1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Okay, we have 10. All right. Unless there's an objection, I will call the meeting to order. It's a little difficult to see behind those easels. Yes. May we, would somebody help us? And Jimmy, can you help us here, please, sir? And maybe move these over to the right of the podium. Thank you very much. This meeting is called for the purpose of this is a zone change hearing. and first I'll take a roll call Madam Clerk okay thank you Meredith Ms. Henson? Here. Mr. Kay? Here. Mr. Lane? Ms. Lawless? Here. Mr. Martin? Mr. McCord? Here. Mr. Myers? Mr. Stinnett? Here. Mr. Beard? Mr. Blues? Here. Ms. Cosby? Mr. Ellinger? Here. Mr. Farmer? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Ford? Here. Ms. Gorton? Thank you. Meredith, would you give a second reading to the zone change, please? An ordinance changing the zone from a two-family residential R2 zone to a planned neighborhood residential R3 zone for 0.1722 net 0.2996 gross acre for property located at 578 Woodland Avenue and 505 Columbia Avenue, subject to certain use restrictions imposed as conditions of granting the zone change in conjunction with a conditional use permit and a dimensional variance, Phi Gamma Delta House Corporation. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Okay, next I need to ask everyone who will be giving testimony and the staff to stand so it can be sworn in. All right, if you'll raise your right hand, please. Do you swear the testimony you are about to give is the truth? Yes. Thank you very much. All right. So what we will, for those of, I think everyone has been through a zoning hearing now, right? Okay. I want to quickly go through the rules for anyone who may, and including myself, to re-familiarize myself with it. We have a witness list. Is that right, Jimmy? We do? Okay. So first we will hear from the planning staff, and we will hear from Jimmy Emmons on the planning staff's recommendations. Then the presentation by the petitioner. Thank you. Then the presentation by those who oppose the request, and then the staff will have the opportunity to make additional comments. Following that will be the petitioner's presentation of rebuttal evidence, and then the closing summary by the opponent, and then the closing summary by the petitioner. At the conclusion of all the presentations, the Council will ask questions of the staff, petitioner, and opponent. The petitioner and opponent will be entitled to rebut any new evidence brought up on the council questioning. Then the hearing is closed and the council will vote to adopt findings of fact. The council will vote by a roll call. Okay. And when we get to that point, we'll go through the process of voting because sometimes it can get a little confusing. So, Jimmy, are you prepared? All right, thank you. Sir, just as a preface, there is a section in your rules that discusses the fact that architectural renderings cannot be admitted to this process. We do have received a letter from, I believe it was the Bluegrass Trust, an objection that included architectural renderings. the applicant has that as part of their presentation that combination made things rather awkward we would just indicate to council that it cannot be enforced with respect to how this structure will look on the outside after it's built only in for instance an h1 overlay do we have any control over architectural features. So if they are included in part of the presentation and in the record, I would just like to issue a warning that that should not be a basis of your decision. The outside appearance of the structure as it's rendered is not an appropriate basis for the decision on the zone change. All right. So what you're saying is that we can leave the rendering up, but it should not be considered? I don't see how we can prevent the proponent from using it when an opponent has already submitted a letter that included a copy of that rendering. It created a rather awkward situation. I think as long as it is not relied upon in any findings either to support or not support this zone change, I think that we'll be okay with that. Are there any objections to what Ms. Boland has just suggested? Hearing none, Vice Mayor Gordon. I simply have a comment because some of us up here were on the Council that decided we did not want to see architectural renderings because we cannot affect whether that's the final determination. So what would prevent us from removing the architectural rendering? I think you have the option to do that. It is clearly stated in your rules. Yes. I think that you would want, for instance, with the, I haven't seen the Bluegrass Trust letter, but if you could redact that portion from the letter so that any copy of the rendering is not included in the record and therefore is not considered, that may allow you to simply say our rules clearly state we will not consider rendering, so we're not going to accept that in your presentation. I personally think that would be more appropriate because we know that in the end it may look totally different than the rendering. So we shouldn't really have that before us while we're having our hearing and making our decisions. So I think it would be more appropriate, according to our rules and the guidelines, to remove that and redact it from the information that you've stated. Second. All right, there's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All right, all in favor of the motion as stated by Vice Mayor Gordon, seconded by Council Member Farmer, please indicate by saying yes. Yes. All opposed, no. Motion carries. All right, so shall remove the rendering. Okay, Mr. Emmons. Yes, sir. Proceed. For the record, my name is Jimmy Emmons. I'm a senior planner with the Division of Planning, and I'm very pleased to present this zone change report to the council tonight. For the record, I do need to enter in several things for the record. The first one would be that the legal notice for the tonight's zone change was posted. Also, an affidavit from Mr. Bill Salley that he supervised the mailing of the notice letters, which also included three neighborhood association letters. I need to submit the recommendations of the Urban County Planning Commission, which is also placed at your desk. The 2007 comprehensive plan. A copy of our zoning ordinance. Land subdivision regulations. And finally, the staff did present a paper copy of the PowerPoint presentation, which I'll show later on, which was also at your seats. This is MARCV 2010-12 for the Phi Gamma Delta House Corporation. This is a zone change request from an R2 zone, which is our two-family residential zone, to an R3 zone, which is our planned neighborhood residential zone. It encompasses two properties, 578 Woodland Avenue and 505 Columbia Avenue. I'm going to move over to the boards now. And I do realize that this is a very small piece of property, and I'll show it in greater detail on there. The property is bounded by, is at the corner of Woodland Avenue and Columbia Avenue. This large area that you see right here is the Aylesford H1 Historic District. This large white space over here is the University of Kentucky. This property is located in between the two. The property is currently zoned R2, as is several of the properties shown in orange on the map. There is also other zoning in the area that is zoned R3 and R4, and a little bit of R1E and R1T zoning in the general vicinity. The Planning Commission did approve a preliminary development plan, which is a conceptual development plan for the subject property. You can see, once again, at the corner of Woodland and Columbia Avenue, the applicants are proposing a building that's a little bit under 1,900 square feet. It would be two stories and would have two bedrooms with four people living in the building. There is also six parking spaces that would be located off of Columbia Avenue. The comprehensive plan for this area is located, if you recognize the big blue area here, that is the University of Kentucky. For the blow-up, it's right here. The land use for the subject property is recommended for medium density residential. And I'll show you up on the screen with my PowerPoint in more detail for those properties. First, the existing zoning. Can I get the lights on just a little more? Thank you. This is a, as mentioned earlier, the subject properties are 578 Woodland Avenue and 505 Columbia Avenue. The properties are currently zoned R2. There is an apartment complex here and then the university housing here that is zoned R4. This is zoned R3. Directly across Woodland Avenue is the Woodland Learning Center, the daycare. It is also zoned R4. The caddy corner to the subject property is the University of Kentucky Library, and it is currently zoned R2. This is an overall aerial view of the area. You can see the university library here. This is the Christian Student Fellowship property. Right here is the daycare for the Woodland Center, and the subject property is located here. As we zoom in and look at the property in a little more detail, and look at this corner of Woodland Avenue and Columbia Avenue, This property is situated with institutional type uses at the three other corners of Columbia Avenue and Woodland Avenue. This is looking south. Once again, we have the UK's library property, the Christian Student Fellowship Building, and the Woodland Learning Center. looking at the subject property these are pictures taken on the ground from UK library corner looking down Columbia Avenue the subject property that's outlined in blue there are two properties there are currently two houses on the property the white house up at the corner in the yellow house that you see a little bit further back as we go down Columbia Avenue we've highlighted the properties They currently share a parking area between the two single-family homes, and they are used as rental properties primarily for U.K. students. Given its proximity to U.K., that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The final picture on the ground is looking down Woodland Avenue from the U.K. corner. You can see the entrance to the Woodland Learning Center, and this is looking down Woodland Avenue towards Euclid. The comprehensive plan, as I mentioned earlier, this property is recommended for medium-density residential, as is the Columbia Heights neighborhood. You can see the high-density recommendations there in the brown for the U.K. apartment complex and the existing apartment complex. The area that looks white on the screen is also a light blue on our maps. It's the other public use indicating the University of Kentucky's ownership and use of those properties. If I can turn your attention now to the Planning Commission's final report on this one. The Planning Commission did look at this zone change request and recommended conditional approval of that. The Planning Commission's findings for approval were that the subject property is recommended for medium density residential. With the applicant's proposal to have four people living in the fraternity house, that would be the equivalent of one dwelling unit on the property under our current definition of family. That the one dwelling unit on this property is in agreement with the comprehensive plan and, in fact, is a reduction in the density of this area. The Planning Commission also found that in addition to the land use element of the comprehensive plan, that the goals and objectives, specifically Goal 13, which incorporates housing needs for everyone, that this proposed zone change is also in agreement with the goals and objectives. And that wasn't just it. It's not just looking at the comprehensive plan, but the Division of Planning and the Planning Commission also looked at the appropriateness of the subject property and their requested zone change. The proposed land use of a fraternity house is appropriate at this location because it's in close proximity to a significant number of other Greek organizations and also that it is ideally located at a corner where you've got other institutional uses, as in the University of Kentucky, the daycare, and the Christian Student Fellowship. This recommendation was made subject in approval to the certification of the development plan, and also the Planning Commission felt that it was appropriate to conditionally zone this property and limit its use to three uses. The first one being single-family detached housing, two-family detached housing, and any conditional use approved by either the Planning Commission or the Board of Adjustment. Essentially, if for some reason the fraternity house were not to go in as approved by the Planning Commission, then what could go back on the property would be a single-family home or a duplex, which is what it could happen under the existing R2 zoning today. The Planning Commission felt that this restriction was appropriate and necessary in order to keep this compatible with the neighborhood and in agreement with the land use recommendations of the 2007 comprehensive plan. This concludes the staff presentation on the zoning report. If you have any questions for me or any of the Planning Commission's actions, I, of course, will be happy to answer those and I'll be available throughout your hearing. Thank you, Jimmy. Okay, next on our agenda is a presentation by the petitioner and – okay. Mr. Simmons, right? Ben, as a chair, I will encourage the presentation to encourage you to try to limit this to 30 minutes, and the objectors as well. That usually gives us enough time to ask questions. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gov. I'll give you a heads up at the end of 30 minutes. If you still need more time, then try to give us an indication of how much more time. All right? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir. Before I get started, I understand that I need to present the affidavit. Is that correct? Okay. I will be using the handout that we've distributed to you for the majority of my presentation. I will also be referring to the rendering that we've put on the easels here to describe sort of the land situation and the way we saw the site and how it worked to our needs. At the top of your handout, we have four recommendation letters that we have received. One of them is from the Assistant Dean of Fraternities, Keith Ellis, who is here. The other three are from our existing neighbors on Maxwell Court, describing our relationship with them over the past, I guess it's 18, 20 years since we purchased the property in 1993 on Maxwell Court. To give you a little bit of background on the project, the fraternity recolonized in, I think it was 93 or 94. They have approximately 50 members. we have been at Maxwellton Court since we recolonized we are an award winning chapter we have been an alcohol free fraternity at UK since 1998 we were one of the first chapters in the country to decide to go alcohol free I felt the need to mention that because that is also going to be carried over into the new building, the new building will be alcohol free and tobacco free as well I'll mention that here in a moment If you would, please follow along with me in the handout that I've given you, the first page being the quote from Thomas Riley Marshall. And this really summed up sort of the project context for us. We really wanted to create a home away from home for the development of our young men, for the development of our leadership and our membership. As far as the site selection, as you can see from the rendering, and as Jimmy has mentioned, one of the key things we looked for was the proximity to UK, as well as the proximity to other fraternities and sororities on campus. We thought being only a block or two away would be helpful because it would limit sort of the need for driving, encourage foot traffic, walking back and forth, It would also limit the amount of traffic because guys usually walk to class so they could stop in, hang out, maybe study, and then head on to class and vice versa when they were coming home. We also saw that when we looked at the actual rendering, and if I can, is this on? When we actually went on the PBA website, a couple things that we saw. The first was all of this area right here is what we would consider to be rental property. That is, if you go on the website, all of these addresses, the homeowner's address is different from the mailing address. So we are assuming that it's very likely that all of this is student housing. All of this, as you can see, is owned by a university. We also saw that there was a close adjacency to the parking. These are existing parking lots owned by UK run on Monday through Thursday between 3.30 and 7.30. Since most of our events would happen during the evening, We thought this was conducive so that instead of parking along the streets and in the neighborhood, the men could actually park in the existing parking lots. Also on the weekends when we had events, they could use those open lots as well. We also wanted to note to the council that the proposed site for the study lodge does not actually go any further into the neighborhood than the existing religious organizations on campus. So we're concerned about limiting the impact of the fraternity study lodge on the neighborhood. If you look at the photos of the existing site, these are a couple additional ones on top of the ones that Jimmy has shown you. Again, you'll notice that there's two buildings. One houses four individuals. The other houses five individuals. There's a total of nine occupants on the existing site. It does not meet the local zoning regulations for setbacks. It also doesn't meet them for landscaping. Notice that the concrete parking lot goes all the way up to the street. For our new building, for the study lodge, we're approximating $800,000 in construction for this new building. We are proposing to reduce the occupancy from 9 to 4 to both conform to the comprehensive plan, but also to provide an alcohol-free and smoke-free facility. We also want to improve the landscaping as part of the project. We feel that it will meet the zoning requirements. We've had the staff looked at it. They've approved it. We've had the planning commission. They've approved it. Unanimously, I might add. As far as the actual building layout, if you would apologize for the renderings, You can discard those if you'd wish. You can move through to the actual floor plans, and it is my understanding that we can submit these. You can use these for reference. We're talking about the space of the building. One of the key things that we saw was flexibility because they have different events, such as weekly meetings, weekly pledge meetings, parent's day weekend, graduate's day weekend. So we wanted to give them a space that they could use for meet and greets mainly. There will be no parties here. Again, this is an alcohol-free house. We're very serious about that because our international headquarters is located here in Lexington. We also see that if you look on the second floor, the majority of the second floor plan is study space of some sort. The reason is we are trying to maximize the amount of study space in the building. This is because of the way we fundraise through the fraternity. If we have the, there's two organizations that are set up through the international headquarters. There's the International Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity, and then there's the Phi Gamma Delta Educational Foundation. The Educational Foundation is a branch of the fraternity. It is an organization that gets tax-deductible dollars from graduates, which then it uses to fund things like educational programming, things like study spaces and fraternity houses, and membership development. What we're trying to do is maximize the amount of space in this building that the foundation can pay for. That makes it easier for us when we go and we call up graduates and say, would you like to give some money to the project? They're more likely to give more money if it can be tax-deductible dollars. So we're trying to maximize the amount of tax-deductible dollars we can use on the project. If you'll move to the next page, one of the very unique things about this project, it will be the only LEED Platinum fraternity study lodge in the country. We are pursuing Lee Platten. We have several strategies. These are not the only strategies that we are employing, but these are several strategies that we think are really important and that both help us and it also helps the neighborhood. Reducing automobile emissions by our site selection. Reducing sanitary water usage by choosing low-flow fixtures. We had our mechanical electrical consultants do some numbers for us. If we spec low-flow plumbing fixtures versus the nine occupants that live there now, if we have four occupants using low-flow fixtures, we will save 50,000 gallons of water per year. We also want to reduce the stormwater runoff. The strategy behind that is we want to take, instead of having the parking lot be pavement, asphalt, or concrete, have the entire parking lot be made out of pervious pavers. We understand that there's a dollar amount associated with that, but we feel that's important. But then what happens is that that water is then collected, put into a cistern. That water is then used for things like toilets in the building and irrigation in the landscaping. We also want to reduce the energy consumption via geothermal and other HVAC systems, which are smart. The reason we want to do that is we want to be able to cut down on the amount of utility bills that we're going to have to pay each month. We're projecting that the building would be able to save up to 50 percent energy costs or about $3,500 per year. We want to recycle the building materials. We've gotten a lot of criticisms from the neighborhood because they say we're just going to tear down the buildings. Our actual plan was we would walk the buildings with folks like Habitat Humanity and actually identify things like casework and appliances and things that we can donate to those organizations rather than sending them directly to the landfills. On a similar note, when we get to the construction phase of the project, What we would like to do is incorporate recycled materials, such as salvaged lumber, for things like casework and flooring. The last thing we want to do is maintain the tree canopy level. We understand we will have to remove some trees during demolition to make way for the parking, but we think that it's important to rebuild tree canopy level. It reduces the heat island effect, and it also adds to the landscaping of the neighborhood. The last slide is – I'm sorry, there's two more. The last one, which is the most important one for a lot of reasons, is the neighborhood concerns. We approached the neighborhood a few weeks before we had our first public hearing back in, I believe it was November. We listened to their issues. We tried to address as many of them as possible. The first one, it's more in conjunction with the comprehensive plan, and that is by us reducing the number of occupants from nine to four to coincide with the comprehensive plan. We think that with this being a study lodge, an alcohol-free study lodge, that will reduce the amount of trash and damage and abuse on the property and the surrounding properties. We think with the parking, yes, we understand that we are limited in terms of our parking, but we're working with the neighborhood associations, several of the religious organizations, as well as talking to UK about using their existing parking lot for event parking. Things like traffic flow. We anticipate the majority of the car traffic to come from Rose Lane down Columbia and from Euclid down Woodland. We don't anticipate a lot of car traffic coming from the neighborhood. Most of those people will access the building via bike or walking because most of them live in that area. Stormwater runoff, I've already mentioned, using the pervious pavers for our paving in the parking lot to reduce that. and last but not least, landscaping and aesthetics, picking local plants to work with the neighborhood. The last sheet I have is the list of accomplishments the chapter has achieved over the past seven or eight years. Just to speak to the fact that this chapter is not one that is really interested in partying, it's more about scholarship and sort of being good men who give back to the community. So I think there's a couple other people here. I am finished with my portion of the presentation, but I believe we have others. All right. Thanks, Ben. Who else signed up to speak on behalf of the petitioner? All right, sir. Ben, did we get your name and address when you started? If we didn't, could you? My name is Ben Harper. Yeah, Ben. I live at 2686 Sussex Drive in Lexington, but I'm not over here on Payne Street working the other 16 hours of the day. I've been on the Housing Corporation Board probably close to 40 years now. The only other person who outdates me is Pat Bean, the CPA who's been the treasurer since 1963. I found the house that we're currently in on Maxwellton and bought it with Pat's blessing from Al and Martha Helen Smith. It's in Councilperson Lawless' District 2, so we're staying with the people we know. During that time, the chapter has grown. We've developed a great relationship with St. Agnes' house, with Shepard's house, and most importantly with the gentleman next door, Paul Shaw, Skipper Shaw. We've always been there for them. They've always been there for us. And that's the way sort of a family works. I've never, ever had an occasion to bail anyone out of jail or answer a complaint about a noisy party or anything like this. And these guys are the most remarkable people of undergraduates that I've ever been associated with, and that includes some pretty awesome people over the last 40 years. But other than that, I want you to know that I think a lot of this comes from oversight, not only oversight from the graduates to the undergraduates, but the oversight that we get from the international fraternity. We want our chapter to be the best that there is. scholarship plays a major importance. On Maxwellton, we have about 11% of our total floor space that's designated to scholarship only. Hopefully, the new building, the study lodge, would have three times this amount of study space, dedicated just for academic endeavors. That's what I've got. Any new questions? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Harper. Does anyone else wish to speak on behalf of the petitioner, Mr. Lear? Yes, I did not sign up and was not sworn in, if you'd like me to. Well, go ahead. You swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. I do. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. This will be very brief. I'm here on behalf of the owner of the property, Touchstone Properties, which has owned the property since late 1999. And the only points that I wish to make other than stating our support for the petition are that, one, this was used as a student housing. These two were used as student housing residents when we first acquired them and for several years prior to that and are used for that today. This is a stable area that houses a number of students and has for a long time, in large part because of its immediate proximity to the University of Kentucky campus. It is literally across the street from the W.T. Young Library. It's across the street from a daycare center that was originally private and now I believe is owned by the University of Kentucky, which, as it happens, I think Mrs. Wiseman and I actually represented the owners in getting zoned some time ago. So this represents a new development, but we believe an improvement. It is a very low-intensity use because of the low number of students there, and it's in an area which, as Ben said at the outset, is an established student housing area. I first pointed out to him, if you look at the notification map, There are two or three or four residences where the owner is listed as having the same address as the property. None of those are on Columbia within the notification area. A couple are down the street and around the corner on Oldham and barely touch the notification area, and one is on Woodland, and actually, according to the map, is outside the area, but it's listed on the map. It's not an intensification, nor is it an intrusion. And the last I would say is in dealing with these young people and some of their alums, I have been very impressed that this is going to be a first-rate facility and a dramatically different facility from the picture that sometimes people try to paint or think of as the old-style fraternity. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bill. Yes, I'm Tom Block. I'm an officer of the Phi Gamma Delta House Corporation. I live at 104 Unicorn Way, Georgetown, Scott County. And I'm here to talk about the letter that I received this morning from the Bluegrass Trust. the bluegrass trust and i see the poor lady who wrote this had to work on super bowl sunday and that's not good but we've been working with this process for six months and it's this morning we find out that the bluegrass trust has an apparent objection um we had no idea that there was any kind of historical or architectural significance with these structures. One is a 1950s era cape, maybe, and the other is, in fact, older than that. And we're unaware that any important things ever happened there. If George Washington slept there, it wasn't the guy who was on the money. So I don't know what the protection of the structures is about, but we were unaware of and no one brought it to our attention. The Bluegrass Trust believes we're putting in peril the fine homes in Columbia Heights. I don't really think that's the case, and I'm not sure the people in Columbia Heights do. We've worked with them. Before we went through any formal process, we sent to their organization a 16-, 18-, 20-page presentation of what the building was going to look like and what we were going to do with it and how we wanted to work with it. And we went to their meeting. I guess they had 15, 20 people there maybe. We talked about their concerns. I know one man had a concern that we were going to get the zoning change approved and we were going to go from four guys to 50 guys while no one was looking. Well, I think we've addressed that. There was concern about runoff. I think we've addressed that. I really don't think there's a great peril for the neighborhood. Avert your eyes from the rendering, but even the people at Columbia Heights thought it was a pretty good-looking building, and apparently the people at Bluegrass Trust do also. The next program or page of their letter is the one, the reality is that the fraternity, through turnover and weariness and simple lack of care, that this property may somehow diminish. Well, I'm frankly not aware of any property anywhere that isn't subject to turnover, weariness, and simple lack of care. And that's possible anywhere. As Ben Harper said, we've been maintaining our building on Max Welton for 18 to 20 years. And we don't have a lot of money, but we try and make it look good. The young men who live there, they work hard to try and make it look good. Yeah, I can tell you, we've had discussions sometimes the grass got a little long where there were some weeds in the flower beds, and they got on it and cleaned it up. And our neighbors appreciate that, and I think it works out well. and it's our responsibility as a house corporation to make sure it stays that way. When I made some calls initially to some of our brothers to see if they would support this project financially, the second question they had once they got over the idea that this was not a dormitory, that this was something different and it's a different concept for people to get their head around, the second question they had was, if I give you money, who's going to look after my investment? And I'm assuring these brothers that if they give us money, this house corporation and these young men who live there, they're going to look after and take care of their investment. The Bluegrass Trust included something on the KA house on Maxwell, and we're not responsible for the KAs. I see they had two curb cuts, and apparently it gets muddy over there. Our architect is so brilliant, we only have one curb cut, so there isn't going to be any grass or anything to get muddy. And the couch is there. I don't know. Maybe it was trash day. I don't even think the KAs will sit out in cold rain in the mud on a couch. I don't know. Lastly, we bring up the concept that a million dollars in mahogany was paneling a state-of-the-art house on Rose Lane. We're guesstimating that this entire project is going to cost us about $1.2 million. I don't think we have any mahogany in there, do we? We don't have any mahogany in there. And the next page just talks about the fire department was called for multiple fire code violations. Ladies and gentlemen, this property they're talking about is university housing. It's university housing. We don't have any control over that. And lastly, I guess when I was getting ready to look at this letter that we got today, the largest paragraph in the whole thing talks about the University of Kentucky's unwillingness to provide sufficient housing. It talks about the University's dereliction of its duties. If the Bluegrass Trust has a problem with the University of Kentucky, that's fine, but I don't think we're involved in that. that. They want to take on UK, that's fine. We are proposing here a 3,100 square foot, two-story, two-bedroom, two-full, two-half bath, four-person occupancy property. That is totally appropriate for this neighborhood, and I think an improvement over what's there. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Block. Welcome. Good afternoon. My name is Keith Ellis. I am the Assistant Dean of Students at the University of Kentucky, and I work with the fraternities and sororities there. And I want to say that it's a pleasure today to be asked by the organization to come and speak on their behalf. This has been an outstanding group of students that I've worked with over the past three years that I've been in this position, and the three years prior to that where I was also working on campus in another role. This has also been an outstanding organization both locally and nationally, and these men have taken care of their investment in their property to the best of their ability over the course of that time. The men involved in this group have shown a commitment to community service, as illustrated in the letters that you've received from Shepherd's House and the St. Agnes House. I'll also highlight that they're one of the leading groups that works with our neighborhood street cleanups that the Interfraternity Council sponsors every Sunday after home football games. That is not something that we have to do. It's not something that these men have to show up for. But it's something that they do because their other college students are out in the neighborhoods and they make a mess and they go out and try to clean that up on the weekends in their own time to pick up the mess that other people have left. In the time that I've known them, they've shown a commitment to leadership. The men in this organization have been involved in student government, Dance Blue, the Student Activities Board, and most recently on our IFC Council. The president of our Interfraternity Council this past year was a member of Phi Gamma Delta. And through his leadership, we've done as much as we can to try to clean up the image of fraternities at UK. And I know fraternities get a bad rap. Fraternities cause a lot of problems in our neighborhoods, and we are trying to work to improve those organizations. But Phi Gamma Delta is not one of the ones that has been causing problems. Over the course of the past six years, I have not heard once of a problem that has occurred at their facility, nor of a risk management violation that has been occurred during one of their social events or by one of the members of their organization. This is a group that has done everything that they can. They perform fraternity the way that it should be performed. They do the things that fraternal organizations are set out to be about, to improve scholarship. Only once in the past seven years have they had a GPA below a 3.0. That's a very impressive feat for a group of young men. In fact, they've been in the top four or five of fraternity rankings since 2004, every semester. They're a group that has done their best to strive for that. They've shown a commitment to community service, and they've shown a commitment to brotherly love. They support themselves, they support their brothers, and they support their organization. Ultimately, what I want to say is that I think this group has done everything that they can. They approached the university to try to find property on campus. We worked with them. We looked at a number of sites, and part of their funding model involves parking. The university is not going to be able to give over a piece of land for parking that is going to be sold by another organization. that would be an irresponsible use of our property. And so they had to look for other places because that was part of the way that they needed to fund their project. So, yes, they did approach us, and we worked with them as best we could. I thank you for your time today. Thank you, Mr. Ellis. And who's next? Yes, sir. I think I'm batting clean up. Bill Martin. I'm the executive director of Phi Gamma Delta International Fraternity. Can you give us your address, please, sir? I'm sorry. 1412 Lookout Circle in Lexington. Thank you. I'm the Executive Director of Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. We've had our headquarters, our international fraternity headquarters here in Lexington since 1973. We've been located over on Red Mile Road since 1985. One of the very important roles that we play in the fraternity is to monitor the condition and performance of our 120 undergraduate chapters and react when conditions call for that. Now, the last page of the supporting material that you've received from the applicant lists the chapter's accomplishments since 2005. I can expand upon and summarize by telling you that for over 10 years, this chapter has built a record of responsible behavior and accomplishment. Now, we can talk about the past performance. That's no guarantee of future results. And I understand that that's one of the concerns of the Bluegrass Trust. A fraternity chapter's membership does turn over about 25 percent every year. But with this turnover, this chapter's record has been consistent for the last 10 years and more. We have four entities involved in oversight of this chapter that should give you comfort that this chapter is a good risk for the future. Four entities at two levels. We have the house corporation, which will own the property, which will be interested in maintaining the value of that property. Equally important, we have a group of advisors to the chapter who are not so concerned about the property. They're concerned about the experience that the young men are having and concerned that the young men in the chapter continue to get the great experience that they've had over the last 10 years and more. At the level beyond that, a little bit farther away, we have the University of Kentucky Dean's Office, as represented here by Keith Ellis, and we have the International Fraternity Headquarters, which just happens to be here in Lexington. So you have two levels of accountability there, all of whom are going to respond when anything tends to get out of line. I can tell you that in my experience working here at the fraternity headquarters for over 20 years, I've never had to field a call or a letter or any matter of concern regarding this chapter, and I don't think that's going to happen in the future either. We believe in Phi Gamma Delta that our greatest asset is our reputation, and this chapter here has done things that only have enhanced our reputation throughout their existence. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else wishing to speak on behalf of the petitioner? If not, we can move on to the next section of the hearing, which is a presentation by the opponent. And I have a number of folks who have signed up. Is there any one particular person as a spokesperson for the opponents? Ms. Savage. Kate Savage, 619 Columbia Avenue, board member of the Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association. And it'll take me a minute. Oh, okay. I would just like to quickly take you around that corner. I know you've seen a few photographs already, but some of the things and the points that I'd like to make my photographs help to illustrate that. And how do I go from this? Next one. This is the daycare that's on the northwest corner. And my understanding is that it's an R3. I think somebody said earlier it was R4. Certainly on the planning information it's listed as R3. And I don't believe UK owns it. I think that the daycare center is actually a franchise and they are owned out of an organization on the West Coast. This is the WT Young Library. You're all familiar with that, I'm sure. This is the synergy in the Wesleyan Christian Center that's on the other side of the road. The synergy building is actually on the corner and it's usually empty. They seem to just hold events and have functions there, but next to it is the Wesleyan Christian Center that actually has 49 apartments as part of that complex. This is just another photograph of it. Gray Days. Okay, this is the property that faces Woodland Avenue that is facing demolition, owned by Bill Lear presently, or Touchstone, his property company. This is the other little building that's on Columbia Avenue that faces Columbia. So it's those two buildings that face demolition. And it's kind of hard to see, but there's the little yellow building there on the right, and then you can see the backside of the white building that would be around the corner on Woodland. And presently, the parking that is shared jointly between these two houses, and yes, they're student rental properties, is there where all the cars are. This is the corner, a photograph taken from W.T. Young Library. shot down, well, to the left, Woodland, going further, Columbia. The point of these photographs is just to show you how closely the buildings are. You can see where the white building on the corner, and then there's a little blue building next to it that Craig Harden owns. They're virtually on top of each other. Again, just another shot of the same corner. This is the parking lot this morning. between the two properties. What you can see, that white building that's smack dab in the middle, is actually part of the building that's next to it, the Craig Harden property, and there's a little dog run that links it to the front part of the house. It's one of those vinyl add-ons that we fought so fiercely for with the H1 and didn't get. This is the parking lot at the Wesleyan Center. I went in and I talked to them earlier this week, and they are totally unaware of any promise that has been made to share their parking. In fact, they would be strongly opposed to it. They have the 49 properties that are people who live there and they have nothing. They fight over those spaces as it is. This is parking on Columbia and it's just bumper to bumper. This is the backside of the Wesleyan property and you can see most of those parking spaces are taken. and again behind Synergy. And this is the sign that is in the Wesleyan Center, no parking except apartment residence, and they enforce that. This is the parking at the daycare center. I also walked in and talked to the director there, and she said absolutely not. There has been no provisions or conditions or