, is here, Division of Planning. Chris King is here. Tim Query is here from, he's our urban forester, and Todd Johnson from the Home Builders Association. And I wondered if any of you have comments before we go on. In particular, Chris, you might mention a couple of these are going to require, if the committee decides to move them forward initiating text amendments, Can you clarify for us just the main sections, what would require text amendment initiation and what would not? Certainly. The ones that are amendments to either the land subdivision regulations or the zoning ordinance, because of the state statute requirements, will have to be referred and go through the text amendment process and have a public hearing at the Planning Commission. The changes in the code of ordinances and in the development manuals are not required to go through that process. So logistically, you may want to have the entire package come back to you at once after the text amendment parts have gone through the planning commission process, or you could separate them. That would be at your pleasure, but, you know, intuitively it would seem to make more sense to have them all come back to you at the end as one package. Okay, very good. Did any of Dewey or Todd or Tim, does anyone or Ed from Law have comments at this point, or do you want to hold off and we'll have our questions? Okay. Thank you, Karen. Don't step away. Thank you. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair Karen. Thank you for bringing this to us today. I just had a couple questions going through everything. Starting on page 28, you all mentioned the changes to the enforcement enforcement in the civil citation process, is this the same process that we're going to mimic that we use on code enforcement so it go before the same hearing boards on appeal, et cetera? You mean as far as like going to the infrastructure hearing board and all that? That's your question. Mr. Crow. Actually, what they're trying to do there is go ahead and put reference the civil citation process in Article 5.9 of the zoning ordinance The same thing, I believe, is the Building Inspection Task Force is going to recommend for virtually all of the zoning ordinance. They've just went ahead and mentioned it here as referencing that for specifically Article 18, which that's ultimately what we're going to try to get to as part of what the Building Inspection Task Force reviewed. And as Chair, that's what I was going to allude to, that that will encompass this, so this is not a change on its own. We'll actually do that as a broad change for all of building inspection on the zoning process. That's correct, yes. Okay. And then, Karen, you made the statement that kind of puzzled me. This is for all public properties or public rights-of-way where there are street trees. Correct. Okay. So the scenario would be if there's a private street, a developer chooses to put in a private street, and Chris or Bill may answer this too, and he puts in street trees, does this regulate those as well? I'm not sure about that. What do you think? Because I think you said we don't regulate. I think we do regulate private. On private streets. Yes. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. The developer can't skirt this ordinance and put in a private street and say, well, I don't have to worry about trees now. That's correct. A private street also requires to have street tree plantings. Okay. And so any changes we make here, we'll apply to those as well. That's right. And I assume, though, and I hate to do that, but if we as a government decide to take over those private streets, and we realize 10 years down the road when we're asked for the neighborhood to take those over, we'll have to imply this ordinance on those streets that if they're missing street trees, then someone, I assume the neighborhood or homeowners association would have to plant them, according to this ordinance change, before we could accept them into the urban service boundary or urban service tax district. I think the last scenario you have mentioned may apply to streets that already exist if this package of changes goes forward, I would be surprised if that scenario would still be there. So they would have to have street trees before we'll accept them as being public streets? I would think so, yes. Okay. I just want to make sure that is in there. A couple things on the bonding, the surety bonds. I know we've run into several issues, government-wide, about the bonds not being enough to cover the project. I didn't know if you all had discussed some type of inflation rider on those bonds, because what happens is the longer you wait, the less that money will buy going forward. The other issue we're having is the developer buys the bond, but no one in LFUCG is tracking whether or not that bond is renewed from a year-to-year basis or whatever the terms of the bonds were. So we've had developers buy a bond. We're saying, great, we have it bonded. Three years down the road, the bond expires. We never know. So what's going to be the mechanism to track these bonds is my concern? I would be speaking for engineering, but I am familiar with that process. They have a, I'm not sure of the title, but an officer, a bond officer, basically, that reviews. And what we require now are not really bonds in the sense of like an insurance-type bond. It's a letter of credit or cash. And in those situations, if the project goes past one year, then there should be a renewal of that. There is another