Music guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo I love you. Thank you. Thank you. No, he's not coming. Okay, the Board of Adjustment meeting for January 28, 2011 is now in session. There are no previous minutes to be approved or considered at this time, so we will begin by sounding the agenda. First, I want to ask if there is anybody with a matter that they would like to either withdraw or postpone. Please come forward. Please state your name. Richard Hopgood, representing Vulcan Materials Company. We would ask to postpone the hearing to the February meeting. We under the three members of the board toured our facility last week, I think, which indicates the importance of this matter. It's obviously gotten a lot of publicity. One of the three board members I see, I don't know if Mr. Glover's coming or not, he is. But Mr. Stout, we understand, had a family emergency. He was one of the three members that toured. He's the chairman. We think to give this a full hearing that we ought to have the full board here, particularly one of the three members that toured. And we were here in December. The postponement was passed for by the opposition on the basis that they needed time to prepare to have a full hearing. We did not object to that postponement. And we would ask that it be postponed today. We understand it's a citizen board. There's a risk of that. If it happens next time, we'll have to deal with that and go forward. But today we would ask to postpone it to the February meeting. How many people are present for that matter, the Vulcan matter? Okay. Those of you who are you in favor of or stand if you're in opposition. Okay. Those of you who are in opposition, how many of you oppose a postponement? Okay. Do you have a representative? Actually, I'm Gloria Martin, and I'm one of the residents and would be a speaker today. Don Todd is the attorney for our group. He had said that he would be a little late. He had a motion at 1. I don't think he's going to be in favor of a postponement because the majority of the neighborhood people who are here. Let me say why they asked last time for a postponement. that the notification came between Thanksgiving right at the end of the time, and the hearing was scheduled for like the 10th of December. So it was actually, as you well know, the December hearing is about time frame, gives them about two weeks less. I happen to be one of the people within my properties within the 400-foot notification, and I didn't get one for that particular piece. So there were a couple of people who didn't, and we spread the word and talk to the people. So we are prepared now. We have had an adequate amount of time, as have they. We feel like that I, having been on the Board of Adjustment for 10 years, can tell you that there are a lot of times when you don't have the full board. So that does not bother us if someone, I mean, you definitely have a quorum today, and it doesn't matter if somebody's gone. Usually you do have someone gone, so that doesn't bother us. If you don't object, I'd like to postpone the decision on the postponement until your representative is here. Is that it? Okay. Any other withdrawals, postponements? Yes. My name is Nick Nicholson. I'm here with Stalkine and Ogden here for two matters to ask for the postponement. First is Janice Mueller, CV 2011 and 2. The staff is recommending postponement. We are still discussing with them as well as the surrounding neighbors and neighborhoods, and we would like to be put on the February agenda as well. Could you repeat again which one that was? It is Janice Mueller, CB 2011-2. I believe it's number two on the conditional use appeals as well. Is there anyone here in opposition to the postponement? Janice Mueller. Madam Chair, I move that we postpone CB 2011-2 to our February meeting. Second. All those in favor? Aye. The next one we would ask for a postponement is under administrative review. It's Milestone Realty Consultants. It's A-2011-6. Rena Wiseman is the attorney for this matter, and she's unfortunately had a conflict come up. We have discussed with the staff and kind of gave them a heads up that we would be asking for a postponement, and they indicated that would not be a problem. But, again, that is entirely up to you. Staff? Do you have any objection? We're fine with it. The sign has been there for quite some time, so another month it's not going to be an issue with us. Anyone in the audience object to a postponement? Madam Chair, I move that item A2011-6 milestone realty be postponed until the February meeting. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Any other postponements or withdrawals? Madam Chair, members of the Board, I'm Tom Lambden with Midwest Engineering. On page 1, item 1, V2011-9, Steve Taylor, we would like to ask for one month postponement to the February 25th meeting. Steph, do you have any objection? We're fine with that. Anyone in the audience object to postponement? I move we postpone V. 2011-9, Steve Taylor's appeal for a variance to February. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? It's been postponed. Thank you. All right. Any other withdrawals or postponements? Okay. Next, I'd like to determine whether there are any uncontested items. So we will begin with CV 2010-100 Total Grace Baptist Church. Is the applicant here? I'm not anticipating that they come. If you recall, the last hearing, the concern was expressed by the board about it being postponed so many times, and we just haven't heard anything from them. We wrote them a letter, phone calls, and haven't returned. So we have some alternate findings for disapproval if we have to get to that point. So I guess we can wait until the end of the meeting. If they don't show up, we'll deal with that. Next item on the agenda, C2011-1, Jerry Barnett, Jr. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? The next item is C-2011-3, Diane S. Gibson. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition to that? Okay, then the next item on the agenda is C-2011-4, Angela and Brian Spires. Is the applicant here? And is anyone here in opposition to that? Next item is C2011-5 Embrace Church. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? Usually what we do is ask the applicant to meet with anybody in opposition if they want to discuss it and see if they can resolve any conflicts they might have. So if you want to step outside and talk with them. And let us know if you resolve your issues. The next item on the agenda is A-2011-7, Steve Mitchell. Is the applicant here? Okay, is anyone here in opposition to that? And then the final item on the agenda is A2011-8, Michael D. Childers, Builder. It's the applicant here. And is there anyone here in opposition? Okay. That being said, and half the audience having left, we will go ahead and swear in those of you who remain. Anybody who plans to testify? Thank you. the truth and only the truth. Okay, thank you. Okay, it appears that the first item on the agenda recommended for approval for which there is no opposition is C-2011-1, Jerry Burnett Jr.'s appeal for a conditional use permit to establish a bed and breakfast facility in the agricultural rural AR zone on property located at 4343 Mount Harapai Council District 12. The applicant. Come forward. Can you state your name for the record? Jerry Barnett. And have you read the staff's report recommendation? I have, yes. And have you read the conditions that they have recommended? I have, yes. And do you agree to abide by the conditions? I do agree, yes. Staff, do you have any comments, questions or something? Board, any questions? I just, there's records about the guest log and their, who inspects those or reviews them? That can be part of our inspection, annual inspection on those. And the history shows that there's not been a real problem with that, but we can make an emphasis on that. But it is part of our inspection. Mr. Barnett, I drove out that way. It's a beautiful place. Thank you. But I noticed there's a Remax Realty sign in the front yard. So you are aware that if you are successful here, but if you leave. That listing expired like two months ago. She just has not removed her sign. I do not plan on. So the house is not for sale. It is not, no. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Any other questions? Madam Chair, I move we approve C-2011-1, Jerry Barnett's appeal for conditional use permit to establish a bed and breakfast facility in the AR zone. I'm properly located at 4343 Mount Horvite. based on the staff's recommendation and subject to the conditions. I'll second that. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda to consider is C-2011-3, Diane S. Gibson's appeal for a conditional use permit to provide family daycare for up to 12 children in a single-family residential R-1E zone on property located 868 Girardi Road, Council District 6. Would you like to state your name for the record? Yes, ma'am. Diane S. Gibson. Have you read the staff's report? Yes, ma'am, I have. And have you read their conditions? Yes, ma'am, I have. Are you willing to abide by their conditions? Yes, ma'am, I am. And do you have any questions or things you'd like to raise? No, ma'am, I don't. Okay, we do have a letter in opposition. I have a question. Do we have many of these establishments who have daycare after 6 o'clock on their books? Of late in the last few years, we've had a lot of requests in the last, I'd say, three or four years to run 24 hours a day to accommodate second shift adults. Do you have many complaints? No, ma'am. I'll give the members of the Board opportunity to read the letter. Staff, do you have any comments? I'm thinking it might be reasonable to ask for a review of this after maybe six months or a year. That's not out of the ordinary. Okay. Would you object to a review either after six months or 12 months? No, ma'am, I would not. I guess it's just a matter of do you want it six months as of today's date or as of their certificate of occupancy, or sometimes it takes some of these facilities time to get up to speed. So just thought I'd throw that out there. I would say six months from the time that it begins, you know, the change of operation. It's just very important that they stay in contact with our office so we know when you get your license. The other question to address, if you want it to be more of an informal review where building inspection just reports or whether you want it to be a fully noticed to the neighborhood kind of review. Our history has just been the informal reporting, and then you can make a decision of whether or not you want to proceed with revocation or a full-blown hearing. So by that, then the people would, you know, if there are complaints, they're funneled to you? Yes, ma'am. If I understand this case correctly, it's only six children after 6 p.m., and anyone's allowed to have six children in a daycare in their home 24 hours a day. So they're only asking for six additional children during daylight hours, basically. So they would be allowed to have six children around the clock without our approval? Yes, ma'am. May we say something? We were already at a type 2 facility before. We've been in the general public for two years? Four. Four years. So now we just downsize and move an operation back to our home. We started our home as a type 2 facility before. I'm not too sure if you were there or not. I don't actually know. What's a type 2 facility? That's what we're asking for. That's what we're asking for. Oh, okay. Keep 7 to 12 children. Okay. Sir, can we get your name for the record? James Gibson, I'm sorry. James Gibson. Thank you. I would be in favor of this petition. I'd just like a six-month informal review. Okay. So can we have a draft for that condition? Thank you. We have a draft that we'll put up on the overhead. Eighth condition, the Board shall review this issue six months after issuance of a certificate of occupancy. And we'd be glad to edit that, if necessary. Madam Chair, I move to approve C-2011-3, Diane S. Gibson's appeal for a conditional use permit to provide family child care for up to 12 children in a single-family residential R1E zone on property located at 868 Girardi Road, as recommended by staff and subject to aid conditions, the new one being the six-month review after occupancy. I'll second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Good luck. Okay. Thank you. Okay. The next item on the agenda is C-2011-4, Angela and Brian Spires' Appeal for Conditional Use Permit to establish a commercial outdoor recreational horse riding facility in the agricultural rural AR zone on property located at 2590 Jack's Creek Pike Council District 12. Aye, Brian Spears. Have you read the staff's report? Yes, I have. And have you read the conditions? Yes, I have. And are you willing to abide by the conditions? Yes. Staff, do you have any comments? Yes. Board members? Ms. Madam Chair, I move that we approve C 2011-4, Angela and Brian Spires' appeal for a conditional use permit to establish a commercial outdoor recreational horse riding facility in the agricultural zone on property located at 259 Jack's Creek Pike as recommended by staff with the subject to the conditions as recommended by staff. I'll second that. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Okay. The next item, uncontested item on the agenda is A2011-7, Steve Mitchell's appeal for an administrative administrative review to allow a mobile home to be temporarily placed on a property while a permanent single-family dwelling is constructed in the agricultural rural AR zone, a property located at 295 Childsburg Road, Council District 7? Steve Mitchell. Okay. And have you read the staff's report? Yes, I have. And have you read their conditions? Yes, I have. Are you willing to abide by their conditions? Yes, I am. Do you have any questions, comments, or concerns? No, ma'am. Staff? Board members? I'm okay with that. Madam Chair, I'll move that item A-2011-7, Steve Mitchell Appeals for an Administrative Review to Allow a Mobile Home to be Temporarily Placed on Property While a Permanent Single Family Dwelling is Constructed in the Agricultural Zone on Property Located at 295 Childsburg Road be approved with the conditions as set forth by the staff. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Good luck. Thank you. Okay. And then the final uncontested item is A2011-8, Michael D. Chandler's Builder's Appeal for an Administrative Review to allow a second kitchen in a detached garage slash pool house in an expansion area, residential EAR1 zone on property located at 200 Kelbourne Court, Council District 7. I am Michael D. Childers. Okay. Have you read the staff's report? Yes, I have. And do you have any questions or concerns? No, I don't. Okay. Staff? Board? Is this a – have you consolidated two lots? Yes, two lots have been consolidated. And you did read the conditions and you agreed to buy by them? Yes. Okay. That's all I've got. Madam Chair, I move we approve C-2011-8, Michael Childer, Builders, appeal for an administrative review to allow a second kitchen in an attached garage slash pool house in the expansion area residential zone on property located at 200 Kelburn Court. Subject to the staff's recommendation of approval. Thank you. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, good luck. Thank you. So I guess at this point, if council is available, who is opposing the Vulcan C-2010-110? Is your? Yes, I'm here. Okay. So right now we are considering a motion to postpone. So we just want you to address that right now. Okay. I just ran over from the courter house. I'm out of breath. My name is Don Todd, for the record, and I'm here on behalf of the Old Richmond Road Neighborhood Association and the Boones Creek Historic Neighborhood Association. We would be in opposition to a motion for a continuance, as the record will show in this case. The applicant was fully aware of their intentions to proceed as early as April. They had notified and dealt with Florcliffe and their board of directors in terms of explaining what their intent was and getting their permission and approval. We did not receive notice of the hearing until just shortly before the scheduled date in November or December. We've had one month to prepare. we have spent countless hours in preparation and we have a number of people here who have commitments and jobs in other places and we need to go forward in my long experience in being on the council and dealing with boards because one party is not here I don't know whether or not that's a basis for a continuance if you have a majority or a quorum I should say and then you should be in a position to hear the case on the merits and go forward. Since you weren't here for the swearing-in and everybody else who wasn't here for the swearing-in, could you raise your right hand, stand up, raise your right hand and say... Everybody's going to testify, stand up and raise your right hand. We have. Oh, you have? Okay. There were some people who weren't here, so just raise your right hand and do you agree to tell the truth and the whole truth? I do. Okay, thank you. All right. Staff, do you have any, and council, any comments, suggestions on this postponement hearing? No. Okay. Ms. Boland, do you have any thoughts you would like to share? No. Okay. All right. So anybody on the board want to talk about the importance of postponing? Anyone feel strongly that we need to postpone? Okay. So right now it appears we have a lot of people who have come here that care about this, that are ready to testify. It is unfortunate that Mr. Stout is not here, But Mr. Glover will be here, and he was also on the tour, as was Mr. Griggs. So you want to? I was going to say, if the decision is to go forward, we're ready to go forward. If there's somebody behind us that's on the docket that's got opposition but not lengthy, I don't mind letting them take them out of water and they can leave. We may be here for a while, and that would give Mr. Glover time to be here. So I don't know what you're the pleasure of. Yeah, we'd also like to ideally wait until he gets here since he did it. He's supposed to be here in another 10 minutes. Okay. All right, so on the motion to postpone, do I have a request for the postponement? Can we just deny it or do we mean a postponement? I think you probably need to make a motion to either approve or deny the request for postponement. Madam Chair, I'll make a motion that we deny postponement. Second. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Okay. The motion has been denied, but we don't want to be in this at least until Mr. Glover gets here. So has anybody from CV 2010-100 Total Grace Baptist Church come? Ms. Boland, Madam Chair, I'd like to ask Ms. Boland a question. Total Grace Baptist Church has been given several opportunities to come before this board and has not been here. Karen, what options do we have available to us today? I think, as Mr. Marks said, he has prepared for review by the board findings for disapproval based on what information we have been provided by the applicant, which I think was kind of the consensus that was reached at last month's meeting, is that if they did not appear again, then there would be a decision made on what little information was available. I just wanted to put a little perspective on this. They're not trying to ignore you all. They bought this lot next to the existing church building. with the expectation they'll be able to convert it to a parking lot, and it just didn't work out too well for them because of a limited width. So they're just kind of going back to the drawing board. So if we disapprove this, as long as they submit a substantially different proposal, they're not going to be time barred from bringing another request. Is that correct? They just can't bring the same thing again. Okay. Madam Chair, I move that we disapprove C-2010-100 Total Grace Baptist Church's appeal for a conditional use permit to expand the parking area and variances to reduce the required front yard from 30 feet to 0 feet in a single-family residential zone and 20 feet to 10 feet to 0 feet in a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone on properties located at 1313 and 1317 North Limestone Street, based on the staff's alternate findings for disapproval. I'll second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. And we have one other item besides the Vulcan. We have the C2011-5 Embrace Church. Are they back or are they still outside? They're still outside. Mr. Slea is going to check on them to see how close they might be. Thank you. Okay, so the next item on the agenda is C-2011-5, Embrace Church's Appeal for a Conditional Use Permit to Establish a Church in a High-Density Apartment R4 Zone, on property located at 500 to 508 Maryland Avenue, Council District 2. Have you had a chance to talk with him? Are you still in opposition? Yes. Okay. So I guess we begin by having the applicant, if the applicant wants to come forward. Rosario Picardo, pastor of Embrace Church. Okay. Have you read the staff's report? Yes, ma'am. And you're willing to abide by the conditions? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Would you like to have an opportunity to present your views overall, or would you like to begin with the opposition? We'll begin with the opposition. Okay. So if you want to come forward and discuss your opposition. Hi, I'm Rebecca Young, and I am with the West Jefferson Place, which is the building that is attached but separate from the gym. And it's 535 West 2nd Street. I'm representing 80 tenants who've asked for me to represent them. They agree with why I'm here opposing it. The biggest concern is when reading up on the church's websites is that they assist the homeless with sack lunches after service, which they've said that they would discontinue doing. But our fear is that it will attract more homeless and concentrate more in our area than we presently have. and right now we are just below the borderline of fear on the amount of homeless that do wander through our building and parking lot. We recently had a woman that needed to be removed from the restroom by a policeman because she wouldn't leave. We've had a gentleman that came in and scared the tenants when he'd come in at closing time and the last woman would be leaving and she threatened to call the police. He ran out of the building. I've got tenants in the lower level of the building that leave their doors locked during the day now. So my fear is attracting and concentrating any more homeless to this area would be very detrimental to my building. There's two tenants in particular. If I were to lose either one of them, we would not be able to afford to maintain this historical building. It would be devastating. And I was able to find by a quick reference that there are seven assistance or shelter-type areas for the homeless already. And I understand that his church is not completely homeless people, but my point is that it will attract more because he does have an existing homeless base, not the whole percentage, but a percentage. And I'm just in fear of where the tip-over is going to be when clients and tenants stop wanting to come to the building. Are you aware that Condition 4 states the church shall not provide as routine ministries, overnight shelter, or food services for the homeless or hungry at the subject property, but is encouraged to continue to support such ministries at other established locations that provide those needed services, support activities relating to administration, coordination, work efforts may take place on site? Yes. Oh, I totally understand that. My point is just that the church already does have some homeless. As they said, they're not going to turn away anybody who wants to come to the church that's homeless. I mean, that makes sense. But, you know, as I mentioned, my fear is just attracting any more. And they do have an existing base that may come over to this area. And we have a Salvation Army nearby where people go to get food, pass through. There is a bar almost directly at an angle across from where this proposed church is. We had a gentleman who recently fell in a beer bottle and died, a homeless gentleman. And I just think, you know, if they do come to church, want to hang out, want to get their food, want to hang out, want to go to the bar, don't get any further, you know, I'm just really, really concerned about this. My second concern, and I do have, you know, some articles that did support about that they do have, you know, homeless members in their church. So I am basing this all on fact, not just hearsay. My other concern is the reciprocal parking They have said that they would be willing to assist Financially with some of the costs Of the wear and tear Because as of now there is an unfair balance And that would be something that I would want in writing Confirming that they would assist with Some fair percentage of that We pay for the parking lot lighting for the gym right now. So we already, I think, are a little imbalanced because we very rarely do overflow into that parking lot, maybe two to four cars during accounting season sometimes. And Sundays, I'm borderline on to whether that is a problem or not because my accountants do work during accounting season on Sundays, and sometimes that's 20 to 30 cars. and sometimes the neighborhood has a few cars that park there that shouldn't. Sometimes Rep Arena has overflow that parks there. So I just want to make sure that I'm concerned that these numbers are accurate for how many cars they expect. The estimate was that there would be 300 seating arrangement, but that number doesn't include the classrooms, the youth center, the child watch area. that those numbers could be even higher. Of course, they want their church to grow. So I have concerns, and I just don't know that this would work. And I do know that there are a few people in the neighborhood that have some other concerns that I have not covered also. Would you, Pastor, would you like to respond to those? Right now we're currently meeting in the Kentucky Theater. So over the past two years we've sought to have a more permanent facility because we don't have an adequate place for children. Our children aren't really safe. We just have pipe and drape up, and so that's how we've been doing our children's ministry. We have to set up and tear down every single week, which is exhausting for our volunteers, and they burn out really easily. We don't have any centralized office for administration, so it's the equivalent of living out of suitcases, basically. And so we recognize having a more permanent place like that fitness center would help our church grow, and we want to stay downtown. And, yes, as being in the Kentucky Theater, we attract a lot of different people from downtown. Part of them is homeless. Part of them is the downtown business person. and part of it is the college student or the grad student. We have a very diverse population that comes to the church, but in no way that we'll hand out food or anything like that in this new facility. We don't want to reinvent the wheel by any means. We want to support other nonprofits in town that are already doing that work. There's no need for us to do it. We don't have unlimited resources to do that type of thing. And so we want to help support those other things, and we feel that if we are in a more permanent place like the fitness center, we can have a VBS for kids in the neighborhood or have informational sessions or financial classes or different things like that. And do you have any comments about the parking agreement that she was discussing? With the parking, I think that we could arrange something and we could possibly police it with our folks as well and have a parking attendant or something like that on Sunday mornings. Any questions, comments? I'm a little confused. are you talking about leasing that entire building, or is that building divided into halves? It's 24,000 square feet, so there's two floors. I'm not understanding where your business is. Is it in the same building? It's all the stacks of that building. They're attached by the floor that actually goes to the building. of the coverage of the student loan billing. So we are on the back. We have a lot of questions. We have a lot of questions. We have a lot of questions. And then we have a three-year-old group. We have a two-shade city, South Maryland. We have a lot of questions. Well, who owns the building and who owns the parking lot? Why are these issues of fairness? Please come. Thank you. We're recording. