♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Motion carries. Afternoon, Madam Chairman. Bruce Simpson, a matter of page 8, item H, Lexington Plaza. Staff has recommended a postponement. I've confirmed with Tom and they're in agreement if we could postpone to next week to clear up some issues associated with this particular matter, and we would ask for that one-week postponement. Is there anyone in the audience objecting to this postponement? If not, the Chair will entertain the motion for one week, which would make it the 18th. Madam Chairman. Mr. Cravens. I move postponement of DP 2010-70 for one week to December 18th. Is there a second? Second. Motion is made by Mr. Cravens, seconded by Mr. Paulson. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Postponement carries. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now move on to other agenda items. The next first item on our agenda will be plan 2010-114F. Is the staff ready? Consent agenda. So sorry, Mr. Salley. You could make this a lot easier for me, couldn't you? No problem, Madam Chair. You can consider approving a number of plans remaining on your agenda as part of your consent agenda at this time. There are a number of final subdivision plans and a few development plans that appear on your consent agenda. The first is on page 2, item number C, plan 2010-115F, an amended final record plat for Blue Grass Executive Park, unit 1B, block F, block 2, and 7. This involves property located at 2241 Buena Vista Road and 2250 Thunder Stick Drive. The next item on your meeting agenda on page 2, item D, is also on your consent agenda. It is plan 2010-116F, Clark Property, unit 1N. This is for property located at 3275 Polo Club Boulevard. The next seven items on your meeting agenda, beginning on page 3, item F, and concluding on page 4, item L, also appear on your consent agenda. They are all subdivisions for the Clark Property. The first, page 3, item F, is plan 2010-118F for unit 2B. On your meeting agenda, page 3, item G, plan 2010-119F for unit 2C. On page 3, item H, plan 2010-120F for Clark, unit 2D. Page 4, item I, is plan 2010-121F for Clark Property, unit 2E. Item J on page 4 is plan 2010-122F for unit 2F. Page 4, item K, is plan 2010-123F for unit 2G. And finally, page 4, item L, is plan 2010-124F for the Clark Property, unit 2H. All of these plats involve property located at 3335 Polo Club Boulevard. There are three final development plans that appear on your consent agenda. The first appears on your meeting agenda at page 7, item D, DP 2010-61, the Tolley Hope Property located at 604 and 606 South Broadway. The next item on your agenda is also on the consent agenda, DP 2010-62, an amended final development plan for the Mercantile Center, also known as Paragon Center. This is for property located at 2376 Alexandria Drive. The final item appearing on your consent agenda is page 7, item F of your meeting agenda, plan 2010-67, amendment number 7 to the final development plan for Hamburg Place Farm, Sir Barton Office Park, lot F. Madam Chair, at this time the commission can consider approving all of these plans as has been recommended by your subdivision committee, unless a member of the commission would wish to have any of these plans discussed or a member of the audience as well. Thank you. Mr. Sallies, any member of the commission wish to pull one of the items off of the consent agenda? Anyone in the audience? I assume you were going to ask the audience right after that. Much as I hesitate to take anything off the consent agenda, we had a meeting with, I'm talking about the Clark Properties, unit 2C, 2D, and 2E, which are on your consent agenda. We had a meeting with the police department earlier this week, and I think in fairness to them, there are some issues that need to be discussed about the advisability of some of the pedestrian connectors in there. So I thought we had discussions there, and we said we would agree to have a discussion before you on Thursday. Okay. Thank you very much. We will then pull item G, H, and I. Are there other members of the audience who wish to pull something from the consent agenda? If not, the chair will entertain a motion for the consent agenda with plan 2010-119-F, 120-F, and 121-F being excluded. Madam Chair, I'll move for approval of the consent agenda with the three items mentioned being removed. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made in second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Madam Chair. We'll move to page 2 of the agenda in just a moment. Be prepared to begin that plan. Madam Chair. Madam Chair, members of the commission, the first item that appears on your agenda today is on page 2, item B. It is plan 2010-114-F, Woodward Lander property, unit 1A, lot 108, section 2. This is a subdivision out that's located on the northwest end of town. Here we have Interstate I-64, I-75 interchange. Masterson Station Park is over in this direction. The Masterson neighborhood development is all in this direction. Here we have Spur Road, Sandersville Road, and it's this little development right up in here that's nestled against the Urban Service Boundary and Kentucky House of Reform. This little area I've highlighted here is the property in question. Here on the subdivision plan you can see, again, here's Sandersville Road, Daly Place. This is an access easement that was established on this property. This entire property, along with some adjoining property here that fronts on Sandersville and Tiburn Way is a street approximately in this location, is a townhouse development. Previously they subdivided this section. That's been approved and recorded. This plan proposes to create these lots that you see here in this configuration. The plan was reviewed by the technical committee and staff, recommended for approval to your subdivision committee. The subdivision committee had some concerns with the number of conditions on the plan and recommended referral, as you can see on your agenda. Subsequently, the applicant has submitted a revised plan. You will find at your seat a list of revised recommendations by the staff addressing these issues. The issues that the applicant has cleared up are those types of issues, again, that we refer to generally as cleanup issues and that sort of thing. They addressed the improper adjoining information. They had called it Kentucky Housing Corporation and it's the House of Reform. Certainly people are housed there, but it's not by the Kentucky Housing Corporation. They've added the information required under the deed and page book under owner certification. They addressed the issue of the easement, access easement. It was originally approved at 24 feet. It was built at 25. This plan now reflects that. In addition, they added the street tree information that's required. The notes are here. The number here along the public street frontage are the number of trees required. They were asked to add the conditional zoning information. This development does have one restriction imposed on it by conditional zoning, and that's the total number of units. They have carried that over on this plat. That type of information is always carried over on a plat. With that, you can see from your handout that they have addressed those conditions with this new submittal. All that remains are the six standard sign-off conditions that would apply to this plan had there been no other conditions at the time of submittal. And with that, staff is recommending approval of the plan. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to try to answer them. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you, Mr. Martin. Commissioner? Madam Chair, members of the commission, I'm Tom Lambden with Midwest Engineering. As Mr. Martin said, we've addressed all of the cleanup issues, and I would just like to ask for approval. Does anyone have any questions? Not. Thank you very much. Is anyone in the audience here to speak to this? Not. We'll close for discussion by the commission, or I will entertain a motion. Madam Chairman. Mr. Cravens. I move approval of Plan 2010-114F, Woodward Landward Property. I have a motion. Is there a second? Is there a discussion? Madam Chair, I would just like to add one thing. I would like to thank Mr. Landrum for his work in the past week. We appreciate this very much. Thank you, sir. All right. I have a motion by Mr. Cravens, a second by Ms. Beattie. Is there any further discussion? If not, please vote electronically. Thank you very much. Thank you. Motion carries. All right. Let's see if the budget is good. I will for him. He will do it for me. All right. All right. Good afternoon. If you all would turn to the top of page 3, we're looking at Plan 2010-117F Clark Property, Unit 2A. I was going to show you the location. We're looking at Unit 2A. This is located off Apollo Club Boulevard or to the southeast. We have Secure Justice Area and Man O' War Boulevard up here, and then off to the east we have Deer Haven Lane. We're looking at Unit 2A, which is right here, off Apollo Club Boulevard. What's in question, we have a tree protection area located that goes pretty much the length of the property of Unit 2A. This was the preliminary plan that was approved, what I started with to show you, to show the 20-foot tree protection area. The whole idea with the tree protection area, there was a lot of discussion so that we could save some of the trees, and so we wanted to separate the utilities from the trees. While we were reviewing the final record plan, which is the plan adjacent to it, which like I showed you, 2A, right here at Apollo Club Boulevard, we noticed that part of the tree protection area was removed off of several of the lots. They had the tree protection area, which we were talking about, went completely down. It's Apollo Club Boulevard right now. They're just showing it up here on several of the lots, and then they removed it from the lower lots. We have a sanitary sewer easement that goes up adjacent to it, and it looks like it comes through where the tree protection area was and then crosses and goes outside of the tree protection area. This plan was referred to the full planning commission after the subdivision committee meeting. If this plan should be approved, we have 14 conditions. The first eight conditions are the general sign-offs. We have addition of exaction information, and the last few are just clean-up conditions of adding additional notes. The condition number 14, it says resolve the 20-foot tree protection conflict with the 20-foot sanitary sewer and utility easements. We did not know about this until they brought in the final record plan as to them removing the tree protection area that we had protected from the preliminary. When they filed this plan, they had to file a 30% report as to the improvements on the property, and at this time there was no mention of anything about having to remove part of the tree protection area to have the sanitary sewer come through. There was a question. That's why I believe that this was referred to the full planning commission, to let everyone know what had happened. Any other questions? Are there questions? Ms. Copeland? Is there a stream next to the tree protection area? That I don't know, ma'am. Maybe the engineer can answer that question. Okay. I don't know that off the top of my head. Because it gets real important about water quality. Correct. Yes, ma'am. Yet the adjacent property at this current moment, we have not received any plans for any type of design layout for that, so I'm not familiar with that adjacent area to know whether or not there's a stream. Mr. Owens? Cheryl, make sure I understand you correctly. This was determined, this was noticed that there was conflict with the tree protection area when the final development plan was brought to you. When the final record plan was filed with us, we take the record plan was approved. I'm sorry, when the final record plan was filed with us, we took it and reviewed it against the preliminary development plan to see the easements that they had proposed. So this wasn't noted out in the field? No. We didn't know about it until this plan was filed, that there was a change. When the applicant apparently corrected what they had done in the field and brought it to you. Correct, yes. Okay. One other question. With number 14, resolve, do you have any proposal on how to resolve this at this time? I'm not quite sure about the best way there. Mr. Owens, staff believes that it could be resolved just by tapering the TPA to remove the conflict with the UA easement. Since it has been constructed, it's in the ground, we think that would be an appropriate resolution that it will just taper through here and keep them separated. If you taper it, it's going to taper down to nothing. It will. It's going to be a very thin tree. Yes, sir. It will move it certainly off this property significantly. And, of course, obviously, we had hoped to avoid this type of conflict. It is our understanding that decisions were made. They did confer with the tree. Mr. Querry, let me do a blank on his title, but out in the field there was confirmation with the various parties to discuss how to do this. It's staff's understanding that the good news is there was no problem with any significant trees. So that's the best aspect about this is that there thankfully was no conflict. Are there other questions by the commission? Thank you. Petitioner. For those that don't know me, my name is Al Gross with the A Partners. I really don't know where to start. I think I'll start by handing out a sheet that kind of relates the sanitary sewer line that is the subject of the discussion with the tree preservation area. We've got some coming, but I'll expedite. Ms. Marion Clark is with us today, who is the developer of this piece of property. One of the first edicts she had for us prior to laying this out was to save as many trees as possible, and that's what we've endeavored to do. And those of you that were around when this preliminary subdivision plan came through remember quite a bit of discussion about tree preservation and saving trees. Now, what got this started was an inadvertent drafting error by a member of my staff who left the tree preservation area off of four lots that were adjacent to Polo Club Boulevard. What you have in front of you shows the relationship of a 40-foot tree preservation area, which is evenly divided along two development sections of Clark, one that we're working on, which is 20-foot in width, and then the future development phase, which we promised as we spoke about future development within the preliminary subdivision plan discussion that went on some months ago that we would provide as that section came in front of you. So there's going to be a 40-foot wide tree preservation area between these two sections of the Clark property, roughly along an existing creek that flows from Polo Club Boulevard to the east through the Blackford property, ultimately underneath Man o' War Boulevard and then on to Winchester Road and beyond. That's what's colored in green. What you see in red is the sanitary sewer corridor that was installed to serve this unit of Clark. And you can see it's, for the most part, it's well up the hill, away from the creek, away from the tree preservation area. A great deal of added expense and effort was exercised to place that sanitary sewer in a safe area relative to the TPA and the creek. Now, the one point that was fixed was the sanitary sewer location where it began adjacent to Polo Club Boulevard. There was an existing encasement pipe underneath Polo Club for the future extension of that sanitary sewer uphill, and that's where we began the sanitary sewer service for these lots on Clark. And we worked it downstream, downhill, pushed it up on the hillside to stay away from the tree preservation area and the creek, and the relation