proposed set of changes to the subdivision regulations that you don't have in front of you here, but they are currently being considered in-house. The home builders have commented on that. We will be getting back together, which is going to address that letters of credit issue and specifically also address the thing you've raised about how do we make sure year to year, you know, do we change our unit prices, do we change, do we do an inflationary thing? That's being discussed as part of that, and you will see that. So that would just complement what you have here. Okay. So there was discussion, I assume, during this street treaty? Not so much specifically to the tree issue. So it'll apply government-wide. But in that other discussion about the other changes specifically related to letters of credit. Okay. So for the purpose of street treaties, we'll include an inflationary factor in there eventually? They are going to be part of the punch list. So, yes, there will be a cost per tree. and that was discussed, that there will have to be a cost per tree to come up with. And one of the cleanup matters in this area was to state that, and this is previously done, but there's a cooperative process involving the development community and the urban county government in setting unit prices, and that will be done to include street trees. Okay. So I assume in terms of timing of a development, they can post a bond. Instead of having to plant and meet the time requirements of planting a street tree, they can in lieu of them post a bond and not plant them immediately or according to the time requirements. Is that correct? Is that how that wording was in the one section, 130? The problem that's intended to be addressed by all of this, and I may need to get some assistance from some of these other people, but basically the requirement right now was all trees have to be planted within one year from the date of the plant. And that's not really always practical. In other words, a year from the date of the plant, particularly in the slowdown, you might not have very many houses built. And if you put all the trees in and they're just sitting on vacant land, they're not going to get any maintenance, any attention at all. So the intention was to address that issue by making some specific changes and also making them to the engineering manual, which these guys also have input on. And what it now would require is that street trees shall be installed for every occupied lot, not later than five years after the plant, and not later than two years after all construction or construction has been completed on 90% of the lots, all the trees have to be in. Then there's a further provision that as trees are installed on this review of the letters of credit that I started with, there would be a reduction in that based on the number of trees that have been installed. Okay. I see my time's up. I'll come back. Okay. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of questions. I'm not sure, Karen, whether they're for you or for Ed. I'll be glad to defer. Well, on page 28 of our packet, where under enforcement provisions, you refer there to giving building inspection the ability to site owners who remove or do not maintain plantings and so forth. And then on page 30 under your number 4, Article 6, you seem to be there, and it's not clear to me how this is going to work, but you seem to be suggesting that the administration make the urban forester responsible for enforcement of the subdivision regulations. So. Well, currently, Tim will go, he looks at the plots and plans and he knows the trees that are going to be planted, that at the end of the job, building inspection is the one that goes out and drives by or says, oh, there's a tree. They don't know what kind of tree it is. They don't know if it's, I mean, it's no disrespect. That's just not their job. They don't know if it's a required street tree or if it's a nuisance. Well, my question really is I see that you want to put enforcement in the right, you know, in the right division, so to speak. And I'm wondering whether, well, two things. I'm wondering whether the other part shouldn't be also the responsibility of the urban forester, citing owners who remove or don't maintain and so forth. That I can't address. You know, that would be basically a policy decision. I know that the in-house feeling is that it should be building inspection. And as I read the specific section you started with, Article 6, 10B, 1, that is when they are planted. That who is going to determine whether they're being planted as they're required to be with the right numbers of types of trees, that's going to be probably the urban forester. And for in-house expertise, that makes sense. But once that is done and the trees are in and they've got the right trees, then when they're not maintained, if they're removed and all that, then it would fall over into building inspection. That's the way we had contemplated. Right. And it would be our ultimate goal for the urban forester to take on that. But that's not even in the future right now. So, I mean, I guess the urban forester is more with the personal properties, street trees, whereas building inspection is more for property or commercial property. I understand. So if commercial property decided to cut down their trees, say, on Nicholasville Road or something, building inspection is the one that goes after them more so than the urban forester because it's a commercial property. Is that correct? Mr. Crowe is