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. My family owns the West Jefferson Place. It's under partnership. And the parking was done as reciprocal parking with the thought in mind that this was a gym. You know, obviously not a church. So that's where I get concerned because right now it works okay, but this would change the agreement that already exists. I'm not understanding. Are you in the brick building? Okay, that's on Jefferson Street. Yes. And then the buildings are back to back. Yes. You have 2nd Street, and the street running this way is Jefferson, and then Maryland is right here. They're on Maryland. We're on 2nd, and the back of the buildings are attached to each other, and there is actually a doorway there, which they did say also another thing is we do have an easement for the door between the two for just access, and I would need that changed. My problem is, too, is I don't know if this is a fire marshal needing to be opened all the time door. Because right now the gym actually does business inside our building. So the door coming in and out is fine. They have an office in our building. My concern is this door would need to be locked for security if a new business came in. And I think as long as the fire marshal allows that to be locked, it shouldn't be an issue. but it needs to be also rewritten because right now it's just allowed easement of access for both buildings. There you go. I think that's us. This is an aerial photo that shows Maryland Avenue here, just a portion of Jefferson Street right here. Sorry, I'll show it on the other one that the audience can see. Maryland Avenue here, just a short section of Jefferson Street. West Jefferson Place is this building here and their parking lot in here. The subject property that includes the old YMCA building and Jefferson Fitness is here. They also are interested in getting this parking lot here and a smaller parking lot back in here. There is some sort of connection right at a lower level right in there, is that correct? Yes, there's one doorway in between there. And you can see that their parking lot is significantly smaller than our parking lot. So obviously there will be overflow into our parking lot. So you're saying that you currently lease your parking lot to the owners of that property? No, no, they own their parking lot. The little parking lot next to the building there, if you don't mind pointing at that right there, that's their parking lot. and then the ragged bushes in the middle there, that's the line between the two parking lots. And we have the whole side there and then in front of our building, way down there. We have a lot of parking for downtown. We get a lot of rep arena, just everybody. And so my concern is that I've got to preserve that for my tenants. We are at max capacity during the week. We have reciprocal parking for occasionally overflowing into their existing parking, into that back parking lot that they wanted. and we even have a couple parking spaces across the street if it needed to be. And, you know, parking can still be a problem even with that huge parking lot. And then when people do overflow onto the street, I mean, honestly, I don't think the city should allow parking on this street. If you look at, I don't know if you can point at our exit on Jefferson Street there. Here? Right there, yeah. When Rupp Arena is having an event and people park on both sides of that exit, I have an SUV, and even if a car is parked there, I can barely look around to figure out when cars are coming or not. And it's one of those situations where you have to pull out into traffic and just hope no one's coming, and it's pretty scary. So that's something that I wish would be changed because it scares me every time that comes up and gets full there. So parking is... A question for Steph. Based on their proposal, do they have adequate parking on their property to satisfy the request? With their proposal, which was for 66 parking spaces, which was 50 in the main lot, 16 over here, they were six over the minimum requirement. Now, we recommended that this get redone because it's just not usable. They have angled parking on each side here and a center aisle that leads to nowhere, so people that park angled in here have to back out and then leave, which is a problem. So we recommended that that get re-striped to just have right-angle parking on one side or the other, not both. So with that reduction, they might be a space or two short on their minimum required, but we referenced, of course, in our staff report the parking agreement they have with West Jefferson Place for a large number of parking spaces in here. So the issue really is to what extent this parking lot is used on Sundays by West Jefferson Place and whether that would be a problem. So I understand. West Jefferson Place is connected to this building, to the building in question. Yes, on the back side by a doorway. But they want to occupy the entire building. Is that correct? No, that's not correct. They just want to use this as the church building. These are separate lots. It just happened when it was development they had a connection. So West Jefferson Place is going to stay as West Jefferson Place with their mostly office professional service type tenants, I think. So also to clarify, do we have somebody from the fire department who would know whether that door has to be open or whether it could be locked permanently? No. this. Oh yes we do. Hi, I'm Captain Boyle with Lexington Fire Department. I'm not the fire marshal. I can't really advise about the doorway. It sounds like they have some kind of common agreement with the doorway. But I can check into it for you. Our guys in the existing construction, they deal with that sort of thing. I deal with outside the construction. Thanks. Okay. Do you want to? Madam Chair, members of the Board, my name is Farzin Seder. I'm an architect, assistant in Brace Church. The doorway can be closed permanently. There is a stairwell near the end of that corridor. They do have an agreement that they can leave that open, but it could be shut if necessary. Okay, so you're not aware of any fire regulation? They have to do modifications to the building, but it is due. Parking, as far as the parking is concerned, they are only requesting level of occupancy according to the parking that they have available to them on site. and the majority of their need is only on Sundays. Other days they won't have that load at all. And then on Sundays the business is closed. The building does have some business on Sundays. Due to accounting season, the accountants work practically 24-7 during accounting season. So they've told me 20 to 30 parking spaces can be a necessity for them, which obviously wouldn't be the whole parking lot. I have to see into the future, though, with my concerns of when Rep Arena has their events and flow into my parking lot, you know, I can't control the whole neighborhood when they come to parking there and police them unless I pay for, you know, security additional. et cetera, et cetera. So it does get used on Sunday. Okay. So my understanding then is, based on what staff has said, if things are re-striped, there may be one or two parking spots short. Is that correct? Short, based on on-site provision of parking spaces. But the sharing agreement, if they can find spaces off-site within 300 feet, which West Jefferson Place does fall within that 300 feet, Those would count also. West Jefferson, you mean on-street parking or this other property? No, off-street parking in West Jefferson Place's parking lot. Okay. My understanding was based on the 300 seating. They based it on 300 seating, which didn't include the child care, the classrooms, and the youth area that they were going to have. So this is a minimum estimate, and they needed 60 off-street parking. And I thought it was more than two spaces. It said that they had 66 that they were going to need to deduct. I thought it was six spaces. Am I incorrect on that? I think we said they might lose up to eight spaces when they re-striped the smaller parking lot. Okay. So if we deduct eight from that, I think there would still be more. It will result in a loss of six or seven spaces. So it says here that we have a minimum requirement of 60 off-street parking. the main has 50, then the proposed would have 16, but you might lose six of those or seven of those. So that means that there would be 59. So that means they need one more off-street parking space somewhere in order to be approved with the proposed numbers. I think part of the point here is just to meet the minimum requirements. Yeah, to meet the minimum requirements. the board determines the minimum is not adequate, you know, have within the zoning ordinance authority to up that. Ms. Bowman, did you have a... Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to speak in opposition? My name is Jim McKeegan, and I live at 170 Old Georgetown Street, which is about two blocks from this property. I also am a real estate agent who specializes in selling residential and commercial property in the downtown area. I am currently working once a month with an outreach program for God's Pantry at the Broadway Christian Church. I'm a member of the Central Christian Church, and I'm also on the board of directors of a halfway house on Third Street. My issues are not particularly with this congregation or this church. I've lived downtown since 1976, and I know the well-meaning intentions of the Board of Adjustments allow variance to our zoning that are most of the times good things. I've also seen examples of properties that have received the Board of Adjustment variance for their business, and I've seen where those conditions are not necessarily monitored. The conditions are not satisfied, sometimes not by the original applicant, but the second occupant or the third occupant. One example I can tell you is a bar that's on old Georgetown Street, a block from my house, that is allowed in an R4 zone with no parking. The first occupant was not a problem. The second occupant is quite successful. They have a lot of parking on the wrong side of the street. The street is clearly marked no parking this side of the street. The police does not patrol that area. They will come if we call. But every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, if a resident does not call, no one comes and targets that parking. My concern is the website of this particular church. This church is very heavily promoting outreach programs, which I think are good. I do outreach myself in the neighborhood. My concern is that there's no one on the weekends to monitor whether these outreach programs are actually occurring. I'm concerned about a congregation that will spend the kind of money they are going to spend to buy this building when the condition of no outreach is put on that building. How can they justify spending the money and keeping their church going when they're guaranteeing that they're not going to do any outreach? And also my concern is if this congregation does not make a go of this property and the property is sold to another church and another church after that, who's going to maintain and monitor the fact that this outreach is not going on? In 40508, within a mile of this vicinity, we have a higher concentration of halfway houses, outreach programs, homeless shelters than any other part of the city. I am a church-going person, but still I'm concerned, and I would hopefully respectfully ask you to deny this. Thank you. Did you also have? I'm Bill Johnston. My wife and I live at 645 West Short. I'm president of the Historic Western Suburb Neighborhood Association and also a property owner on Jefferson Street. We are against this request. we're very concerned about any activity that increases the homeless and needy pedestrian activity on Jefferson Street. That's a problem right now for many of our residents, and we certainly don't want to add more to it. And I know that a good portion of their congregation, by design, is composed of the homeless and the needy, and there is no way that they can't provide services to them inside the building as members of their congregation. And, in fact, the law regarding what governments can do relative to churches and administrating dictating what churches can and can't do is somewhat vague. I have a Supreme Court, an analysis of a Supreme Court decision on that, which quite honestly, I'm not a lawyer and I had to read it quickly, so I'm not familiar with it that much. But I do know that just reading through it, obviously there is a lot of room for subjective differences. So my question is, how are they going to go about working with those people who need assistance and help that are part of their congregation? Will those people be coming there for counseling in order to determine what they need? Or will they be helping the people surrounding the proposed church, or will they be helping people from other areas? Our guess is it will be helping people primarily from other areas, since there are already so many churches in the neighborhood as it is, going up and down Jefferson Street. There's two between 4th Street and 6th Street, 5th Street really, and there's another one on Bel Air about close to 7th Street, and there's Broadway Christian. So we have a lot of churches already near it. There's the one over on 3rd Street by Blackburn. We already have a lot of churches in the area. We have a concern. This is also a significant piece of real estate to the tune of a current assessment. The assessment value is $810,000 if you include the parking lot and the building. And that would be taken off the property tax rolls if that property becomes a church, which affects the revenue coming into the state and the city. Plus, if there's a profitable business in there, any net profit tax that comes from the profits of that business would not ever occur as well. So that's something I think needs to be kept in mind. One of the problems that Mr. McKeegan mentioned is enforcing the restrictions that have been put on the church by the staff and possibly by the Board of Adjustment. Those are essentially unenforceable because the people that enforce that, I believe, is the building inspection department, and they do not enforce things on nights and weekends when many of these problems would occur. and their record on enforcing non-building type of issues is not one that really fits their general mission. And in the past, I know several instances where we've had in the neighborhood have had problems with trying to get them to really step up to things that are a little bit less concrete than concrete. The restrictions say that the church shall now provide, as routine ministries, overnight shelter or food services for the homeless are hungry at the subject property but is encouraged to continue to support such ministries at other established locations that provide those needed services. And that seems vague to me, and I think that six nights a year is what is called for, is something, again, that can't be enforced. No one's going to be sitting out there counting. and if the weather's bad, that could very well expand since that restriction to me seems quite vague. The fitness center being zoned for R4 is allowed as a R4 building. R4 allows, as well as R3, allows for conditional use as a church. but the surrounding buildings going up and down Maryland are all zone R1E. And so if you read the objective of the R3 and R4 zonings, it is for high-density residential and multi-families and multi-story buildings. And so if this R4 zoning really is an anomaly for the rest of the neighborhood, and it doesn't make a lot of sense for the conditional use to be applied here since the rest of the neighborhood is really single-family residential, and that is not a stated conditional use for the R1E zone. if you look at a lot of the churches in the area they're surrounded by empty lots for parking and that's where houses used to be and we need those houses to keep a neighborhood as vibrant as it possibly can and obviously Maryland has some issues that hopefully will be addressed and it can be because it's surrounded by very stable neighborhoods on the south and on the north and on the west side The east side is a Newtown Pike. But when the houses start coming down to make room for more parking as the church expands, and I just looked at that one parking lot that's in the rear that they don't have any way out of it, and the obvious way to get out of it would be to purchase the house that's right there when it comes up for sale, as they always do, tear it down, and you'd have a drive-through from Maryland entry and Maryland exit. And I see that happen all the time, and that's not good for neighborhoods. and my focus is on neighborhoods. And as has been mentioned, we have an awful lot of outreach places in our neighborhood, and Maryland is a very fragile street that can go one way or the other, and I think it's important to make sure that we don't do anything that can make it go in the wrong direction. So I hope that you don't endorse their request. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Joe Childers. I'm an attorney in town. My wife and I live at 99 Hampton Court, about two blocks from the subject property. I'm fully in support of the Embrace Church's mission. I think they're doing good work with what they've done. It's a relatively new church. but I just don't think that this is the proper location for their church. Jefferson Street has seen a revitalization in the last two to three years. The street has new businesses that are fragile. There are at least three new businesses, the Grey Goose, Nick Ryan's, and the wine market, all of which are fairly new within the last two years, two to three years. Those businesses are helping revitalize that street. It's really coming back. It's a model now. It's much better than it ever has been in the 14 years that I've lived there. And I think that this would take the street in the wrong direction. I think that the concentration of homeless people in that area at the Jefferson Center, as has been described, would be a problem. We have our share, as Ms. Yon has pointed out, of homeless people in the neighborhood already. probably more than our fair share. And this would simply increase that. My wife and I would like to see the Embrace Church succeed in another location, but not in this location, and I would urge you to deny the request. Thank you. My name is Tim Mellon, and I live at 450 West 2nd Street, and I also own a group of buildings directly across from the Jefferson Center. And I think one of my biggest points about this neighborhood, we've lived here for 20-some years, and the Jefferson Center currently is an asset. We brag about it to our friends. And very simply, to lose that part of our neighborhood is going to hurt us all. And I think you already talked about how a church is a little bit hard to reign in. And once we set that precedent of having a church in that building, it's going to be hard to change that precedent. I think some people have said that what are we going to do with this space? The woman who owns it is financial trouble. But I think it's just a matter of marketing it in a tough market. It's a perfect facility for rehab, which is what it's doing now. Excuse me. So, again, we'd be losing an asset in a fragile neighborhood. Everybody's spoken about how Jefferson seems to be moving in a positive direction. There is already parking issues there that all of the neighbors are well aware of. The church will compound that problem with a very different parking needs than the Jefferson Center currently has. The Jefferson Center has intermittent people coming, whereas this will be a focused group for particular meetings, larger groups for particular meetings. The homeless situation there is a tough one, too. We really do have a lot of outreach programs, but Second Street in particular is this conduit from the Hope Center. We have sort of a constant stream going to Broadway Christian, who does, I believe, daily lunches. And we also have another church down on Short Street that has a lunch program. And that, again, just increases the volume of traffic that we have in a difficult neighborhood. So let's see. Jefferson Center is currently an asset. that you've given us a nice opportunity to speak about how it might impact our neighborhood, which we all appreciate that we're able to voice our concerns here. The parking issues seem to become sort of trivial. It's obvious that they have a parking issue. They will have parking problems, just as we have on Sundays with Broadway Christian, where they park up both sides of the street, of 2nd Street. I'm not sure if you've gone down 2nd Street during services on Sunday. They use up both sides where it's not permitted other times of the week. It seems like there was something else I wanted to point out. Again, it seems like this is a marketable building that would add to the neighborhood. Not terribly against churches, but they're hard to handle. I think we'd rather have more medical professionals in the neighborhood, you know, living and working with the neighborhood and with the businesses that are struggling at this point. I hope I've made my point. Thank you. So I object. I'd like to give the church a chance to respond. Good afternoon, board members. My name is Scott Reinhardt. I'm currently the assistant treasurer for the church. In listening to all the concerns, I'd like to offer a response, and I'll try to touch on some of the notes I've been taking. I feel that we've been given the impression we've been given that our entire population of our church is homeless or somehow destitute, and that's simply not true. So I track our numbers very closely, and the homeless population is approximately 10 to 15 percent of those who come. So we had 150 people last Sunday, so we're talking 10 to 15 homeless people that would be in attendance. And while I understand the concerns, I also know where these people come from and where they reside, and a lot of them are also crossover people who are already in that neighborhood anyway. So I don't feel that we're going to be influxing a whole new population of homeless people into this neighborhood and that most of them are already downtown in this area anyway. Outreach will take place during the week. I heard the concern that it won't, but it will. We currently offer Alpha, which is an evening. It's actually just started Wednesday nights. We offer a meal to – there's no homeless people in it, but which isn't the goal. The goal is to spiritually enrich people who have questions. It is open to anyone, whether they're Christian, not Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, whatever they are, and they can come and just listen. It's a 10-week study. It's a 10-week course. That's just a safe place to open questions. So that's one of our outreaches. We also offer the Crown Financial Study, which is a simple budgetary through a Christian perspective on how to handle one's finances, which is open to anyone, including anyone who lives in the neighborhood. So I see this as an asset to the neighborhood. I know through some demographical research that 48% of the mothers in this neighborhood are single mothers. I feel that a church would be an asset to those people who might have needs. I hear that the neighborhood is fragile, and I also would rebuttal that this is a good thing. If there are fragile people, they might be in need of a place to come worship, to hear good news, to hear positive information. I'm very excited about the distillery district, as it's known as, developing and increasing. And I feel that we can help that. There's local business. We're already going to these businesses, having coffee at Cuppa or having dinner at Gregor's. That's the pastor's favorite restaurant in town is Gregor's. So with more people coming on a Sunday, I would assume more people would stop for lunch, which will in turn help these businesses. As far as I feel that we can replace the building if it is going under as we understand it, I think that we're a positive answer to a building that would otherwise be vacant. As far as the concern about serving lunches, which we all know that the condition for us to use the building is to not serve lunches to the homeless on Sunday. We propose that we would do that in a different venue, as we've discussed, partnering with other locations. To still provide maybe a lunch, but not to do it from the doors of the church, but to rather do it downtown, perhaps at Phoenix Park, go to where the people is, in other words. But yes, our population does tend to, we do have 10 to 