to what you see in front of you is that relationship. And if you were to go out on that piece of property and stand on the road and look right to left from Polo Club Boulevard, the full length of this tree preservation area, you would see nothing but trees. An amazing amount of effort has been put forth to save trees, and an amazing number of trees have been saved. There is a small corridor that was violated through the first four lots due to the installation of the sanitary sewer. The resolution is to add a little bit more tree protection area on the backs of those lots. We would gladly do that. We've had Tim Query out to look at the existing situation. He's been involved with this piece of property relative to tree review from the day we started designing it. And if he were here, I know he would endorse the fact that we've saved numerous trees, that this little bit of violated corridor did nothing to impact trees or significant vegetation. And I guess I'm here with my hat in my hand to apologize to staff relative to eliminating or leaving off the TPA on the first four lots, and that's what I'm doing. The larger picture is numerous trees well beyond just what this TPA expected to be saved have been saved. And I would ask if you have any questions, I'll attempt to answer them, and I ask for your approval of the plan. If I could just add something. I'm Dick Murphy. I represent the North 40 Properties developer. And also in amplification of what Mr. Gross had said to you, I just want to put up this ordinance. This is Ordinance 2610, Utilities, and it does discuss utilities and tree preservation areas, and it does indicate down there, as I tried to highlight, where required the reasonable removal of existing trees and or location of new trees shall accommodate the placement and installation of such utilities. And as Mr. Gross mentioned to you, this was put in where it crossed Polo Club Boulevard because of the existence of, I'll give up on that, of an existing sleeve under Polo Club Boulevard where it had to tie to, and I don't think Al may have emphasized enough that as soon as they hit that point, they moved it out of the tree protection area as quick as they can. It's not good to do a right angle in a sewer, but they moved it out as quick as they can, so they got it out of the tree protection area. And this was done with the consultation of Mr. Query, who, and since this has come up, has reaffirmed that no significant trees were removed as part of this. What was removed was honeysuckle and that sort of thing on that. So I just wanted to emphasize that to you. There was a discussion about this at the subdivision committee as well, and they had asked that this be reported to you as well on that. But as Mr. Gross mentioned, we will extend the tree protection area down there as he discussed. Thank you. Are there questions from the commission? Mr. Olin. Mr. Gross, I fully understand things happen out in the field and adjustments should be made and so forth. My only question is it's my understanding anyway that if it was caught, instead of just changing it on the final development plan, I believe you should have brought it back, you should have sent an infrastructure report, engineering, or Mr. Query should have notified you that additional measures had to be made other than just saying, oh, okay, it's all right. I'm just wondering why it didn't come back to us somehow. Well, one of the first things that this urban county government requires us to do before we get a grading permit to begin work is to install our erosion control, silt control devices, tree protection fences, tree protection signs. Once we get all that established, no work has been done yet. We have a pre-construction conference. At that pre-construction conference are members of the division of engineering and any other governmental bodies that want to be there. That always happens. We have a thorough discussion of the plan with plans in hand. A lot of times the center lines of the streets are staked. Sometimes the sewers are even staked. I don't know if that was the case at this pre-construction conference or not, but it was thoroughly reviewed in the field prior to the government allowing us to go forward. These types of, quote, conflicts happen all the time. And I did not think that it was significant enough to reengage the process. Granted, the sewer went through a tree protection area, but it went through no trees. And so we felt that we had not violated the spirit of the tree protection area because of what we had done on downstream relative to making sure the sewer was installed where we had flexibility well away from the tree protection area. It was a judgment call on my part. If I've exercised bad judgment, then I apologize for it. But I really don't think I did. These things are dynamic in the field. You've got a contractor that has to be somewhat concerned with his production. There are safeguards all through the process relative to these types of situations. We felt we'd covered our bases. As I walked in here this afternoon, I made a comment to Hillard that maybe we need to engage the planning staff and or certain planning commission members in this pre-construction conference. I think a lot would be learned. But I don't mean to belittle this situation. Tree protection areas are important. I understand that to this community. But this was just a minor conflict that had no impact. And so we pressed on and we didn't even, it never occurred to me to enter this type of change into the 30% letter that we delivered to you. Next time, it will occur to me. And I grant you that if this situation occurs again, it will be in the letter. That doesn't mean there won't be something else that I might judgmentally decide is insignificant not in the letter. But, you know, again, it's a dynamic process. A lot of time and effort goes into these things. And sometimes decisions and judgments need to be made quickly. And that's what happened here. And, you know, my hat's in my hand. I apologize. But I think at the end of the day, it's no harm, no foul. And I would hope you would agree with me. Are there questions from the commission members? Thank you. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this? If not, then turn it over to the commission for any discussion or for a motion. Madam Chairman. Mr. Cravens. I'd like to make a motion for approval for Plan 2010-117F, Unit 2A. Is there a second? Second. The motion has been made by Mr. Cravens, seconded by Mr. Paulson. Is there any further discussion? My question is how do we tie down the fact that we're going to take the used up part of the TPA or the tree protection area and put it over on Clark? Do we just remember it or is it another item on this list? In other words, would it become part of, would we change 14 from resolve to make sure the difference is passed on to the future Clark property? Would staff like to address that? Ms. Copeland, I believe it would be appropriate to maintain the resolve condition as it applies to this plat and we will resolve the conflict on this plat, and I believe we can resolve it appropriately. This area that you see over here is a large drainage area and heavily treed, and when the next plan comes in, the whole issue of this area and protecting it will be on the table. We'll talk about that. So we'll just leave 14 the way it is? Yes, ma'am. That would be correct. Thank you, Mr. Martin. I have a motion and a second on the floor. Is there any other discussion? If not, would everyone please vote electronically? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Here are the next items on your agenda plan, beginning on page 3, item G, H and I, the three items removed from your consent agenda. That would be plan 2010-119F, 2010-120F, and 2010-121F. Those are the Clark property unit 2C, 2D, and 2E. The staff would suggest the commission perhaps consider a one-week postponement of these three plans. The reason for pulling them off the consent agenda was not known to the staff, and we would like a little bit of time to perhaps come up with this issue and knowledge of this so we could report to you next week. I think the issue reserves to the resolved condition either 10 or 11 on all three plans. We would like to make every effort to have a full report for you on the issue next week. Thank you. Petitioner would like to address that. Yes, Madam Chair, we're agreeable with that. This came up this week in a meeting we had with the police division, and we felt that we were honor bound to bring that to you, and we're happy to postpone it and have a discussion as long as that's agreeable with the division of police. He's in the back. Lieutenant Jones is in the back nodding his agreeable to that as well. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to this? If not, then the floor will entertain a motion for postponement for one week to do our November 18th meeting, plan 2010-119F, 120F, 121F, the Clark property units, 2E, D, and C. Madam Chair, I'll make a motion. Rochelle, can we do this all at once? Do we have to do each one of them? Yes. Okay. Per the Madam Chair's direction and staff's suggestion, we'd like to postpone 2010-119F, 120F, and 121F for one week. Second. Motion by Mr. Brewer, second by Mr. Cravens. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor, please vote electronically. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Page 6. Oops. Mr. Talley. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the Commission. Good afternoon. The next item appears on page 6 of your meeting agenda, item B. This is DP 2010-15. This is a final development plan and a preliminary subdivision plan for the guest property, Unit 8. This property has an address of 4115 Sperling Drive. This is an item that has been on your agenda at many different meetings since the spring. It's been postponed a number of times and most recently has been reviewed by your subdivision committee at their last two meetings. We have received a number of communications about this development plan. Eight or nine we circulated to members of the Commission last week at your committee meetings. We have those again to circulate to you and to enter formally into the record. In addition, we received about as many more since last week, and we'd like to circulate all of these to you at this time. These are all communications about this particular development proposal. I'd like to orient you to the location of the subject property that's before you today. Using the zoning maps that we've assembled, this is in an area of the community that is south of Todd's Road and west of Interstate 75. The subject property is immediately to the east of Hayes Boulevard, which terminates at its northern point into Todd's Road just to the west of the interstate and continues in a southwesterly direction on towards Athens Boonesboro Road, which is off this map. The subject property encompasses about 37.75 acres of land immediately on the east side of Hayes Boulevard, and this property has three different existing zoning designations. We've highlighted those on the zoning map for you. The property is at the northeast corner of Sperling Drive and Hayes Boulevard, but it also has a little bit of frontage on Jewett Creek Drive, which terminates into Sperling Drive at that location right there. The largest facility and landmark, if you will, in this area, is the Athens Childsburg Elementary School, which is on a 15-acre tract immediately to the north of the subject property. And this 37-acre area is immediately to the south of that location, bounded by the school, by Hayes Boulevard, Sperling Drive, Jewett Creek Drive, and Unit 7 of the guest property, which the Planning Commission approved for development within the last year or so. The EAR2 zone allows residential development of between three and six dwelling units per gross acre. In addition, a portion of the property, about nine acres, also has what's called a transition area overlay. That is an overlay zone that accompanies the underlying EAR2 zone. That zone allows additional uses as part of the overlay. At the time the expansion area master plan was approved in the mid-1990s, it was anticipated that that overlay zone would allow civic uses, libraries, schools, churches, uses like that that are not generally permitted in other portions of the expansion area. In addition, the property immediately at the intersection is just under 11 acres, and that's in a community center zone. Community center zoning allows retail uses, restaurants, a number of commercial uses, but also has a requirement that a minimum of 40% of the floor area in a CC zone must be devoted to residential use. Given the zoning of the property, the development plan that's before you again is bounded by Hayes Boulevard, Sperling Drive, Jewett Creek Drive. There is an existing pond on the property, and a portion of this property also includes, if you will, the completion of the Unit 7 subdivision, and that would be an extension on two sides of Sugarbush Trail for 22 residential lots. Those lots would have minimum frontage of 40 feet, minimum depth of 100 feet, minimum size of 4,000 square feet. In addition, the development plan proposes 336 apartment units, shown here in orange, in 10 buildings. That's in the ER2 portion of the property. There are an additional seven residential lots on the southeast corner of Sperling Drive that would also be single-family uses and would abut one of the apartment buildings there. Two of the proposed apartment buildings, comprising 56 units, are proposed in the CC zone portion of the property, and we have rendered those in red on this drawing. You can tell from their size they're very similar in shape, dwelling unit size, orientation, to the other proposed apartment building, but technically those are in the CC zone portion of the property. Overall, in the ER2 portion of the guest property, there are some 1,244 dwelling units currently approved for development or existing in this area, and the additional 309 dwelling units proposed in the ER2 portion would yield an overall density on the guest property in the ER2 area of 3.89 dwelling units per gross acre. I would like to show you a few photographs of the subject property again to hone in on the existing condition there and to help orient where this property actually is located. This is a view of the subject property looking from the south. Here we have Hayes Boulevard, its intersection with Sperling Drive, and the intersection with Jewett Creek Drive here. Jewett Creek terminates at this point, Sperling then continues on to the south. The existing lake appears here, and the development proposed is for this portion of the property, it extends just off the map to the north. This is the southern portion of the school property, and as you can tell from the photograph there are several single family homes in the area, and also across Hayes Boulevard some duplexes that have been built as well. This is just a straight on aerial photo, again, showing the school, Hayes Boulevard, Sperling Drive. This photo is dated and does not show the connection of Jewett Creek to Sperling, that is at this location, but also gives you a feel for the residential subdivisions that have progressed on the guest property. I've described to you the residential development that is proposed. You can tell from this rendering there's a lot of green on it as well, and that is significant because there are a significant number of greenways proposed through the subject property. They generally orient from the existing pond to the west, and there are two other fingers, if you will, one on the southwestern portion of the property where there's a significant treed area, and a very small one in this location where there is a drainage area from the school property that is labeled as an open space. In addition, this development plan proposes