approaching the podium with clarification. This is referencing two different issues. Article 18 of the zoning ordinance deals with landscaping requirements for commercial properties, which we enforce. In other words, it spells out if you build a new commercial building, you have to landscape the building, landscape the parking lot, provide zone-to-zone screening, and those various things that are contained in there. The enforcement provision they're putting in just simply says if there's a problem in Article 18, we can use civil penalties to address it. The street tree issue is out of the land subdivision regulations, which mandates that certain numbers of street trees be planted in residential subdivisions. We, for whatever reason over the years, have been the agency to do the inspection of those street trees to see that they were planted within the time frames given and that they were the proper tree. In other words, whatever species was designated on the plat to go in, that's what we were charged with doing. After those trees went in, they're maintained for one year, we're done with them. Our authority ends on street trees at that point. At that point, they become the responsibility of the urban forester under the current regulations. The language they're proposing to do is take out the references in the street tree portion that has to do referencing a landscape examiner within the Division of Building Inspection as being the one charged with reviewing street trees, take that out, that then allows the discretion of the administration to put that duty wherever the administration would see fit. If at some point they feel all that ought to be under the urban forester, that could be placed under the urban forester simply by the administration taking that action. We currently don't have a landscape examiner within our office. That position was the last person that could be officially called that, retired a couple years ago. Those duties now are kind of done by Mr. Carpenter, more or less does those within our division. Again, he's not got the expertise nor the training to effectively do that for street trees, proper identification of species and types and those type things. So ultimately it would be our position that all responsibility for street trees end up at some point in time under the urban forester. In other words, he would verify that they're, him or his staff would verify they've gone in place, the proper species went in, the proper size went in, and would verify that back to the engineering bonds officer so that those bonds that are assuring those trees to be planted then could be released back as the ultimate goal of this package of changes. Thank you very much. I'm out of time. I've got another question, but I'll come back later. Thank you. Council Member Feigl. Mr. Crow, I'm probably going to ask you to confirm my understanding of this. So basically what we're doing is we're taking the enforcement out of building code, building inspection. Well, this specific language on street trees does not specifically do that. What it does do is remove the references to a landscape examiner within the Division of Building Inspection. So currently it would just stay with us until administratively, either by commissioner's action or mayor's action, within administration says this responsibility will be shifted over to the urban forester. This doesn't necessarily move it from us. It just removes the references in the current legal setup that says we do it. It doesn't say we will cease doing it. It just says it will be, in other words, it won't directly mention the landscape examiner within our division. So at some point, if it's felt it's much more efficient or better that the urban forester handle it, administratively, he could be assigned those duties. But you will continue doing that. It just won't be referenced as the landscape, whatever you call it. At the current time, we will continue to do that, although the individual that originally did that is no longer with us, and that position was eliminated as part of budget cuts. But we aren't going to just stop examining the trees? No, but it is. Until it becomes a good. No, we will not cease doing that. that would still remain with us until officially moved by administrative action. Okay. Thank you. Councilman? Oh, I have a question for Karen. Okay. Go ahead. Karen, how do these changes actually integrate with the landscape specifications that came out of corridors? Actually, the very first one, talking about clarifying the ANSI A300, I mean, that is what the plant specs that we worked on and passed in corridors, those are all compatible with this one. They're all, you know, it just gives you good planting practices. So, yes, that one came first. I would love to see that across the whole board. And so this will actually make it more compatible or more like? It is the same standards. This is just enforcement of that standard and a clarification of that standard. Thank you. Council Member Stenner. Thank you, Chair. I want to go back to the enforcement issue because on page 32 it references the minimum clearance, a street tree after it's already, this is probably on down the road after the tree's already installed. Who's going to keep that enforcement? Pass the one-year warranty? Yes. I mean, in terms of established neighborhoods, who's responsible for making sure they're cut properly by the residents? You know, seven-foot issue, not blocking mailboxes. Well, that would be the role of the urban forester