15 percent homeless people. They feel welcome to come worship with us. They feel welcome to come into the doors where they maybe not feel welcome in other institutions. That's not a slam one of the institutions, but they maybe don't feel as welcome. But as far as us being a homeless population, that's not – or overly homeless, that's not true. I'm a graduate student at UK. My girlfriend's a social worker. There are business professionals. There are PhD students. There are single mothers. There are nurses. There are doctors. It's a very diverse group of people, engineers. So it's not just a church of homeless people, but, yes, homeless people do attend sometimes. So that's all I have at this moment. Thank you. And I just have a – did you want to respond also? Hello. Thank you for hearing me. My name is Twyla Martins. I live on Maryland Avenue. We've lived there for 25 years. We moved there when I was in graduate school myself, and I've been to the website. It looks wonderful. I think they have a good program going, but we have some issues with it. I used to be a member of the board for the Northside Association. During that time, I worked very hard to get Maryland Avenue rezoned correctly into an R1E because we're all small houses, and so many seem to be broken up into multiple units. And we also worked hard to get a business into the white building there next to it is an adult daycare center, and it's a wonderful facility on the street, and they've been great neighbors, but it took us a long time to find the right neighbors. and I think that's what we need to do here too. We already have a church on the street. It's grandfathered in. It has no parking. They use that parking lot on the weekends. So we had to have the two churches there. We're going to go back to where we were when the past church was there that turned out to be a very successful church. It had something going on on Wednesday night, Thursday night, Saturday, and Sunday. They had revivals with big buses. You couldn't move up and down the street. When they relocated to a new site, they kept the building, which is a beautiful old stone church. It was originally, I believe it was a synagogue. And they took out the pews. They took out the pipe organ. And they put in a party ball, and it turned into being their social outreach center. And we had parties there on the weekends. And so it makes us very nervous when, as they say, we're a fragile neighborhood. We've had – I don't want to go into the violence part. But anyway, I just don't think it's a good fit for Maryland Avenue. A service as the exercise and rehab facility is much more needed in the neighborhood than another church. Thank you. I have a question for the applicant. Do you want to come forward? I don't know how the members of the board are leaning, but I wanted to ask you if there was a motion for approval and it was a condition on it being subject to Justice Church, would you oppose it? That is to say that it wouldn't be a permanent conditional use but just embrace church would get the conditional use. There's an agreement for that. Do you have any other comments? No. Okay. I just forgot to give a position. Okay. I have 24 minutes. As I mentioned, 80 people did ask me to represent them in their concerns for any increase in concentration of the movement. Are you in opposition, a neighbor in opposition, or? Correct. Okay, hold on. Okay, go ahead. My name is Ben Gallagher. Reside at 227 Miller Street. I had a question regarding the staff report's findings. There's two documents that the LFUCG has had prepared in the last decade regarding land use for this area. One is the 2001 Comprehensive Plan, and the other is the 2007 Comprehensive Plan. And I didn't see in the staff report that either of those two documents had been referenced in terms of whether this was appropriate land use for the site. There are relatively rare cases where a finding does need to pull into play the comprehensive plan recommendations. If they specifically relate to the question of whether or not there's an adverse impact anticipated for a proposed use, that's the legal standing for a conditional use is whether or not there'll be an adverse impact to the surrounding neighborhood from the activity that's been requested. So that's what we focus on. In this case, we didn't see a tie-in to what the comprehensive plans recommended in that decision. Well, so did you actually review it against either comprehensive plan or the downtown master plan? We do a staff review, and to be honest, no one had any concerns with the comp plan recommendations. Okay. Well, I found in the findings of both of those plans, of course, 2001 has been superseded by the 2007, but both plans in 2001, this particular property was called for to be used as per our plan for a high-density residential. And that's been superseded in the 2007 plan as to be included with the downtown master plan area. And the tenants of the downtown master plan are, of course, for higher density residential and retail and mixed use. And these are all sort of the uses that we've been finding in the last two years on Jefferson. We've sort of seen a natural evolution where the findings of the master plan that we all paid for to figure out what would be the best use for this neighborhood. It was sort of naturally germinating on its own with retail and residential projects coming around in a pretty strong way in the last couple of years. And so to me, this conditional use would be not in the spirit of what the findings of our master plan were in terms of retail and residential. So I was curious whether we had any. I think a general answer and a more specific general is just to understand that the whole concept of conditional uses is weaved into the zoning ordinance by zone. The specific answer is that, for example, the fitness club that they've already indicated at least some of the testimony here is an asset. But it's not a high-density residential use, and that was actually approved as a condition of use, at least for an expansion several years ago, as referenced in the staff report. So using this logic, I'm afraid that that request for expansion would have been summarily dismissed because it didn't agree with the high-density residential recommendation in the comp plan. So you really need to look at it from a lot of different perspectives. And currently it's recommended not just for high-density residential, but also for retail use. and the fitness club is a business. It's taxed. It contributes to the tax base of the neighborhood, and I think it's the kind of development that comprehensive plans have been calling for. A high-density residential would certainly be appropriate as well, but one or the other I think is the direction that our master plan that we've all sort of endorsed here would be appropriate. And in any case, I just think it deserves a second look because I just didn't see anything on it in the staff's findings. Thank you. Hello. I'm Seth Brewer. I live at 629 Headley Avenue. I'm the president of the Northside Neighborhood Association. I am not here to oppose so much as to point out that a lot of folks have come up here with a litany of very good points Mr. Gallagher's points about the master plans are astute Mr. Johnson's concerns are reflected by a lot of the people that you saw going in and out of the foyer out there when we were discussing before you heard this case Ms. Moore, it sounded like you might be leaning towards approval on the condition that this variance be granted to embrace church alone. And I would opine that the amount and magnitude of the concerns here at least warrant a postponement. I think that there are some very serious issues here, and at least with the fire concerns that aren't addressed right now, with the parking issue that can't be dealt with right now, and then also with the lack of conversation with the community that clearly needs to happen, I think that that would be the prudent thing to do. Thanks. Anyone else want to testify? My name is Karen Dupre. I'm, like Jim McKeegan, I'm also a downtown realtor specializing in commercial and residential. I'd lived in the 400 block of West 3rd Street up until several years ago. Now I live in Fayette Park, and I'm also a board member of the Northside Neighborhood Association. We sat through similar meetings when Vineyard Church tried to acquire property on West 6th Street. Again, I'm like other neighbors. I'm not opposed to a church per se. But I do know that when I sit there and I talk to prospective clients about buying a house, one of the first things they teach us is it's very difficult to sell your house. It's easy to buy it, but it's sell your house if you have a church right next door to you or a school. And we all need them, but it also makes it difficult. I ask those of you who sit on the board, if you were in our shoes right now, to seriously think if you had a church that wanted to go in your backyard, how would you feel? How would you really feel? Because you are appointed here to work with us in this great city. However, if I sat over there, I'd have to really sit down and think about it, that if I was on this side of the microphone, I'd have to be truthful. I support Embrace Church, but I don't support it in the north side. Thank you. Hello, I'm Keith Clark, and I'm a resident of the area where this applicant is wishing to locate. I've been there 30 years. and over the course of 30 years I've acquired several pieces of residential and commercial property in that area and for the record I'm also the owner of Grey Goose Restaurant and Bar which has kind of started a little bit of a snowball rolling in that area for the collective commercial use, reawakening if you will, of that area. I'm also the landowner but not the operator of the wine market on the corner which has been greatly received by my neighborhood. When I started to think about this appeal or this application for a rezone or a change of use there, I had to really consider being torn between being civic-minded and being protective of my neighborhood and trying very hard to balance my feelings with the needs for my neighborhood. I'm not a new guy down there. I've watched it ascend and descend in the course of 30 years. And I'm staying, regardless of your decision. I'm not one of those that say, well, I'm going to move away. That's not the case. But the fact of the matter is that what you may not realize is that we're already saturated with agencies that support the public. We have a very large number of churches within a very short, small footprint of Jefferson and Second and Third and Broadway. And we have social service agencies that are operating within those confines that create traffic in our areas that's inordinate to a residential confine. It is not uncommon for people to be approached on the street for handouts, donations. We have foot traffic through our neighborhood, which is generated by social service agencies a half a mile away. And on any given day, you'll see throngs of gentlemen, obviously people that are not residents of Lexington or transients who use Jefferson Street as a corridor to get from limestone in areas north of us to downtown where they congregate. It creates issues for retail trade. It makes it very difficult for my customers to feel safe and secure, especially at night. And I can only think that the incidence of a church, if you approve this for this use, and if they use it for the purposes that they are allowed to do, which could be any number of things other than a traditional church, that it's going to exacerbate the situation in our area. It's going to put a stop to probably more retail and commercial development there because the population that we have presently, it's a great mix. We have million-dollar houses, and we have public assistance within 300 feet of each other. We work well together. We've lived this way for a very long time. But to put another entity in our midst that will exacerbate that population with people that are in need, people that are desperate. And it's tough for me to say that I'm not in my backyard, but my backyard is full already. And I want you to consider that before you allow yet another entity of that size and of that magnitude that would allow that sort of assembly. not just church services, but everything that goes along with it, to further impact my neighborhood. I'm not trying to be negative, but that's not my point. I'm just saying think about the impact to my neighborhood. It's a fragile neighborhood to begin with. It's just starting to come back, and most of my neighbors feel that way too. We're very glad and very happy that it's starting to turn around, and our property values are starting to level out and actually ascend a bit. But we think this is going to be a negative thing for us, and we'd like you to really consider that very much. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I guess I will close with that. We are not a social services agency. We don't intend to offer those services. We will refer people if they have a question or a need, but we are not a social services agency. Thank you. Anyone on the board want to? Any comments? Hello, I'm David Dupamis. I live on Sutherland Drive in Gainesway. I don't mean to pile on, but I lived on Moreno Street for 25 years. And I'm presently building some townhouses on Miller Street. And I just wanted to note again how all this seems to fly in the face of the master plan that we spent good money and time developing. And I'd also point out that I think we as a city, and I'm surprised that the staff in planning and zoning doesn't have as good a grip on this as I'd like to see. But I think we all need to understand that for downtown to become vital and develop the way we all want it to, we have to pay attention to what actually is going to help. And while mixed use has its place, I'm going to say that this is probably not the highest and best use for that piece of real estate. If we were really interested in developing it, it seemed to me that a grocery store would be a lot more solid there. The other problem that I have with this is there's a reason that churches don't have a zoning per se. They're supposed to come before you every time they land somewhere. and the part that troubles me about this is they will start out telling you that they're going to do X and Y and Z but they have a lot of liberty once they get there to diverge from their original stated intentions and I bemoan the loss of don't we lose the property tax from that site when we allow them to become a church and in a time like this I think we're all sensitive about the revenue we give up and as you've seen some other people talk about it's beginning to get very vibrant down there on Jefferson Street and I don't think this is really going to help that that said I'll leave you to decide how you think we should best develop downtown to become a vital place Thank you. Thank you. My name is Dan Atkinson, and I am a member of Embrace Church. I just want to reassure those people who do have businesses in that area that basically one of the things that this church is going to do is draw people to that area who will see those businesses and who will go and patronize those businesses. We do not anticipate being a negative influence on that neighborhood. As a matter of fact, it is our deep desire to become a member of that neighborhood and to work with the neighborhood as time passes to increase their property values, but also to make the spirit of the neighborhood rise. I'd have to say I'm glad that a number of the people who have spoken today say that they support our ministries because it certainly doesn't feel that way from some of the comments that have been made. Anyway, I just want to offer assurances that most of the people who attend Embrace Church are people like me, middle-class people, homeowners themselves, who want to serve the neighborhoods in which we live. I think every church hopes to do that. We're no different. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone like to make a motion? If there are no comments, by the board. Madam Chair, I would like to move that we disapprove C-2011-5, Embrace Church's Appeal for a Conditional Use Permit to establish a church in a high-density apartment, R4 zone, on property located at 508 Maryland Avenue for these two reasons. The applicant has stated a need and desire to build their church membership, but the parking available on the site is barely adequate to meet the minimum requirements. Use of this facility as a church in a neighborhood where parking can already be a problem is a potential risk of a severe adverse impact on this redeveloping neighborhood. Reason number two, the subject property is surrounded by residential single-family and neighborhood businesses and already existing institutional or assembly-type facilities, which are currently thriving and redeveloping. The increased traffic demand of a church of this size would be too intensive at this location. I second the motion. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Motion passes. All right. I would like to take a brief recess before we begin the Vulcan case. guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo guitar solo Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. The End Thank you. I'd like to resume the Board of Adjustment meeting. Okay, first I have a procedural matter I'd like to discuss. For those of you who have looked carefully at the agenda for the board, one of the items that we have considered is a possible bylaw revision. We have not yet established it, so it is not yet enforced. But for those of you who practiced before the Planning Commission, it is much like that. What I would like to do is ensure that at the minimum we follow the order that's set forth. So to the extent we start out with the petitioner, then the petitioner would testify. Then if there's citizens' comments, proponents, objectors, then rebuttal, petitioner, citizens, and then staff comments. So that would be the order. And to the extent that we have an attorney representing each side, if they would go first, and after that the citizens follow. So thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Richard Hopgood again. I represent Vulcan Materials Company, the applicant in this case. I'm going to speak as an overview of our application and our operations and issues that are out there. I want to introduce a few folks that are with me, and I'll ask them to listen to what I say. If I say something that needs correcting, they'll do it. And then they'll be available when I finish my overall presentation for questions and answers. Some of this stuff is pretty technical, and you'll need their expertise to answer probably some of these questions. Just right standing up, Jim DeSink in the blue shirt. Jim is Area Manager for Vulcan Materials. He is a geology graduate and probably 25 years plus in limestone mining experience. He's a registered geologist. In front of Jim, and he may not speak, is Carl Van Hoosier, spelled H-O-O-Z-I-E-R. Carl is the Government and Media Affairs Director for Vulcan's Mid-South Division, which is in Knoxville and has the divisional responsibility for Kentucky. To the right of Jim DeSink, you may remember him from the Georgetown Road matter we had a couple years ago, is Dr. Braden Lusk. Dr. Lusk is a professor of mining engineering at the University of Kentucky, He has a Ph.D. in mining engineering from the University of Missouri Rolla School of Mines. He is a certified blaster in Kentucky. His academic interest and research interest is in blasting. He works on grants for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of the Navy to try to develop blast-resistant products for those governmental agencies and entities. He actually does blasting in a quarry over in Scott County as a part of his academic research. He'll be here to talk about the Balkans blasting operations and standards. In front of Carl Van Hoosier, you may stand up, is Dr. Kott von Unrug. He is a professor of engineering at the University of Kentucky. He is a Ph.D. in mining engineering, and I think it would be safe to say his area of expertise is rock mechanics. Would that be right, Dr. Unrog? He also presented and spoke here on the Georgetown Road condition use application that was heard a couple of years ago. And here in the white shirt is Craig Morgan. Craig is an engineer here in town and may or may not speak. He provided some noise assessment material in connection with Georgetown Road, but used the Richmond Road facility as a background. And he's also looked at some traffic information on old Richmond Road. And sitting right here is David Jackson. David is a geologist with a hydrology background. Is that fair, David? He's a master's in geology, lives in Nashville, and has a lot of it. He's a retrogeologist in Kentucky and has a lot of background in limestone mining as well as other areas of geology. So that is our group. As I said, I will try to give you, and I know the time is late. There are lots of folks that need to talk. I will give you just a brief overview of our application. uh... and we we have uh... I've read all the conditions, and we are in agreement with all the conditions, except we want to add one thing. And I probably need to talk about this as we get a little bit in the case. Add one thing as sort of a definitional, and then clarify or add one matter. And I've got some language for that. And I think at the appropriate time in the presentation, I'll talk about that. But otherwise, we're subject to those two things in agreement with the staff's conditions. Very briefly, Volca Materials is a publicly traded company. Their headquarters are in Birmingham, Alabama, but they have divisions that their operations nationwide are divided into. They are the country's largest producer of what's called construction aggregates, limestone aggregates. They have a divisional office in Knoxville, Tennessee, and they operate a number of quarries in the Tennessee area, I think maybe in one of the other Carolina states, and then they own the Central Rock facility down on Manchester, the Old Richmond Road here, and then the Georgetown Road, and they own a couple others down near E-Town. They have in Fayette County about 25 employees. It varies obviously with the demand for their product and the economy right now. The demand for their product along with all the construction industry is way off from prior highs, as we all know, both housing and commercial development. About half of what they actually sell nationwide goes into public projects, Roads, schools, hospitals, things like that. And the other half goes into residential and commercial development. They, as I said, they operate right now on a regular basis, two facilities in Central Rock and Richmond Road. They're active in the community. Both of those facilities have an adopt-to-school program. They work with both financial contributions and time and training with Cardinal Valley Elementary and then the Athens-Charlesburg Elementary. Their employees are actively involved in that. That is a company-wide project. The history-wise in this application, Vulcan owns 130 acres of property. It's called Old Richmond Road. The actual address is 7340 Elklick Falls Road. If you go out Old Richmond Road, as most of you probably know, you take a right, go under the interstate. There's Elk Lake Falls, and the Richmond Road facility is there. It is an underground facility that Vulcan acquired in 1958. I think it's probably safe to say that no one in this room who lives out there now that's here to speak probably lived there in 1958. They may have. Yep, they're right. Okay, well, then they can speak up. I think most of the people here have moved there since this facility was owned by Vulcan Materials Company. It is an underground facility. It is not a surface operation in the sense of an open pit quarry. It has been underground for most of its duration. The material is actually extracted underground, severed underground. Some primary crushing occurs underground, and then it is conveyed up to the surface, undergoes some secondary crushing, stockpiled, loaded on trucks, and then delivered, picked up, and goes into the market. The interesting thing about the limestone quarry business, and this is pretty consistent everywhere, they serve markets. You don't see mega quarries like you see mega stores and mega malls, because transportation is a key component in the cost of a ton of limestone aggregate. There is a large quarry at Kentucky Lake, if you've driven across the dam at Kentucky Lake, the Vulcan Island is called the Reed Crush Stone Operation. That actually, they sell a lot of material that's barged down the Ohio and to the Mississippi River. But by and large, it probably serves about a 25-mile radius market. And once you get past that distance, then the transportation cost becomes prohibitive, and then some other facility will pick up and start serving that market. And if you've got Central Rock on Manchester Street, Vulcan at Richford Road, And then you start going into facilities outside of Fayette County, Boonesboro in Madison County, Allen Company operates in Clark County, Lexington Quarry on Catnip Hill Road, Quarry in Scott County, one in Franklin. And all those facilities, to some extent, will serve in this market. But again, as they start to move out much beyond 25 miles, their market starts giving way to someone else's market. So that's why you see a number of quarries. The material that Vulcan produces is a basic commodity that's needed in every phase of construction. I'm sure many of the residences and farm facilities out in this area use limestone from this quarry for some phase of their construction. It's important to have these quarries to serve these markets, and it's important that they be able to produce their product on a competitive basis. In the end, if they can't, it goes, one, into the price of stone, and two, if they become uncompetitive, then other people will come in and bring, you'll have truck traffic coming into Fayette County from other places. I've got a little video. I want to kind of explain. I know two of the board members here today were able to tour the facility, and it does help immensely to be able to see it as opposed to try to explain it two-dimensionally. But I've got a little animated video that kind of shows, not kind of, it does show the actual method of mining, which has been referred to, and it's a standard industry technique called room and pillar mining, that they basically, through a blast once a day, they blast out