I could take things for the truth And I said someday I'll get my life straight And she said it's too late What's done is done And I told her someday She said I can't wait Cause sometimes, someday It's never come She said all I've ever wanted was to love you Somewhere deep inside me I still do And now I think it's time I stop believing Cause I'm never gonna see a change in you And I said someday I'll get my life straight And she said it's too late What's done is done And I told her someday She said I can't wait Cause sometimes, someday Just never comes Oh, sometimes, someday Just never comes Remember when I was young So were you And time stood still And love was all we knew You were the first, so was I, who made love and then you cried, remember when? Remember when We vowed the vows and walked along We gave our hearts We made the start and it was hard We lived and learned Life through curves There was joy, there was hurt Remember when Remember when Old ones died, new were born And life was changed Disassembled, green range We came together, fell apart, and broke each other's hearts, remember when. Remember when The sound of little feet Was music We danced here week to week Brought back the love We found trust Vowed we'd never give it up Remember when Remember when 30 seemed so old Now looking back, he's just a stepping stone to where we are, where we've been. He said we'd do it all again, remember when. Remember when. We said when we turn gray When the children Grow up and move away We won't be sad We'll be glad For all the life we've had And we'll remember when Remember when Remember when The End Then the first snow came and she ran out to brush the snow away So it wouldn't die Came running in, all excited Slipped and almost hurt herself And I laughed till I cried She was always young at heart Kinda dumb and kinda smart And I loved her so. And I surprised her with a puppy. Kept me up all Christmas Eve. Two years ago. And it would sure embarrass her when I came in from working late. Cause I would know. That she'd been sitting there and crying. Over some sad and silly late, late show And honey, I miss you And I'm being good And I'd love to be with you If only I could She wrecked the car and she was sad And so afraid that I'd be mad But what the heck Though I pretended hard to be Guess you could say she saw through me And hugged my neck I came home unexpectedly And caught her crying needlessly In the middle of the day And it was in the early spring When flowers bloom and robins sing She went away And honey, I miss you And I'm being good And I'd love to be with you If only I could One day while I was not at home While she was there and all alone The angels came Now all I have is memories of honey And I wake up nights and call her name Now my life's an empty stage Where honey lived and honey played And love grew up And a small cloud passes overhead And cries down on the flower bed That honey loved And see the tree, how big it's grown But friend, it hasn't been too long It wasn't big And I laughed at her and she got mad The first day that she planted it was just a twig Thank you. To a woman who had made too many things The hero stands you in the face and says baby I'm in the face You say you're best, no you don't care You dance and she glows Dance Boogie what the land Dance Boogie Wonderland Sounds like through the night I change my back No dreams to boogie wonderland I find romance when I start to dance Feeling boogie wonderland I find romance when I start to dance Feeling boogie wonderland Hold up, nothing's over here before Hold up, you should be nothing before Hold up, when you're so pain and I'm not insane Looking wonderland, wonderland Boogie Wonderland Dance Boogie Wonderland I find romance When I start to dance In Boogie Wonderland I find romance When I start to dance In Boogie Wonderland Dance Wonderland Wonderland Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh I find romance with eyes, heart, and dance Go away from my window Believe at your own chosen speed I'm not the one you want, babe I'm not the one you need You say you're looking for someone Who's never weak, but always strong To protect you and defend you Whether you are right or wrong Someone to open each and every door But it ain't me, babe No, no, no It ain't me, babe Well, it ain't me You're looking for, babe Go lightly from the ledge, babe Go lightly on the ground I'm not the one you want, babe I'll only lead you down You say you're looking for someone Who promised never to part Someone to close his eyes to you Someone to close his eyes Someone who's out for you and more But it ain't me, babe No, no, no, it ain't me, babe Well, it ain't me you're looking for, babe No, it ain't me you're looking for, babe I said, no, no, no, it ain't me, babe I said, no, no, no, it ain't me, babe I said, no, no, no, it ain't me, babe I said, no, no, no, it ain't me, babe The End And always pretend So cool, so cool, so cool Never learning how wild and will I be saved Talk like a jerk or an educated brain Be an old girl driving me young boy is insane Be a joker, a preacher, it does not matter Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Don't need to be no strong hand Don't need to be no rich hand Everyone just needs a hand to hold on to Have a good look with the financial situation Play the ponies, be president of the United Nations Go to work and be a Hollywood star Die before we ride, ride into the mud Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Don't need to be no strong hand Don't need to be no rich hand Everyone just needs a hand to hold on They know that was when you were alone And there's nobody there except yourself I know it, you wanna pick up the phone And say talk to me, talk to me Somebody please talk to me Yeah Oh, yeah Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Don't even be no strong hand Don't need to be no rich hand Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Don't need to be no strong hand Don't need to be no rich hand Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Everyone needs a hand to hold on to Don't need to be no strong man Don't need to be no... Thank you. Ha! Everybody's looking for something Something to fill in your holes We think a lot but don't want much about it Till things get out of control How do I know when it's love? I can't tell you about the life forever How do you feel when it's love? It's just something you feel together We're slow You look at every face in the crowd Some shine and some keep you guessing Waiting for someone to come and do my guess