and his guys, and they do that. You know, right now they're on a complaint basis. So when they get calls that such-and-such doesn't have their trees pruned properly, they go out and leave them a nice note or whatever, and then they follow up. If they don't comply, then they eventually end up at the infrastructure hearing board. And, you know, it's a broken system, but go ahead. Well, that's what I was going to look at. It's not working. No, it's not. Did you all have discussions on how we can fix that? Because right now, I'll be honest with you. Next year, Kevin. Right. No, I understand. But the one big issue is we get these nice trees in, but everybody stops watering. People don't cut them correctly. Or they cut them off. Sure. And I agree with you. That's why some of these amendments have to do with the initial. I know from experience that the initial of the first planting of the tree is the most important. That's why we're trying to get the right people looking at the trees to determine if they're planted right, if they're the right species, because if they don't have a good start, they're never going to. Right. I agree with the things we're going to do to get them started and all that. But I think long term, I think it makes more sense to have code enforcement regulate the height clearance, the blocking the post mailboxes because they're out there anyway doing other things on grass. I think to extend the urban service or urban forestry staff to get to that level. Well, I don't disagree with that at all. It won't happen. I mean, when you come to clearing a tree, that doesn't have to have the knowledge of what kind of tree it is. You know, so a code enforcement employee could do that very easily while they're out there. Well, I encourage us to continue that discussion because I think there's not a lot of clarity out there. I think Tim does do a good job of trying to enforce it. Right. But he didn't have the manpower. Sure. Code enforcement is also still enforcing this as well right now as we speak. I'll get right on that. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Blues. Thank you again, Madam Chair. I just need a little more help in explaining how it is that these changes would prevent what has happened in at least two subdivisions in my district. That is where a developer has gone out of business or gone bankrupt and has failed to plant. This is going to help because there's going to be money in place. Whether they do it or not, the money will be there in bonding. And if they don't do it, then the city will have the money to plant them. Is that correct? As I understand the process in engineering, the punch list is a significant thing here. Trees will become part of the punch list. And before, and the surety that we're talking about, it's on page 35 of what you all have, is computed by 100% of the punch list items. So 100% of the unit costs of putting in all the trees that are required is going to be the initial surety. then it's going to be reduced as the trees are put in. So if somebody hosts the surety, then goes out of business, we've got some money, and it was related to the street trees. That's the process by which it is intended that the situation you are talking about would be avoided in the future. All right. Thank you very much. Councilmember James. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Karen, and all others for coming forward today. just to sit on the tree board, and I know that the tree board has been extremely attentive under the guidance of Karen of cross-checking and trying to figure out how we can fix some of the issues that linger today in a preventative-type measure. So we know that there are issues that are happening now where we can't get to the low-hanging trees and we don't have the staff that's needed necessarily in urban forestry to do all the things that we need to do to protect our tree canopy and to make sure that trees are not a public safety issue. But some of the things that the tree board has presented are things that are preventative in nature, So it will get to the point to where those things we'll be able to do more offensively instead of defensively as the tree board progresses if we can get these things in. So I think what this does by addressing these is it heightens the importance of the tree board, the urban forester, and the trees, just the trees flat out, and make sure that we're addressing them specifically, not overlooking them. And it cleans up some of the old language that was in here that should have been removed. And, again, it really just uplifts what's going on with trees and the importance of those. So we're hoping we're going to be working on the long-term solutions when it comes to the issues that you and I have talked about regarding urban forestry. Council Member Stenet, I do think that it needs to be a topic for the tree board to aggressively look at as well as bringing in code enforcement. If we say, code enforcement, do you want to add this to your list of things you're looking for when you go out? We need to make sure that's okay with them and talk to them about that to see if that's something that they're ready to handle. And that could free up our urban forester guys to take care of things like looking at the health of the trees, the street trees that are there, and actually doing some maintenance or cut downs or replacement of the street trees. So I really do want to commend all the work that went into this. And I think this is what our boards are supposed to