an area, and stone is removed from that, and then there are pillars that are left as they advance the mining. And these pillars are much like a checkerboard in a sense, and they provide the support for the facility. Right now, Vulcan is on what you may hear referred to a lot as Level 2 at the Richmond Road facility. They've actually, on their 130 acres, mined out the commercial limestone formation on the first level. And they're now in what's called the second level. And they do that by simply they create a road down when you can drive in these things. It's not like a coal mine. They're like, and I've got little pictures of some, but they're more like Mammoth Cave than a coal mine. Big, in some places, 65-foot Florida roof height. And these pillars are approximately 45 feet square, solid lines, and they provide the support for the roof that's above, both on above level one and above level two. In addition to that, they also go through a roof bolting process. They actually drill a hole in the ceiling and drive, I think it's a four-foot steel or put a four-foot steel bolt in the roof, and it's glued in with a plate to help provide additional support. The mining regulations don't require specific bolting. We probably don't have to do it. this facility but as a company they make a decision to do it and once you do it then it becomes the standard for that facility so they actually roof bolt in addition to leaving these pillars i'm going to hand the staff a little video it's about a two minute video that actually will show you it's kind of a it's an animated video that i found on youtube actually Jim as I said they might do correct me it's a six-foot bolt so where does this play show here or up here okay Thank you. Thank you. I'll keep talking while it comes up. But what you'll have after they progress is you'll have a pillar with areas around it, 45-foot square areas around it. So it's much like a checkerboard, and you'll see it in this little video, video and I've got another little video that will actually show you size-wise what it looks like underground. I think this is actually a company that sells animated products and they do a bunch of different ones and put them on them. And you can see there the different pillars. This is depicting they actually drill into the limestone. They do that I think more by hand, don't they, Jim? Does it look like that? Okay. They drill in there and then after the holes are drilled into the face, then they put what's called ANFO, it's the explosive material, into the face. There's an electrical charge and a blasting cap, Dr. Luss can talk about, that actually sets off everybody's now retreating out. A little blast. And as you'll see, it It just progresses and if you were actually underground, you would see this in 3D in a very large scale. The initial advance is 25 feet. They're called header shots. They go out in a horizontal direction and then later in areas they come back and actually take the floor out another about 40 feet so you have a 65 foot floor to height. The little hatch marks are just areas that are going to be left and removed. But I think that probably we can watch. It's about two minutes towards the end. After the material, as I said, is severed, it actually comes out in large pieces. and it gets crushed primarily. These underground crushers, I've got another video. I'm going to go ahead and let him cue that up while I'm talking. This is, I think we'll need all of this. It's only like five minutes, but it gives you a pretty good picture. It's actually a video film. It's the central quarry, and the quality is pretty good, better than I can do at Richmond, but it pretty much depicts it. But the material is crushed underground, taken to the surface on conveyors, and goes through some secondary crushings. So you have different sizes of material. You have material that goes in foundations around homes that goes bigger pieces around, sewer pipes for construction, dense gray, a real fine material that goes into a slab for a hospital or a school or a shopping mall. They have material that goes into concrete batch, concrete, asphalt. So they make different grades of material, and it all comes out of the initial severance of larger stone. It goes to the surface, gets processed, it's in stockpiles. We have a dust control system that is essentially water gets sprayed on the roads, on stockpiles, on trucks. It's on conveyors. And the way that you control dust in the industry is by water control. Our mining and blasting is regulated by the non-coal branch of the Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals. And they regulate the blasting, I think, as well. There may be a blasting department within that division. If you can just hold that for a second. Thanks. The air quality, the dust, is regulated by the Kentucky Division of Air. We have a permit, and we have standards in that permit that we have to comply with. Our water, and I'll explain that in a second, is regulated. Our water closed system, they call it, is regulated by the Kentucky Division of Water. And then employee health and safety is regulated by the Mine Safety Health Administration, you typically hear it referred to as MSHA. They also regulate the coal industry, but they regulate non-coal as well. We have permits from all these companies, divisions, or entities to operate and their standards for operation of those permits, and we are consistently in compliance with those permits. The closed-loop water system I was explaining, we actually, and the folks that were there saw it, There are actually berms around the property, just limestone material that create berms that capture, that keep all the water from running off the property, and they direct it back down underground, ultimately working its way down to the lowest level of the mine, and there are vault areas where the floor has been shot out that that water gets directed into, and it settles out the solid material that would pick up in running down, is settled out, and then that water is pumped back to the surface and used underground as well. We spray a lot of water underground because there's dust as a part of the blasting and crushing process. So we are essentially recycling the water that's generated from surface runoff for use in our property. If we have heavy periods of rain, our capacity underground is not enough, and we have a permit from the Division of Water to discharge water into Elklett Creek under the permit and the standards in the permit. It doesn't happen very often. I think in the last two years we've discharged four times. When we discharge, we have to test the water and keep records of the test results, and those are provided to the Division of Water. They test for pH, for suspended solids. That would be material that would be in the water that would be somewhat like, I guess, fines or flour-type material that could come or any other solid in oil and gas. Oil and grease, I'm sorry. We, again, we test that water at the discharge point when we discharge. Like I said, typically is when we have too much rain and our capacity is overloaded. And I think we finished, and just sort of dimension-wise or height-wise, right now in level two, we're about, on average, about 300 feet below the surface. I say on average because the surface will vary in elevation, so our depth of our roof below the surface will vary as well. Level 1 on average is probably in the 150, 60-foot range, Jim, would that be about right? And you've got about 90 feet of solid limestone between level one and level two that's left there. That's actually the floor of level one, and the bottom of that's the roof of level two. It's essentially just like two planes like this, and there's 90 feet in between. If you want to just play this, it'd probably be just as easy to run it through. It's a few minutes long. It's got some stuff about the company, but we can pause it. So they stopped right there. Well, these are some, go ahead. If you can stop at that right there is a picture underground at Central Rock. You can see the size of the underground. Just go ahead and run it. You may want to turn the sound up on that. Yeah, it's got a little bit of information. I think Central Rock has been there, I think in some fashion, since the late 1800s. It's right down the street from the Grand Rapids. I'm a Ronald Springs City Park. Central has a total of 29 employees and produces over 1 million tons of stone per year. The facility was first developed as a surface mine in 1939 by Central Rock. In 1941, a vertical access shaft was sunk and underground mining operations began. Hoisting rock by way of the vertical shaft continued until 1974 when the existing decline from the surface to level one was completed. The mine was initially developed as a one-level operation approximately 260 feet below the surface. A second decline in level were established in the 1980s. Vulcan purchased the facility from Central Rock in 1989. Most recently, a new decline to open a third level was added. Level 3 mining is now underway approximately 650 feet below the surface. Mining in the underground workings is by room and pillar method. The average room height is initially about 25 feet, with subsequent benching yielding a final height of about 65 feet. Rooms are approximately 45 feet wide, and support pillars are approximately 45 feet square. When required, 4 foot long, fully grouted roof bolts are installed to maintain roof support in the mine. In 2000, a major project was initiated in the mine to replace and add meshing and grout to the main declines in travel ways on levels 1 and 2. The enhancement of ground support in the upper levels helps ensure continued safe access to the lower development levels long into the future. Over the last four years, the central plant has undergone many changes. The entire processing plant, from the primary crusher to the finishing stackers, has been rebuilt. Since Central is an underground mine, this is more complex than a normal surface plant rebuild. The project was completed in several phases to keep as much production flowing as possible while upgrading the most important systems first. Replacing the primary mine conveyor systems with the wider and higher processing equipment was completed in phase one. There is now over one mile of 42-inch wide conveyor line carrying rock out of the mine. The second phase of the new build project was to replace the secondary plant. The new plant added more flexibility and a higher production rate, up to 800 tons per hour. It also provides the ability to blend materials, helping improve inventory balancing. Manufactured sand was also added to the processing circuit, helping keep the plant finds in better balance and opening up a new market for the facility. The third phase included the installation of a new portable primary crusher underground. This unit was intended to be movable within the mine, helping keep halls short. However, this portable primary wasn't doing the job and during the winter of 2006-2007, a permanent primary structure was installed and has been working well. The staff and management at Central continue to make great strides in improving overall safety, efficiency and productivity. Over the last year, besides operational improvements, progress has been made on beautification and community relations projects at the facility. A 10-foot berm has been built along the front entrance with pine trees placed along its top. I think that's probably enough. This really is relating to Central Rock, but I think it's a good video for giving you a feel for what the animation showed, the height and the crushing equipment both below and above ground. Operationally, at Richmond Road, we operate typically five days a week during this recession period. We would not have been operating at that level, certainly not every day. The operations are a typical workday, 7, 7, 7.30 in the morning until 5 o'clock. The actual blasting occurs no more than once a day, and it typically occurs about the end of the day. There's two reasons for that. One, there's a so that folks who are in the area know at that time of day that that whatever they heard or may have felt was from the Vulcan quarry operation. and our employees are taken out of ground and the blasters are left to do that work. So that happens at the end of the day. Then the material that they probably produce anywhere from about, I guess, 1,400 to 1,600 tons from a day's blasting, and that's typically enough for the next day's operation. And they move along the face because they'll blast it one area on a wall one day, and then they'll move down to blast in another area the next day while workers are coming in and picking that stone up underground, putting the crusher and processing it out. We don't typically operate on the weekends unless it is, there's some kind of project, that would most typically be a highway project probably for that area. And very just briefly on the blasting, we are regulated by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. All the blasters are certified, have to have a training and a license. The amount of material that is used in blasting is based on the closest distance to a structure to our boundary that we don't own. There is a, yeah, 14 tons, Jim's correct me, is what I call the header shot. That's what you saw right there, the 25-foot floor-to-height shot would be about 1,400. When they come back and take the floor out that creates a 65-foot, that would probably be about 4,000 tons of production from that blast. Next, again, the amount of material that we use is based upon the distance. It's called a scale distance formula, and it's the closest distance from our boundary line to a residence or structure that we don't own, and that is a house right in the corner of our property on Elk Lake Falls. If north is the Anderson property, it's going to be sort of, I guess, either south, probably southeast. There's a small residence right there, and I don't know if it shows up on – probably doesn't show up here, but we may end up with a little bit of a diagram of the overall area. We can talk about that when we get into the actual area we're trying to permit. But state law tells you how much blasting material you can put in a blast to blast based on your distance to that residence. And that's what state law mandates. We have our blasters keep records of that. And that's designed to prevent blasting from causing property damage. We also, although not required to if you use the scale distance formula, we also keep a seismograph of the vibration of the blast. There's a state standard for vibration. It's called peak particle velocity, and it's a measurement. They have a device, and it's a measurement of the vibration that is experienced at that point where that seismograph is. is that seismograph is at that house we did have a blast last friday when the board members were there at the end of the day that was a typical three what they call three header shot a day's production about 1400 tons and we have i have it here today we have a independent company that reads our seismograph that reading did not trigger the seismograph the size we have to trigger that 0.05 peak particle velocity. The state limit is 2.0. So in our seismograph, 0.05 is so minimal that we don't even register that. That shot did not register on the seismograph. And that's not unusual. So if the state standard is 200 pennies, that shot was 5 pennies in terms of the vibration. Can I just ask you a quick question like that? You're on level two right now, right? Yes. So that was at level two. That blast was at level two, yes. And you want to expand and it would be level one. Is that correct? The expansion of the Anderson property in our proposal and by condition will be no more shallow than level two right now. In fact, that's one of the things we wanted to add to the condition was rather than, say, an average depth of 300 feet, because that is average and it depends on where the surface is, we simply want to say that level two on the Anderson property, and we'll go ahead and put this up on the ELMO. It shows the area that we have agreed with the staff that would be the subject of this program, which is about 53 acres. That level two on Anderson would be consistent with the floor and roof elevation of level two on the property that Vulcan owns. And the reason for that is there's actually some dip in the formation. And as you blast, you follow that so you certainly maintain good ceiling structure. And you could be in the middle of the quarry that Vulcan owns and be at the edge of the property. There could be as much as a 10-foot variation between the elevation of the roof in the middle and the elevation on the end. They'll still have the same floor-to-roof height, but it tends to, I guess, sort of angle down like this. So, and that certainly is a definable standard, if you say, consistent with what's in the Vulcan quarry, so that we would be at roughly that level with not much more variation than what we have. The, and, and, so the blasting, again, we actually do the seismograph as well as scale distance formula. We have Dr. Lusk here who can talk as much in detail as you want about that. I guess that pretty much, I think you have to elbow up. This is actually, you see, get your laser. This is actually the Vulcan property right here. Bird Hill Lane is actually a little paved road that when you come in, if you come down Old Richmond Road right here, turn in to a right, go under the interstate, the Vulcan scale house is right here. There's a little gate. Bird Hill Lane is a paved road that is owned by Dennis Anderson, who's here. Actually, I should have recognized him. Sitting right here, and he will probably want to speak here for a few minutes. That's actually a paved road. It's gated off. That is the boundary of our property and Dennis Anderson's property. Here is the area that we've agreed with the staff would be the subject of this conditional use permit, about 53 acres. Our actual application, we requested, went all the way up into here and around. The staff requested that we scale that back. We've agreed to it. There's a 200-foot boundary between the area that we could mine and Elk Lick Creek, which is right here. There's a 200 over there on the right or 100? 200 over there as well, right? It's 200. It's pretty equal distance on both sides. And it comes in at this angle. You know, there are homes up here on Turner Station Road. I think the staff thought it was prudent that we angle it back like this. We don't necessarily think that's required because of the controls that we have. But as in many cases, we've agreed to that to move forward. And actually, this area right here is pretty much a wooded area, Dennis. The 53 acres, it's all wooded. And Dennis actually up on his property has a lake up here. He doesn't live on his property, but he uses it frequently for recreation with his family. He owns four homes on Turner Station Road. One of those homes either burned or was destroyed. He just rebuilt that, and he owns four other homes there as well. I think there are eight on Turner Station Road. So the mining would continue, the plan would be to continue from the Vulcan property on, just continuing on to the permitted area in the same rumen pillar method of mining. There would be no change in the method of mining. This method of mining is not experimental. It's used in coal mining industry and in other minings. That is, you create a room from removing the stone or pillars around it. Our application will not involve any surface use of the Anderson property, except for the potential to locate an air ventilation shaft, which is about maybe five feet to six feet tall and six feet in diameter. There is actually, the air has to be circulated in the mine for employees' breathing and safety. And they do that. I think the members of the board that were able to see that, they actually have curtains that they hang up after they mined out that helps direct the flow. They've got big fans. And that ventilation is highly regulated by MSHA. We can't tell you how many. It probably would be no more than two based on what we know now. Bent shafts may be one, and it could be none. Those ventilation regulations are constantly changing, and it's based upon actual measurements that you get in the mine as a part of engineering with MSHA. We do not, you know, they don't have to use respirators underground. They carry one for safety purposes, but the dust control and ventilation is a key component of the regulation underground. Right now, we don't, there is an opening on level one that actually provides the air circulation, But the farther that you move in this area, the more chances that you might need to add some ventilation through an air shaft. And that would be determined at the time. But footage-wise, it may be whatever a six-foot radius would be. And we fence those off and control them so that they're safe from any person who tried to enter them. We do have on our facility, we have security, we have a gate, we have somebody there at night to make sure that nobody is entering our property. No surface use, no additional scale house, no stockpiles, no crushers. None of the surface operations that are present at the current Vulcan property will be installed on the conditional use permitted area. So this request is not going to change our operational structure as we have it. The stone will simply be severed from cross on the Anderson property, brought back to the surface on the property of Vulcan owns, processed and shipped out just as it's done right now. So that is a key point for our application. Very briefly, Vulcan was here in 1988 and 1989 for a conditional use permit. Vulcan has had this property under lease since 1986 with the former owner, Homer Turner. Mr. Anderson bought that property that Turner owned and subject to the Vulcan lease, and so it is continuing to be under lease since 1986 as part of our mining plan. We're here in 1988 and 89 under a different plan that involved going under Elk Lake Creek, a much bigger area. There were lengthy hearings. There was a lot of history with that. I think, I know there's going to be discussion here today about truck traffic and blasting. If you set those aside, I think I can summarize the three issues for that hearing I was actually involved. as a younger lawyer. There were three issues with that. One, at that time, Vulcan did not have what I would call best management practices for stormwater runoff. Over time, limestone aggregate had washed off of the Vulcan property and gotten into Elk Lake Creek, and that should not have happened. It did. it didn't happen in 88 and 89. It would have happened for a lengthy period of time before that. I don't know how long, but we're not here to tell you in any form or stretch of imagination that there was an excuse for that. It should not have happened. I think as those of us that work with companies in the private sector understand that compliance has changed dramatically in since the late 80s. It's changed dramatically in the last 10 years and it changes every day. And it is Vulcan's intent to operate their facility. I've heard the direction from their management that they can and will operate in compliance with all laws and regulations and should be able to do that and still be profitable. profitable. And I think that is the mantra of a lot of many companies now. And in my dealing with them, I found them particularly with Jim DeSink who has been over this operation for about the last five years. Employee safety and compliance is a major part of their business that they do every day. In addition to that, their Vulcan had mined off the the boundary of its property onto the property owned by Dr. Mary Wharton in the Floracliff Nature Sanctuary. That, as a lot of technology has changed over time, surveying technology in the 60s was a lot different in the 70s than it is now. They have laser surveying, GPS. They, I don't know what the factors were. I'm sure that was one of it, but in the end, it doesn't matter. We mined off our property and we shouldn't have. And those two factors ended up as resulting in a withdrawal of that application. Vulcan sat down with Dr. Wharton and worked out an agreement with her to settle the issues that resulted from those two factors. And we, Alklit Creek, what is now, had been cleaned up from all that aggregate. We asked her how we should do it. We were willing to put the machinery and labor in there to do what was needed. She was very precise on how she wanted it done. and it was largely hand work in certain areas and then essentially nature took care of the rest of it. It was over 20 years ago. As a part of that settlement with Dr. Wharton, she was compensated for the stone that was removed from her property as she should have been. That was a part of the settlement. And the final part of the settlement, She anticipated that someday that mining might occur, and she wanted to make sure that if it did, that it was in certain areas and was prudent and consistent with good mining practices, considering the environmental factors of Elk Lippe Creek and her sanctuary. And she provided for that by saying that if an independent mining engineering firm did a study that established that our plan was consistent with good practices, considering the environment that she or her sanctuary after her death would not oppose this application. There is a study that they actually, the Board of Floracliff recommended Marshall Miller & Associates to prepare that study. They did. They toured our facility, a lengthy tour. They toured Floracliff at least twice with both the preserve manager, Beverly James, and the chairman, Charles Sider, and others as well. I went on one of those tours. I think John Park was on it. Members, I represented the State Nature Preserve was on that tour, both our facility and Dr. Wharton's. And the board heard from Marshall Miller in a presentation of their study, which is filed with our application. And the board agreed that our plan, even the larger area, which is what we talked about, was satisfied the settlement agreement. And so as a result of that, they, Floracliff is not opposing this application. There was, and I'm not, as I said, there were truck issues, which we'll talk about today. There were blasting complaints and issues in the 80s, which we'll talk about. There was also allegations that the mining operation of Vulcan had intercepted groundwater and diverted it from Elk Lake Creek. Vulcan did not agree with that contention. There was a lot of discussion by a lot of folks. We have David Jackson