promises made to share their parking spaces. In fact, they are so stringent about their parking that they tow their own employees if they are there when they're not actually working. And that's the other side of the same parking lot. Whoops. I wanted to keep that for last. Well, actually, I'll go back to that. But there's my little presentation, so you get a feel for the neighborhood and for that particular corner and the congestion of the parking, which is one of our major concerns. I want to preface this presentation by saying we understand We understand that this is an upstanding fraternity. We are not against students. We live in the diverse neighbourhood that we do because we enjoy having a variety of people and neighbours around us. This is not something where we are attacking fraternities, students or UK. We are simply here to oppose the zoning change. We feel that it's too large a building on too small a lot. We feel that it will place additional stresses on the area that are already overburdened. And I appreciate the efforts that have been made to do the permeable pavings and things like this. EOP are terrific architects, great designers. I'm glad to see that we had to take that board down because really those visual representations are visual unreality. We all know how a CAD program can create some astonishing-looking spaces. However, how can we monitor what's inside that space? It looks like there's a bunch of desks, but how do we know? How do we know that there's going to be all those desks? How can we verify that that, in fact, is how the place will be furnished? I know I've got a 27-year-old son myself. He belonged to a fraternity when he went to college. Kids sleep on the floor. push things out of the way, they'll bunk up with each other. Just because there is accommodations for four students there does not mean that it will be limited to just four people sleeping over there. We also feel that there are no advantages to the existing community in the neighborhood. This brings nothing to our neighborhood that we feel helps. We're also very strongly opposed to spot zoning, conditional use permits, and exceptions to setbacks. These are made willy-nilly, piecemeal, spot zoning. Where do you draw the line? Fraternities belong on campus. They do not belong in residential neighborhoods. And I appreciate the letter from the Bluegrass Trust. I'm glad that they jumped in, even if it was at the last minute, because they're right. Students are a transitory group of people. They don't set up home, even if this fraternity house is going to be a home away from home. They're still a group that move through, and therefore you can't ask them to take serious ownership of the space. There's no parking. There's absolutely no parking. six parking spaces pedestrian, bike vehicular traffic on that corner it has to be about the busiest crossroads in Lexington except maybe at the intersection of Rose and Columbia foot traffic is all the time it's constant there are 55 plus members of the local chapter of this fraternity 55 Now, maybe they'll come on bikes, maybe they'll come on foot, but I suspect a lot of them will come in their cars. Where will they park? It's not like a family with one car. Each of them will have their own car, and there's nowhere in that neighborhood for 55 cars to park. And as I said, they've not got permission from either the daycare or the church apartment group. I question the need for a study lodge they are right opposite the biggest study lodge in this town the WT Young Library is right there state of the art fabulous place to study why do they need a study lodge is this fraternity exceptionally studious I asked my son when I say study lodge, fraternity study lodge what does that mean to you? what do you think that means? and he said well you know off the cuff it means somewhere where the fraternity brothers will study and he said but let's face it mom it's really just a euphemism I thought that was a great word it is a euphemism it's a euphemism for and I don't know how to go back how do I go back on this? Can you take me to the very last slide? My very last slide? It's a euphemism for a fraternity house. And I hope you can pull it up because this is a great quote. Being in the food business, I love food quotes. This is Jack Pepin, and I can probably do it from memory. But I'd like you all to be able to see it. Can you do it for me? and it just illustrates the fact that you can call it what you like but it's still a fraternity house there are 55 members and if they're all going to be congregating there this is the quote roast chicken is still roast chicken whether you label it oak cuisine bourgeois cuisine country cooking and even calling it poulet ruti will not transmogrify this simple bird and it's a study fraternity house not a study lodge. They don't need a study lodge. There's a library on the other corner. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Savage. Would anyone else like to speak? Mr. Cohen. Ted Cowan, 612 Columbia Avenue. My comments are probably a little different because I'd like for you to think about the long-term the long-term implications of this issue. As I understand it, last year a consultant was brought to Lexington to talk about the relationship between the university and the neighborhoods around the university, or the university and the town. Some way to make that relationship viable for all concerned, not only for these students, not only for the university, but also for the people who live in the town, who live adjacent to the university. I was not at any of the meetings with the consultant. I believe my wife was. I believe then-Vice Mayor Gray may have been at some of the meetings. I believe Councilwoman Lawless may have been at one of the meetings. I'm not sure which among the rest of you would have been there. But the thing that I got out of people talking about what went on at those meetings was the consultant, and I believe from the University of Pennsylvania, something like that, from that area, was the fellow saying that what needed to occur was a dialogue between the community, urban county government, and the university that was not just a dialogue, but that in fact there was some planning going on. Where does development occur? Where does the university expand? Where should fraternity and sorority houses be placed for the good of the entire community and for the good of the university? Not just meetings, but action. Not just theory, but action. And I guess what I would like for the council to consider is putting all of this on hold and do that. do something to engage the university so that we're not just talking about trying to address the concerns that the neighborhoods have, trying to address the need that the university has to expand the needs that fraternities have for places to locate their buildings, but so that there's planning going on, so that the voices of all are heard in the beginning. We'd like to see that happen. One of the biggest concerns that I have about this fraternity house is not the building. You know what the building looks like. I know it's not entered into the record. I think it looks beautiful. I think it would be a wonderful thing to have a building like that on that corner. What's there now is not attractive. But it's the first time that we have a Greek organization putting a fraternity or sorority house on that side of Woodland Avenue. And at the Planning Commission meeting, planning staff said, well, you know, if we do that, because the concern that was raised was this is creating a precedent for marching down Columbia Avenue. And planning commission staff said, well, yeah, we could kind of see that happening. There's other properties there where we might let this occur. Over the years, there have been other discussions about an appropriate location for Greek organizations. There was talk at one time, some of you may remember George DeBin, who was at the university. I remember some meetings with George DeBin where we talked about a Greek park that would be in the Rose Lane, Transylvania Park area on the south side of Euclid Avenue. I don't know what happened to those plans, But that would have kept the Greek organizations, the fraternity and sorority houses, closer to UK. It would have kept them out of areas that have traditionally been single or perhaps two-family residences. I'm not sure what's happened with that, but why has that discussion not occurred? We have heard repeatedly in recent years or recent months perhaps that the University of Kentucky, Mr. Ellis, and his people are interested in engaging the neighborhoods and not making decisions without involving the neighborhoods. And I invite them to do that. I invite them to become engaged with the neighborhoods, to talk these things out in advance. This is not the first problem that our neighborhood has had with Greek organizations. In fact, Mr. Ellis probably knows about this. It didn't have anything to do with Fiji. But last fall, gosh, one evening, about 845, we're suddenly treated to a group of young men jogging through our neighborhood. I think they weren't wearing shirts, and they were yelling, if you ain't Pike, you ain't shit. Well, that awakened the, you know, we have some preschoolers in our neighborhood. We have some grade schoolers in our neighborhood. many of whom were treated to that that evening. We notified the University of Kentucky. We were told that there would be apologies. That never happened. You know, there are issues living in a neighborhood like ours. There are issues in putting fraternities closer into the residential neighborhoods. I'm absolutely convinced that the people that are here today and the young men that are in this group today are good people. They want to do well. They want to serve the community. They want to have a good reputation. I'm convinced that the national organization that is located here that would supervise these young men wants to do a good job. I'm absolutely convinced of that. And I'm absolutely convinced that they won't always be successful. So with some trepidation, because I don't even know how appropriate this is, but I brought it up before and feel some obligation to do it again. In 1997, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, September the 26th or 27th, I think it was, Scott Kruger, freshman pledge of this fraternity at MIT, participated in what they call Animal House Night. The group of pledges were put in a room, given a great movie to watch, Animal House, I love the movie, and allegedly given a very large quantity of alcohol and told to drink all of it before the movie ended. Scott Kruger choked to death, or choked on his own vomit, went into a coma, died three days later. This fraternity, with all of that supervision, with all of those good intentions, with all of that desire to be good, upstanding people, is now banned or was banned from MIT after that. You know, you can't tar an organization for one bad event or none of us would have any way to go on with our lives. But we also can't simply take on faith when people say, we're going to supervise it, we're going to control it. It's not that easy, folks. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cowan. Ms. Cowan. Janet Cowan. I live at 612 Columbia Avenue. And I'm here. I was here for the planning commission. I'm here a lot. And I'm getting really, really tired of having to fight for my neighborhood. We've heard what wonderful people these guys are, and we don't doubt it. We're wonderful people, too. I've helped raise over $100,000 that I've given back to the city. was cleaning a bedroom the other day and moved numerous plaques pro bono that my husband has expended hours providing free legal service. Kate is on numerous boards and serves on them. Rose Garden, who's sitting over there, doesn't own a car. She recycles. She has, you know, her yard is as green as anything can get. Those things may be, you know, what difference does that make, that I'm a good person or they're a good person? We're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about that house that is coming down in my neighborhood and helping UK and rentals move into an area that we are trying to reclaim as single-family homes. And you may think it's not happening, but it did. A rental property that sits next to Kate and catty-corner to me is now a single-family home. It is happening. It won't continue to happen. if we allow these houses, which are not historic. George Washington never lived there. No one really important ever slept there that we know of, yet somebody might in some day. I've been on that other side saying that there are times when things need to come down, and there are. And the fact that what's there looks like crap is not the neighborhood's fault. It's you guys' fault and the people you employ that did not, let's say, enforce the ordinances, the codes. So don't make a bad thing worse. There is no parking. The yard, if you read Dennis DeRoss' email and looked at the pictures of the Christian center that's across the street from this house, is a mud pit right now. And that's from their parking. And they have said they're not going to allow these parking. There's no parking in our area. And six parking spaces for 50 people? Think about it. Please, please do not tear any more of these little houses that may not have any significance to any one, but you are, once you tear that one down, the next one goes and the next one goes. And before you know it, Mr. Farmer, they're going to be tearing your houses down in your neighborhood. It's marching that way if you allow this to happen. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Cowan. Does anyone else wish to speak? on behalf of the opponent, Ms. Garden? I'm here just about six or seven years, and I think one of the greatest things are the neighborhoods that you have, the neighborhoods that have been here. And people are still, if we have all the zonings, you know, residential neighborhoods, Well, let's keep it a residential neighborhood. We have UK that has all their land. I'm sure they can put a sorority someplace on their existing lands someplace. And if we want to attract more people to the residential neighborhoods, like those two buildings, never should have been allowed to stand that way because even any one of us can come and look and see all the things that shouldn't be. So how were they still there? So it's really a reflection on our failings, and we should not then increase the failing by making another wrong decision, and this would be a very, very wrong decision. I thank you very much. Ms. Gordon's address is 840 Tremont. Pat Lawrence, 455 Marquis. And I just want to say that those of us in Columbia Heights are not against students. We're not against fraternities. We're not against pretty buildings. What we are against is a rezoning of any part of our neighborhood. And that's the only thing you're voting on tonight is whether or not you're going to rezone a little piece of Columbia Heights. We don't want our neighborhood rezoned. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lawrence. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on behalf of those opposing the rezoning? All right. Does the staff wish to make any further comments? Jimmy? The staff? I have no additional comments. All right. Does the petitioner wish to offer any rebuttal to the evidence presented? Ben Simmons, yes. All right. I have a couple of issues that I simply wrote down, which I consider to be more concrete. The first one was the issue raised by the neighborhood in terms of the traffic. Following our first public hearing, because that was also brought up at the first public hearing, I went back and talked to the members of the traffic division a second time, and I said, I talked to Joey David, and I said, Joey, I have members in the neighborhood who are really concerned about the traffic. And he said, well, the way we look at it, because you're reducing the number of occupants on the property, you're reducing the amount of traffic on that property. In terms of the parking, which is what we also consider to be pretty specific, we are trying to work with the local religious organizations. We haven't gotten anything set to stone. We still have those two lots next to W.T. Young Library, which are shown on the rendering. Those lots also have the number of available spots. We are anticipating most of the events to happen in the evening when those lots are open and also during the weekend when those lots are also open. And we're planning for that to happen, so we're going to tell all of our members, please park there. Finally, the entire study lodge concept, we understand it is a unique project. We understand this is something that nobody else in the country, to our knowledge, has ever done before. The majority of fraternity houses in the country are dormitory-style buildings, meaning the prime role is to house their members. We decided not to go that route. We decided to go back, reduce the number of occupants, because we thought that would be better in terms of the longevity of the building, but also to create a space that would be more flexible so that they could use it for the membership development, the parents' weekends, the recruitment events, the things that I previously mentioned. So that was the mentality behind that. I want to thank the City Council for your time. We think this is a great project that could be a real success story for both the university and for the city. We ask for your approval and we ask for your support. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Simmons. Next on the agenda is an opportunity for a closing summary by those who oppose the zoning. Does anyone wish to? All right. Mr. Simmons, do you wish to offer any additional closing summary or anyone on behalf? All right. Thank you. All right. Now is the opportunity for the Council to ask questions of both the petitioner and the opponent. So, Council Members, if you'll signify electronically, that'd be great. And everyone has. Council Member Gorton, then Vice Mayor Gorton, then Council Member Lawless, then Council Member Stennett, then Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. Jimmy, my questions are for you. mostly, and as you're coming to the podium, I just want to applaud the alcohol-free, tobacco-free policies that the fraternity has. I think that's excellent. I wanted to ask you some questions about the, I want to be sure I understand the zoning. in the current 2007 comprehensive plan. Okay. This property is recommended for medium density? Yes. Which is five to ten dwelling units per acre? Yes. And so, but it's not currently zoned that way. Do I understand that correctly? It's actually land use recommendation and zoning can be two separate things. The land use recommendation makes a recommended density calculation. In fact, density could be achieved through a number of zones. So the existing R2 zoning could meet the medium density residential zoning, and the proposed R3 zoning with the proposal as it is would also meet the comprehensive plan, land use recommendation. So technically today, with its current zoning, could someone get permission to raise the property and put in higher density? The properties are currently zoned R2. There are two properties that each have a single-family residence on them. It would be possible to raise both of those single-family structures or convert them into duplexes under the existing zoning. Being inside the infill and redevelopment area, there would be definitely restrictions on how that was redeveloped. If you want me to go into those details, I can. No, that's okay. So I also wanted to ask you, it looked like in the Planning Commission there was a bit of discussion about the conditional zoning, and I know that in the past we have approved, well, we have received recommendations from the Planning Commission and then the council put conditions on it that weren't on it from the Planning Commission. And if I understand it, there are three uses that will be, if this were approved, this could be single-family, detached, two-family dwelling, or any conditional use approved by the Board of Adjustment or Planning Commission. Yes. So that if this was approved and in 15 years the fraternity decided to move out and there was another use proposed, it would still, unless there was a change by the Planning Commissioner, Board of Adjustment, have to follow these conditions? Yes. The conditional zoning restrictions would run with the property. It would take another zone change hearing such as this in order to amend or change any of those conditional zoning restrictions. Okay. Thank you very much. And I wanted to ask, I apologize. Is it Ben? Yeah, Ben. And although the information is that four people could live here, correct? Yes, ma'am. Will you state again how many people you might anticipate being in the facility at one time for some other? We would estimate between 30 and 40 for a meeting on a Monday night. That's about average. And depending on recruitment events, between 20 and 30 members. Pledge meetings, which are also on Sunday nights, about at the most 20. Parent's Day weekends could be a little bit more than that. But on average, 30 to 40 members at a meeting on Monday nights is the biggest gathering we typically have. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question for Jimmy, Mr. Remens. First of all, I want to thank all the council members for being here tonight, and I want to thank all of you all for being here tonight. And I applaud a fraternity that has an average GPA of 3.0. And I love students and a lot of students love me. And so my issue isn't whether or not they're students or they're fraternities or whatever or what fraternity is. And we have great participation by the panel of council on game day, cleanup, working in the community gardens. So it's not about any of that. For me, there are two issues. One, it's not about how many people are living there. It sounds to me like it more mirrors the definition of a community center. Oh, was that? I'm sorry. Would you, do you understand what I'm saying? Yes. A community center is an allowable conditional use in the proposed R3 zone. However, the applicant's proposal of the fraternity use would meet our new definition in our zoning ordinance of a fraternity in a sorority house. That definition was added last summer with the definition of family and whenever we went through that exercise. So, yes, their proposed study lodge for the fraternity use would meet the zoning ordinance definition of a fraternity use and would be allowed as a conditional use in the proposed R3. Okay. I guess, okay, my question is, regardless of how many people sleep there or live there or whatever, it sounds to me like the activities that are going to take place are more like those of a community center rather than a fraternity house or a apartment or a dwelling where people live. what is the zone, what zoning would be required for a community center? To say they wanted, it wasn't, didn't mean to the students or whatever, but, you know, so-and-so wants to open up a community center. A community center is first allowed as a conditional use in the R3 zone, such as the same as a fraternity house. So I guess what I'm getting at here is I agree that we're spot zoning. And that has been one of the problems. And I think it's an incredible rendering. I'm not doubting at all that. But the traffic and the parking for a community center in that neighborhood is of concern. but also the spot zoning that, you know, happens, and then it just creeps and creeps and creeps. Because I remember when all of that was, none of that was, all that was little houses, and they won by one by one, so rather than an overall plan. So I guess my concern is that it really doesn't matter how many people live there. It is a community center that we're basically voting on here. Thank you. Council Member Crosby. Thank you, Mayor. I have a few questions. I think I'll just, if you want to come back up, I'll save you a trip. Would they have to follow the fire codes with occupancy? For example, they would be required to follow, they can have more than X amount of people in the facility at one time. I don't know what that number is. I, too, don't know what the number is, but, yes, the fire marshal in approving the building would set a maximum occupant load, especially considering that the use is a proposed fraternity house and an assembly-type use with the study rooms and the assembly area. So that would be set by our regulations. I don't know what that number would be, though. And that won't be set until when? Do we know? That would be a normal part of the process of building inspection and the fire department's approval of the building permit. The reason why I ask is because some of the numbers that they mentioned seem fairly reasonable for a meeting, 20 to 30 people, particularly if they're able to walk or ride their bikes but parents weekend for example could add a tremendous amount of people if you take 30 people and then two parents if all those show that could add a tremendous stress on that area and of course with the close convenience to football stadium during parents weekend clearly that would be an occupancy issue and that's why I was just curious when that came in the process I have a question for Mr. Ellis, and I'll just say I was president of Tri-Delth House Corporation for, golly, close to nine years, and we used to sweat bullets whenever we had our inspections. And so I'll preface my question by saying that and trying to understand, And will they have to go through the same inspection process that the current fraternities and sororities have to go through with the university? Okay, so the houses that are currently on campus do. So the facility that they have currently does go through that process. This facility being off campus would have to go through a semesterly inspection by the city fire inspector. Okay, so UK would not be involved in those inspections at all? No. Okay, that's interesting. I think that's all I have for you. Thank you. Can somebody tell me from the fraternity how many members, active members you have right now? Or maybe total members. I don't know if you have pledges or if they've become active by this point. Ben Simmons, we have around 50. 50? And that includes, they're all active? 50 actives and one or two pledges. Okay. And I know that they maintain a 3.0 GPA. What are your minimum GPA requirements? I believe we need a 2.6 to initiate. We need a 2.8 to hold office. And you have to have that 2.8 as a QM, I believe. To pledge, I believe you need a minimum of 3.0 high school GPA. 2.6 for high school. Okay, thank you. And I'm not sure nowadays if it's considered hazing, but do you have mandatory study hours? Yes, we do as part of the pledge program and then also as part of our scholarship program. And how many hours, roughly? It's a tiered system based on the performance of the brother. I believe if I need to defer to one of the undergraduates who might know better. Hello, my name is Andrew Wethall. we start off with four hours and then based on how they do usually if they achieve a 3.0 we'll drop it to two and if it's a 4.0 then it's none there's also we have a program a scholarship program where if you're pledged semester you get a 3.0 the national fraternity gives a scholarship of $225 and then we match that as local chapter and do you often pair up for example like an active member who may be strong academically so that when you study that sometimes you might be in group studying. It's not necessarily like being in the library where you can't have as much interaction and talking and things. Is that a program you might do? Yeah, we have a scholarship chair, and they assign brothers to monitor study hours. And different brothers are really good in different subjects. We have a lot of engineers, so they can go seek help based on what times they've been assigned. Okay, let's see here. Do you, I mean, I know that we've mentioned many different uses, such as study lodge, meeting lodge, recruitment events, parents weekend. What do you all see to be the main, I know, what would be the main function of this facility? I feel like the main function of it would be somewhere to go in between classes, because a lot of us have those one-hour and two-hour gaps in a place to study. And going there doesn't involve a car because you're already on campus. And pretty much studying in between classes and hanging out. Okay. I think that may be all I have right now. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I have one more question. I don't think it's for you. Let me see where I was. Oh, can somebody review for us real quick the National Fraternity Alcohol Policy I mean, is it the national policy, no alcohol? Bill Martin, each of our properties at our chapters are required to be alcohol-free, except that the chapter can earn an exemption with good grades and other good performance. So at any given time, about 25% of our chapters have that exemption and can have alcohol, but the default condition is no alcohol on the property. Okay, so would this property have to follow UK's alcohol policy? That's what I'm trying to, because I know that the fraternities, alcohol, I mean, UK has a very strict alcohol policy for the Greek system, and since this is off campus and isn't going to be regulated by the same housing regulations that UK has, what about would they fall under your alcohol policy? So all of our houses, regardless of whether they are on campus or off campus, are required to be alcohol free. We instituted that in 1998. And while we do have instances where those rules are violated, for the most part our houses are alcohol free. And what happens when they violate that policy? So it depends on the scenario. But typically what will happen is, whether it's an on-campus or off-campus facility, If the violation of the alcohol policy occurs, we will call them into a meeting with the associate dean of students who works with our student conduct, and we'll talk about the incident, talk about what happened, and there are typically sanctions that are adjudicated, and whether those be educational sanctions or risk management presentations, really it is a situational thing. occasionally what will happen just like in the scenario of our Lambic High chapter that had a party in their house during school and the house was on on campus at the beginning of this year we suspended that organization and that organization is no longer a member of our community and their national organization has removed them from that property so it can run the gamut of different things that happen depending on the violation so I guess going back to the national fraternity If your chapter violated the alcohol policy of the U.K., would you sanction the individuals or the chapter if they violated the alcohol policy on this property? I expect that we would sanction the chapter. Generally, we don't try to sort out the individuals from the chapter. If the violation occurs on chapter property, then we would consider it to be a chapter responsibility, and they would be disciplined in some range of disciplinary actions, depending on the severity. Okay. Thank you very much. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mayor. I've got a question for Mr. Emmons. Jimmy, over time, can the occupancy of the building be increased? The Planning Commission, and I didn't dwell on this because it was part of the Planning Commission's role rather than your role as the zoning, but the Planning Commission did approve the conditional use request of the proposed fraternity with the subject property. At the Planning Commission hearing, there is a condition of that conditional use proposal that the house be operated in with how the fraternity said that they're going to operate it with their application materials. The planning commission also added on at their public hearing a restriction that no more than four occupants be in the subject property. Being a conditional use, if they wanted to change that, if the conditional use was granted subject to the rezoning of the property to R3, so if you did rezone the property to R3 and they wanted to change that restriction, the appropriate method would be to go back to the Board of Adjustment and ask for a change in that condition, at which point the Board of Adjustment would look at and assume all of the roles that the Planning Commission did at their public hearing. They would look at that all Board of Adjustment cases and conditional uses are notified within 400 feet of the property, very similar to the zone change request that you have here today. Thank you. Maybe you know the answer to this, or somebody else doesn't. That is, where do the Fijis live now? I'll let them answer that. Councilman Blues, my name is Ben Harper. Right now the house is at 653 Max Welton Court. It's about a 2,700-square-foot structure that houses 10 men. It's Crosby. It is rated for 50 people. at Maxwellton. This structure over here is larger that we're proposing. And the other thing that I wanted to say is that on these fire inspections, the LFUCG fire marshal is the one that I walked through the building with. He's the one that fills out the report and faxes it to Dean West. So yes, we are accountable to the university, even though we're off campus. So how many again live at Maxwellton Court? We have 10 there. 10? Yes, sir. And is there another house somewhere on campus? No. I'm sure brothers have apartments. So actually only 10 members of the 50 or 50-plus live in the house now? That's correct, sir. And it'll be reduced to four? Reduced to four. Right now most of the meeting space is meetings are held on the university campus and also at the international headquarters. Thank you. I'm concerned, too, as Council Member Lawless noted, that while this is characterized as a study house, the study is one of multiple uses. toward the end of the Planning Commission minutes. We're told that the facility would be used for parents' weekends, meet and greets, recruitment events, pledge meetings, cookouts, graduate weekends, so that there would be a fairly constant social use for the house, which seems appropriate in many ways. But combined with the vagueness of what we've been told at this juncture about parking, We don't know for sure whether the other neighboring facilities are going to allow it. There seems to be two different views on that. Can somebody speak definitively on that question? You've got six spots on the premises. Where are they going to park? Ben Simmons again. We're anticipating that the majority of the parking will be at the two, can you hear me? At these two lots right now. These are open after 7.30 p.m. We're anticipating that the majority of the events that we have will take place in the evenings or on the weekends. These lots will also be open on the weekends all day. And you will have to compete for spots. I mean, those are e-lots, I think. Yes. So the faculty and students coming to the library will be parking in there as well? Well, no, the residents, students can park here. This is residential parking. This is not included in our consideration because you need a pass. This right here is considered visitor parking. which you pay to park there. So there's, and this parking, which we're not even including as well, because we believe that you need a pass to park there. So at night when you go over here, it's pretty vacant, to be quite frank. But it's nevertheless, it's not reserved parking. No, it is not. It's public parking. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Mayor. This is for Mr. Ellis, and it goes to Council Member Blue's question as well. Just from a university standpoint, and as it relates to this parking issue, I think there's a great deal of sentiment of there's a lot of value in the neighbor, there's a lot of value in the building and the process and the lead platinum and so forth. And there's just a tremendous amount of concern that, you know, you're going to have this issue of parking. And the Christian Student Fellowship, you know, whenever they have something going, their group is growing rapidly. So I've been over there and seen that. Can you speak a little bit to the parking just from the U.K. side and what you're doing to work with this and what options or what conversations you're having? And I think what you're hearing is what's been said definitively, because we've kind of got, well, we could do this, could do that, but I don't think anyone up here is hearing this is what we've talked about and so forth. I don't want to present myself as an expert on U.K. parking, but what I will say is attending events after hours, so, you know, from 730 on, those lots that they're referring to right next to the library are always open, meaning that you can always find a spot. That is one area where you can go. I mean, if it just so happens that the Phi Gams are having a meeting at the same time as the Christian Student Fellowship, at the same time as the Baptist Student Ministry, at the same time as some other major event, then, yeah, parking may become an issue, but parking would have been an issue without them being there beforehand. And so I think what you would experience is that people would have to look and probably would revert back to K-Lot or wherever they usually park. again these are organizations where at least a quarter of their membership is going to be living on campus and so they would have no reason to be driving over. So to say that 50 members would be driving to the house, that's unreasonable because at least 15 to 20 of them will be living in the residence halls which are in close proximity to this and can walk fairly safely. I think the other part of that is that the majority of our students live in and around the neighborhoods and aren't driving to campus on a daily basis because they know that parking is a struggle. And, you know, where their facility is now, the majority of their members, and their membership can actually talk better to this, but from what I know, the majority of them are walking to their house now. They're not driving to that area and all 50 of them trying to park around Maxwellton Court because that is also an area that's difficult to find parking. So I think it's already part of the chapter culture where they would be walking, in a sense, to go and try to interact with their brothers if they were all showing up at the same time. Thank you. I guess let me ask that question. Let me take that a little further. Can you give me a little bit of a breakdown as far as the chapter goes as to how many are living on campus and, you know, that type of thing? Because I understand Max Welton, there's no place to park there, and if you're familiar with campus. But I'm just curious to know the breakdown. I would say the majority of our members live over on the corner of Maxwell and Martin Luther. And I think they're planning on living there again. I'd say that's a solid 12 guys that live over there. Again, a lot of the new members that we have live in the dorms. I'd say about six guys live in the dorms right now, right on South Campus, right by the towers. And then, as we said earlier, ten guys live in the house. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Stenet. Thank you, Mayor. Jimmy, I want to ask you a couple follow-up questions. We addressed the parking. What's the maximum number of spaces that could fit on the lot? Outside of any development plan, what would be the maximum amount, ideally? With or without a building? No, considering a 1,900-square-foot building. The development plan that they proposed with the 1,900-square-foot building, the parking that they're proposing at the six spaces essentially maxes out the parking that they could put on that site. And then did the Environmental Quality Department look at stormwater and sewer capacity in that area? They did look at it on a preliminary development plan basis. If this zoning were approved before the applicant could build anything, they would have to come back to the Planning Commission and have a final development plan approved, at which point all of those details would be looked at in much greater detail. But they didn't identify any known problems, capacity issues on the sewer or stormwater flooding issues already? No, none were identified at the time of the technical committee and on up through the process. Okay. Now, given that the Planning Commission gave some pretty strict conditional uses that this can be used for in the future, I go back to what Councilman Gordon asked, or Vice Mayor Gordon asked, you know, 10, 15 years down the road, what is the real difference between what we're doing tonight, changing from R2 to R3? Because it seems like based on the conditional uses, it's pretty much similar in terms of maximum or the ideal use, what they really can use it for. Because given the fraternity wants to use it now, what happens in the future, obviously, is my concern. If they don't use it or a different fraternity uses it, what is the real difference between the R2 and R3 that we're deciding tonight? With the proposed conditional zoning restrictions, the main difference is on those additional conditional uses that would be allowed on the subject property. And what are some of those? Off the top of my head, hospital, fraternities, community centers such as YMCA. I wish I had. I'm used to opening up my magic book. Those are some of the ones often. Pawn shops are not allowed. Things like that. It would not allow any type of retail use. Alcohol, liquor stores. No, no. There are no retail type uses or anything that would be allowed as a conditional use in the R3 zone. Just want to make it clear. And, of course, I could read off the list to you. I'm just trying to see. I'm just trying to hit the big ones. Yeah. Because this is pretty restrictive, this conditional use that they put on there. A couple of other big ones. the boarding and lodging houses, assisted living facilities. That could go in the R3? That could go in the R3 zone as a conditional use. Again, that would have to be approved by the Board of Adjustments. It would. So give me the uses then that would need any further approval if we approve this tonight. Give me the uses that would need any further approval from either the Board of Adjustments or the Planning Commission if we approve this tonight. Single-family homes and duplexes. That's it. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. In the past several years, the zoning ordinance now allows, at the time of a zone change, the Planning Commission can take on the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Adjustment, and they can look at and choose to approve or disapprove conditional uses and variances at the same time as they are looking at the proposed zone change. Much of the reason that procedurally is because those notice areas overlap so much. So it does save not only applicants' time and money, but it also saves the community and neighbors' time and money on being able to look at the whole package of the conditional use, the variance, and at the same time as you're making the decision on the zone change. In this particular case, the Planning Commission did recommend approval of the conditional use, the requested variance, and the development plan, all subject to the Council's rezoning the property. And tonight, this Council will be voting simply on the zone change, including the conditional use and variance? It does not include those. Those were approved by the Planning Commission. so you don't actually have any authority over the conditional use or the variance, but those are just facts of what the Planning Commission did. It's very similar to the development plan, where the Planning Commission has final authority over the development plan and the council has the final authority over the zone change. It's in that realm. Okay. I think that helps me understand that. The second question has to do with this property, which sits on a corner and changes the use on that corner. Is it fair to say that that sets up a precedent and it would make it easier for further zone changes from R2 to R3 in that neighborhood? I don't think so. So if you look at the Planning Commission findings for approval for this zone change, not only did they find that it was in agreement with the comprehensive plan, but they also found that this is an appropriate zone change based off of its location with the surrounding uses. Obviously, every zone change application that comes in, we would have to review that based off of the facts at that time. But these are some very specific findings for this proposed zone change. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Actually, Council Member Lawless, since you've already spoken, you want to yield to Council Member Farmer and then come back. Okay. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to ask, on the renderings, it only shows two bedrooms. So are those going to be two-man rooms that will hold four people? Ben Simmons, yes. And then just in looking at the inventory, so you're going from 10 in-house to 4 in-house, and those six are just going to disperse to where some of the other guys live potentially? Yes, that's the plan. We actually approached the chapter before we did any kind of design work on the building, and we proposed a variety of scenarios to them. We literally asked them, what would you like? This is what they came up with. They wanted the main component of the building to be this sort of open, flexible space, but at the same time they wanted to have a residential component to the building to provide for security, as well as they were afraid that if they took all the guys out of the house permanently that nobody would go there. The argument was that we already have an international headquarters in town that nobody lives at that's basically a museum to the fraternity, and nobody uses that very much. So they were concerned that if they pulled everybody out of the house, nobody would really want to go there. and also the security. So they decided to lower the number but not completely take them alone. There seems to be a feel that more people may end up living there than that. Can you address that in any? Sure. I can talk about it in two different ways, both ways. The first way, because of the money that we're going to be getting from the foundation, has to be used for study space. We cannot go back and renovate areas of the building that have been paid for by the foundation because that's considered educational space. If we did that, we would actually have to give money back to the foundation, and we're not in a position to do that. So the entire second floor is fixed. We can't change it up after we get approval and everything like that. We can't go behind anyone's back and try to finagle the floor plan to add a couple more bedrooms. The first floor plan, again, it's very simple. We have no intention of adding any bedrooms. As far as guys living in the house, I can't answer that specifically. All I can say is I don't think the chapter has any plans for people being able to come over and stay the night, so to speak, and have that sort of influx of traffic. I don't think the chapter perceives the study lodge in that capacity. I think they see it more as a place where members can go either on the way to class or on the way from class to meet up, say, hey, either have a meeting or a committee meeting or something, do some in-between class studying, and then go back to their house. And then if there's a meeting or something in the evening, they would come back, use the lodge for that purpose. But I don't think the chapter has any intention of using it as a second-rate boarding house in the open area. Does that answer your question? It does. Then are there any other chapters for your all's fraternity in Lexington? No. We are the only Phi Gama Delta chapter in Lexington. And your international headquarters have been located here for how many years? 38. And how many people are employed at the international headquarters? 24. We appreciate your contribution to the bottom line of the City of Lexington. I would say I understand the neighborhood's concern. I understand the loss of homes and the change in neighborhood character. Having gone to the university myself, you know, I have many fond memories on one of the two Clifton circles where now the library stands. Change has come to that area, and change may come to this corner tonight. I know that we were given a little history of your fraternity here that's not too positive. I know that Lexington has a little bit of history that there was a life that was taken on the front porch of a home right next to this property. So there are ample examples of things good and bad when change does or doesn't happen. I think that there's no doubt that there are student housing in many shapes and forms that's not directly on or border the university property. and it is an issue that many district council people deal with. I know that there are homes that have been converted to student housing in the 5th Council District, and I know that sometimes those cause problems. But I know that we're asked to make tough decisions down here, and we're going to be asked. I mean, this was sent to us 8-0. This did not have any votes against it at the Planning Commission level. You wipe the slate clean and you start over here. And this isn't a slap shot, but it's a compelling argument for an opportunity. And it's also, it does have an element of wake-up call again for the university to partner with all of the entities that surround it as positively as possible to make all the neighborhoods as viable as possible. So I appreciate the time that you all have spent to put together your show here this evening, the look of the presentation. And I appreciate the feelings of the neighbors, too, because I understand that, because each of us, each of the district people, deal directly with individuals and folks who, you know, sometimes it's not easy to walk out in the crowd when we're done making the best decision we can make. I appreciate your all's presentation very much. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question for the petitioner, sir, if you could. Just a few quick questions. Based on what I've seen tonight and all of us have seen, it's going to be a tight fit. I think that the architects have probably done as commendable a job as they possibly can to work with such little land. And I guess my question, just curiously, is has the fraternity pursued other sites that may perhaps be a better space fit for the building itself and also the traffic that would be going to and fro? Yes. To answer the question briefly, two major ones. We've looked at several with the university. It was property that the university owned. It was actually very near here. The challenge with that was a cash flow. Because we're reducing the number of occupants, we are having to rely on the parking spaces to increase the amount of money coming into the chapter so that we can pay things like utilities and such. Because the house that we have on Maxwellton Court right now has 10 members living in it. They're paying rent to the house corporation. The house corporation is taking that rent, using it for upkeep and general utility bills and such. When we reduce that number down to four, we have to look for a secondary means of money coming in. So we have to rely on the parking. Well, the problem is if you have land given to you by the university, they control the parking. So we couldn't use that as a way to gain money to the house corporation. The other thing that was a challenge about going to university-owned property was it made it a difficult argument for us to call up graduate brothers and say, Would you like to give a certain dollar amount of money to this project, and we're going to build this building, except it's going to go on the land that somebody else owns? That was a very difficult argument for us because the graduates, again, want to know about that investment. They want us to be able to control that investment. Okay, very good. Thank you, sir. And the second question I had is how much time, actually, after the fraternity decided on this parcel of land, How much time has been spent going through this process, going before the planning commission, going through the planning staging and leading up to tonight? I believe we first. a pre-application meeting was set for October 8th, and that was with the members of the Planning and Zoning Office. And we sat down with them, because I have never done this before, and I said, please educate me. So we sat down and they explained to me the process. They explained to me the technical review meetings. They explained to me the Planning Commission meeting. We started in October. I believe the Planning Commission meeting was in November. So the government process going through the planning stages dates back to fall. The last question I have, and it was a question that you kind of alluded to already, was just how active the university has been in helping the fraternity once it identified its intent to build the facility now. And it appears that the university was somewhat actively engaged. However, for whatever reason, unwilling is not the word, but apparently a deal couldn't be brokered between the university. Thus, we're put in a position to have to make a very, very difficult land use choice in regards to zoning. Yes. To answer your question, the university was very helpful. They provided us with several different options in terms of the site locations. Unfortunately, they can't just give their land away, I guess is how it has been explained to me. So, yes, we talked to them. They were very helpful to work with. Unfortunately, because of our cash flow situation, we weren't able to go that route. Appreciate your answers. My contention is that I, and it's been mentioned earlier, I wish the university could do more. So hopefully the time is now for the university to really help the city and the residents and the neighborhoods. Thank you, sir, for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. Jimmy, I have a question. I just want to make sure that I understand everything completely. at this intersection of Woodland and Columbia, there is commercial property on two. Is that correct? There is the daycare center directly across Woodland Avenue and directly across Columbia Avenue is the Christian Student Fellowship. I'm not sure I would call it commercial. And the library. And then the library on the opposite corner. So that would mean that all four corners would not be single-family homes, correct? Yes. Okay. And I also had a question about the parking. That's a big concern. You know, they talked about having events there and parents coming in, which is understandable and all that, but where would they park? In the planning staff review, we also did review the requested use in the parking and everything. First of all, it met the minimum requirements, but that's not where we stopped our review at. We also recognized the fact that there was a large number of parking spaces on the University of Kentucky property that would possibly be available during events whenever they were going. When it comes to sororities and fraternities, as we look at those, there's kind of a tradeoff on the needs for parking because as you get closer to the University of Kentucky, obviously there's more parking demands out there anyway. But if as a sorority or fraternity moves farther away from the main campus and more into, say, a more remote location, then the assumption would be is that a larger number of their membership would be required to drive there. So as they're close to the University of Kentucky, there is an assumption there that there will be a large amount of walking and biking and those types of things. Right. I understand. It's that kind of give and take. For their members, but then I was thinking if their families are traveling from wherever, and they most likely would be driving, and I don't know how often, if somebody could address how often these events would take place, and if they could plan ahead as far as parking and suggest that their visitors park in a certain lot or whatever. Those are all questions that the staff had too, and we looked at it. And I don't remember what the number of events that they were proposing and planning per year or anything of that nature, But we also looked at that and were satisfied that this was an appropriate use at this location. The applicants might be able to answer how many times they plan to have those bigger events. Yeah, because we all know that parking occurs on our neighborhood streets from the overflow of students and so forth. And, you know, I have a hard time putting more stress on an already stressed area. So have you thought about any type of plan or how often do you have these events? We have a parent's day weekend. It's a parent's afternoon meet and greet one Saturday a semester. Okay. And we have the recruitment events probably once a semester. And the majority of those attendees for the recruitment events are students, and they walk. They don't drive. The graduate events, again, once a semester, if at all. We just don't have a lot right now in our current facility. Can you tell me what kind of plans you would, what kind of action you would take to keep them off of the neighborhood streets? Absolutely. Well, you would pretty much circulate a, we tend to communicate a lot with our graduates through email and from our parents through the undergraduates. A lot of times when we do programming for graduates and parents, we send out a nice lengthy email because typically they want to know times and places and things like that. That would be where we would include probably a map similar to the ones we've seen tonight and highlighted areas of where you're expected to park. And we would probably, a lot of the parents would not come to these events by themselves. They would most likely pick up their son. and so the son would be able to direct them if they got lost or didn't know the way around the university to the parking. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. I'll make this real quick. The church and the daycare, are they there on a conditional use? The daycare, I believe that when it was kinder care, I believe they were approved as a conditional use, but I would have to pick that up. The Christian Student Fellowship, I don't know the answer to that. I know that it was there when I went to college, but I don't know what it is. Well, my point in that is I believe they are conditional uses, And I think it would be foolish to think that the rezone and conditional use of this as a fraternity house in an R1 and R2 zone, upgrading it to R3 so it can get a conditional use as a fraternity, whatever. And this isn't about good people or bad people or feelings or understanding. It's just to say that so we're basing this on the fact that those two churches are there and the daycare in what was an R1 and R2 zone with conditional uses, that it isn't a continued creep and logical next step, that it would creep further down and further this way with conditional use based on the fact that, well, there's already a fraternity house there with a conditional use. So now, if you're following that. And the other thing is, I think about the two years and the hours and hours and hours put in by hundreds of people in this community to preserve the sustainability and the character of the R1 and R2 areas with the ZODA. Students were involved, landlords were involved, Home Builders Association, and the whole purpose of that and how we labored hours and hours over the wording of fraternity or sorority house as a use in an R1 or R2 zone. And now we're upgrading it to an R3 so it can have a conditional use as a fraternity, which is what, I mean, hundreds of hours of people's time, including a lot of people in this room, including Mr. Lear, if he's still here, many council members, landlords, associations. Hello, Mr. Lear, I just mentioned your name and not in vain. So I look at that and so here we are just a few months later coming back and upgrading an R1 and R2 zone to R3 so a fraternity lodge can be there. And so I close with that. Thank you. No one else is signed on to speak, so if no one has any more questions, then we can, as chair, I will close the hearing. And, Jimmy, why don't you take us through the process now for the adoption of findings of fact. It can be a little complicated on the vote here. This zone change request has had its second reading. So the first thing that the council needs to do is adopt findings of fact. They can either adopt the findings of fact of the Planning Commission, which were in your final report and on the front page of the Planning Commission final report, or you could adopt your own findings of fact based off of the evidence that you heard at the hearing tonight. Once you've made the decision on the findings of fact, then you would vote to either adopt or reject the ordinance that would rezone the property. I think that's about it. In every case, the council does need to make findings of fact, be the findings of fact that the Planning Commission has presented or your own findings of fact. I can go on because if there are any more questions, we'll be happy to help them. So we adopt the findings of fact. So first we need a motion on the findings of fact and a vote on that, and then a roll call, or do we do a roll call on the findings of fact? Council Member Lawless. I believe we first vote on the findings of fact, and we can accept the findings of fact, But then we still have to move to accept the zone change if we accept the findings of fact or not. Is that correct? So two votes, both roll call. All right. Okay, so the Chair is willing to entertain a motion on the findings of fact. Is there a motion? Council Member Lawless. I'll make a motion that we approve the findings of fact. There's a motion by Council Member Lawless, a second by, sorry, point of order. Council Member Henson. If I may. Council Member K. I'm not clear. If we approve the findings of fact, does that not mean that we would be approving the zone change? If you are saying the motion is to approve the findings of fact as recommended by the Planning Commission, then those are findings of fact to support the granting of a zone change. So it would be inappropriate to approve the findings of fact and then vote against the zone change. Is that correct? Well, yeah, because you're approving findings of fact in support of the application. Thank you. I'd like to withdraw my motion. Thank you. So, Councilman Lawless, you were withdrawing the motion? I think maybe some of the confusion here is if there is going to be a motion that seeks to adopt findings of fact to support disapproval of the zone change, I have some draft findings that can be reviewed. And if whichever council member, if they chose to make that motion, they can review these facts. And if they meet with the intent and the facts that are in the evidence, then they can read these into the record as part of the motion. Councilman Lawless has withdrawn her motion. And I'm going to ask for that. Council Member Henson gave a second. Are you willing to withdraw the second? Council, the motion was wrong. Council Member Stennett? I think we need to expand on what you just said. If we agree with the findings of fact of the Planning Commission, they have to be read verbatim. Is that correct? We can't just say we approve the findings of facts from the Planning Commission. They would need to be read 1, 1A, B, C, D, et cetera. No. If you approve the findings of fact of the Planning Commission are already part of the record in this case. They were presented as an exhibit and put into the record by Mr. Emmons. So, therefore, if you adopt their findings of fact, you don't need to read them. They're already in the record. However, if you go the other route and choose to make a motion to adopt findings of fact that would support a disapproval of the zone change, those are not in the record. Right, right. They would then need to be read in so that everyone would know exactly what they were voting on. I just know we've read both ways before. I just wanted to make sure legally we weren't in danger if we just accept them and not read them. No, you do not have to read what is already in the record. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Council Member Krause. I'll ask to our parliamentarian, how many votes? Does it not take eight votes? Eight votes to override the Planning Commission's vote. Thank you. So if four people vote, we'll act for it. Actually, I'm sorry to contradict you on that. And in order to – the zoning ordinance requires that in order to overturn the Planning Commission, that it requires a majority of the full council, which would be a full 10 votes, to override the Planning Commission's recommendation. No. No. Okay. I apologize. I honestly wouldn't have spoke up if I didn't think I was going to ask. All right. Just let me – All right. So could you please clarify? Council Member Gordon. Mr. Emmons. Vice Mayor Gordon. Mr. Emmons. Our Council rules say that when the Planning Commission recommends that an amendment be made to the map of the zoning ordinance, at least eight Council members must vote against the measure to disapprove it. so my question then goes if we if we are going okay well my apology for speaking up i did the math wrong in my head that's all i can do is is apologize for my mistake so i wouldn't have spoke up if i didn't so it's eight votes so if if uh the motion um as law has suggested what she just handed to Council Member Lawless is to disapprove or come up with rendering new findings of fact that's against the Planning Commission. It would take eight votes. Thank you. All right. Okay. Council Member Lawless. I would like to make a motion that we, for disapproval of the findings of fact, based on the current R2 zoning of the subject property, is in compliance with the comp plan. Its list are principal permitted uses, only residential uses of up to two family dwellings. Any more intense use, such as those in an R3 zone, which include multifamily, dormitories, community residences, and others, would not be appropriate. In this residential neighborhood, although the proposed conditional zoning restrictions address some of those concerns, many of the conditional uses permitted in the R3 zone would not be appropriate in this location. Two, granting this zone change would carve a corner out of a large neighborhood, which is primarily zoned R2, and therefore not susceptible to the R3 larger, more intense conditional uses. Number three, the existing parking problems in this area, risk being increased by the possible conditional uses available in the proposed R3 zoning, many of which would generate more traffic and require more parking than the currently proposed use. Four, the petitioner has failed to demonstrate any compelling need for rezoning this property, especially given the proposed conditional zoning restrictions. Clearly, the current zoning is appropriate, and the MAP amendment would only create a possibility that more intensive conditional uses of the R3 zone could be allowed on the subject property. So moved. It's a motion by Council Member Lawless. Is there a second? Seconded by Council Member Blues. All right. Is there discussion on the motion? All right. I think it would be worthwhile to confirm where we are right now with this now. My interpretation would be that if you vote to support this motion, we would be denying the findings of fact by the Planning Commission and the staff. Correct? Right. And we would be adopting, or the Council would be adopting its own findings of fact. Correct? And then, all right, just so procedurally we know where we're headed here, hypothetically, if the Council votes to support this, then we would move on to the new ordinance, right? Okay. If we vote, if it does not, if it fails to get eight votes, then what happens? Well, you have to have at least eight votes to overrule the recommendation of the planning committee. Okay, so what happens here if it gets six votes instead of eight? than the planning commission recommendation you would still need to move on and vote on the ordinance itself you would not have successfully adopted findings of fact for disapproval but you still have to for the record have your vote on the second reading and those same six people can vote against his own change but it would be insufficient to override the planning Commission's recommendation. And just to kind of help clarify this, if you vote yes on this motion, then you would vote no when the ordinance is read, because the ordinances are always written in the affirmative that a yes vote approves the zone change. Okay. Once again, so if this vote receives eight or more votes, What's the next step? Either way, the next step is going to be to vote on the ordinance. All right. So is there any discussion? Are you ready to vote? All right. This will be a roll call vote. All right. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Ms. Henson? Yes. Mr. Kay? Yes. Ms. Lawless? Yes. Mr. McCord? No. Mr. Stenet? No. Mr. Blues? Ms. Cosby? Mr. Ellinger? Mr. Farmer? No, ma'am. Mr. Ford? Yes. And Ms. Gorton? Aye. Thank you. I think the result of that is you did, in fact, adopt your own findings that would support disapproval, but it will not be sufficient to overrule the Planning Commission, and your next step would still be, unless someone wants to try a motion to approve. Well, in essence, you approved. You had an aye vote. You approved findings for disapproval. Your next step is to vote on the ordinance. All right. Is there a motion to for the ordinance? Council Member Lawless. I apologize. It takes eight votes to overrule the findings of fact, but how many votes does it take to pass the ordinance or for the ordinance to fail? I think in essence the way the zoning ordinance is written, it takes a majority of the entire council to override the recommendation with respect to the zone change. I don't think it speaks specifically to the findings of fact. Your 6-5 vote on that motion, I think effectively adopted findings of fact that would not agree with the Planning Commission. but by act of law that vote will not overrule the planning commission recommendation doesn't overrule the findings of fact now each body can adopt its own findings of fact but the map amendment is actually either effectuated or voted down based on the ordinance not on the findings alright All right. Now we're ready for a reading of the ordinance. It's already had second reading, so I believe it just needs a motion. Just needs a motion. All right. Is there a motion? There's a motion on the ordinance. We got it. All right. We need a motion. Mr. Stennett? Motion by Mr. Stennett. Second by him. Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion? All right. Now we do. Rochelle, would you go over one more time for the benefit of the voting council members? If you are in favor of the zone change, vote yes. If you are against the zone change, vote no. All right. Madam Clerk. Council Member Lawless. Just a second. Council Member Lawless. I'm going to vote against the zone change due to the extreme efforts we went to to preserve the R1 and R2 neighborhoods and the ZODA that we passed. And it has nothing to do with anybody's feelings or liking or not liking students. but so much blood, sweat, and tears went into that. It feels like a very futile exercise to then completely reverse ourselves at this time. Thank you. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Ms. Henson? No. Mr. Kay? No. Ms. Lawless? Mr. McCord? Yes. Mr. Stennett? Mr. Blues? No. Ms. Crosby? Yes. Mr. Ellinger? Yes. Mr. Farmer? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Ford? No. And Ms. Gorton? No. So the effect of the vote is this council voted down the ordinance. which would generate a zone change. However, the vote was 6 to 5, which is insufficient by act of law to overrule the recommendation of the Planning Commission. So by act of law, the amendment, the MAP amendment, will go into effect. All right. Is there any further business to come before the Council? Moved by Council Member Beard-Blues to adjourn. Second. Second by Councilmember K. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Thank you, Councilmember Bluth. We'll be right back. I'm a child, but when your feet just can't keep spilling I never knew me a better time, and I guess I'd live a trip I want a mama, it was Friday night, so even soon you won't let that night I'm a rock and rollin' out of sight Thank you. Take me down To the paradise season where the grass is green And the girls are breathing Oh, won't you please take me home Take me down to the paradise season Where the grass is green and the girls are breathing Oh, won't you please take me home guitar solo I'm out. We'll see you next time.