be for. This board really dug in its heels and is trying to get through this process in a way, in a helpful way. I mean, they went back and talked to the home builders, and I appreciate the home builders coming on board with it. It sounds like they're on board for a comprehensive street tree program throughout the city, and I know Karen's been fighting for that and Yvette's been fighting for that for a really long time. So I'm really happy that that's coming forward. But I do hope that this committee will approve moving these things forward. it will get a second glance through the Planning Commission. I don't have a preference as to whether they're divided at this time. I don't know that one's really related to another, but I do hope that the committee will go ahead and move forward with these things. They've been pretty vetted through a variety of folks on the tree board as well as this group twice now, and I don't know that there's an area that we haven't talked about. what it means when it comes to this. There's nothing new seems to be popping up, so I hope that we can go ahead and move these forward today. Do you have a motion? I do have a motion. I make a motion that we move forward the recommendations presented to us by the tree board through the necessary processes, whether it be going to council directly or going to the planning commission, whichever is appropriate. And, again, I would have to yield to the chair as to the references that Director King made to you earlier as to which go to what direction. But I do move approval for these to move out of the planning committee into the appropriate next step. Okay. Do I hear a second? Second. Second. Council Member Blues. And then thank you for that motion. The motion is to move forward the recommendations brought by the tree board. And we might hear again in a minute from Mr. King about whether, how we can logistically do the pieces. But Council Member Beard, did you have a comment? I was just going to address the separation issue. Okay. As Chris has said, the amendments to the zoning ordinance and subregs, we will be doing a resolution to initiate those text amendments. Yes. The other changes are of two types. The first type are a couple of changes to the actual code of order. That's one in Chapter 5 and one in Chapter 17B. Those can move forward now or we can wait. Neither of them are really directly related to the remainder of these items, Specifically, I mean, particularly the one about masking defects has absolutely nothing to do with, you know, the rest of, you know, the issues. The one about not collecting the $100, that's not happening anyway, so it would not hurt to move that forward if you want to. Those do not require Planning Commission input. But finally, the number nine, which is on page 32 and then followed by the draft of the Appendix E, those do not pass through the Urban County Council. Those are the engineering manuals, and those would be done administratively through the Division of Engineering. So with that explanation, the Council could make determinations as to whether you want to hold everything off until the ordinances, which would change the zoning ordinances, provisions are ready, at which time we would do the code changes, or if you want to proceed with the code changes and then just deal with the others as they come back from the Planning Commission. What do you think is cleaner? I don't think from a legal standpoint it makes any difference either way. Okay. Councilmember Beard. Thank you, Chair. Karen, let me ask you, if I might, just so it's totally clear, not only to me but to the public, this is a mandate to place street trees on all new construction. Is that correct? New and it's already a new and refill or infill or however you want to say it. And until now, you did not have to put street trees on a property that you weren't building a new street for. So such as the Bluegrass Aspendale, they put in three new streets, but one street stayed the same, so they got out of not planting the trees. Now, is that appealable in any way, shape, or form? And I'm thinking there's mention in here, for instance, of providing shade for the home. In 40 years it might, but the occupants of the home may want to build in three or four trees up closer to their home so that they can provide shade. Well, that's – In addition to, are you saying, I personally think that rows of subdivision, sidewalks, street trees, boring, boring, boring. To have some differentiation so that everything doesn't look like it's rubber stamped and coming out of it. And that's a great opinion, but there are other opinions that make that more aesthetically pleasing when the streets are lined with trees. That's why we give them options. Developers can choose to put the trees on the streets, or they can choose to put them five feet on the other side of the sidewalk so that they are more into the property of the homeowner. So we give them that option. So I'm not here to say whether what's good or bad. I've heard it from so many people. A lot of people, I guess designers, would probably love to see the street trees, and they want them all to be the same species, which I don't really agree with. I think there should be a diverse canopy because, like, the ash borer is going to take out all of the ash trees. So diversity is good, but right now they get the option. It's really up to the developer. And I'm thinking of places where I've personally lived. But street trees have killed several people on Cheneway