here today that has done some analysis and we'll talk about that. But it is certainly our position that what we're doing now is not can have any impact on groundwater. We are, there is a, you'll hear about it from David, there's a volcanic ash material called bentonite, you may recall it, the Georgetown Road application. There's actually, above the roof on the first level of Vulcan, there's an 18-inch layer of bentonite that seals off the area below it from groundwater flow. It's like, it's a material that's actually in some areas mined to use for liners in lakes and ponds. If your pond is losing water, you can bring in bentonite and lay it down and it helps, it seals off the pond. There is a layer above us that that groundwater hits and then does not go below it. The folks who are in the mining industry and the Marshall Miller folks as well said it is a dry mine. The water that is underground in the Vulcan is, in their current operation, is water, surface water that's directed down. It is not groundwater. That was an issue and we can talk about that today. The staff has again reviewed this. They've imposed some conditions on us which we are in agreement with. The one other thing other than the definition that I've got, I can hand these out, some language that I've proposed, but the – The first condition is what I've mentioned, is just simply trying to put a definition of level two in relation to the roof floor height in the existing Vulcan quarry. I don't think that's probably of any controversy. It makes more sense than trying to pick a number that is an average number. So you could go at various points in the current Vulcan level to measure the floor to height ceiling and by mean C elevation and transfer that to the Anderson property. But the intent is we would not be mining above, just to speak generally, that 300-foot level that we will be at 300 feet average depth on the Anderson property. We will not be on what was the level one of the Vulcan property that they own. The second point we wanted to add is we've agreed that we will not mine on the Anderson property and below level two on the Vulcan property at the same time, other than to create a decline down to level three in the event that we decide after the 53 acres, if you all approve this application, after the 53 acres is mined, we might decide because that could, depending on the market, It could go 12 years, 15 years, 20 years. It depends on what the demand is for that product. But we might, because of economics, whatever decision we can't know and that far out, we might decide we don't want to mine or come back and ask for any more approvals on the Anderson property. We want to go back to our property and mine the Level 3, which is what is being mined at Central Rock. It's the same, I think, formation, the Camp Nelson. But that would involve creating another road, as the board members that toured, you drive down this road to get to the next level, which would be, I guess, roughly 90 feet below the second level. So the roof would be 90 feet below to keep that barrier between the first and second level. So the floor of level two would be the roof of level three. That is, it's feasible from an engineering standpoint. We do it at Central Rock. There are mines that are deeper than that. There are a lot of things that go into that. It could take into that decision. It could take as much as three, four, even five years to actually start that process and finish it. So what we're asking for here is to say that we can start the decline down while mining the Anderson property on level two, But we then can't, once the road down is constructed, we can't mine any more on level three while we're mining the Anderson property. So you don't have two mining operations going on two properties at the same time. That would be a check on increasing any production from this property. We've agreed, if you've seen the last sentence, that the material we actually mine from creating the road is saleable material. You can't sell it for state highway projects because they will only accept material that's tested from a header that's created in your mine. But the material that you remove, you have to take it out. It actually has commercial value, but not for state projects. So we've said that we will agree that the mining of the Anderson property on Level 2 and the decline together won't exceed what's been the historical high from the Vulcan property. So if you're working at two spots at one time where you're creating that road in mining, you still won't produce above what we've produced in the past. So that's simply, for lack of a better term, it's like a contractor. So if we finish mining the Anderson property, then we've got the ability to mine our property without interruption. If we mined all the Anderson, put the 53 acres out, and then started on level three, we could be idle for five years, and the material we would have would be only what we generate from the road down. So that's the only real change that we have in the staff's conditions, requested change. On trucking, very briefly, Vulcan does not own trucks. We don't deliver material to people. Material is picked up by customers, either customers that have their own trucks or customers that arrange for some other trucking company to pick up material. People such as Hanes Trucking can be contracted with to pick up material. We have neighbors that come and pick up trucks and get a load of material. We have people in the commercial business that send their own trucks to pick up material. or you can call our office and ask for a certain amount of material to be delivered, and we will take that order and call the company they work with, it's Hanes Trucking, to pick up that material and deliver it to your site. We're not in the trucking business. We still, though, as a matter of policy, our policy is to make sure that no truck that comes in there is loaded unless it's got tarping capability. If it's an individual in a pickup truck, I think, correct me, Jim, they have to have sideboards and a tailgate and a tarp. And then that vehicle, the policy is not to let that vehicle leave the property unless it's tarped. And we have signs on the property that say that no vehicle can leave the property without it being tarped. If we become aware of somebody that is leaving our property, if we become aware of it, and for some reason they've taken their tarp off, we would report that incident to that trucking company. And I think pretty quickly, if that's reported, it would be taken care of. That driver could probably ultimately lose his job if it happened again. And we are committed to try to do that. There are trucks that go up and down on Richmond Road that we don't own that could be coming from somewhere else. When I was driving that the other day, it was a Herod concrete truck coming by. We don't have a concrete plant. I thought for a minute he might be, but I checked. We don't have any concrete operations at our property. In fact, we don't have an asphalt facility that we own. We lease an area of our property to ATS, which is in the asphalt business. Their facility is there. People that it's gated off. They have their own permit. People that were there on the tour saw that. We do not. They operate their own business. I don't think they have operated at that site for a couple of years now. Probably, again, market-driven. But that is essentially our application. We haven't had any bonds forfeited. We believe that our operations are, that we operate in consistent compliance with our permits. and will any complaints that we receive are addressed. We actually had this week as a part of this application process, a complaint filed with the Department of Mines and Minerals. They didn't give us the specific complaint. I'm pretty sure it was somebody in the neighborhood as a part of this application filed the complaint. We were inspected Tuesday by the Department of Mines and Minerals When we have some questions and answers, I can pull that out. We have a clean inspection report from that incident. There was also a complaint filed with the Division of Water by a neighbor in connection with this application. The Division of Water came out Thursday for two hours along with an inspector from the Lexington Fayette Urban County government, and they did not leave a report. They said one would be filed in a week to 10 days, but the statement to our folks that toured them and took them on their inspection was that everything was in order. Again, we have testing reports of the water. We discharge when we discharge it that we file. Those are in compliance. We test the water when we discharge it. It's the actual discharge that's tested. I think I'll grab, I want to make a note to grab a couple of these things. The seismograph, Dr. Lusk filed a report, an exhibit to the Marshall Miller Report on our blasting practices. He's observed them. He's seen our blasting folks both at Central Rock and Richmond. This report says that they are certified blasts, good blasts, have good practices. And he's looked at our records and found nothing at all out of compliance or irregular about them. We do have a seismograph for the blast that occurred last Friday. And we have the mines and minerals inspection report. And we don't have the Division of Water, but we'll get it and we can certainly furnish it. I think I've taken probably more time than I wanted to. We can open it up to questions. I'm going to kind of grab a couple of these things. Again, some of these folks on our side may have to answer some of these questions. I'm just about exhausted my knowledge of our operations. I got questions. Sure. I know you do. There might be some public comment. I do have a question. Council, is there any count of the truck traffic or any controls on truck traffic, ingress and ingress to your site? Jim, is there any count on truck traffic coming and going? The number of trucks? I can tell you a time period. Yeah, come on up. Because it is very, today, probably three or four. In a busy season of 2007 or 2008 in the summer, when a lot of construction was going on, you would have maybe as much as 75 or 100 one way. So, I mean, it is. That's a daily count? That would be probably daily, yes, sir. That would be an average. And, again, you know, if you have a kind of time period in mind, I'd be glad to get that. I can tell you what the true number would be. Another question I have has to do with production. one of the conditions on your application mentions that the production of product will not exceed historical high production on the existing Vulcan property. What kind of controls exist to ensure that that kind of production is going to not exceed the historical high production from the existing mine? Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess we have – We're inspected. I mean, we keep track of how many tons that we produce. That's a part of your mining permit. Those are actually public record. Through the local planning. And do you provide those? We provide those with a survey that's surveyed annually, and they come out and inspect it, walk it, and verify the survey, which obviously year to year is very easy to see what those numbers are and how much that production is done. So it is verified by the city through a permitting process that we do and their visual inspection on a year to year basis. Are you required to submit some kind of report or annual report, periodic report to the city of your production so that that documentation or that that data is easily obtained? Is that, Ken, is that done? I know it's done through a survey map. Is there a number on that? Ken, do you want to just come up and speak real quick? I don't think you raised the right hand. Ken Hayslip, he's a property manager for Vulcans Mid-South. Every year we have the underground working surveyed, and we provide that survey to Building Inspection Division, the Building Inspection, Jim Hume, that survey, that underground survey, does not have a number assigned to it as far as tonnages. But also every year we provide the state of Kentucky Department of Revenue, I think is the name of the corporate entity, we provide them a mineral tax summary, for lack of a better word. And that mineral tax summary will request the production numbers for the previous three years. So we turned that in to the state agency. I don't know where it resides, though, but it is reported to the state. We actually, that's a good point and something I failed to mention, we actually pay a severance tax to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, 4.5% of revenue. And I think in 2009, that generated about $460,000. Half of that comes back to Fayette County by law. So about $230,000 is rebated back to Fayette County for use, I guess, as an urban county government wishes. That's one of the advantages of having these facilities in Fayette County. If Stone is sold into Fayette County from Jessamine or some other surrounding county, that seven-sex goes back to that county, not here. But there are records, and as a part of the mining ordinance, we provide those. I don't know how available, how easy they are to locate those, but they are provided to both the state and I guess third county government. Yeah, my reason for asking the question is I would like to have some data available on public record over some given period of time so that that kind of information can be easily available for any citizen who wants to find out what the historical high production rates have been so they don't have to go through digging through Department of Revenue documents and interpolate technical data. That's a concern that I have. Yeah, I mean, I think that what you're saying is if we've got a condition that references historical high production, you need that number somewhere in the building inspections, urban county government's records so that it's available, anybody can see it, including building inspection. Yes. So that they test down the road if this permit is granted that our production is actually not exceeding that. Right. So we have some objective standard to measure that conditional use by. If it's okay, what I'd like to propose to do that is give you a volume based on the survey done once a year, shows last year to this year, that's a production number, which is based on the survey itself. So it can be verified at any time. And the reason for that is from a sales standpoint, that is fairly sensitive information. We sure don't want our competitors to know what we're selling in the market on a daily basis. So I would rather keep it to you already receive the survey itself, and it would be easy for someone just to overlay one survey over the other to say, well, last year they were here, this year they're here, so this is the volume. We can do that calculation for you, place it on the map. So year to year you will see last year to this year's volume was removed. So if you understand what I'm trying to say, it gives you the exact number you want, but I'm tying it to the production itself instead of trying to give you a sales number every year, if that's okay. That is going to be, they're going to be the same virtually. You don't, I mean, inventory is just like any other business. You don't want a bunch of inventory because that's costing nothing but taxes. So you try to make your production equal yourself as closely as you can. Okay. That would be a really sensible way to do this as far as showing volumes. maps from years to year show that last year's production versus the following year's mining area, mining volume. So that would just be a very one-line item that they could include on their maps without having to go through some huge report or giving away sales reports or something like that. It's a very simple one. You could probably calculate it if you just sit down and crunch the numbers, but if it's just a one-line item deal, that would be very sensible to put on a map. And it would also make sense to add the word annual after high, so it's historical high annual production. So it could be for the year 08, for the mining year 2008 or whatever year, because we don't receive the year 2009 map or mining area until 2009, kind of in arrears. Okay. I had another question. I've got several, actually, if you'll permit. We've been handed a copy of a Geotechnical Environmental Services seismic data summary, and it looks like it's essentially for the month of January of this year. It runs from 1228.10 to 124.11. And the statement says no events above, looks like half a meter per second for this inspection period. Is this the kind of report that is made periodically? And is this kind of information available? That is actually, I had that generated for you all because that is a reading of the blast that occurred when you and Mr. Glover and Mr. Stout were there. I'm sorry, Mr. Griggs and you and Mr. Stout. I don't know what you all filed. We do. We receive a monthly, that data is collected monthly. analyzed and then sent to us. It is contracted. We do not do that ourselves. It is all contracted. That way a third party is handling it all. What we could do, I'm sure, to work with you all is furnish you at a certain point in time. It's kind of like the mapping. It'd be the following month's data, but it could be a summary of the shots and what that peak particle velocity, which is what you're looking at there, was for those shots. That way you would have that history as well. We are regulated by the state to meet certain standards, and we obviously look at it from that standpoint to make sure, as Richard said, we're from what is $2 on the regulation, we're about five cents there. Is that the kind of data that you report to Mines and Minerals? Actually, they don't get because the reason being is what Richard alluded to, and I really, Braden Lusk is probably the gentleman who can talk about this better than I can, but mines and minerals has, when they define blasting from corin, you can either use scale distance or the seismograph data to give you how much you're shooting, how many tons you can shoot, all that type of stuff. We do both just because it makes sense to do that. It helps us just like for situations like here. We've got both the data as well as the scale distance. So I think we don't really turn that data in because we don't have to use it because we're using scaled distance from a blasting standpoint, but we do have that data and we keep it. But Brayden, do you want to be better for you to answer that? Brayden Luss, University of Kentucky. To answer that question, they are required to keep blast records, and they have to show compliance in one of two ways. The first way being scaled distance, and the second, possibly they could use a seismograph. In the case of Vulcan's operations, they use both compliance methods, so they make sure that they're within standards for scaled distance and seismograph readings. They're required to keep those blast reports that basically outline the layout of the shot, the amount of explosives used, the amount of material. There's a lot of information in these blast reports, and they're required to keep those on site. Who requires them to keep it? MSHA? State. Oh, Mines and Minerals? Yeah, the Division of Explosives and Blasting. MSHA will occasionally review those as well. Okay, but you're required to report it to Mines and Minerals in Frankfurt? Yes. Okay. I don't know that they're required to send those in, but they're required to be available upon inspection. Yeah, that's the correct answer. We have to have it there for a certain period of time by law. We're required by law to maintain those records for a certain period of time, and the inspectors, the money inspectors, can come in and inspect those records in any period of time. So you have to have those. And actually, if you don't have it, that is an issuance of an NOV or a citation. I'm concerned about any member of the public who would like to see those records. Could they get those through some kind of public information request through two mines and minerals for that historical data from your facility? Today, I don't know whether they could for sure or not. I've never tried that, so I don't know whether they can today. But I can say this. We can provide the city with that because I don't know how they keep track of their records over there. I don't know where they have the availability for that. But we can, from this point forward, and I can probably go back into some history and provide you all with that data so you would have it available, that if there was a request from the public that they could come to you all and get it. I mean, we can do that. I'm just going to ask questions. I'll let the conditions be part of the general discussion. But let me ask you something about you mentioned, your council mentioned discharge to Elkhorn Creek. And I understand that you do have an NPDES permit or something like it from a Division of Water in Frankfurt. Do you discharge from a settlement pond? Yes, that's what they call the vault, which is underground on level two, which is an area that's about 20 acres, I mean roughly around 20 acres wide and about 20 foot deep. It's actually 40 feet, but we try to hold the elevation around 25 foot deep, and that's where the water is stored. Yes, sir. And that is the settlement pond? Yes, sir. That is the settlement pond. And I understood you to say, or counsel say, that your average discharge is about four per year. Is that correct? In the last two years of records, we've discharged four times. So the last time we have discharged at Richmond Road was in May after the heavy rains. Everybody remembers Nashville being flooded, all that. We got, I think, four or six inches of rain here. We did discharge after that period of time to be sure we maintained that level. But under normal weather conditions in Lexington, seasonally year to year, we discharged very few times. So it's usually in the late winter, early spring that we'll discharge to bring down that elevation just a little bit. Are those conditions in your permit? I mean, do you have either a volume discharge or a periodic number discharge in your permit? No, we're not no requirement to discharge. Now, we are, as you said, we are a permit under an ineptives permit through the EPA, through the state, and through the mining section. And that permit requires any time we discharge within the first 15 days of discharge, you have to pull one sample. We send it again to an outside laboratory who then takes those results and forwards those on. What we test for is specified by the state based on the particular type of mining industry you're in. It's the same for every other operator in the state of Kentucky. Then if you continue to discharge, the next 15 days you have to pull another sample and, again, send that to a lab. There's a chain of custody that goes with that sample. It has to be put in a cooler. There's a certain period of time that sample has to be. Those results are then mailed to you and to the state and recorded on the state records. And those are mailed to the Kentucky Division of Water and Natural Resources? Yes, sir. Does the Division of Water maintain those records, or do they depend on you to maintain those records? They do maintain those and they also come out and inspect our records. Okay. And if we do not discharge, we have to send in a record for the month stating we did not discharge. Do you know if those records are available to a member of the public under an open records request? Yes, I do know those are. Yes, I do know that's correct. Okay. Mr. Clever, I can answer your question Dr. Luss pointed out. Under state law, we're required to keep those seismograph records for five years, make them available to the department. Yeah, we just never do it to the general public. Yeah, but they're not required to be filed. They're just there. We've got to keep them and make them available for the department. So that's the legal standard for non-cooperation. So if somebody wanted those records or wanted to see copies of those records, how would they get them? What would they do? Well, again, since there's never been a requirement for it, I would prefer to do that. Thanks. I would prefer to do that through working through the city, if that's possible, and offer to give you all that data and you store it, and they can come to you and get it. I mean, we're just, as a corporation, not really set up to handle, you know, local. Unless there was an appointed person who you gave one copy to. But if I have 20 residents every month wanting, as you can tell, that we're just not set up to do that. I think you all probably more so. So I would either provide you that data, or if you wanted to designate someone in the community, we could provide them with that data. Either way. But what you're saying is that as a condition, you could make it a condition that we file that information with the building inspection, and then it would be available for public inspection. Sure. Even though by state law we're not required to, but you're saying if that's a condition. Yeah, I mean, we have. He will do that. That's fine. That data is available and we don't mind sharing that. Okay. I have one final area that I want to ask a question or two about, if you don't mind. In the summary that we were given by staff that basically told us about this application, there is a statement that says that because this is a high-carst area, that sinkholes are probable in the area. Somebody explain to me what that means. I think this would be David Jackson's area. And David, if you want to come up, introduce yourself, and if you think you've got the question answered. Sure. This is a high karst area. Much of Fayette County, Lexington is. What is karst? Karst is a geological term relating to the dissolution of limestone or dolomitic rocks by groundwater or by precipitation on those rocks outcrop. It's what creates caves, conduits. Mammoth Cave is a world-class example of karst. There is karst activity in this general area. There are sinkholes that are mapped on the USGS 7.5-minute quadrangle. Some of those sinkholes are rather large. However, that activity, in my opinion, is confined to the uppermost formations that are exposed, both on the mine property and on those properties adjacent to the mine, and indeed in the general vicinity. I don't see any evidence of karst below the very surficial levels that are near the surface. You're talking about the property that's under consideration here in this application? There's no karst mapped on either the existing mine property or on the proposed mine expansion area. There is karst mapped within the Elk Lake Creek watershed primarily to the eastern, or I'm sorry, the northwestern direction from the mine. There's also, yes. Northwestern, you mean on the other side of the creek? Yes, sir. In that area. Thank you. They're easier to see on a sub-graphic map. Here, the resolution, but I think it's out of the room. But think a little bit of maps like you've got DS or just general. Here, across I-75 to the east. They're none mapped on the seven-and-a-half-minute quadrangle depicting the mine area or the mine expansion area. Stay right here, Mike. Come on back around here. Do you know if the mine or engineers have filed a map showing? I'm sorry, Don Todd, representing the opponents. You mentioned the karst topography in the area. Do you know whether or not a map has been filed by the petitioner showing the karst topography in the area and where the sinkholes are located? I do not know that. Do you know whether the mining ordinance requires that? Before we begin, is there anyone on the board who has any additional questions for the applicant? Okay. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Mr. Hopgood, I think this is a geological question. Then we need Mr. Jackson, I think. I think that everyone agrees that the water in Floracliff is vital, and this is the bottom of the watershed, so any catastrophic failure of the mine would affect that water. And when I'm reading the technical information in your report, not yours, but Vulcan's report, both with regard to the roof of the mine, the pillars, and the floor, the engineering calculations seem to be based on life of mine, life of the mine. So I'm wondering exactly what that means. If the assumptions that this mine is stable is somehow based on a time period, or that it stay dry, or what does life of the mine mean if that's what we're counting on? It's because we'd like Floracliff to last into perpetuity. So I would like this mind to be stable into perpetuity. Well, my name is Dr. Lundrup. Excuse me, your name, please. I'm a professor at the University of Kentucky, and this is in my area. The calculation concerning pillars are not done for the span of the life of mine. And if you will go to Rome, you will know that the catacombs are today the major attraction for tourists over 200,000 years. So similar thing we see all over where the older cultures were digging into the stone. Of course, there is a difference of scale and everything else. but as far as limestone mining is concerned, the safety factors which are in the pillars are very high, and actually there is not known any cases of collapses of limestone mines, at least in that part of the United States. I'm not sure that answers my question. Does it mean that the engineering for these pillar sizes are, is there a time span? No, there is no time span which has sense to calculate because the safety factors of them are high enough that they are, well, if we are going about 10,000 years, I don't know. because no one knows our civilization doesn't last that long that we have an experience. But if you want to look at the similar natural structures, for instance, Mammoth Cave is a good example, which is the large nature-made excavations about a size similar to the openings which we see in these mines. and is standing there for a very long period of time, as we know, in geological scale. We are talking about 2 million years, what is calculated. And many other caves which actually have evidence of early humans are usually in limestone foundations and we know Altamira and all the others, which are 10,000, 20,000 years old structures and they are still standing. But I don't think that they were trying to extract the maximum amount of limestone, leave the smallest pillars possible, so that there is a certain efficiency required here that requires assumptions to be made where you don't pass a safety threshold, but that you make the most profit possible. I'm sorry, what makes you do say that? Do you have any personal knowledge of these things? Well, it says here that, I mean, they measure the strength of this rock in tension and compression. The roof support for level two is most adequate and probably somewhat conservative. Our estimates that the rivar for the two levels of Richmond Road mine is between 60 and 65, class two rock, allows us to project that the stand-up time for the roof rock, with one means of support, in this case solely rock bolting, should provide a stable and safe work environment for the anticipated life of the mine. That is, in the order of a few years. However, if the criteria is to firmly establish the stability of the roof beams for a period of many decades, then the design of the roof support system may need to be revisited. Then elsewhere it says that the floor will exhibit long-term stability, at least in dry conditions. So I'm just saying there's all these assumptions that have been made with the roof and the pillars and the floor, and I don't think there's that much room to, we don't want to take a chance that floor cliff is damaged in the long term. Well, sir, with my all due respect, my profession is that we make our decisions based on what we know and not we voice our fears based on what we don't know, because we never don't know what we don't know. And we know things, and based on that we do our practical engineering. The other thing that supports it is the history. And stone mining is something which has been around for hundreds of years, and we have very good evidence what happens where, because those things can be revisited. and we don't have any sink which will support that sort of fears. As far as the water is concerned, which you mentioned, if you will fill up the mine with water, the stability of the mine will increase substantially because the pressure of the water is actually helping to support the sink. In the Second World War, in Europe, Europe, many mines were due to the war activities and so on. Production was suspended, more pumping and so on. So many mines were actually filled completely. And it was just enough to come after this period was possible to recover production, to pump them out, and they were all standing in very good shape. So every drilling uses also water for stabilizing walls of the drill hole. So I don't want to give a mining lecture in here because this is not the purpose of that meeting. But it seems to me that you are not very well informed about these issues when you voice these concerns. When something says life of mine, it just raises questions in my mind. I understand. I hope that I answer. If there is any more, I will be willing to answer again. Well, you may be back up in a minute, but I'm okay for now. Thank you. This is a few more. Mr. Hopgood. Yes, sir. This study that was done that Floracliff agreed with, it included three areas, A, B, and C, and part of C was on the west side of Elk Lake Falls Creek, although that's not part of this request for your expansion because you're not trying to expand into Area C. But didn't this study by the consulting engineer lay the groundwork for expanding across Elk Lake Creek? No, I don't think so. I mean, that is not part of our plan. I think it is safe to say that would raise a lot of issues that we're not wanting to deal with. We've got, you know, depending on the market, 10, 15, 20 years of life in this 50 acres. There's area north of that. mining under Elklick Creek is not on the horizon for us. We're not intending to try to lay the groundwork or address that at all. If we were going to do that, we would certainly have to come back here. That would be a long time from now. Well, and that's what we're talking about, long time plans. And in your drawing, you show not only the expansion into this 135 acres of Anderson's property, but then it's shown for future expansion to the west of that and then south of that until you would expand eventually into all 400 acres of Dennis Anderson's land. Is that right? No. The plan, and we've agreed to it, is 53 acres. We asked for over 100 acres in our application, but still all on this side of Elklett Creek. We did not, even in our application, which went up into this area, did we ask to go across Elklett Creek. In fact, that was a discussion with Mr. Siler and then the other members of the Board of Flora Cliff, and they were pleased when we told them that we were taking that off the table in the application we filed, which is double what the staff has recommended. So it wasn't even contemplated in the expanded area. And if you're reading that for that purpose, then I think you're reading too much into it. We did not even in our application contemplate going under Elk Lick Creek. And I think if we wanted to do that in the future, it would involve a lot more engineering as a part of any application. So we are not asking to go under. We're stepping off 200 feet from Elk Creek. In the reasonableness review, though, it does locate these three sections, A, B, and C, and some of them are on the other side of Elk Creek, on the west side. Yeah, and of course when they were making that, the staff had not made their review and done this. So again, they were looking in that review at a lot of broad areas, and to the extent that you think that we're trying to put something in there to say, aha, in the future we can mine under Oak Lake Creek Basin study, that's not our intent. No, I'm not thinking that you're trying to aha us. I just thought it was interesting that after you've mined out this 53 acres and then go north a little bit, you do have a plan to go across the creek, and then according to this map, both maps, figure six and figure sevens in the reasonableness review, they show all of Dennis Anderson's land being eventually mined. And here's what I was getting to. Just let me finish my question, please. I'm wondering what time frame that would be if you do two levels, the third level under your current land and two levels under Dennis Anderson's land. It seems like this mine, and because you're showing all of Dennis Anderson's land as being potential mined area, we're looking at 150 years worth of mining. I agree. So I think that everybody should be aware that we're opening this up to 150 more years of mining in this area. But I disagree with that. But let me tell you what I believe you're seeing. Number one is the confusion on the map. I have not seen the map. Let's put it up. Maybe we could put up figure number six in the reasonableness review. It's on page 23, or there's two page numbering systems. It's either 23 or 30. But I think I can explain why that's there. What do you want? You meet these criteria. That's probably the map, isn't it, Richard? No. Yeah. No, that's not the map I'm looking at. It's figure six and figure seven in the reasonableness review. But that's actually the Wharton map right there. I don't know. Which outlined areas, A, B, C, D. And they were roughly about 50-acre tracks. And that's what the original idea in the late 1980s was, to eventually do 50 acres here, 50 acres here. And there was a sequence to it, a sequence that would be, from her standpoint, at least what she thought would best protect the watershed. Vulcan today is not asking for that. And your point to the amount of years of reserve is correct. That's why we're saying the 55 acres extension now on level two, not going to level one, only staying on level two, and then having the opportunity to move to level three on our property. If we chose 15 years from now to move back onto the Anderson track, then we'll have to be coming back in front of you as a board or whoever this board is to get approval for the same 55 acre or 53 acres for the next level three mining. It seems prudent to me that if you already have an established quarry and you can expand that use underground without any more surface disturbance, at least we're able to continue to operate, and you all are still getting a look, and the public is still getting a look on a fairly routine basis in a mining sense every 10, 15 years to approve that next step. If you haven't done such a good job, there's an opportunity there for the public to have input. You ought to have input. If you are doing a good job, then that should be a much easier process and you move on. So I think what you're saying is, A, that area toward the north, and then that potential 130 acres may someday be something that we would foresee as being the next future growth that we're in, but not going back across Elk League. I don't see that in our period of time. Well, let me just say this, so I think this hopefully will put a final answer to this. On page four of the settlement agreement, which is filed as a part of our application, Romanette 3, it says Vulcan will not quarry or tunnel under the main branch or edges of Elk Lake Creek. That's in the settlement agreement. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know what the main branch or edges of the creek are, and I've scratched my head. It's, you know, easy to scratch. I know that there were areas that were shown in the settlement agreement that were permitted mining areas in the settlement agreement with Dr. Wharton. They are on the other side of Elk Click Creek. I don't know if Elk Click Creek is from the Anderson Lake all the way down. I don't know how we would get to the other side without pouring or tunneling under the main branch or edges of Elk Click Creek. We actually talked to Mr. Sither, who was the most active for the board, about this language, and we just simply said we're not going to deal with that or try to address that in our application. I think it could be the subject of a lot of discussion. I'm being as honest as I can with you. It's in there. I don't know why we would have this area on the other side of the creek shown as permitted in the agreement with Dr. Wharton under a reasonable engineering plan and have this language. I can't remember back that far, or I don't know that I was involved in every sentence of this agreement. But all I can tell you is that's there and in the settlement agreement. It's not a part of our plan. I think probably the best answer is that is some general kind of language because that whole settlement agreement showed a lot of area over there. They've picked that up. I can tell you right here today that is not a part of our plan plan and we're not asking for it in this language is in the settlement right now. I understand you're not asking for it today. I was trying to look. Yeah. If this is a mine that's going to exist 150 years into the future, I think we ought to know about that now. We looked at a lot of, you know, the material that Marshall Miller created. I'm not sure that we picked up on that. I don't think that it's, I mean, we're saying here today that's not a plan. That's not part of any plan we've got here or in our books somewhere. So does that answer your question? I think we can move on. Thank you. Do you have any other questions? Mr. Hopkins. Just real quick, too, I want to put just Dr. Lusk and Dr. Unrug's CVs in the record. I know I've talked about it, but that's it. Sorry. Again, in the reasonableness review on page 51 under water supply, It says a large part of your water comes from the surface and is directed into the mine, into those sumps. I guess all the surface water goes into the sumps on level two. As I understand it, it goes. We probably need a different map. That's probably not a good map to talk about. Well, I don't need to know exactly how it goes in there. Well, there is actually, like in a lot of drainage, as I understand it, there's a divide. But some of the drainage on this side of the quarry, somewhere there's a divide. It goes down, and I think over that high wall that you saw where you went into the portal under the mine, It goes into the mine in a level and some of those I think you refer to as the large areas on level one. That water goes into those store or floor areas, big deep areas, and it stays there. We don't pump that water. If that water overflows or gets too full, it will kind of cascade into another area on level one and ultimately work its way over to the area right in here that you saw on the left when you drove into the mine that starts the process of taking that water down to level two. So we direct water from the right side of the mine straight into this storage area on the first floor to the left, and then it works its way down to level two where it's settled out and pumped back up, drainage to the right side goes in that bigger area on level one and can work its way into level two. That's my understanding, as I said that correctly. So the water in the sumps of level one, the impoundments in level one, you use that water as well as the water in level two. It could work its way into it. When you say you use it, I mean, to the extent that you can follow that water, there's potential for that water on level one to overflow and go ultimately down into level two and be used. Well, it must be overflowing every time it rains if you're not using it specifically. There's not that much flow that comes into it. I'm sorry. I apologize. There's just not that much flow in general. Those hold a fairly large amount of water. They flow, like Richard said, cascades over those old cells, comes back down across the floor of one, and then turns and comes back down the decline to level two. Is those all part of the same system? Yes. The answer to your question is yes. That water is being pumped and used, but it's a natural flow system instead of a pump being involved in that, as we have on the level two fault system. Okay, don't leave just yet. What I was really getting to is we understand the majority of your water is coming from the rain and being directed into the mine. Warm water runoff. But there's a sentence in your report that says a minor quantity of the sumps or that impounded water may be charged from groundwater seepage. So what does that mean? Let me answer that two different ways. I want David to answer that from a groundwater standpoint. And I'd like to clarify, this is not our, this is, I mean, I assume this is the Floor Cliff Report, is it not, Richard? No, this is the M&M. This is the- Yeah, the Marshall Miller. This was actually fired by Floor Cliff. I mean, this was the independent mining. That's why we included the report, because it is done by an independent mining company. So how do you want to refer to that? It's the independent mining report. It's the Floor Cliff Report. Well, in that report, it says that some water seepage may exist. And that's why I'd like David to answer that question. Okay. I read that also in the report, Mr. Griggs. In my opinion, there is no groundwater seepage on the level one. Or level two. Or level two. Have you been there after a big rain event or in the wintertime? I mean, you'd need to check it periodically through all weather conditions, wouldn't you? Well, I'm not so sure about that. Groundwater moves slowly through fractures and through primary porosity and rock. So an event that happens this month may not show up at level two literally for years. Well, actually, I've seen groundwater running through the conduits in these levels. It goes like a fire hydrant. You're speaking of cars. Or in the Tyrone or the Oregon Layer 2 where there are conduits that have formed, Those layers are fractured vertically and horizontally, too. There is water moving through them. There is, but where you don't have fracture porosity or karst porosity, where you have no porosity whatsoever, you have no water transmission, none. And that's what I observed in the mine on all levels. So do you think this is an error that should not have been written in the report this way? I would disagree with their comment. And you've been in this mine many times during different seasons? No, I've been in the mine once. Okay, thank you. I have one more question. About the vent that's going to be put in, the powered vent, is there any information on how much noise will be generated from that? No, there is not, because first of all, we don't know. Richard, I think, explained that very well in the sense that we may not put one at all. We may have to put one, possibly upwards of two if you had to, but that's probably not likely. So it really is based on the atmosphere of the air in the undergrounds, and you determine that through testing. So we really don't have a projection of what that would look like, but I can tell you this. Most of the fans today that are installed in underground mines, particularly where you're going to the surface, are now the fan is actually installed at the level that you're working on, and it draws air down the tube. So you don't have that large hum and whistle that you used to have or you might know of out in the east in the coalfields. You hear those fans. It's not the same thing anymore. We mount those fans now underground and draw through the shafts themselves. Madam Chair, I might have some more questions later, but I think this is gone. Sir Sebel. Yes, Madam Chair, I've got a couple questions. Mr. I'm just interested. How long can you continue to mine rock at the current site without expansion? We probably, I mean, again, it's based on market conditions. I'm not trying to weasel out of answering that. Depends on market conditions, but do you know roughly how many tons are left? Again, let me be careful. That is one of those things we don't want to disclose is how many reserves you have left exactly. That is what the competition would like to know. But I can tell you this. Based on, for example, the amount of sales and production we have today in today's environment and what would be an average of, say, the last four or five years, we probably have on our present level right now, We probably have another five or six years there. Then you have an additional level, level three, which we've already talked about, that you can go to, which would give you about the same amount of time. We've been on level three since. Darrell, do you remember level three when they actually moved on to level three? I too. It was in the 89, early 90s. 89, 90. So they're getting 18 years roughly on that level. Again, economics drive everything, and a level four could be possible as well. But, again, that is economic-based, engineering-based, all those type of things, something we haven't looked at. Jim, just to follow up with that, and I assume this would go to a level four, can you discuss the option of going deeper on the current spot? Yeah, there is that option always to go deeper, but the cost is high. The deeper you go, the higher the cost. And that has to do with you have to decline through that solid mass of rock, which I say decline, that's a 10% grade, because the type of equipment we use can only pull those type of grades. So you're on a 10% grade, so that's a couple thousand feet you're driving through a solid rock at an angle to reach your level three. Once you're there, then you have to put in all the infrastructure, the ventilation fans, those type of things to get that air moving down there. And then you have to move your actual hard production equipment, your crusher and the conveyors and all that type of thing, and the electrical equipment to get down there to do that. So there's a very large cost in going deeper. You can do it, but it's high. To remain competitive, particularly out there in more of a rural area, that cost is passed on to our customers, which are all of us in here, taxpayers. And so we try to find the balance between mining this way and maintaining cost versus, I mean, it would be just as economical to go to a level one as it would be to a level three because you would have the same issue. But once we get to a level three, then you want to kind of stay flat on that because that's where your economics. So just so I'm clear then, at your current spot, you've got about five or six years left of rock and rock. On that level, roughly kind of looking at the averages. And, again, that's market-based with you. And I think, Jim, I think I asked this question to me. I think after the 89 hearing, when we withdrew it, we were on level one. I think we then went to level two at that time. So probably, you know, I talked about three, four, five years to create that decline down. I think after the 89 hearing, we realized that we weren't going to be able to expand for a while on the Anderson or Turner property. We turned and went to level two. We've been there, I think, I remember, the plant managers have been there quite a while, saying it was the early 90s when we finished one and started two. and as Jim said when we talk three, four, five years to get prepared, that's one reason that we're here to know, to see if we can get that approval. These things are planned out very far in advance. We can't just all of a sudden open a facility up and hire a bunch of people in nine months. These things are designed from a cost recovery standpoint probably on a 50-year life. I mean, the capital cost is huge. To go to level three, that big primary crusher you saw would have to be actually either disassembled and moved down to level three, or if it's replacement time, replace. And they're not, you don't open a box up and put them together. These things are fabricated. I mean, they're literally made and constructed. So it's a heavily capital-intensive area that we have to plan very far in the future for, and that's why. Your fuel usage, your electricity usage, all those things go up a third more. I mean, it's a very major-type project, and so like Richard said, you can do it, but it's not the most economical or efficient way to do it. It's the most efficient thing for everyone is to continue to spread to the point that that makes sense. And it's ever-changing. I mean, right now we burn biodiesel, 70% soy diesel product underground because of ever-changing MSHA particulate ventilation. And that was not something even thought of 10 years ago. It's six or seven bucks a gallon. It's expensive stuff. It may change in five years. That's why we don't know for sure what ventilation requirements will be because or whether it might need a shaft or two. We know that technology is pretty much the same. But technology may change in the future. There may be laser mining. I mean, we just don't know, you know, that far in advance. But we plan, as Dr. Unrog said, on what we know right now. Thank you. I have a question about this going from level two to three. While you're going from level to level, the rock that you are going through is marketable, is it? Let me answer that. It is to an extent, and I know that doesn't, there again, boy, there's a lot of issues here we're going to talk about today that are that way. But if it does meet certain tests, all of our aggregate has to meet certain test requirements to be used for an aggregate for your home, your sidewalk, all those types, because it's got to hold up under all the salt that's going out on the roads today, that type of thing. So it has to meet certain specifications. We test that rock. If it is usable as we're taking that decline down, we can sell that for commercial. That would be more like your home building use, that type, where state specification is not a criteria in selling that aggregate. It still has to meet certain specifications but not tight specifications. But as far as state work, which as Richard alluded to, is probably 50%, 60% of our sales in good years, we cannot use that rock. It has to be moved and set off to the side. And there are portions of that as you're going through it that you can't use because it doesn't meet the quality. Those seams that you mine, there's not only you leave that thickness in between you for stability, there's also sometimes quality reasons why you might change those thicknesses as well, because it's not as good a quality rock as what you need to meet the specifications you're trying to obtain. So where does it go? It goes back in the mine. It just stays in the mine. We shoot it out and fill up an area in the mine. Okay. Mr. Todd, if you want to go. And we ask that you address just the board, not cross-examine Mr. Hopgood. And also when we have public testimony, we'd ask that people only raise new comments. Okay. Let me make sure I understand, Madam Chairman. I do want to ask a couple questions to clarify information they've given. Is that okay? I mean, it's always been okay for 30 years. At this point, we're listening to comments, and if we feel that we need clarification based on what you've said, we'll. Okay. Well, I would like to know, the gentleman testified there, blast expert, I think was Dr. Lusk. Okay. And I would like to know, he mentioned there are three-header blasts, and I would like to know how much tonnage is produced from the three-header blast and how much explosive is used and what type of explosive. That answers the question. If you look at a typical header round, the typical load of explosives would be 900 pounds of ammonium nitrate fuel oil or ANFO. that's separated out into a number of blast holes that are drilled into the face, and they'll be shot on separate delays. And there's actually, if you look into my report, you can see the layout of the blast holes and the delay timing based on delay blasting caps. So for each of those typical header rounds, you have 900 pounds of explosive, which yields approximately 1,100 tons of material. So if you have a three-header shot, you're looking at 2,700 pounds of explosives, and you're looking at 3,300 tons of material. They blast once a day? Yes. So they get about 3,300 tons a day? I'd say that's probably a better question. 