Teach you your final love guesser How do I know when it's gone? I can't tell you about the last forever How does it feel when it's gone? It's not something you feel together Oh, that's love You're feeling it Nothing's missing Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah How do I know when it's love? I can tell you why it lasts forever How does it feel when it's love? It's just something you feel together How do I know when it's love? I can tell you why it lasts forever Weirdest love Weirdest love Hey! It lasts forever Weirdest love We're gonna feel this thing together When it's wrong When it's wrong No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no She was standing in the crowd All alone looking pretty Listening to the music that we played She walked up and whispered I leaned down and listened To the request that she made Do you know, do you know You are my sunshine She asked so sweet and tenderly Do you know, do you know You are my sunshine And would you do it one more time for me? Border to border and ocean to ocean I still look for her every place Chasing the sunshine each and every night I'm searching every crowd for a face She was gone just as quick as the song that she asked for Taking my sunshine away But someday when I finally look down and see her I know just what I'm gonna say Do you know, do you know you are my sunshine? Do you know what your smile did to me? Do you know, do you know you are my sunshine? And it looks like you're always gonna be Do you know, do you know you are my sunshine? Do you know what your smile gives me? Do you know, do you know you are my sunshine? And would you... Thank you. Hi, I'm Paul Schark here. Welcome to Heart of Gold. This is the fall edition. We have friends from Hospice of the Bluegrass. Ladies first, Carol Kearns, who's a volunteer, and Turner West, an employee, and you're in charge of volunteers and some events at Hospice as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next we have a zone change today, and I'd like to draw everybody's attention to the first page of the agenda. It has the procedure for our hearings, and the staff report has 30 minutes, and they will make that. and then the petitioner has 30 minutes to present his case and then citizens in favor have about 10 minutes or 3 minutes each and then the objectors have 30 minutes. And these are guidelines that the commission set out some years ago and so we're going to try to go by those but we want to give everybody equal time. How many people want to speak to this? Okay, so we ought to be okay. All right, so with that said, let's go on and present the case staff. Thank you. You've got 29 minutes left now. Sorry about that. Chairman Craven's numbers of the commission, the first item on our agenda today begins at the bottom of page 1, and it continues all the way through page 2 and on to page 3. This is item 1, MARV 2011-12. This is a request by the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center, Incorporated, and they are requesting a zone change from a single-family residential R1D zone to a professional office P1 zone. I will distribute for you and give the originals to Stephanie, but copies of, I think, six correspondence that the staff has received in opposition to this request. The subject property is located on North Ashland Avenue. It's approximately one acre in size, and it's located on the southeast side of North Ashland. For orientation purposes, our map shows this is Main Street, again, North Ashland, one block over, North Hanover, and then Mentel Park. Further to the north, you have Walton Avenue, and then to the northeast, Midland and Winchester Road area and National Avenue. The subject property, again, is single-family residentially zoned. And you can see, based on our notice area map, that a majority of the area is R1D zoning as well. To the southwest, excuse me, southeast, R2 zoning appears in the Mintel Park neighborhood. Also beyond our zoning notice area, additional zoning of note for the Planning Commission, there's B1 zoning at the intersection of Main Street and Ashland Avenue. and then also B4 zoning along National Avenue, which is one of our adaptive reuse projects, and then along Walton Avenue, other non-residential zoning categories include B1 and then P1. North Ashland is characterized by a mixture of both residential and non-residential uses, even though the majority of it is currently zoned for R1D zoning. We have two places of worship, a Baptist church and a temple. We also have the elementary school, Ashland Elementary, to the north of the subject property, northeast. And then also some accessory uses for several of the churches. The area, again, is kind of a mixed-use area with B1 at Main Street, uses a gas station and a restaurant, and then at the other end, as Ashland continues to the northeast along National Avenue, we have the adaptive reuse projects. In terms of the zoning history of this area, the property was originally platted in 1890, although we didn't have zoning here in Fayette County at that time. The first zoning category that was applied to this property was called Residential B. In 1969, our zoning atlas showed it as an R3 zone, So sometime between when it was originally designated in 1969, it was altered probably along with a new set of zoning regulations. In 1975, the property was down-zoned to an R2 zone. And then again in 1998, the property was down-zoned to the current R1D zone. Both of those downzonings were the result of the neighborhood requesting that either the commission or the council rezone their properties. The subject property has been home to the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center for over 50 years, and they recently acquired a new home in the Fairway neighborhood, and so they've moved and the property is available and vacant for reuse. the applicant is proposing the p1 zone in order to use it for general office uses these are the first two photographs are the frontal view of the properties and you can see that they remain residential in character and then the next three photos here show the rear kind of rear view of the structures and shows a different character there's been a large addition addition on one of the properties or one of the homes also there's been parking added surface parking and then playgrounds to accommodate the former use of the school and daycare our comprehensive plan the 2007 plan does recommend a semi-public facility land use for this the two subject properties in recognition of the prior use of a school and daycare center