Road. Okay. First of all, trees don't have arms. I understand that. That tree could have saved that car from running into a minivan full of people. It doesn't make the people any less dead. I know. I know. The trees are permanent fixtures. They are green infrastructure. So if you run into a culvert and die, what's the difference? I guess the question I was really leading to is a setback from the street. Right, safety setbacks. Yes. And there is proof that trees closer to the road make people slow down. It may, but it also obscures street signs and stop signs. Right, but we have an ordinance in place that tells you where you can and cannot put trees. So many feet by a sign. So is that right? I mean, we've covered those bases. Okay. I just want to go through these. I love it. Let's keep going. Well, we can't keep going forever. Okay. We can keep going for a minute and 12 seconds. Okay, go, go, go. The bigger the tree, the bigger the arm. So what is the question? I'm sorry. If you could go ahead and. I'm devil's advocate. Okay. We have a motion on the floor, and you are welcome to be devil's advocate. Well, I understand that. I had actually, before the motion was made, though, I was actually queued up. So it would have happened before the motion if the legs hadn't been cut out from under it. I think I've touched all the issues. I do know that there are some streets. There's one street I lived on that has no street trees. No, I'm sorry. It has two street trees and plenty of trees up in the yards. And it makes, it opens up a vista of being able to actually see the homes and see mature trees. And that's that block, Madam Sheriff, between Belafonte and Heather Way on Jessalyn. and when you hit it, it kind of gives you a feeling of openness as opposed to some of the other streets that are in the same area that have the mandatory street trees. Well, I think that's why they give it. We have an option. The developers have an option. So it's not like we say you have to plant the trees on the streets. They do have the option. So it's up to the developer and how they choose their design and where they want to put the trees. And I agree with you. Trees in the yard are by far healthier. They benefit your air conditioning bill. I agree with all that. But street trees do also help with, you know, the lifespan of asphalt. So, I mean, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of benefits to trees wherever they're placed. Okay. Well, thank you, Madam. I'm out of time, so we can talk about this for a long time. That would be great. Thank you very much. And the motion on the floor is to move forward the recommendations brought to us by the tree board. And I have Council Member Feigel and Council Member James, and we also have one more issue. Very quickly, one of the problems that we are dealing with in the 5th District, because it's kind of an older neighborhood, as you know, are the very mature trees. and their root system has grown to the point where they actually are making the sidewalks a real hazard. Is there any consideration being taken right now in the kind of trees that we recommend? Well, sure. We have a required street tree list, small, medium, and large in species size and maturity. I'm sure it could be made better. I'm sure there's trees that have shallow root systems that have been taken off the list. Well, that's really my question is, has that been given any consideration in your process of selecting which trees are appropriate? The street tree list that we have is a pretty nice list. It's not, I mean, there's a few on there that I don't agree with, but it's there. I mean, people have to have options, and shallow trees that uproot sidewalks have been removed. Okay. Thank you. That's all I need. Council Member James. Thank you, Chair. I was going to ask, Chris, when these move forward out of this committee, pending our vote, how soon will it be before the Planning Commission will get to see it, do you think? I can only promise you it will be within 60 days of the day the council officially initiates them. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you. The motion on the floor is to move forward to the full council to initiate text amendments on the zoning ordinance recommendations and the land subdivision regulations and to move forward to the full council the code of ordinance and recommendations. and then the engineering manual recommendations will be brought forward by administrative folks. Correct? All right. If there are no other comments or questions, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you for all your hard work, everybody who's here for this. I almost feel like clapping. You've done a wonderful job. Thank you all. Now, we have mobile home quality of life, and Councilmember James has distributed the brochure, which she's brought back to us. So do you want to say a few words about that? I will, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you to everyone that gave input. Some people gave input right at the meeting. I appreciate that right after the last meeting. And some emailed us later. We did send out. We got a lot of responses back by email. Some of the additions from the last draft. Excuse me one second. Sure. If you all can take conversations outside, please. Sorry. That's okay. Some of the changes I believe that were added were property tax, inquiry, the PVA office, rental billing assistance, civil legal assistance. Titling may have been added from the last time. Also Humane Society, I think that was