3,300 tons a day. Okay. So that's what, about 23,000 tons a week? Okay. If you blast every day. Yeah. Okay. I think we're limited to blasting once a day. On the ventilation shaft, they indicated they may have to put a new ventilation shaft. And my question is, are those ventilation shafts used for safety and rescue, and will they have to build roads to access those ventilation shafts on the other property? The answer to the question is no. they are not used for means of escape. We already have multiple openings. Under IMSA regulations, if you have multiple openings on a mine on a level, you can drive out. In our case, we have from level one to level two, we only have one decline, so we do have a shaft internally in the mine that has a spiral staircase. That's what we would not on the outside. Since we already have multiple openings, we do not need a secondary escape anywhere else. Your answer is no, you won't need it? No, not secondary escape. As far as roads, the only road that would be built would be during the installation. What they do is they come in to drill these shafts. They use a big drill to drill the hole, and then they line it with a casing, and then that would be reseeded and closed back up. There's no reason for us to access those. Power runs to a motor, and that's it. But, again, we'll be pumped if we do that. Ventilation is usually done underground now. So other than putting the casing in is the only reason that you would actually have to access that point for that drill hole. Richard, I didn't get down how much severance tax was paid, for example, last year. I don't know. The 2010 numbers in it was for 2009, it was about $460,000. $460,000. This would be 4% of $12 million before $80,000. So four point, I guess. So you get about $12 million gross sales per year if you're paying $450,000. 4% of $12 million would be $480,000, I mean, give or take. Okay. That's central law. Okay. I think that's all the questions. There are a couple of folks here to speak, I guess, on support. I don't know where you are in that procedure. I know Mr. Anderson wanted to speak, and I think Mr. Hoffman here had a couple minutes. He wanted to speak. He's not part of our group, but he did tell me he would like to speak. So I don't know if you're taking on the applicant's side. Okay. Under the procedure that we're trying to follow, once the petitioner is done, we're ready for citizens' comments. We ask that they be limited to new material, then objectors, which would begin with Mr. Todd, and then citizens' comments there. But we, again, ask that it only be new material at this point. We're done. Yes. Okay. Mr. Todd. Yeah. I just want to make sure of a couple of procedural issues. First, obviously this is being taped and we've gone now for what, two hours and 15 or 20 minutes. We have enough tape. We're not going to run out in case we go longer, correct? You're laughing. I don't know what that means. I hope we have enough. Okay. It means once we're out of tape, you're out of time. You're done. That may be a problem. While you're passing those out, on the Elmo, that's number one and that's number two. Okay. What you're seeing here is the notification area in the kind of Army green, khaki green. That is the – it doesn't show very well in the colors, but that's the – This is just generally the notification area that's required by the ordinance. As you well know, this is what Madison, Clark County, and those are. areas. So the parties who are notified, if you use the next sheet there, that's the same notification area. The color again is not very good, but all the green are objectors. Boy, that sure doesn't show up well, does it? Can we switch to the computer feed directly? Okay, that's better. Okay, objectors in this area, and they are here today, and I want to ask them all to stand. These are the neighbors of this mine site, and they've been the neighbors, some of them for, Bill, I'm going to portray you here, 78, 80 years. Many of these families have owned this land for over 100 years, long before this quarry was ever put into existence. Thank you all. Be seated. As you know, that's Raven Run, the city park, Lower Cliff. Properties, this is what I used to call Mr. Turner's property. It's, I guess, Anderson's property at this point in time in that area. Okay. That's fine. This has been a really contentious issue for in excess of 25 years. This is not a question that you typically are confronted with where applicants and opponents' neighbors have kind of joined the issue for maybe a few months over the use of a piece of property. Vulcan Materials and their predecessors and interests were located, began their affiliation with this property in the late 50s, about the same time they were building the interstate. That's why that quarry was put there for the purposes of constructing the interstate. Obviously, the interstate's been finished for a number of years. And so this mining operation has been ongoing, much to the chagrin of the neighbors. They've experienced questions involving noise and air pollution, water pollution, traffic. It's affected the use of their surrounding properties. And this issue has been ongoing since early in the 80s. In fact, as Richard mentioned initially in his discussion, there were opportunities for Vulcan or there were instances actually where they encroached on their neighboring properties and mine rock that wasn't theirs, and they were sued as a consequence of that. And as a result, the parties got together when their initial application for expansion was turned down, and they got together and formed a mining quarrying committee that developed the mining quarrying ordinance, which has been in effect since I believe it was December of 1991. I was somewhat amused by Vulcan's personnel here talking about the state issues, but they never mentioned the mining and quarrying ordinance and what application it has. And that particular piece of legislation was developed over many months with countless hours of people who were generally in the committee or in the community, I should say, by staff, by the law department, by Vulcan's representatives, and by neighbors out there. And as a consequence of their work, this ordinance was passed, and it's very specific. And so I want you to pay very close attention today to the presentations and discussions of the neighbors and how that ordinance applies in this particular case. because I think after you hear their discussions and their issues and take the time to look at that mining ordinance, you're going to see that this whole operation has been unbridled, has been unrestrained, and they have a callous disregard for the compliance of the demands of that ordinance when they themselves help participate in its drafting and ultimate passage. I would like to just begin briefly my comments to talk to you about Vulcan. What do we know about Vulcan? Richard mentioned a little bit about it, and I gave you a handout there that I think gives some of the pertinent facts. And, Madam Clerk, I'll make copies of all these and ask that these be made a part of the record. But if you just Google Vulcan on your computer, you'll find out that since 1956 they've been a publicly traded company. as we mentioned they're located here next to the interstate and they now have over 486 companies with 300 plants in 22 states dc the bahamas and mexico they now i'm i'm gonna be very short okay i'm gonna be very short please don't read it all we can i won't i won't uh they do 11 billion tons or they say they have 11 billion tons of reserves with 44 years of life expectancy in their mines. In 2009, they mined 151 million tons of rock with $2.5 billion in sales. 2010, they did $3.65 billion in sales, a huge bump up. And that's because I'm sure of Obama's attempts at the stimulus package. They have a multi-state board of directors, none of whom I might add live in Kentucky, nor do they have any of their major corporate offices here. Honestly, their current reserves on the Richmond Road are mined out, with the exception of what they indicate they have five years left. It's our position that they should not be allowed to expand, that their initial purpose for being put there to help facilitate the construction of the interstate is now gone. And there are other sites in this community that they use. In fact, Richard mentioned several other competing areas that produce stone and aggregate that are much more easily accessible by transportation systems instead of using an older country road. And as a result of that, I'm sure it would be much more efficient and much less costly. I'm going to ask the neighbors to come forward. They're going to talk to you about several issues. I've cautioned them about your time issue, and I've told them though that since this question not only has impact for this particular aspect of the county, but also this is an issue that needs to be addressed countywide, and I want to make sure they make their record and they get their exhibits before the court if need be. So Mary Hannah, if you want to come up first, and I'll introduce you if you like. As each speaker comes up, I'll introduce them to you. How many do you intend to have? Twenty? Probably twenty. Hi, I'm Mary Diane Hanna, and I live at 6398 Ulrichman Road, Silvacola Farm. And I know this will probably shock you, but I was on that farm before 1958, so I have been there a long time. I wanted to enter my comments into the records of this meeting. My family has lived on this farm since the 1880s. We have seven generations who have lived there. I do want to state that I do feel blasting. I have felt it for many years. I moved away for eight years. When I came back, I kind of thought, what's going on? Are we having an earthquake or something? I've kind of been immune to it, I guess, in the last number of years. But it does affect us. We do have cracks in our house. Our house, the original foundation, is from the 1800s, so it should have settled by now. and it continues to have more cracks. We've had a stone wall that has also fallen down that we've had to have rebuilt in the last three or four years. My father will be talking to you later, and I wanted to say I work in this community. I volunteer here. We give time and money to projects that we care about, and I deeply care about my neighbors and the farmland in this community. And I'm sure a lot of you have heard me come before the council about this before, not the Board of Adjustments. The Old Richmond Road Neighborhood Association is an umbrella association of a number of neighborhood associations. It includes DeMar, Walnut Hill, DeLong Road, Athens, Hillgate, Raven Creek, and Boones Creek, to name a few. It covers thousands of acres, and it includes both farms and residential areas. This quarry is considered a noncompatible property in a farm and residential area. It's a business in an ag area. We received this notice around Thanksgiving this year, and it was set for a December 10th hearing. The opposition apparently had their plans underway for quite a while because they gave Floracliff information back in April. So when we received this, there was kind of panic in the neighborhood, plus it was Thanksgiving and Christmastime, so people were rather busy anyway. But we wanted to address it as best we could because it affects us in a vast way and has affected us in numerous negative ways over the years. So seven months later, after the April thing, we were informed of this request for expansion, and we appreciate the postponement. So we had some time to deal with this rather complex case. Initially, some of our group went to the county clerk's office to get the conditions under which Vulcan is currently operating. The 1988 state law requires land use conditions to be recorded. Local mining laws require building inspection to keep the conditions for quarrying and mining operations in their office. No one was able to locate this information despite trying every possible name and address ever assigned to this quarry site. We even did a deed and title search from 1939, over 70 years ago, and found nothing. Thus, I have a list that's up here, the resulting list of things we felt we needed concerning this case. On December 22nd, we requested a list of 20 items. And if you want to lower the lights and see that better, it's okay with me, I think. They were items that we wanted from LFUCG, from Planning, Engineering, Legal, Public Works, and Environmental Policy. I personally brought the letter to each department on the 22nd and got a signature of receipt at each place. The first response I got was from the Environmental Policy Department, who said they had nothing to give us per our request. I thought the major thing, and that's going to be on page two with them, and I'll get back to this later, was number 15. Our request pertained to the local hazardous materials ordinance. The minutes from the 1989 Board of Adjustments meeting said that the LFUCG would be monitoring the hazardous materials for Vulcan. So why was the Environmental Policy Office, why would they not have these records? On December 29th, we received a letter saying due to the voluminous nature of our request, the information would be coming as soon as they could locate all of the things. Then on January 7th, we received information that was kind of cobbled together. It was a busy time of year. I know that everybody's busy and planning and zoning in all these departments with Christmas vacation, but it was busy for all of us. The staff did the best that they could in this short time frame, but what we received was kind of underwhelming. Obviously, the staff can only provide us with what they are given from Vulcan and the records they're supposed to give, but they clearly do not have on record all of the things they are supposed to have at the various branches of the government, according to the mining ordinance. The applicants are responsible for furnishing true and accurate information when they apply for permits of any kind. In this case, they apparently did not have or did not have or have not done that, and no one perhaps has been any of the wiser. These are the letters from the city. Let's see. These are the letters where I ask for the information. And there's a copy where I had people sign that they received my request. then this is the letter of January 7th saying what they have furnished us with. So I wanted to kind of go over what we asked for and tell you what we got from what we asked for. I believe that, are you Jim Hume over there? Okay. I talked to you the other day, so you never wrote me back. Anyway, here is what we received from the open records request, and the synopsis is above. The first one, original signed application and development plan, and that was sent to us. The second one was the vicinity map for the mining and quarrying ordinance. Nothing was sent, which is kind of shocking as it's required in the mining ordinance to give a two-mile radius vicinity map with the application in order to get a permit to operate. So that's a little out of line there. Third, the list of all property owners and addresses where the notification was sent that we received. The fourth was the transportation plan under Section 252-91, blah, blah, blah, from 1992 and the modifications. We got a two-page report. I'll give this to you all. It looks like something that came out of an old thing in high school or junior high maybe. But it was a two-page report, and it didn't tell where it came from, what it was. It wasn't dated. It wasn't signed. the deal with this is that it doesn't tell you where it came from it's very simplistic I returned to the building inspection office this past week I guess this week Tuesday and talked to Jim Hume who's in charge of Vulcan for building inspection and I asked where the plan came from who signed it the date it was enacted he said it was the 1992 inspection report for Vulcan Mine, and it was not dated, but it was signed by GM Badgett from Vulcan. And it has not been changed. We had asked for modifications, and he said there have been no modifications since 1992 or could not find them. Am I correct on that? Do you agree with what I'm saying here? I told you at that time I had not seen an additional update on those. Okay. So at that point, we had asked for this back in December, and then January 7th we received information, or no information, and then I came back and he still says that he's unable to locate that information. So let's see. The fifth thing was a list of conditions under which Vulcan currently operates. We received a copy of the mining ordinance, which we already had, not a list of the conditions under which Vulcan currently operates. Six, we wanted copies of the biannual inspection reports. And when I went back to talk to Mr. Hume, he said, and maybe you didn't say it, the lady that was helping me said, the reason that you didn't get that is because you asked for biannual and there are only annual. So they didn't bother to tell us that. They didn't give us the annual ones. I asked if we could please get that, and I was told it would be hundreds of pages and very expensive. Would it be okay to get the summaries of that? And I said I think that would be okay, which I still have not gotten, so I can't enter those in, or we haven't had a chance to study them. But I asked for the summaries of that and any violations. And at this point, he told me that I said, you're telling me there are no records of any inspection reports since 1992. And he said that, let's see, I had asked for any violations, and he said that there were no violations. He had no record for any violations or citations since 1992. If they have found these, then they have not been sent to me at this point. Number seven, detailed list of shortcomings, infractions, punishments, fines, nothing was sent. Again, I ultimately asked, like I said, for a copy of summaries of violations or citations since 1992. But what they were telling me is they could not find anything. Number eight, a copy of the original permit to operate. They sent the 1992 building inspection occupancy permit, but no accompanying conditions. Number nine, the zoning map from the date of the original permit. Nothing was sent. Current maps, they did send. Approvals for water impoundments, nothing sent. Number 12, stormwater, groundwater, surface water monitoring devices and location of the devices. Nothing was sent. I think Mr. Hopgood said that the water is tested, but I'm wondering where any of these reports are. Are they just like kept at Vulcan and they just think, well, we're doing okay? But I think we're supposed to have those on the records at some place where people could acquire them. Number 13, lease or leases and written permission from all owners. That was sent, but we'd gotten a copy from the clerk's office by then. Number 14, copy of the site development plan, and that has stockpiles and hazardous materials and erosion controls, drainage ditches, et cetera. Nothing was sent. I ask again on Tuesday, is there not a site development plan with conditions on it filed with Vulcan's application? And I was told by Mr. Hume, it is not, there is not. I asked him if he would sign a little note saying that, but he said no. He wouldn't do that. Okay, number 15, if they're no longer handling or storing hazardous materials, because they haven't said that they have any, then there should be something signed and dated showing such a change, but nothing was sent. Number 16, bond or security deposits, we did get those. Number 17, current air quality permits and methods for monitoring, et cetera, nothing was sent. 18, safeguards and completed cleanup and restoration for previous damage by Vulcan to Elklick Creek, nothing sent. Nineteen, meeting and in full conformity. Are they proof that they're meeting and in full conformity with all applicable local, state, and federal regulations? Nothing sent. Number twenty, signage permits. They did send a page from the zoning ordinance with some statements underlined, but basically nothing was sent. So to summarize, we got five of 20 requested items, parts of two other requests, Two items we did not request, which were the mining ordinance and a page from the zoning ordinance. So what this seems to indicate to me is that no one in any division of the LFUCG has any of the required information in their records or has very little of the required information in their records about this company that's using an enormous amount of land in the old Richmond Road neighborhood area. Unfortunately, we did find error after error, and that's what we'll be presenting today. Sadly, we found that this indicates that the mining quarrying ordinance that we were counting on to keep us kind of safe and them operating within limits from 1991 has really not been followed. And I think you'll see that we've done our part to adequately show you that you should withhold approval of this expansion. and Vulcan has not done their part and enforcement has been sorely lacking. We've counted on trusted building inspection, planning, engineering, and other divisions to make Vulcan comply with the law of the land, and obviously they have not. They have had their permits renewed. They've changed ownership without reapplying for a new permit, and they have never come before this board is required by the ordinance for those changes made after 1991 until now. So we can't really support this request as neighborhoods. Hopefully you can't as a Board of Adjustments, and we hope you will deny this and deny future requests. Thank you for your consideration, and I do have some things to hand out. Let's see. This would be for the record of what I did, And these are copies for Mr. Hopgood. This is what we had asked for from the city. Thank you. Thank you. Laurie Lawrence. I was going to say good afternoon, but perhaps I should say good evening. I'm Lori Lawrence. I live at 6921 Old Richmond Road. My job today is to talk to you a little bit about the history and the timeline for the Richmond Road property, where the mine or quarry is currently being operated. What I have brought you in this packet is an overview of some of the items related to the timeline for the Vulcan property, and then I have also at the back included a couple of maps, and so I thought perhaps we might speak of those first. If you'll go to the next to last page. Perhaps a little bit better on your hard copy there. These were aerial photos that were taken prior to the time that the quarry was on the property, and it shows that it's generally an agricultural area where there hasn't been any disruption of the surface area. Later on, I think that you'll be shown a map that demonstrates how much disruption of the surface area in the agricultural zone there is. I also wanted to point out, if I can, on this side, this is the current area. This is the proposed area. And earlier it was mentioned that Mr. Anderson owned a property that was just to the north of that, and that's not true. I'm a co-owner of the property that's just north of that, and so our property would abut with the proposed expansion area. Okay, so a little bit of history then related to this timeline. Certainly we know that Lexington for a long time has been a proponent of appropriate land use, and so those are a couple of first things that you'll see on your page there. If you look down past the aerial photography, the last one that we had in this area was 1952, at which time there had been no damage to the surface area. And then if you sit down all the way down to the bottom of page one, one, there's a little bit of history there about the beginning of transfer of ownership of the property