two accesses to Sperling Drive from the development, one across from Willman Way, and one, if you will, to complete the existing intersection of Jewett Creek and Sperling. Both of those would be private entrances into the multifamily development that's being proposed. There are two accesses for the development to Hayes Boulevard. One is opposite the existing entrance into the duplex area, directly across Hayes to the west, and, of course, Sperling Drive would be used by some of the traffic as well. Part of the explanation of open space goes back to one of the tenets of the expansionary master plan, and that was that there be special design areas in portions of the 5,400 acres that were approved to come into the urban service area in the 1990s. At the time, Walnut Hill-Charlesburg Road, it's now just known as Charlesburg Road, was one of the areas with such a designation, and this is the zoning development plan that was used a little over a decade ago when the property was first rezoned to the categories you saw on the underlying map. The red line was the special design area defined in the expansionary master plan, and after a few years, it was determined that the planning commission should have some flexibility in relocating that line as they review individual development plans. What this exhibit shows in blue is how that open space area has been relocated over time. With the subject property, the greenways are proposed to meet that 60% open space requirement along with all of the property on the west side of Hayes Boulevard. In addition, area approved with the very first unit of the guest property just to the north of the school. In special design areas, 60% of the land must be in open space. The only area really not accounted for on this plan is the 15 acres owned by the school. That property has never come to the planning commission in the form of a development plan. That's why you see, in essence, these blue lines don't connect here. That property has never been before the commission. But you can see, basically, these are the areas that have been removed from the special design. These are the areas that have been added. The ordinance control allowing the commission to relocate that line is that there be no loss of area. So that's been a staff review item since the very first guest plan was filed. The only new street proposed with the development I mentioned is Sugarbush Trail. The other streets are existing, although Sperling Drive, in essence, as part of the apartment complex will be completed and connect up to Hayes Boulevard. There will be a vehicular movement through that area. The staff has discussed that with traffic engineering over the months as we reviewed this development plan. Sidewalks have been an issue with the staff. And with this latest development plan, the staff is satisfied that sidewalks will be constructed through the apartment complex and along the public streets where they don't currently exist. A number of them do exist on Sperling, on both sides, and along Jewett Creek. And it's our expectation that as this property develops, those sidewalk systems will connect as well. It's anticipated that the sidewalks will be developed ahead of the trail system through the Greenway area. So that's why that's been an important issue to the staff. On this development plan as well, something that's somewhat unusual from a lot of the development plans shown to the Commission, are architectural standards. That was an issue with the staff once we reviewed the information from the original time of zoning. This development plan proposes at least 50 percent of the facade material for this development will be brick or stone veneer or a combination, and that windows will be between a minimum of six to nine percent of the elevation. In addition, there are no hip or gable roofs allowed, and lighting will be directed down and shielded from adjacent single-family areas. Those were important issues to the staff as we've reviewed this development plan. Site landscaping has also been an issue. In the staff's review of this plan, you're looking at an exhibit on the overhead that was filed at the time of the zone change, which showed concept for multifamily development, this location, townhouses, this location, the community center where it has been rezoned and approved, and largely single-family residential development for the remainder of the property. The one item not on the plan 10 years ago was the elementary school, and that is generally at this location right here. One more thing to show you on the overhead dealing with landscaping. Again, from the time of the zone change, there were community design standards approved that said the entrances from Spurling would have special landscaping and special treatment. We've talked with the applicant's representatives about that. This is one schematic that's been submitted for the intersection of Jewett Creek and Spurling showing the landscape preliminary. I would call this landscape plan and treatments proposed there, and we would expect similar treatments at the other Spurling Drive entrances. The infrastructure for the development is in Hayes Boulevard. Sanitary sewers all have been developed and constructed on the property, and in our compliance report to you, we did not spend a lot of time on infrastructure because so much of it is in place, including the detention base and the stormwater basin. There is a proposal to narrow the floodplain to accommodate this development. Initially, that was an issue of the staff. We understand in June of this year, they did receive a conditional letter of map amendment from FEMA on that, and that outlines the conditions by which the developer will have to follow in order to complete that and allow four of the apartment buildings that are shown on this plan to proceed to the point where they can be issued building permits. The conclusions of the staff report on the compliance statement are that this development plan is in compliance with the future land use, the community design, and the infrastructure elements of the expansion area master plan, and we provided three findings for you to consider should you approve this development plan. On the gold sheet that should be at your place, and which members of the audience also have been able to see, the staff has reviewed the plan that was submitted on Monday for the property, and we reviewed the listing of conditions that were by and large reviewed last week by your subdivision committee. Many of the items on that sheet have been addressed by the revised submission, namely conditions 12, 13, and 14, 16, 17, and 18, and 21 have been completely addressed. We are proposing an amendment to condition number 11, and condition number 15, and condition number 22 based on the revised submission. Conditions 19 and 20 we would ask remain unchanged. Staff is recommending approval of this development plan. We find that it is in compliance with the expansion area master plan and with the zoning ordinance provisions governing the plan. I thank you very much. At this point I would be glad to try to answer any questions from the commission about the staff recommendation or about the development plan that is before you this afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Salih. Do commissioners have any questions at this time? Mr. Owens? Bill, thank you. You mentioned a private drive down at the bottom of Spurling, I think. Does it have access all the way through up to Hayes? Yes, sir. It does. From the intersection at Jewett Creek, it meanders a little bit, crosses the floodplain area here, continues here through this portion by clubhouse and pool area, and then does curve opposite the existing entrance to the duplex area across Hayes Boulevard. And if you would, I'm sorry, you showed a picture over there a moment ago, and I think you said like a 10-year plan or something like that. Yes. Could you explain that one more time? Yes, sir. This was an exhibit at the time of the zone change on the property that identified how the property would be developed. Again, we have Hayes Boulevard here. This is Spurling Drive. This is Jewett Creek. There has been a relocation here. It was moved farther back from Todd's Road after traffic engineering initially reviewed that first unit. Except for this area for apartments, this area for townhomes, and this area for the community center, the remainder of the development was proposed for single-family detached housing. One other question right now. With the exception of what we're looking at today, is the rest of that built out? The best answer to that question would probably be the zoning map. And let me flip back to that. I think the zoning map, let me outline where the guest property is for you. Again, it's bounded by the interstate, by the urban service boundary, by Childsburg Road, and by Todd's Road. So the areas that are currently under development, I believe, are mostly to the south of the location you're looking at today. There's an area where no development plan has yet come in on the westernmost corner of the property. But the remainder is developing or has built out. Yes, sir. Are there other questions from the commission? Thank you, Mr. Sally. Commissioner? I might have one moment, please. Thank you. Okay. Madam Chairman, members of the commission, I'm Rena Wiseman. I'm here today for Ball Homes. With us this afternoon is Ball Homes President Ray Ball, Howard Cruz of Ball Homes, Roy Kaley with EA Partners, and Phil Stupert, who was with David Jensen & Associates in 1999 and was the designer of the overall guest property when it was zoned and has now, it was with a different company but has stayed as the preliminary designer for this property. And he's here if you have questions. And he is the designer of the Unit 8 that we're asking for approval this afternoon. One thing I need to do for the record is in the expansion area we're required to post a sign and give notice, and I have the photo and affidavit to put in the record. At the outset, one thing I would like to ask of the commission is to keep in mind context as we talk about this plan. And I speak of context in two senses. One in terms of the scope of the guest property. This is part 37 acres of a 500-acre farm that was brought into the urban service area in 1996 as part of the adoption of the expansion area master plan, which I don't think there's anybody on the commission that was here, but if you followed it, it was a three-year very contentious battle over whether or not to expand the urban service area. And the result of that was the adoption of an expansion area master plan where the planning for those 5,400 acres was done at a level of detail that is not matched on the rest of your comprehensive plan. And it's a plan that has been followed since then with two minor exceptions and has been incorporated in each comprehensive plan today. So it is still a part of the 2007 comprehensive plan. So I'd like to keep in context the size of this property, that this is one piece of an overall development that's been planned since 1999 to finish out in the very way that we're presenting to you. And in the context, the expansion area in a way that uses property efficiently so as to reduce pressure on the rural service area and demand to expand the urban service area and the desire of the community to plan our neighborhoods in a way that is different, that we don't just have single family and apartments, that it encouraged a mix of uses, housing types and densities. And this plan that we're bringing to you today is completing that overall vision for the guest property. So it's easy to look at this plan as just 37 acres that's before you today. But in order to appreciate where it fits, again, I would ask you to think of the context of the manner in which this property was brought into the urban service area in the first place and the fact that it's a part of a 500-acre development that has been evolving over the years, consistent with the way that it was initially approved. There's two reasons if I was outlining this, which I did, that I would ask that you approve this. One is that because legally you're required to. This plan meets all the requirements of the zoning ordinance, the subdivision regulations, all the legal requirements are met for the uses, the setbacks, et cetera. All the infrastructure is in. So there's no basis under your regulations to deny or modify this plan in any significant way. That's the legal reason. The second reason is just as important, it's the policy planning reason, which is that in order to continue to develop the expansion area in the way it was envisioned and preserve the urban service area as long as we can without the pressure on it, we need to have different types of uses. And a lot of what we have heard about thus far and we'll hear about more this afternoon, I imagine, is the fact that there are apartments here, and yes, there are, because that is this area, as Bill pointed out, was always envisioned to be the multifamily component of this development. In fact, as Bill showed you, the area where the school is now was also going to be multifamily. In effect, we lost density because that 15 acres was originally to be multifamily, and therefore by that becoming a school, we lost a little bit more opportunity to have a multifamily dimension out here. So that's an important thing that we would ask you to keep in mind. Given some of this follows up on your questions, Mr. Owens, are a couple things. This is a copy of the certified development plan when this property was owned in 1999. And the reason, again, that I'm showing you this, and it's similar to that rendered plan, was that this was the plan that was presented and this plan has been implemented with some minor adjustments, but essentially the bones of that plan that was approved by the commission in 1999 has been implemented. What this shows you are the lots that have either been lotted, approved by final record plats, as well as in this area, that was blank on that other drawing, these are ones that are approved by preliminary subdivision plans where development is taking place. So as you can see, these are the areas now of gas that are developed or under development, and they're consistent with what was shown in 1999. We didn't render it so you can't see that these are greenways and greenways and so on. We have an area over here that's left, but other than that, this, what we call Area H, is really the last portion to be developed on the guest property and is the only portion where there's an opportunity to do the multifamily. And again, that was always planned. The other side of the road is EAR1, that's only up to three units per acre, so that would not be a multifamily area in any case. And not only have we been lotting this, as is shown here, and Bill mentioned infrastructure. As you all know, one of the things that's different about the expansion area is that the plan identified system improvements, and those were improvements that would serve everybody. And the idea was that if everybody's going to use them, then everybody should pay for them. Everybody in the expansion area. Because one of the issues in 1994-95 was people who already lived in the urban service area didn't want to fund new roads in an expanded area. So the decision was, well, we will have those people who are developing and living out here pay that. So that's where the exaction fee came about. And the system improvements, by and large, for this area have been built by Ball Homes by using an exaction fee. It's an exaction agreement method in cooperation with the government. So today you have all the infrastructure in. Hayes Boulevard, a four-lane facility, you have most of the storm water facilities are in, all the sanitary sewer facilities are in. Again, that was the concept of the expansion area plan. We should get