Council Member Stenet's suggestion. Multicultural Affairs Office Coordinator and Department of Emergency Management was added. If this document is okay, we'd like to submit to pass this through this committee to the full council and move to make this an official document of the Irving County government. Unfortunately, we've lost our quorum. So if Council Member Stennett and Council Member Ellinger wouldn't mind to join us again. I appreciate your work on this, Council Member James. Thank you for rejoining us. We now have a quorum, and what would be the appropriate motion, since this is not legislative per se, move it forward? do you have an idea on this, Council Member James, or we could move it forward to the full council for their perusal and ask something that has come out of our committee and then ask for an administrative use of it. Yeah, that's, I'm not sure if there's a form. It seems like we may, and maybe someone knows, but for all other documents for urban county government, what's the approval process for getting those things to where they're published? Right. And Council Member Beard has a question. Documents of this type, I don't believe, come to the council. Sorry? Documents of this type, information documents that are fluid and are changed from time to time and added to, subtracted and such, don't come to the council. This was actually created by a council committee. I understand it is. I've been involved in this mobile home process for some time. And as opposed to a mandate, an endorsement maybe by the council, this would be more logical, I guess. Whatever. I don't really care. I mean, it just needs to, I'd like for it to at least move on from the council to be put into their hands, but I'm not sure if there's an official process for that. That's something that came out of this committee, yes, which I think would be perfectly acceptable. Council Member Stennett? I think the normal process for any type of literature that comes from council is adopting it for use, and I think we've done that before via resolution that we would adopt this to be utilized, whatever apartment in this setting for mobile homes. So just adopting it out of committee would be simple enough. I make a motion that the planning committee move to the full council for the mobile home park guide to be officially adopted. We have a motion by Council Member James, second by Council Member Feigl, to move forward the document regarding mobile home park guide to the full council. Any discussion, questions, comments? Council Member Feigl. Actually, I was looking over this, and this is a very useful document for almost anybody. The only thing specific that I see to mobile home is the mobile home tilting inquiries. But everything else is extremely helpful information that would be good for tenants, landlords. Just a number of different agencies might find this helpful. So I applaud your efforts and hope that we can use this in a lot of different ways. Thank you. Good observation. Any other comments? All right. One other one. Yes, Council Member Beard. And I'll ask Council Member James, multilingual at all? Is that an issue that might be an approach that we could take with this, where we'd have situations where there's a concentration of Hispanics in a mobile home park, and, you know, they need this in Spanish. They don't need it in English. We can have that available in Spanish and probably other languages with the help of the Multicultural Affairs Office. Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you very much. The motion on the floor is to move forward a resolution to the full council asking to adopt the Lexington Fayette County Mobile Home Park Guide for use by the LFUCG. Will all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That motion passes. Thank you for your hard work on this. I know it originated with issues regarding the mobile home parks and some of the difficulties folks were having. So thank you very much. Is there any comment or question from the committee about the last page, issues outstanding in committee? Chair. Yes, Council Member James. I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right sheet or not. I am. The secure by design, I move to remove that item from the list. Do I hear a second? It has moved forward to the full council. All those in favor of removing secure by design, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And does anyone have a motion about mobile home trailer park? Quality of life, does that still need to stay in committee? Sure. Any other item in committee? Madam Chair. Yes, Council Member Feigl. With the downtown Lexington building inventory, I believe that their recommendation was to leave that in committee. Did we hear that recommendation from them? I think that what I heard was it would be that some of the recommendations coming forward from the task force might be able to interlock with the inventory. I'm not sure that the inventory itself, I don't know if we have any more business with it or not. Well, I would move then to remove that from committee. Okay. Do I hear a second? To remove the downtown Lexington building inventory? Second by Council Member Blues. Any comment or question? All those in favor, please say aye. Anyone opposed? so we'll remove the downtown Lexington building inventory. Is there any other issue to be removed? If not, do I hear a motion to adjourn? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Thank you very much. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you.