that we're concerned with. So that was the first time that, in modern times, I guess, that the property was transferred. In this case, it was transferred from the Hedges to Lambert Brothers, which was a corporation in Tennessee, and at that time, 96.2 acres was transferred or sold to the Lambert Brothers. Later in 1957, Lambert Brothers sold a portion of that or subdivided it to another part of the Lambert Brothers operation. And then in November of 1957, they merged with Vulcan. So it was the end of 1957 that Vulcan started to become involved with this. And so as far as our information goes, looking at the deed books, Lambert Brothers actually sells an undivided one-half interest of the 96.2 acres on Richmond Road to Vulcan Material Company in December of 1957. And I think it's probably worth noting that then in 1958 was when Lexington Fayette County established the nation's first urban growth boundary to protect the character of the surrounding farmland. Not too much happened there for the next couple of years, but in 1963 Mr. Hedges sold an additional 34 acres to Vulcan Materials to bring it to its current total of 130 acres. And so they have asked, they already have 130, they asked to expand into another excess of 100, and so essentially doubling the area that they were going to be using. In 1963, as was mentioned earlier, the interstate was built, and certainly that was one of the reasons that the quarry was there, to provide gravel for that, but we know that there's not construction going on in that area any longer. Lexington and Fayette County merged in 1972, and again, things were fairly quiet until January of 1986 when the Turners entered into a 30-year exclusive lease agreement with Vulcan Materials. And that information was recorded in the deed book, and it included 435 acres on Richmond Road, and so a very large land mass in this agricultural area. And that lease gave Vulcan the right to excavate, mine or quarry, the right to crush, process, sell, trade, market materials from the leased premises, and the right to dump upon the leased premises, only dirt, overburden, and other waste materials taken from their land to build roads and access roads and onto the leased land. So they had entered into this lease, assuming that with the assumption I think we can make that they intended to expand their pouring operation into that area. Right after that, in April 1988, Vulcan made a request for a conditional use permit to expand into that property, which was denied by the Board of Adjustment. And then again in 1989, they submitted two applications, which were again not approved, and Vulcan, in that case Vulcan Materials, withdrew both requests. I understand from today that there was a fair amount of contention over that issue. In December 1991, LFUGC adopted the mining coring ordinance that you just heard a lot about. So since 1991, that ordinance, essentially 20 years, that ordinance has been in effect. In 1992, the 1986 30-year lease agreement between the Turners and Vulcan was amended so that Vulcan could have the option to extend the lease for three additional periods of five years. And I think that that means that it could be extended up until 2030, so a fairly long period of time. In 1995, Vulcan Materials then assigned the remainder of the 30-year lease with the option for the three additional periods, the five years, to Hidden Haven LLC, the new owner. And so the property actually changed ownership during this period of time. And I think, as Mary Diane said, we didn't really find any evidence that perhaps that was recorded in the appropriate permits. In December of 1998, Vulcan Materials then went through, and you'll see three different entries there, two different entries on the bottom of page two and then extending on to page three, that there were a number of transfers of ownership for Vulcan, apparently within the company, but among different components of the company. And so they assigned the lease to Vulcan Construction Materials, and then later on there was, or at the same time, rights were transferred to Vulcan Lands, which was a New Jersey corporation. And so in these three little entries there are both Vulcan Materials Company, Vulcan Construction Materials, and Vulcan Lands. And so three different apparently ownership interests that are involved now in this property. Now, in December 2010, Vulcan Construction Materials has applied for this extended permit, and as I said, we border that, so we have concerns with that. We also know that it's going to reach into the neighbors. Since we neighbor with Dennis Anderson, that is part of the lease arrangement, and I'm not sure that that's been entered into the appropriate permits. And then the last thing that is in your packet is a copy of the PDR map that shows the farms and areas that have been placed in the PDR. And so I guess I'd just like to say that one of the reasons that we moved out to Richmond Road in 1997 was because we thought it was an agricultural area where we could keep our horses and where it would remain an agricultural area. And so we would like to see it do that and to see this mining operation not be allowed to expand. Thank you. Thank you, Lori. Gwen Meeker, she's chair of the Historic Preservation Commission for the Lexington Fayette-Urban County Government. Chairman and members of the Board, the LFUCG Historic Preservation Commission has great interest and great concern in today's case regarding Balkan and mining in one of Fayette County's most historic districts. Could you please put the map up, please? Well, that is very difficult to see. Okay, thank you. Up at the top of the map, well, it was orange. is the middle reaches of Boone Creek Rural Historic District, which is a National Register District. Below that, in the yellow, is the Boone Creek Rural Historic District, which is also a National Register District. And there's a little red dot up there by the second sign, and that's the Athens Historic District, and that's also a National Register property. Thank you very much. You might wonder what a National Register of Historic Places designation means. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act by Congress in 1966 established the National Register in the process for adding properties to it. The registering of properties is administered by the National Park Service, an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. Its purpose is to coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. To be listed a property must meet a number of stringent criteria and complete an extensive application. Fayette County is blessed with scores of National Register properties, which represent the vibrant history of our city. Most of these National Register properties are still part of our everyday lives. database of all the listed properties in alphabetical order in Fayette County. Start with the African Cemetery No. 2 on East 7th Street and then with the Whirly, Allen, and Fauche houses on South Broadway. Every year, two or three applications are brought forward for National Register designation. It goes through a stringent process of evaluation, consultation. It goes through the Historic Preservation Commission, the State Historic Preservation Commission, and then on to the National Park Service. The National Register property that has the greatest proximity to this mine is the Boone's Creek Rural Historic District, which is listed on the National Register. is a large, unique, and fascinating area which speaks to our early mode of living in Fayette County and its continued use in the life of Fayette County. Just to give you a very brief summary of what Boone Creek Historic District is, it's located 11 miles southeast of Lexington in eastern Fayette and western Clark counties in the inner bluegrass region of central Kentucky. Less than a mile northwest of the west boundary of this historic district is the Crossroads Village Athens, which is also on the National Register. The Boone Creek National Register District also contains four separate properties that are of special interest. All in all, this area makes up more than 4,060 acres and more than 200 built structures. It is the most fascinating thing to read this nomination. I've known about the area and have friends there for years, but I have never sat down to read the national nomination for this, which was done about 20 years ago. this place is amazing. It's got waterfalls, it's got palisades, it's got wildflower fields. It has very historic farmhouses, which are made out of the rocks that came from the area. It has drywall, fences, wonderful people, and geology that has seen no place out in the world. As you were speaking about, and I can tell you no more than I do, but all the different kinds of geologic features that it has. And one of the most important features is because of all these things that evolved all over the years with fractured rocks and caves is the water. Water is really a very important aspect of these National Registered Districts. Early on, the people had no city water, and I don't know if you all, do you all have city water now? That's what I thought. So just water is very important because many of the people still farm their land and raise horses and cattle. And this National Register statistic just didn't spring full-blown. It's evolved and evolved over centuries. And it continues to evolve. And it seems that in the maps that were represented, the National Register districts, which are within a quarter of a mile of this mine, were not mapped out. And it's very important to protect these historic treasures. So I hope that you will not honor this request today. I had the Historic Preservation staff check with the Kentucky Heritage Council, which manages historic preservation for the state. And they do not routinely or never have gotten involved with the mining permits. There are a few states in the United States that do, like South Carolina, where their state director has to sign off on any mining permits. and we found out that, as I'm sure you all know, that the non-coal mining branch of the Kentucky Division of Mines has to issue a permit. And before, if you should ever grant this, that they would have to go over to Frankfurt and get an amendment to their mining permit that they have now and show an accurate map of where the National Registered Districts and all the other features are. Thank you very much. Jessica Brown? Jessica Brown? Please. He's going to get your feedback on. Thank you. That's me. I've got a clock. Make one click and then you can go. Excellent. Good afternoon. My name is Jessica Brown, and I'm going to be speaking on the historic and environmentally sensitive area that is the Elk Creek. area. To begin, I'm one of those residents who has lived my entire life in the same neighborhood on the exact same farm on McCall's Mill Road, 823 McCall's Mill Road, which also extends the farm onto Grimes Mill Road. I also live on one of those farms that has a PDR easement for conservation. This farm has been in our family for three generations, and therefore I'm qualified to speak on that. I'm here to ask that you deny this request because it does not agree with any of the adopted plans or ordinances that the Fayette County Government uses to base their decisions. It is out of character and not compatible with our area. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Let's see. Okay, this first slide that I'm showing you, which is also in your handout, it's, I believe, the fourth page, and those are maybe easier to see than the one up on the board, is the AN Zone Zoning Ordinance. And basically its intent is to talk about agricultural natural areas, and it preserves areas which are physically unique and have a habitat for rare and unusual flora and fauna. Prior to the approval of any changes in these areas, the Board needs to meet with that the applicant must prove and the Board of Adjustment must find that adequate safeguards will be in place to ensure that the least negative impact occurs on the land. The AN Zone and the Zoning Ordinance says our area is one, if not the most environmentally sensitive and historic areas in the entire county. The next map, which is one right after the sheet, shows that the pink areas are in fact demonstrating the environmentally sensitive areas. And I believe that to be true, that we have a very environmentally sensitive area. The next page shows some trees, waterfalls, and stone walls from our areas. We have numerous streams, springs, large tree stands, sinkholes, and all kinds of animals from very small to very large. Because of that sensitivity, the zoning ordinance requires that special precautions be taken when considering requests such as this. This request could not be in a worse spot in this county for causing harm to the environment. It is actually in the most sensitive of all zones, the AN zone. When you fill out an application for the PDR program, which my family did, you are judged on a specific point system, much like this request is supposed to be. You get extra points if your farm is in a view shed or can be seen from an interstate highway. I would contend that this quarry operation, which can be seen from the interstate, is truly ugly and should be takeaway points for that. This, you can see right on this picture, the very next slide, that you can see the gravel mountain from the road. This photograph was taken on Old Richmond Road, Highway US 25, and it's right next to I-75, and you can see this mountain of gravel from the road going both directions. It does not promote Fayette County scenic beauty or encourage tourists to want to stop for a while. Let's see. The slide isn't in the right order. I'm going to have to go to a different slide. I'll go back to that one. That's not my slide either. No, I'm going to a different slide. It's not in the right space. Or not here at all. Sorry, you all have this picture. which apparently is not on the slide, I do apologize. It has a stone wall at the bottom of it. It should be the next picture in the grouping. My apologies for that. This photo was taken on Old Richmond Road just as you turn into the quarry site. On one side is this stone outcropping with icicles, which is the top left picture. On one side is the stone outcropping with icicles from frozen springs. We do have springs in our area, which are natural. And on the other side is the wasteland of rock. and I can tell you which one of these is more the tourism is promoting and is not the pile of rock. The very next picture as well shows that too. The top picture shows the spring and the bottom picture shows the mountain of rock. That picture is also not on the slides. My apologies. The 2007 Comprehensive Plan recommends protecting our special environment. The green space plan and the greenway plan, which are separate elements of the comprehensive plan, make specific recommendations for the protection and preservation of natural and historic areas. I have enclosed a page from the plan discussing these, and that should be these pages here, which is also up on the screen. And it talks about the National Register of Historic Places, which was just spoken about earlier, natural areas, natural habitats, natural preserves, and natural resources, all of which are located in our area. The request from this quarry is not compatible with... Excuse me just a second. Where did you say this page was from? This is from the Green Space Plan and Greenway Plan, the 2007 Comprehensive Plan. Okay, thank you. The Boone Creek National Register Rural Historic District is actually very close to this proposal, and the comp plan map is this one. This district includes number 22 and number 23, which is the laser pointer up here anywhere. Over here, thanks. Okay. Okay, excuse me, I just wanted to make one announcement. In light of the time and some uncontrollable circumstances of people who have to leave, what we'd like to do is adjourn this at 6 o'clock and continue next month. Okay. This is the 22 and 23 that I was speaking of right here. It is one of the largest districts of its kind in the nation. It's 4,000-plus in the lower part and 7,000-plus in the middle part, totaling over 11,000 acres of land. I've mentioned them both because they're both located in the two-mile radius that the quarry operation was supposed to tell you about on their vicinity map in the mining ordinance. The next map I have for you shows the aerial photo. That's not the aerial photo. This one right here with these districts and the two-mile radius drawn on it. You can see that this request and the district are only separated by the interstate. The piles of gravel are seen from the district. The district encompasses hundreds of historic structures, which include houses, barns, and stone fences, which are of significant national value. And now I'm going to go back to these other slides. This cabin, for example, dates back to 1760, which is prior to Fort Boonesboro. It is one of the oldest of its kind, and it is located off McCalls Mall Road. Also, here's a photo of the 1803 stone gristmill and the stone hooded spring. Both of these are very rare items. They are dry laid and do not constant vibrations from the blasting, which is definitely felt at the site from that two miles. Running through the National Register District are narrow scenic routes. Let's see, that's right there. and this is a photo of a road and a frozen ledge on Boone Creek, which were given special designation by the state in 1994. The photos I'm showing you are both taken on the frozen Grimes Mill Road with stone walls on both sides and completely tree-canopied. The other with the children is on Boone Creek by the edge of the road where anyone driving by can see the beautiful frozen dripping springs. I love a McCall's Mill, one of the designated St. McBuyways, which is connected to Athens-Boonesboro Road on one end and Grimes Mill Road on the other. All of these roads are state scenic byways. I've given you the aerial map, which we saw earlier right here, with those roads marked on it, so you can just see how close to this request those roads are located. You can see the yellow roads. They don't look too yellow right here, but they're right. This road and this road. The comp plan has two pages devoted to these special roads and byways. That comprehensive plan is enclosed, and it's actually right here. It talks about the different scenic byways in Kentucky, and the Boone Creek Scenic Byway and the Old Richmond Road, Grimes Mill Road scenic byways are both listed on here. And it's also, yes. So there are two pages on that in this packet I've given you. These are great routes for people riding bikes who want to be in the countryside and exercise. Fayette County has a large group of bikers. This is the bike route map. It's very hard to see in this map, but the smaller map that you have in your hand, you can see that there's like a purple and white dashed route, and those are all the bike routes. These rural roadways, including Old Richmond Road, are designated bike routes in the Greenway Master Plan. These trucks racing to and from the existing foray are definitely not compatible with bikers, nor with slow-driving tourists trying to take in the scenery. An even more restrictive designation and more difficult to come by is the designation of Old Richmond Road, a U.S. highway, as a scenic highway. It is dedicated in October of 1999. A state scenic highway is a highway with view sheds and items of cultural and historic value all along the way. It is supposed to be protected from the incompatible uses. KRS 177.572. Trucks dumping gravel on tourists' windshields and blocking the road while their bobcat comes to clean up the pile of gravel on the road is not compatible. This area is also considered a wildlife corridor for animals. We have lots of turkeys in the fields, Canada geese in our ponds, all kinds of ducks, deer, bobcat, and several kinds of owl and hawks. All the regulars also are present, squirrels, raccoon, possum, and skunks. The foxes and coyote are also there. They make the hunting with the Iroquois Hunt Club enjoyable. There's no place in this wonderful environment for a mining quarrying operation. Again, it is just not compatible. In summary, I would like to say that every adopted plan that Fayette County has spent its time and money on says not to put anything like this in place. They're at opposite ends of the zoning scale. One, this is the most sensitive area in all of Fayette County, or it would not have the AN zone designation. Two, the comprehensive plan and all the plans that make it up, like the Greenway Plan, the Rural Land Management Plan, and the Green Space Plan recommend the same thing, protect and preserve it. Three, we'll get a lot more money from tourism by preserving this area than we will from destroying the scenic beauty with piles of gravel. Please deny this request. Thank you. And I also have a letter that I'm putting in the record from the president of the Boone Creek Neighborhood Association requesting this motion be denied. Would you like to stop here? It seems like you all want to. I asked you to bear with me. I know it seems like it's a lot, but we have to make the record. And all those issues are very pertinent to the comprehensive plan, and I know it may seem tedious to you, but it's very important for the record. Can you begin just by focusing on the mining ordinance issue? So can you tell us what the mining ordinance is? You've already established that it seems to be violated. Can you give us in the record the mining ordinance and focus on that, please? Would you like for us to do that now? It'll take about 30 minutes? All right, we'll do it. 30 minutes. Well, I think if it's going to take 30 minutes, then we've got a motion to adjourn, and we can just do that now in order to – because we have a member who has to leave at 6, and in order to give everybody an opportunity to consider things. Hmm? Hmm? It's okay. That's fine. I would ask the Chair, if you would, to preserve the record in the sense that the applicant has completed his case and that there would be no additional evidence submitted, and certainly that the record in terms of filings by the applicant be preserved as well, that there wouldn't be any subsequent filing of, you know, documents. I'm sorry, Tom. I'm just talking to myself. Yeah, I mean, as far as if you recall in our material, we said at the beginning that after the objector's finished, then there's rebuttal and closing to the extent that they could rebut in this hearing. Well, they can rebut. That's correct. Yes. Okay. But I'm particular about the filings with the city, with billing inspection, and what they have done thus far. I don't want a bunch of filings in the record in the interim. Well, I think to the extent that your argument is that they have violated the mining ordinance. By failing to file. By failing to file, then we look at what exists now. And we want to give a fair and adequate hearing to everybody who wants to speak to this issue to the extent that they have something new to add to the conversation. So in light of the hour, we think it's probably not unreasonable to adjourn and have this continue to the next month's, put this on the next month's agenda. That's fine. I just, you know, I want to preserve our position. Thank you very much. Before we make this decision final, I'd like to know what exactly we're gaining by it, because Jan is going to be not here next month, and Lewis will be returned, but will he be allowed to participate? Yes. Lewis will be allowed if he reviews the record up to this point. So we have an audio tape of what's been going on, or I assume it's audio, not video. Who's not going to be here next month? So I'm just wondering if Noel has to leave in a few minutes, then we're down to five. And if Kathy has to leave because it's her anniversary or her child's sick or she's had enough, then she can leave and we still have four. I don't know. Four is a quorum. Four is a quorum. Four is a quorum. I don't know. Can I caucus? It's your call, really. I mean, obviously it's our decision we can hold a vote. Sure. You can vote. Yeah. Okay. I think the length of our presentation would probably be best served by doing it the next time. But will we be first or will we be put at the end of the agenda again? I mean, I assume you're going to go through the roll call first. But in terms of contested issues, I assume we would go back first. Yeah, you would be the first contested issue. Okay. I don't have a problem with that. Okay, I assume you have to. I really, it bothers me that we're going to lose one who's heard half of it and then pick up somebody who may read it and may not read the whole. That's it. But you'll also be losing somebody who has to leave, too. Oh, I'm not, I'm sure you have to leave. I'm wondering if, is there some way we could finish this in some time frame short of another month? Special meeting. One of the alternatives is to take a vote now, which I don't recommend because I would like to give everybody a fair hearing. Other than that, I don't know what our options are. Oh, no, don't take me off that special meeting issue. I want to – I think that's your answer. Ms. Follin, do you have – You can certainly schedule a special meeting. I mean, you have all the interested parties here. It doesn't have to be renoticed in order to do a continuance to another date. That's certainly a possibility if that's what the board wants to do. The one thing I wanted to make sure the board is aware of is that whatever decision you ultimately make, you do need to make a motion so that it's a formal decision. Yeah. Yeah, I just thought we were talking about it. I'm in favor of a special meeting. Okay. I don't mind. Okay. When would you want to do that? Next Friday? Is this available? Are chambers available next Friday? On Fridays they are usually. Usually they are. Honestly, we do not know if there's another meeting scheduled. We would have to check that Monday. Could we? I mean, I'm going to be out of town getting back Thursday night. Could we do it sometime the next week? How about two Fridays? Does that work? I think that's fine. Two Fridays, okay, 14 days? That would be 14 days from today. What's the date? The 11th of February. Do you know if it's available? We'll have to communicate that to the board early next week. Why don't we do this then? We'll have a formal motion, but the idea is that if it's available, we can schedule it for the 11th. If it's not available, then it will just have to be heard at the next regular meeting. Okay. I think that's all we can do. That's fine.