the facilities in at the same time or ahead of time and not wait until there's a need for the road. And so one of the first things that was done, excuse me, was complete Hayes Boulevard from Todd's Road to Richmond Road prior to most of this area being developed. And again, that was one of the features of the expansion plan that it was possible to do because of the exaction fee. It doesn't show up on this plan. But the other thing that has been done throughout Guess is that the greenways which are off this property have also been set aside and developed as called for by the plan, and we're carrying that out on this plan as well. In fact, the overall Guess property, the 500 acres, has 195 acres of open space. That is a requirement of the expansion area plan. So some of that is greenway, some of that is open space, but that's a requirement of the expansion area plan. So that's, again, the context of how this property evolved over the many years since it's been developing. I just want to quickly go through, I think, just the checklist. Does this agree with the zoning ordinance requirements? I think the fact that the staff is recommending approval, and by the way, we agree with all their conditions and have found it in compliance with the expansion area plan, does this agree with that? I think it supports that. But just to underscore that, the uses are permitted. The EAR2 zone allows all different types of residential uses. Again, that was something that was very different about the expansion plan, unlike the other plans you see where it's single family is allowed or duplex is allowed and they're not mixed. In the expansion area, it's different. All those uses are allowed, and what governs is the density. And again, the idea was to encourage a community to not just have single family or apartments. In fact, one of the sections I highlighted from you, and these are quotes from the expansion area plan or the comp plan, is that this plan frees developers from traditional zoning restrictions, which tend to produce monotonous subdivisions where housing types, density and size are similar, resulting in neighborhoods which lack social, cultural or economic diversity. Working up a thirst. Pardon me. So that is why we meet the requirements of the ordinance, because EAR2 allows multifamily, we have multifamily. EAR2 allows single family homes, we have single family homes and we're in compliance. We're within the range of density that was imposed on this property through the conditional zoning restrictions that Bill talks about. The height restriction is consistent with the zone, 35 feet. Floor area ratio is a requirement of the EAR2 zone, which is not always true of single family in the other parts of the community, but is true here and is true for the apartments. The minimum here is .75, we're less than half of that, .32. We're providing the greenway per the plan. We're required per the ordinance to have 5.6 acres of open space, we're showing 14.64. We have more than the required parking. We have addressed other issues with respect to landscaping, circulation that we talked about that was a concern of the fire department. We have complied with the special design area that is called for by the plan with the 60% open space. The infrastructure, as I said, is all in or will be inadequate to serve this. So in terms of compliance with the regulations and compliance with the plan, this plan meets those requirements. It may not be the plan that you individually like or dislike, but it does meet the requirements. But more than that, we're not just asking you to approve something that's, you know, just barely meets muster. This carries out not only the letter, but the spirit of the expansion area master plan. And that's the context that this plan meets the requirements. And that's what this plan has to be viewed in. It was extremely important in adopting this plan that the commitment was made that we're going to try to develop our land smarter, more efficiently. Smaller lots, that's the tradeoff. The tradeoff the community made is if we're going to preserve our rural land, then we're going to allow for smaller lots, narrower streets to use this land more efficiently. And it has been successful. And you can see the people that live out there and enjoy this community. And they're here today. They don't enjoy the fact that there's going to be another part of this community, but it was as much a part of this plan as were the homes that they live in now. But that is very important to keep in mind, that the point of the plan was to preserve our land, but also to make sure that we're going to make sure that we're going to preserve our land inside and not put the pressure on the rural service area. So that's the context that I would ask that you keep in mind. With that, I'll conclude. We agree with the conditions set forth by the staff. We would ask that you adopt your findings of compliance on the EANP compliance report. And we'd like the opportunity to respond to anything that's said after we speak. Thanks for your attention. Thank you, Ms. Wiseman. Are there any questions from members of the commission at this point? Mr. Owens. Thank you, Ms. Wiseman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the mail up there. It appears with the exception of this, I guess eight now, most of it is built out. How much is single family as opposed to multifamily? Everything on this side of the boulevard is single family, detached. On the west side of Childsburg is called the club at Walnut Hill and those are duplexes. So, so far the only non-single family detached is on the west side. Okay. Thank you. To follow up with Mr. Owens' question, within the transition area and the CC, can you speak to the semi-public uses and the commercial uses within this area? We are not proposing any semi-public uses. We're proposing that to be part of the multifamily community. The, again, remember we lost the 15 acres, so basically we're picking that up. I've neglected to show the rendering of these apartments. And the reason that your question makes that a good point is that this is the architecture that's been done by Sherman College. It's comparable to the Glassford apartments that are under, they're open now on Manor Ward between Waterford and Case Creek Road. But to do this kind of complex with the amenities that we're talking about, clubhouse, theater, et cetera, it's necessary to have this many units. We have 12 buildings, five here, seven here. It's been suggested to us that we just eliminate those. We couldn't accomplish this type of quality without that. And also, we are trying to capture some density, because we're still under the density that was mentioned. That was hoped for in this area. With respect to the CC, we have, other than the two apartment buildings we're showing, we have no plans for that. We had shown some potential users. There was a lot of concern about that. There was a convenience store. There were two retail buildings that would have retail on the first floor, residential units above. But there was a lot of concern from the neighborhood about that, how it would look and so on. Since we have no tenants for it, Ball Homes is not a commercial developer anyway, and no one's interested. We agree we would just take it off. If and when that is something that would be redeveloped, you would have to see it again as a final development plan. How many acres in that CC area do you know? There are like 10.57 acres gross, but we're restricted to usable acres of about six, and I've rounded it off. I'm not going to put it back yet. Are there other questions from the commission member? At this time we will have citizen comments, and I might say that if you have a spokesperson, each person is allowed three minutes. But if you have a spokesperson and would like to yield some of your time to that person, that is certainly acceptable. We will start off by taking those who are in favor. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak in favor of this proposal? Seeing none, could I have a show of hands of those who would like to speak who are in opposition? Is there a spokesperson for your group? Would you like to come forward? I might also ask, are you speaking for all those who raised their hands, or do they want to speak as well? I want to make sure we understand each other. I think that I don't know how many I represent. I can say that I represent myself and 245 other folks who signed petitions. I don't know everybody's name, and I don't know which ones I might be speaking for. All right. That's fine. You may proceed. I'd like to start by giving you that petition. I have here, I didn't make copies for everyone because it's quite lengthy. We have a petition whose text say we, the undersigned residents of the Childsburg community, call on the planning commission of the city of Lexington, Kentucky, to deny Ball Homes current plan for guest eight until revisions reflect community building. Secured by design or other similar designs, commercial and residential properties which match the quality and design of the surrounding neighborhood. There are, as I said, 246, I think, including me. We have a packet of individuals who could write on the online petition. Some comments, and they're here. And then some extra letters that didn't apparently come through the planner's office. So we have some more here. I also want to share with you that I've been involved for about seven months personally, and the reason that happened was because I'm a retired teacher, and when 400 people were very angry since I wasn't working and thought I would be sooner than now, I decided to take up the ability to, you know, work with people, and these are e-mails that I have back and forth with folks in the planning and with some members of Ball Homes. And you're welcome to look at them if you wish, but just to see the bulk of those, and it's kind of a lot. One other thing, someone asked me to add theirs today, so there's an envelope, I have no idea what's in it. There are several people who are going to speak today from our group. So I'm going to be the first paragraph of the five-page keyhole that my English teachers taught me about, and I'll start by saying I am here today again for the denial of the guess eight property. Here's why. Seven months of an attempt to adequately alter the plan have been unsuccessful. I've tried to work with members of planning, staff, and with builders to no avail, and I'm disappointed to say that because I had my hopes up a few times because some of the comments I got twice from building representative was, that's doable. When talking about changing some of these plans so that we could have some recreational facilities, for example. And then it wasn't on the plan, and then try to talk about it again, and well, it wasn't going to be on the plan, and then it still wasn't on the plan. That sort of thing happened to me for six months, seven months perhaps. I watched six months of postponements by the builder with no appreciable change from month to month. Didn't know that we could have postponed. I don't know the rules, and I'm not a lawyer, so tried to get one. $15,000 retainer just was too much for me before we had other people join on. I was in 15, pardon me, five planning staff meetings, including tech and subdivision, three meetings with the builder or his representative, four meetings with a senior member of planning staff. I've had phone calls to everyone from Bill Sally, Chris Taylor, Tom Martin, talked with many people, and you can see a slew of e-mails. So I've tried to work without having to be here. I'm really disappointed that I have to be here today and that you are our last chance. I will say that I've learned a lot about our city and about planning, and that was good, but what disturbs me, of course, is that everyone's either a city employee or appointed by one, and so I don't feel like I have a representative because the council doesn't get involved. So I'm at your mercy to ask for you to think of yourselves as members of our community and how you would feel about this development if you live there. We're still highly dissatisfied. We have a plan, which is the one that really was involved, I think, in 1999 or so. I have in my hand, and I just want to read right off of here some of the things they said would be on this plan that they're trying to change now to another. It says the neighborhood layout respects existing natural features. We've had wetlands covered up. We've had many, many trees bulldozed. Community drives with the flow of the land. There are none. All the usable land is being used for development. I took some pictures the other day, and I thought, oh, look, this is usable. Maybe they could play soccer here, and then I saw culverts, and I saw standing water. So anything that's usable is not usable for us. They said there would be at the community center, transition area, community social gathering place. There is none. Civic and cultural outdoor spaces, there are none. Recreational facilities, nada. Church and religious institutions, they can't afford the $135,000 down because the rest of the city doesn't want us to have roads that we all pay for. Never see anything that looks like that. Nobody can afford that sort of thing with the money they have to put down. Protection and preservation of mature trees, existing ponds and stream corridors, bulldozed. Over 60 acres of active and passive recreation, playground and recreational fields. There are no playgrounds. There are none proposed. This is off the Jensen plan. This does not have to go through. We can do better. This is Lexington. This is where the equestrian games were. This is where UK plays basketball. We're supposed to be better than the minimum. And when I hear about legalities, we can do better than what's in the letter of the law. And, you know, I'm not a legalistic thinker. I respect the law. But if you study Kohlberg's theory of moral development, and I was a psychology teacher, you know that there's higher calling than what says in print. Sometimes there's higher calling than what the law will allow. Density levels, et cetera. So I'm disappointed to hear that perspective. I really am. We need to build community here. I'm opposed to apartments. I'm opposed to cookie cutter apartment buildings that are three other places or two other places in town so far. They all look alike. The builder wouldn't allow us to build homes that look similar next door to each other, but they all look alike. If you're disabled or you're elderly, you only can live in one third of the place. You can't get up there. Children can't do that. There's no recreational space really for them. Any open spaces, again, are likely to be rained on and have standing water. We want to meet and develop relationships with neighbors within our own homes, in our own area, which is why I'm so glad I took this up, because I've met some people and I live kind of in a house that doesn't have any neighbors yet. But we need communal spaces to do that. Can't stand in the street. As you know, they've narrowed them. When we have 30 feet in the backyard, we can't really have many people over. So we were hoping for communal spaces, maybe have some music, maybe have some wet, you know, just give us a pavilion with some electricity, for example. We want to have a high quality of life. We don't want to have an area that has cookie cutter apartments. We would rather have something that looks like a village. And we were told, and this is very important to me, and this is probably the way I was raised, but you don't mislead people. And when I went from my home, our representative who works for a satellite company of the developer, when we asked what will go in this area, they said apartments up by the school, the rest single family. Said okay, that's cool. And now we're hearing, oh, this is planned all along. We want high density. It's for the good of the community. It's also really profitable if you can cram a few more people in there. We want to maintain safety and security. We want community, and we believe that when you build homes that look at each other in terms of apartments, and they're in a segregated area, and realizing that folks who move to apartments are often wishing to move on and to build other things. Or they want to stay there at the end of life thing, and they wanted to have high amenities and be beautiful and attractive. I don't think this will endear either of those groups. They're going to not wish to mingle with us as they're moving on. They're young people or they couldn't go up those stairs with their TVs. So I'm concerned about that we'll have transient folks who come through that don't feel ties with the rest of our community. And so I don't see community going there. I think we'll get better with other kinds of buildings, with other kinds of amenities. We're also concerned about being good stewards of the environment. And we'll have someone else who will speak to that, so I won't go into that very much. I know I'm just about finished. Okay. I think maybe I really actually have finished, so I hope I didn't take too much of your time. And thank you so much. I hope you'll vote to deny. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to speak in opposition? Yes, sir. I'm in the lower southeast corner of a cul-de-sac back up to the urban county boundary. My biggest concern, what I've asked them to speak about today is about the safety of the community that we're talking about. There's been a lot of concerns, a whole lot of meetings, a whole lot of communications between neighbors. And one of the overwhelming points is about safety, security, where our children are going to go to school, how they're going to get there, how they're going to get to school, how they're going to be safe. So that's something that I'm going to speak about today. Lexington and Charlesburg, we've been billed as a great community, a great place to live, a great place to raise a family. It's the American dream, pardon the cliche. But in homeowners buying into this community and rooting their families with children of all ages, we've come to expect a concerted effort for safety and crime prevention. Playing in front of you today, I've spoken with several professionals in the crime prevention area, namely ones that have initiatives in noted programs such as secure by design, crime prevention through environmental design, programs such as this nature. The overall design of the community will inherently protect and prevent crime. That's the general concept of it. This is an initiative I believe that this commission is actually trying to push through. It's a favorable thing that the city likes, the constituents like. We like it, but it doesn't match this. I've spoken with some of the experts in the field and they've agreed on several of these points that I'm going to lay out here for you. There's some low elevation in between the apartment clusters, both the north and the southern side. The elevation is the rain runoff, the green space, which is basically a flood plain. This area is significantly lower in elevation, both below Hayes Boulevard and below the two clusters of apartments. This area creates an area for loitering and undesirable activities. The greenway designs for trees and walkways that are hidden from public roads. Again, this is elements promoting undesirable activities going unseen. There's no details on the plan, none given to us on lighting, landscape and materials. We've asked questions on what are the design specifications? What plans are to mitigate undesirable activities using these lighting and landscaping designs? The three story buildings on top of the hills, they're going to prevent line of sight into the neighborhood and around the neighborhood, especially around the school. That's a very important point that I want to address in a minute. The 35 foot tall buildings that we've been told that that's their height, you put those on top of a 30 foot hill and now you have 65 feet of blockage that we can't see into the neighborhood. There's multiple access points to the area. I believe that there's three on the design, two off of Sperling and one off of Hayes. This leads to, again, a conflict in the principles of Secure By Design. I'm sorry, excuse me, but your three minutes are up. I'm sorry and I have extra time given to me from Glen Cain. The landscaping buffering between the buildings and significantly down here in the lower side you'll see that this building, I think it's building number 12, is backing up to the seven residential units, single family owned residential units. That's 20 feet off the back of somebody's back door, their backyard. So that's a significant problem. The school, if I may put this to the gentleman here to put it over top of this. This is an overlay of satellite image, very similar to what we've seen before. I've simply taken the satellite image, overlaid the plan on top of it and you can see the proximity of two of these buildings. There will be four of these buildings that are close to the school. Two of these buildings are within 20 feet of the property of the school. You can see children coming out to play on the back side of this. That's a very big concern. Our children can't even go to the school right now. So as the community grows, people walk through this community, kids are going to be walking through the apartments. Apartment dwellers are going to be close by. I'm not saying that there's an intention there. I don't want to make that inference. But it's an environment that we don't want to necessarily introduce if we don't have to. We're completely happy with multi-family housing. Townhomes, condos, duplexes, those are fine. Three level, 28 unit buildings are not. One last point I'd like to make is about need. I did a quick polling of some apartment complexes around us, including some of the ones that are within a five mile radius of this property. On the average, there was anywhere between 15 and 5% vacancy. So if we take an average of that at 10%, then that means there's going to be roughly 1,500 properties right now, this week, that are available for rent. There's not a need for 336 more. Especially when the amenities that typical apartment dwellers want, the convenience stores, the libraries and whatnot within walking distance, aren't there. So I implore you, this is a design that can use a lot of work. We as a community are willing to work with the developers, work with planning staff to input our ideas, what we were sold to from representatives, from the applicant and their subsidiaries. And we want to continue that. So we vote for disapproval right now until we can come up with a better solution, a better plan that meets these criteria. Thank you very much. Are there others that would like to speak? State your name and your address, please. You have three minutes. Hi, my name is Anita Sanford and I live at 4525 Aram Park. I have a neighbor who actually lived in Glen Eagles and it took her a year and a half to sell her home because of the apartment complex that was in the front. And she moved to Childsburg for that reason because she thought it was going to be community based. I come from Section 8 housing. I used to live in Section 8 housing and my husband and I have worked extremely hard to save money, to live in a great neighborhood, a great community like Childsburg. I love Childsburg. I love my home. I love the people that live around me. I, like Lori and Brian, I am not opposed to apartments. I would just like them to be more of a community feel. And I'm just going to continue to work hard every day to achieve. So like I said, I'm very brief, but those are my concerns that I have. I know Ball Homes currently doesn't do Section 8 housing, but in the near future, if it was a possibility that it would be sold, just like one of my neighbors, the same situation that they were told in Glen Eagles that it would never be Section 8 housing, but eventually was sold. Thank you very much. My name is Carol McKee. I have been a homeowner and resident at 813 Childsburg Court for 12 years. In addition, I serve as vice president of the Childsburg Court Neighborhood Association. My street is not a part of the Ball Home development in Childsburg. It actually was the last street developed in the Walnut Ridge Andover community when the guest property was just farmland. So I have been involved in this development since the very beginning, actually before it actually came out on a map. The proposed ball development, even though I do not live in the ball development, will have a great impact on my neighbors and me in a number of ways. I am strongly opposed to this development. It presents safety hazards, endangering the lives of school children, parents, residents, and all people who travel in this vicinity. Building a 280-unit apartment complex consisting of 12 multilevel buildings will increase the flow of traffic on Hayes Boulevard tremendously. The proposed new entrance off Hayes Boulevard to the apartment complex is adjacent to Athens Childsburg Elementary School. It's actually located only approximately 50 feet from the back parking lot. In addition, this proposed new entrance is only 150 to 200 feet from an extremely busy four-way stop with complex turning lanes on Hayes Boulevard. I hope you're listening to these numbers, because these numbers are very, very significant. Buses and parents transporting students to and from the school must turn. That's the only way that they can get into that school and this intersection of Hayes Boulevard and Jewett Creek, or now they can go down to Sperling, I presume, to have access to the school. Traffic currently backs up on Hayes Boulevard. I see it every day. Pass the proposed new entrance during early morning and especially at dismissal times. What will happen if vehicles for 280 units are added to this already existing traffic problem? The safety of children, parents, and residents will be jeopardized. I am also concerned about the possible decrease in property value of existing homes with a 12-building apartment complex in such close proximity to a single-family residential area. I am not opposed to apartments, as these other folks have said, but the proposed location adjacent to a school and in the middle of a residential area close to a four-way street. I have additional time deferred by Waverly and Crockett. Please proceed. Thank you. I appreciate Ball Homes' commitment to the existing Childsburg development with constructing quality homes and creating an attractive community. However, this proposed plan with apartment buildings does not serve in the best interest of current residents or school children. Continuing to develop single-family homes in this residential area is far more appropriate. This proposed plan primarily benefits the developers of Ball Properties, not the residents of Childsburg, nor the residents of Sperling. I urge you to make an informed and wise decision and oppose the guest development plan. I was going to end on that, and this will be very brief, but there are a couple of things. I have been involved with this since it first started. I have to make a couple of notes. Several times there's been references made today to duplexes. These duplexes are condominiums. They are very nice condominiums. Also, I don't know what your map shows, but in the maps that have been emailed to me, the school has been located in the wrong place. The school is at the corner of Jewett Creek and Hayes Boulevard. On the maps that I've received via email from staff here, the school is over much further than where the actual location is. So make sure you take note of that. Thank you for your time and the opportunity to speak to you. But I would like to say, in all due respect, before some of these maps were made public, at least five, six, seven people on our street met with Mr. Ball, not in a meeting like this, back in the 90s. And at that time, we were told that there would be apartments, but those apartments would be at the back of the guest property. Now, I know that's probably not on a map someplace or that's not going to be in print, but I can tell you that that did occur. As I said, I do appreciate the way the community has been developed this far, but I certainly hope that you take some things into consideration and oppose this development. Thank you very much. Thank you. Are there others who would like to speak? Yes, sir. And so I don't have to interrupt you. If you have extended time, please let me know. My name is Darrell Sebastian, and I live at 817 Childsburg Court. I'm here to oppose the current development plan. One of the reasons was Mr. Salley mentioned the floodplain. He mentioned the pond on the guest property. He didn't mention the one that's built on the other side of Hayes Boulevard, which has, due to its inadequacy, has flooded Childsburg Road several times. And building parking lots and other impervious surfaces will increase the rainwater runoff towards that other retaining pond. And I don't think it's adequate. Also, as Carol mentioned, traffic, parents who are picking up and dropping off their children, they're backed up from Jewett Creek, which is a couple of feet away past the proposed new entrances. There's only a bicycle lane there that they park in, and they're parked a couple of feet out on the road. And adding an entranceway to Hayes Boulevard would create a big traffic hazard to traffic and to schoolchildren, I believe. And I would just ask that you vote against this plan. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Hello. My name is Clay Morton. I live at 4159 Starr Ridge Place in Childsburg. My family and I moved to Childsburg recently. And we really like the idea of the community and family atmosphere that neighborhood had. And so the idea to build apartments basically directly behind my house, basically a stone's throw away, and they will shade my house, I believe, is not going to promote that community and family atmosphere that we bought a home in that neighborhood for. When I bought my home, the milestone ball home representative that sold me the house said that ball homes does not negatively or does not do things to negatively impact their communities. And judging from the reaction of the neighbors that I've talked to, the petitions that I've seen, they feel the same way as I do. The proposal will not provide the community with any community area that the rest of the community can use. It will more than likely decrease home value. So it's going to affect me monetarily. And it will take away the confidence that I have that my wife and daughter can walk around at night safely. With so many negative impacts, I can't see how that we can let this go forward and approve this plan. I would hope that the planning board would listen to everyone here and deny this proposal by ball homes to build these apartments. And just, you know, I know Ms. Rowans, you mentioned what's built around the area. There is fully single family homes around the area. And ball homes already built that before we come back and put the apartments there. So it seems to me a little bit of a wrong there was done in the way the sequence was taken out. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Are there others? Hi. I'm Beverly Turner. I live at 1117 Jewett Creek Drive. And I'm hoping to keep to three minutes, but if I go over, Sandra Baldridge has given me her time. Again, I agree with the speakers before me about most of what they said. But the thing that bothers me the most is the segregation of this apartment community from the rest of the neighborhood. Like the others have said, I like the idea of a nice neighborhood to live in. We want to be able to walk down the street and if it involves going to the library or a restaurant, that sounds good to me. But this current apartment complex that's being built, it's turned in on itself. The backs of the buildings are to us. And that speaks. Their backs are to us. They're going to have their separate association. They're not part of our neighborhood. Two-thirds of the units that are there, two-thirds of the 336 units, people that live there must be able to carry groceries. A flight or two of steps. That speaks of who is going to live there. They're going to be transient people living there. These are not people that want to be a part of a community that move in and intend to stay. Their vacancies are very likely. Things that people that live in apartments want in order to stay in those apartments don't exist. Most of the apartment communities around that are successful are on major roads. And they have things nearby. Either within the complex itself or nearby. Things like, well, the interstate. You'd think the interstate would be close to us. But to get to it, you have to go down Hayes Boulevard, down Richmond Road, or out Hayes Boulevard to Todd's Road, down to Man o' War and around by Hamburg. The interstate is not close. So that's not handy. It's not close to anybody's job. There aren't any places to work in the entire neighborhood. There aren't any groceries. There aren't any department stores. There aren't any restaurants. And therefore have community. It's not a place for transients to live. A lot of the complexes, apartment complexes, are where people go and they live a few years. And then they hope to move into a neighborhood like ours, purchase a home, or stay in an apartment where there are reasons to stay, amenities and so forth. I agree with the density issues that you all have addressed in the past. I think that's great. I don't want sprawl. I like the density. I think this has been achieved by narrower roads and smaller lots. And God knows my lot's small, but I'm happy with it. I'm fine with that. I don't have a bit of a problem with that. I don't mind my road being narrow either, as long as there's not so much traffic that it can go by. But I think that the standards and the planning this committee is charged with, with planning for our community, this means Lexington as a whole, and it doesn't mean to lose interest in the subdivisions. It's not just planning for downtown Lexington or preserving the horse farms. It's planning for us, too. We're part of the community. We're part of Lexington. We're part of the growth of the city and the growth of the subdivisions. And that's not what this plan is. This is a plan where they've crammed a bunch of buildings into all available space. There is not any space in this map where a building could be built where it isn't. What's left is swampland. It's basically swampland. I don't know if you all saw them, but there's drains put in place because it's ditches and it's swampland. And we can't play soccer in a swampland. There's no flat, dry space anywhere in this plan left over for people to use unless it's a parking lot. We want people. Apartments are fine, just like everybody else has said. Apartments are fine. But we want people to move into the apartments that want to stay in our community, that are there because they want to be there, not because it's a stepping stone to move to something better later. And we want communities like that. In fact, I've got a picture here which I'll leave for you all. I think it's called Old Village. It's in Virginia. I don't know if you all can see, but where it's very diverse, the look of it is nice. There's multiple family buildings, but there's restaurants and office buildings, professional office buildings. There's people moving into these areas and these apartments that wouldn't have 20 years ago. People now move into apartments for a variety of reasons. They might work too much. They don't want to take care of a house. They don't want to have kids anymore, and they want an apartment. But people that want to move into apartments for these reasons, they want amenities. They're going to choose an apartment community that has things like a tennis court or a gym or a pool that's big enough for everybody to swim in or lay around if they want to. I went over and I looked at one of the Ball Homes apartment communities, and the pool that existed was surrounded by a wrought iron fence where there was barely enough room for one lounge chair between the pool and the fence, and the pool itself was not as big as my living room. That's the pool. The clubhouse wasn't much bigger. Your six minutes are up. Okay. So I think you've got my point. If you want to see the picture, it's here. Okay. Thank you. I'll be quick. Okay. The proponents of this plan talked about semi-public uses. We don't have any of those, and that would be nice. We want different uses, just not little cookie-cutter apartment buildings. They mentioned that you're legally required to pass this plan. I just wanted to mention that I believe that you have legal advisors that could tell you whether or not you're required to pass a developer's plan or not. The vision that's been mentioned for the City of Lexington is important. I personally, I want the apartment community to be integrated into our subdivision. I want our subdivision to be integrated into the Childsburg community, and I want all of the Childsburg community integrated into the City of Lexington. I moved to Lexington in 1977 and stayed because it's special. It's a special community. It is a special city. The World Equestrian Games came here. It's a special place to live, and I think that we need to work very hard to keep it a special place to have poorly planned duplications of apartment complexes to mushroom through the city. And I'm sorry if I went too long on my big mouth. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Excuse me. You had some pictures? These are the pictures of the community. Yes, sir. Madam Chair and members of the Commission, I thank you for your time today. My name is Gabriel Cyr. I live at 4136 Sperling Drive. My residence is currently directly across the street from where these 12 three-story apartment buildings would be. Over the past few months, we have noticed a tremendous increase in the traffic volume simply by Sperling Drive opening up to Jewett Creek. It is a concern of myself and my wife that if these apartment buildings go in, that this is going to have a very, very tremendous adverse effect on the traffic volume. Moved into this house four years ago. This was the second ball home that we purchased. And had we been told by that time, by milestone, that there would have this, you know, this development would be in place, we never would have purchased the lot. We would have gone elsewhere. We would have purchased another lot by this builder, or we would have chosen another builder. Getting ready to have a child. At the beginning of next spring, next door neighbors just had a child. Got some friends up the street that are having a child within three days of us. And I would just like you to take that into consideration. This is going to be what that will do to, you know, children in the area. And I ask that when you do pass this vote, that you take into account there were zero people here from the community that are in favor of this today. Everybody here present that lives in this community is against this. And I ask that you take that into consideration. And I ask that you vote to deny this proposal. Thank you. Thank you. I need just a moment. I'm a little bit nervous. Some of the things that are being passed out. I told you I was a little nervous. My name is Miriam McGuire. And I am a homeowner at 4046 Boone Creek Road. I have a 90-year-old mother that lives with me and my husband. Does everybody have or can share what's been passed out? Okay. My presentation is also with your packet so you can follow along. I'd like to say good afternoon to all of you and thank you for giving us the opportunity to address you. I also want to turn and introduce myself to Mr. Ball. And I want to thank you for at least being here and showing your interest. Very much appreciate it. Thank you. Your planning staff has been very cordial when we have asked for information. So I do have a lady's name that she has given me. Would you like to put these pictures on the overhead? Does the lady have, did they give you the pictures? She's got them. They're kind of bad, aren't they? You can't see them. I was referring to those that you passed out. Yes. And I also have a set that I didn't have in the packet which will address the vegetation, the water runoff and some of the other items and I think they have those. What you have on the screen right now is part of the wildlife that's there. That was taken two days ago. There's an egret and there are some ducks in the area. To show the biodiversity in that area. And do you have the, did you put some of those up? I can pass this around. Because this is, it's all right. It's okay. There's a portable microphone right there in front that you're welcome to use. Just pull on it really hard. There you go. We're coming with another one. I was paying for the color copies. I only made one set to pass around. Now I'll get back to my agenda in order. I'd like to express my concern against the present proposed plan submitted to the developer for guest eight section in the Childsburg community development with regard to environmental changes. Construction and the design floodplains and wetlands and deforestation and green space. It is said that a picture speaks a thousand words. I submit to you pictures of a GPS map overlaid with an outline of the proposed plans produced on a home computer. Map one are areas circled in yellow showing existing tree stands that will be destroyed. The area circled in red is a tree nursery that has already been destroyed. The area circled in blue is wetland area that has been filled in and graded. The second map shows a close-up of the roof of the Athens Childsburg elementary school. And the proximity of how close that building is to the first building or one of the buildings that's going to be built that's going to back up to their property. The third map is the 11 by 17 map, which is very difficult to see, and I apologize for that. But there is a creek running from the edge of the pond over to Hayes. We are concerned about that being flooded. The smaller individual photos, this references the development of the floodplain area. Additional small photos give you an idea of the creek water that is still visible through the property, even though there is a drought. If there's a drought now and the rains and the floods come and if the infrastructure is not put in correctly, then we feel that will be a flood. It also shows the natural grasses and vegetation. Childsburg could develop an earth-friendly neighborhood. Carbon footprints could be reduced. Green space could include five acres for leisure, family and community activities. There is a small barn that will be torn down that could have been turned into reusable building with the help of grants. Perhaps a school vegetable garden could have surrounded it and a barn could be used as an aid for teachers and students to develop an agricultural program. More of the existing trees could be left as they stand. Disturbing the natural flow of water that may produce flooding by building on existing floodplains could be avoided. Filling up and covering wetlands instead of incorporating them into the landscape could be designed. I ask the developer, Mr. Ball, to have a vision. Be a leader, not a follower. Investigate in the development of a permaculture within the guest state Childsburg's development. I ask the planning commission to send the developer back to the drawing board. Do not approve these plans. I believe that Mr. Ball and his team can produce something better than what he is giving us. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? If not, as for petitioner's comments, please. Thank you, Madam Chairman. The overriding theme of what I've listened to is opposition to apartments. They've been described to us as not safe, not family oriented. They will decrease property values. These are not people who will be part of the community. And other issues that folks have had. Although they've all told you they're not against apartments, but I'm having a hard time understanding what part of those statements are not against apartments. In those statements you will hear most times that somebody comes and brings an apartment complex near a single family home. They'll say the same thing about apartments. I hate to keep going back to the expansionary plan, but part of what that was trying to avoid was this. Was this tug of war between I like my kind of single family home, I don't like your kind of apartment. I don't like your duplex, whether it's a condominium or rental. The expansionary plan was designed with a lot of work, controversy, effort, sweat by a lot of the people that are here on the staff, your predecessors, to try to avoid these kind of battles that the first person that gets there dictates what happens to the neighborhood. And that's why we have the detailed expansionary master plan that was adopted and that was ratified and affirmed. There's a specific statement in your comp plan that says we revalidate the 1996 comprehensive plan, expansionary plan. It wasn't intended just to be a book that we put on the shelf and we forgot. We're following that and we're monitoring that because this was the way we decided we wanted to do things. And you have followed it and you've had been tested on that where people wanted to vary from it and you have stuck to that plan. To deny this development plan means you're going to violate that plan. You're going to violate the whole concept of what was trying to be done by this community. The folks here do not believe that this presents a community feel. We all have our own definition of community. But as a developer, the only thing we can go by is your guidelines and your maps and your ordinances and your land use plan. And that's what the community represented by this commission said you wanted to be developed out here. And that's what we're giving you. I don't know what an individual realtor said to any of these folks, but I'm not aware that anybody promised there would be no apartments or they would be in the back. The plan that Bill showed you showed the apartments pretty much in the area that we're showing them. It was always envisioned that there would be a multifamily component to this, that we weren't just going to have single family homes, we were going to try to have increased density and have a variety of housing units in our communities, to have that kind of diversity, not to just use one of the words that was used, segregate. This can be part of community. If you look at the plan closely, there are walkways and trails that will lead through. One man's swampland is another man's greenway. And that's what this is. It's a greenway that the government will own and maintain and will have trails that are for everyone. These are designed so that you're going to have activity. You're going to have people on the trails. What have you heard, what has this community heard? People like bike trails. They like to hike. Again, we have less of an opportunity to have this kind of home here, because we came at the end of the process rather than at the beginning. This is the front of these apartments. This is also the back of these apartments. There are no fronts or backs. With respect to the school, again, I don't necessarily agree, but I don't have any study or data that a school is at, that students are at risk because they're next to apartment buildings. Mr. Ball's company sold that land to the school board at cost to provide for an elementary school in this area. They did their due diligence. They would have known that there was the possibility that there would be apartments next to their elementary school. There were no representations that that transition area was going to be a library or a school, daycare or a church. It is permitted in that zone, and if there were people that wanted to do those, that's something the developer would have considered, but, you know, you just don't hold it and hope that somebody's going to put a church there. But the dwelling units are permitted. They're permitted in the zone, and maybe you would have preferred a library or a church, but another use that's allowed are these multifamily units. Reference was made to the Jensen plan that we haven't followed up. There are guidelines that we're complying with. And yes, there's a reference to what can be in the transition area, but there was no promise that we're going to have a library there. That was shown as one of the possible uses that could be in a community center transition area, excuse me. And the idea that people want shopping here, they want to have stores. Well, it was the plan that there would be a small community center here. Not a Tates Creek Center, not even a Palomar, but a six-acre-some community center. And that's still there, and it's not developed, and at the time that there's a demand for something, we'll come back and show you that plan. One of the folks said that they've been in lots of meetings and phone calls and spent a lot of time on this. I just pulled the minutes of this commission on the 96 expansion plan from 94 to 99. These are just the minutes of the meetings that your predecessor spent on this document. That doesn't count the council or the committee that was formed. A lot of time was spent on this document as well. Last, I have to respond to the petition. And one of the folks said that there's no one here in favor of this, and you should listen to that. If you'd listen to that line of reasoning in 1999, these folks wouldn't have a place to live. Because Mrs. McKee, who was here then, presented a petition signed by 401 residents of the Andover Hills, Andover Forest, and all the neighborhoods up and down Todd's Road, opposed to this development. Not just these apartments, but the entire homes where these folks lived. And one of the reasons the statement said that this development poses a threat to the safety and well-being of citizens in the area. The same thing you've heard today. I don't think Childsburg has been a threat to the safety of the people that live out Todd's Road, and I don't think this proposed apartment development is going to be that threat. It's a good plan. It meets your expansionary master plan. We would ask that you approve it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wiseman. Is there rebuttal from those in opposition? I'd kind of like to know how big that theater is. There are a lot of things that we hear today. Don't have a lot of detail to them in terms of these sorts of issues, in terms of how nice the development will be, et cetera. We still hold that we have plenty of vacancies in town. We have plenty of examples of apartment areas that were very nice at first, but for some reason the people who had consistent excellent maintenance and management moved away from it, and now these are kind of dangerous places. And I taught at Tate's Creek 27 years, and if any of you are familiar with the Gainesway apartments right by the elementary school, it's a very dangerous place, and we've had a lot of difficulties with that area. We also have a wonderful place to be redeveloped at the corner of New Circle Road and Richmond Road. It's padlocked because I don't know what went wrong, but people don't want to live there. If things aren't managed well, and if there's not a need for it, and that there's a lot of vacancies available, we don't see the need to have another building next to a school where it might be dangerous. We don't like to see all of the available land utilized for asphalt and apartments when we consider that, yes, there's open space, but that doesn't mean it's recreational. People can't play on it, people can't commune on it. And, yes, we would like to have community with people that live in the apartment area. We were told the area near the school would be populated with apartments before we bought. Asked directly, four or five other people that wrote me on the petition said, hey, that happened to me too. So apparently when the agents of this developer were asked directly, they were either misled or told to not tell the truth. I have a problem with that, because it's funny how these apartments go up after. If they're so beautiful and wonderful and welcoming, then why do they build them last? I think they know that other people wouldn't want to buy homes. They're not desirable to areas that aren't, that are in the middle of just residential area. People go there because they want to be calm and quiet. They don't mind driving 2.2 miles to the Kroger up the street. That's all I have to say. It's a higher calling than something being legal or not. I talked with others earlier in my process, and by the way, I don't get paid for any of the time that I was spending. And it was a lot of time for me. I was told that if that's a cow pasture, it would still be within the limits of the minimum to the maximum amount of density. If we left that totally blank, it wouldn't be a violation of the law. Thank you so much. I can just rebuke two points. We were told in our HOA meeting that the community in the middle there that's going to be allowable for people to bike and walk through is private property. They're not going to be able to use their pool amenities, their theater, or anything like that. That's going to be a private, separate, isolated community that we can't have access to. We were told directly that. The other exception I have is that we as citizens ask directly representatives of the realty department area, Ball Homes Realty, not Ball Homes, but Milestone Realty, which is owned by Ball Homes, what is going to be there, whether or not it's one person or whether or not it's all these people back here who were told different things. We were not told that this was the plan at all. Specifically asked what is going to be in this, and nobody ever told us this is what it's going to be. Nobody ever held a map to us and said this is what it's going to be. Many people were given the Jensen plan and said this is the plan. Thank you. Well, I didn't think I'd come back to humiliate myself some more, but here I am. I don't know if I'm allowed to just rebuttal some of the things that she said or if I'm allowed to ask a question. Is that? Let the commission know that I also, too, have spent time in researching, going online, trying to look at different ideas, trying to look at new ideas, trying to look at other communities within the United States that could be examples of what we have here. I, too, am opposed to the apartments, but my opposition is also the number of apartments. I don't believe that that apartment building that sits right behind that school property, why it could not be removed and give us some green space. I think there could be a lot of educational programs developed there that would be more positive. I think that it could be used by the total community that would be more positive. If you can give, sorry, if you can give six acres or ten acres to a community that has a lot of green space, to not community center, but commercial center, then why could you not give some of that area for green space, flat green space that's usable and possibly used for educational purposes? Thank you. Just a brief rebuttal. I want to reiterate, we are not opposed to apartments, although that's what was just said. We are not opposed to apartments. Twelve three-story apartments put together in that space, we are opposed to. If they were split up in different areas, that would be very different. That's a big complex. And their backs are to us because they're facing one another. That's where the parking areas are, that's where the entrances are. We are opposed to that. Also, since they did bring up the community center, commercial center, whatever you want to call it, that area of wetlands or green space or ditch, whatever you want to call it, the community center or the gas station, which incidentally two men sat next to Laurie and I at the very first meeting at the school back in April and indicated to us that they were interested in putting a gas station on that area. So chances are there's going to be a gas station there. Behind it there's going to be this semi-forested wet area that's supposed to be for hiking or biking. But it's going to be dangerous. It's going to be a dangerous area. That particular section has been taken off of what we're talking about today. The wetlands area right there, which there probably won't be residences in front of, that wet green space area that there's not an apartment building on, that is definitely a safety issue. Thank you very much. At this time I'd like to, I don't see anyone else getting up. At this time I'd like to turn it over to the staff for rebuttal. Thank you, Madam Chair. One comment I'd like to make toward the end of Ms. Wiseman's presentation, she said that they basically concluded that the staff was in agreement or that their plan was in agreement with the zoning ordinance provisions based on the staff recommendation. Just wanted to inform the Commission that that is the case. And that is based on our recommendations to you on both the compliance report and the revised recommendation. Thank you. At this time I will close the hearing and we'll turn it over to the Commission for discussion. Are there questions from Commission members? Mr. Owings? Sure. I guess since, Bill, you just finished up, a question for you. You mentioned, and I asked a moment ago and it was brought up in the discussion here, you mentioned a private drive. The neighbors are saying that that area will be excluded to them for the most part, that it will be a private area. Trails, will they have access to that? I'm not sure, Mr. Owens. Generally the trails through our greenways have been open to the public in other areas in the expansion area. I mentioned that the drive would be private because it would not be a public street. It would be an access easement from the current intersection back to Hayes Boulevard. So not necessarily a design. Close to the public versus privately. Someone mentioned tree canopies and so forth, and we've been talking about tree canopies. What's the situation on this property, do you know? I do not recall off the top of my head whether tree canopy is listed here. There are tree protection areas and a tree preservation plan is part of it. Question for Ms. Wiseman. Obviously there's a lot of discussion as far as apartments. Can you give us any ideas as to the size of the apartments, compare it? Are we talking about, I'm sorry to say, but $500 student housing type apartments, or what size are we talking about? They're one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom. There are limits on, this is based on Glassford, how many can live in each type of, when you sign the lease. There's a limitation on the number of people per bedroom and number of cars. For example, I think in Glassford you have a two bedroom, it's four people, two cars. Does that ring a bell? The rents, again, we think would be comparable to Glassford, but maybe more. We think these are actually nicer. They're one bedroom, 997, and they can go up because there's actually upgrades that you can add on and your rent might go up. So that's the range of rents we anticipate. Again, as far as the apartments, something was mentioned as far as they would have their own homeowners association. And it is alleged that they would not be part of the rest of the community. Is that planned? Well, to the extent there are open spaces that are to be maintained, they will be maintained by the apartment association, not by other people from other parts of Charlottesville who are going to have to pay a maintenance fee to maintain these open spaces. That's what that's about. There is an overall homeowners association for all of Charlottesville, and this will be part of that, and then each section of Charlottesville has its own individual homeowners association with different architectural guidelines and so on and different maintenance obligations. Are there going to be greenways, trails, et cetera, open access for everybody? Those will be dedicated, either needed or put in an easement to the benefit of the urban county government. And these actually, I don't think I have anything good to show you, but these connect to other greenways that are already planned or being planned so that there will be linkages throughout the whole guest community. I think this is for Bill. Thank you. I'm not familiar with the exact language of the ordinance. Is there a traffic impact study that's required for this development? There is not, and it's because there is not a zone change accompanying it. I have a question. Mr. Salley, when you first started showing us maps, I thought I saw a map at the very beginning where this area was all allotted single family. When you flip back. I think the zoning map may be the one you're referring to. This plan was more general. I don't think that was it. The only other plan I had was similar to this on the overhead that had rendering and coloring on it. Did it have single family lots in this area? It did, not in this particular area that you're looking at. This has never had lots. The other question I have is I don't understand how this got to be such a pepper pot with normal communication and e-mails and so forth. And I would like to ask the homeowner people, how have you ever met with Mr. Ball before? And could somebody tell me why we are at this place? What happened? What happened to communication? It's Lori Pasquarello again. It's hard for me to say, too. Anyway, I don't understand why the communication is poor, to be honest with you, because I met with Mr. Martin a few times, and then I met with Mr. Cruz a couple of times, and in both cases I heard positive things from both sides about things being doable. In fact, Mr. Cruz said twice, things are doable. We even had a civil engineer in our midst who drew up a plan for a portion of this. And at this point, that little peninsula, I said, what if we got rid of the apartments there, because you all told us, your agents told us, that up front would be the apartments, what about doing something different for recreation, for the kids to have something to play with? And this nice woman in our midst drew up a plan, and we even overlaid it, and he met with me, and I said, well, see, we could put a basketball court, and there's a place we could have a tennis court, and then we could have a pavilion, and we could wet it up with electricity, and we can sit in the green, it's not flood area, and that sounded pretty cool, you know, and I got kind of positives over here, and I got positives over there, and then it comes back, and it's not changed. And I said, well, I had a headache, I was supposed to go over and meet him for a meeting, and I had migraines sometimes, and I didn't go, but I wrote and said, can you just write to me what is doable, because you said things are doable, can you say what you will do? Just write it to me, and he said, well, you need to come in and talk, because it's complicated. And I said, I really don't feel very well, and it was getting close to time for the meetings. Okay, well, the point is, we had meetings where I thought I was hearing that things were going positively, and then we got six postponements throughout. Every time I was ready to go, it was postponed. And so it gets to the end, and we don't have, the plans keep coming out, and they're not appreciably different, so that causes consternation, and that's what happened. You don't have a homeowners association? We don't have a homeowners association until 2013 right now. The only people that are on it, and some asked me to be on it, I said, how do you get to be on it? Because there's no voting, they don't vote, and I've only been there like ten months. I said, how do you get to be on it? And they said, well, you apply, and then the Ball Homes people approve of you or not. Okay. We did meet several times. It was not doable to eliminate five apartment buildings and make that a park. That was, that's one reason. There was a last meeting that was organized by Councilmember Crosby that Mr. Ball attended, and several of the folks that spoke tonight, and as a result of that meeting, Mr. Ball agreed to remove any development off the CC. This was originally shown as townhomes. Ms. Pascarella, who lives over here, did not like the townhomes, and we made those single family detached homes. Thank you very much. Are there any other questions from the, I'm sorry, but we closed the public comment. Ms. Weisman, to address her question, but that's okay. Does commission want to hear? Okay. It will be very brief. I mentioned when I was speaking earlier, I do appreciate your question, Ms. Copeland. We met personally, many members on our street, with Mr. Ball prior to the development ever beginning. As I stated earlier, at that time, we were told that any apartments would be on the back of the guest property. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Brewer? That's not really a question. It's probably more of a complaint. This is one of those situations that I hate being on this commission, because the rules tell us, I think pretty clearly, that this should go forward. And the neighborhood people who we would like to be able to please, too, tell us they don't want it. I do appreciate that. But in this situation, I don't know how you do that when your rules for the development of the area tell you to do this. And it seems like it's in compliance with everything we're supposed to. We've got concerns about security, public safety, traffic, storm water. All of these things seem to be addressed in the approval notes and the recommendations from staff. So the only thing I could think of to further elaborate on that now would be to have the experts from the city tell us what their opinions are on it. But I think that's already covered. My other big concern is that this, according to our staff and according to the developer, this has been the plan all along. And if that's been the case, that it's been the plan all along, I don't understand how everybody could act like or could say that this is new news. So if the realtor was telling you that it was going to be elsewhere, it was not going to be there at all. It sounds like somebody is being disingenuous. And I'm very disturbed by that. But again, I'm not sure how you close the gap there. So not really a question, not really a comment, just a concern. And if we need to address those concerns, perhaps that's the way to approach it. Are there other comments or questions? This is for Ms. Wiseman. There's a project similar to this in Glassford, is that right? Yes. It's a single family house that's being built. Did it affect the property values in there or the sales rate? No. Ray Ball will tell you that's their best community right now in terms of sales of the homes. It's very, very successful. I don't personally know of crime. Maybe Ray could speak to that. But people are buying new homes there. Okay. And then also, maybe you don't know this, but when you develop a whole area, you have a certain amount of units that you want to sell and an amount of yield. Wouldn't it, if there weren't apartments here, wouldn't the rest of the community have to absorb the cost of this land and the prices of their homes? Yes. And the other thing to keep in mind is that we would still be required to pay exactions based on a density of six units an acre. So that would be a double whammy to this landowner, that they'd be paying the government exactions for much more density than they would be actually putting into the system. And will this be in Ball Homes rental management? Yes. Are there other questions or comments? This is going to be more of not a question, but a concern. I agree with him in the fact that, you know, this seems like on paper a slam dunk, except for the fact that we've got neighbors that's very concerned about this. It appears to me that it's been planned all along. And we've got neighbors that have had discussions that, you know, they've reiterated several times, oh, this is doable, you know, as a response and so forth. And going through this packet of information that was provided to us as an e-mail, let me back up, there's several e-mails from a Lori Pascualo to Mr. Howard Cruz back and forth. And, you know, it's valid stuff. She's expressing concerns about, you know, apartment townhomes, you know, not having a pool, not having this, that. And, you know, most of, you know, the response that we've heard from the petitioner that, you know, pool houses aren't available, not feasible or whatever. The one concerning thing to me is the fact that in the e-mail from Mr. Howard Cruz dated September 15, 2010, he apologizes for his delay in getting back just one excerpt here. In my mind, your biggest concern would be having single family homes versus townhomes across the street from you. As I said then, and still contend, this is doable. It's right here. You know, I think, you know, it's concerning. I hear the plight of the neighbors and at this point in time I really don't know what I'm going to do just yet. Are there other comments or questions from members? Mr. Cravens? Yeah, I think they mentioned something about vacancy rates and that sort of thing. Due to the economy, it's made a lot of homeowners renters. And we're seeing in all of our future, I guess from our National Home Builders Association, that we're going to be building more rental property because people can't buy homes. And due to all the new economy and all that sort of thing. So I think there's a real need for this level of apartments. These aren't your basic apartments. These are upscale and they look, you're not supposed to look at the picture to make a land use decision. But you showed it there. But, you know, I think there's a need for them. Most of the people that spoke said they weren't opposed to apartments, but they're here speaking against them. And I think that the fear of this is probably worse than what happens in reality. Mr. Paulson. I'm a little curious as to who you spoke with, because it wasn't me and it wasn't the other one person who's involved with Secure by Design at this present time. But to also kind of go along with the doable, this is still doable from a Secure by Design standpoint. Looking through this the last week or so, we got this at the subcommittee last week. It almost was, you know, asking for a requirement that it's a Secure by Design, and I think that's what there's a little bit of confusion as to what the program is. It is a voluntary program to work with the developers rather than to force them to do something, and there's still every conceivable possibility that this could be a Secure by Design certified property. The other thing I can tell you is that looking at this from what I have, which is this, is not enough at this point to tell you that it's not Secure by Design. I can only really see access and site design where the buildings are. There's a lot more that goes into it than what we can see just on that paper that would involve working with the developers. So to say that it can't be still achieved is one of those things that's, you know, I don't want you to go away from this and think that that's not something that can still occur, and we've worked with models before. So I think that's a, you know, it's not out of the realm of possibility. I'm kind of curious as to who you guys spoke with about Secure by Design. I'm sorry, you'll have to come. We do record this, so I'm sorry. Again, Brian King. There were quite a few residents of the neighborhood that are all in the police department, some in the higher level capacities than the others. I've also spoken with some lieutenants that are part of the police department as well that validated many of our concerns that we put out there. And while there are some elements that do comply with Secure by Design, there are also a few that don't. And that's what we're concerned about, is the design. I can tell you as the person who wrote the only available guide on multifamily housing, first off, it's not yet been approved by the city council. We mentioned that earlier. And I am the one who wrote the design guide in concert with our counterparts in England. And again, this is not enough information to say that it does not fit. So again, that's my concern, is that we're using this as a, you know, I just didn't grit from what I'm seeing here, especially with the citation on the back of this. It's considered by many to be a blueprint for the neighborhoods of the future, and there was a citation for it. I was kind of interested about that. I thought, wow, there's an article about our program. And it wasn't. Again, it's an eight-part program that covers a lot of different things, including maintenance and management, which admittedly is an important part of any apartment complex, as well as any single family neighborhood. You know, I know, as was kind of said multiple times, people aren't against apartments. You know, you can build a single family neighborhood that has just as many problems as a multifamily. And a multifamily can be very safe, and it can be very secure for a long period of time. So again, I didn't want, you know, I don't see it. Just looking at this is not enough to go one way or the other. And that's the thing that I want people to see. There's just not enough information on this paper as it is to say that it would not meet secure by design standards. Okay. I have to stand back and take a look at the entire development and what was intended for the expansion area plan. And with respect to individual parcels of land coming into the development, this is a good program. We've got, you know, the school being, having been located there and having a transitional land use like multifamily adjacent to it is a good program. It's a widely accepted step down in land use intensity. And with respect to the comments that no one, there are no jobs within that neighborhood, well, unless we get that community center development, that tract, six-acre tract developed, there will continue to be no jobs within that area. So the idea behind the expansion area was to allow for a mixture of densities and a mixture of land uses. And we bought into that in 1996. We reaffirmed it in the 2007 comprehensive plan. I'm reaffirming it right now. But like Patrick, I hate to disagree with folks, 400 and some odd people who signed a petition saying that they don't like it. But really and truly from a planning perspective, this is the way it's supposed to be done. And I'm interested about the best way to go about resolving some of the concerns here. And I think it is resolvable, but I'm not sure where we should go procedurally. Thank you. Are there other comments? The public hearing part has been closed, I'm sorry. Yes, I think if you say it meets the legal requirements, it meets the legal requirements. But I think it falls short in the design. Basically we've got two apartment ghettos in the middle of a residential area. It's not integrated like Chetty Chase. I mean, they're really pods. And I have a problem with that. And it may be not resolvable because you left all of the apartments to this one little pocket of land. But I'm not in love with it. Any other commission members have comments that they'd like to make? If not, the chair will entertain a motion. And I assume that we have revised staff recommendations. Some of those conditions have been met. If my math is right, which it might not be, it looks to me that we now have 15 recommendations. Is that correct? Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Before we get to a motion, the one thing I would like to add and I guess challenge the applicant on is the fact that in the length of time that I've been here with the planning commission and involved coming down here for various reasons, I have really yet to see a community center that has been developed that is, you know, at least in my eyes, the way that it would attract people into the area. You know, other than a convenience store. I would really challenge you to, you know, if you do this, I think it will help the area in itself. I really do. I'd really like to see some study and thought and really make it an attractive place that's going to attract people into the place. Are there other comments? I'm just conflicted because there are a lot of the concerns that were brought up by members of the public seem to be design concerns. And I don't know if they could be resolved with a little more time being added and that's where I was going with I'm not sure where to take this procedurally. I hate to give this a thumbs up or a thumbs down when it appears that maybe some tweaking, maybe it's bigger than tweaking and tweaking has been tried and this is where we're at. But it would be nice to try to do a little bit more coordinating. That's all I wanted to say. Mr. Cravens. Is this a preliminary development plan? No, sir, it's a final development plan. I want to be sure that I understand from Ms. Copeland's comment earlier. There has been communication between the development of this and the neighbors. And you've made as many changes as you feel that you possibly can. While I have the microphone I might also say I am so pro-community and I can appreciate those people living in that community voicing those concerns. We just like to encourage that in the future there seems to be some more development there, if at all possible, once your homeowners association gets established, that there be much more effective communication. Because I too feel pretty torn right now between I like what's there and certainly it's within our guidelines, it meets all of that. I mean, no problem at all. But I do hear and understand what the residents are saying. But I just, I question the effective communication between the two entities. Are there other comments? Are we ready for a motion? Yes. I'm going to move approval of DP 2010-15 guest property based on the 15 items on the revised staff, based on that it meets the expansionary plan. I understand the community's or some of the citizens' concerns, but I think those will go away once this happens. I think, like I said, the fear is worse sometimes than the actual what happens. And so therefore I move approval. We have a motion and a second. If not, then would you each vote electronically, please? Motion carries. Thank you all for coming. We appreciate your participation. Thank you. We're going to take about a five minute break. We'll be right back. 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Is there any further discussion? If not, please vote electronically. The OAR decision has been approved and your appeal has been denied. Thank you for coming. Thank you. All right. The next item on our agenda, I believe, has been postponed until the following week. Is that correct? Yes. Mr. Van Pelt had a meeting that began at 3.30 and would run on into the evening, and he asked if you could just delay this on to next week's agenda for his required annual report on the courthouse area decision. Thank you, Mr. Van Pelt. Is there any other staff reports to be made? None other, Madam Chair. Everybody is sitting on ready. Meeting adjourned. Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music