at this location. The semi-public land use is not one that the commission sees too often, so I wanted to take the opportunity to provide what the definition was from the comprehensive plan. So this land use category includes uses that benefit the public but are not publicly owned and usually includes places of worship, cemeteries, private education institutions like the property itself, and then private recreation. Some uses in our P1 zone can accomplish the semi-public land use, but also there are many in that zone that do not, including the general office use requested. The comprehensive plan within this land use also recognizes that if a semi-public use is going to cease to exist or be available for redevelopment at a location, that the Planning Commission should consider both previous comprehensive plans and also in terms of land use and also relevant current information for the site. Our 2001 comprehensive plan depicts the land use exactly the same as our 2007 plan, but I would note that previous plans recognize this area as multifamily. I'm sorry, not multifamily, medium density residential with the orange color on the map from 1996 and then additionally 1988. The medium density residential land use is defined as 0 to 10 dwelling units per acre and in this case the applicant is not proposing any residential use of the property. The comprehensive plan also obviously has goals and objectives, and two goals and objectives that should be considered with this requested zone change. Our first one that addresses infill and redevelopment, Goal 8, states that the goal is to create strategies that enable and encourage appropriate infill and redevelopment within neighborhoods. and specifically Objective I, which addresses balancing the need to accommodate that infill and redevelopment in Lexington's older areas with the need to preserve the essential character. Additionally, Goal 15, under our Neighborhood Preservation, is stated to preserve, protect, and enhance the character and quality of our existing neighborhoods, and several objectives under that are specifically applicable to this request. Retaining the character and identity of a successful residential and non-residential area, developing strategies to maintain and preserve our neighborhoods, and then plans for promoting infill and redevelopment that are reinforcing the fabric of the neighborhoods. While the Comprehensive Plan makes some general policy statements regarding infill and redevelopment, we have to acknowledge that first there's a delicate balance, as pointed to in the last objective, in established neighborhoods, and that redevelopment to the potential detriment of a neighborhood should be avoided. and the proposed P1 zoning provides less assurance that the neighborhood character and appearance will be preserved than the existing R1D zone. Considering a zone change request such as this can be difficult, and the staff had spent much time in reviewing the request. That being said, the staff looked closely at this established neighborhood. the area is primarily residential in character and zoning with commercial and mixed use corridors being at the outside along Main Street and National Avenue or even as far as Winchester Road and then also Walton Avenue to some degree of concern to the staff was the introduction of non-residential zoning within the middle of an established neighborhood and the Planning Commission should consider not just the site itself but also the context in which the property is situated. The subject properties are situated mid-block between Main Street and Kramer Avenue and they are not contiguous with any other non-residential zoning. And while non-residential uses have occurred in this area for decades, the rezoning to permit a professional service as land use could potentially alter the neighborhood and lead to additional rezonings to the point of they're becoming a tipping point, such as on what has occurred on Walton Avenue in the past. And for these reasons, the P1 zone is not appropriate at this location. The staff does recognize that the subject properties, as is, have limited practical use as single-family residences, Although the subject properties have been modified to meet the needs of the applicant and former user, this should not in itself be a justification for a zone change to a more intent zone, and land use than is recommended by our comprehensive plan. The relocation of the school and the daycare have not resulted in a significant unanticipated change in this immediate area since our comp plan was adopted, and the existing structures still remain viable for semi-public use regardless of its zoning. I just want to point to, zoom in a little bit on this area. Our North Ashland Avenue area, again, is primarily residential in character. This is Franklin Avenue. And then I'll just right along North Ashland. And there's the subject property again. As noted, the staff certainly appreciates the historic use of the property for a semi-public use, and cases like these can be difficult to weigh a new proposed use and possible consequences to an existing neighborhood. While the applicant has offered conditional zoning restrictions and development plan restrictions to attempt to address the possible impact of a land use change to this neighborhood, ultimately the staff cannot support a change in land use at this location. mid-block on North Ashland Avenue. The zoning committee in August, when they considered this request, did recommend postponement, and the staff was recommending postponement at that time as well. Since then, as you probably can assume from my presentation, the staff is recommending disapproval of this request. And the reasons are listed not on your agenda, but on your staff report behind tab 1 in the notebook. and generally not in agreement with our comprehensive plan, not just the land use but also the goals and objectives, not in line with previous decisions by the Council and the Planning Commission to downzone this area. The P1 zone is not appropriate at this location, and there's not been a significant change in this area since the comp plan was adopted, and the semi-public use of this property is still appropriate. Thank you. I can answer any questions. Thank you. Are there any questions, Ms. Wade? Very good. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Ms. Copeland. Ms. Wade. Yes. Do you have the dates when the neighborhood said they wanted to change the zoning? In other words, when did they enact those? 1975 was the first down zoning from an R3 to an R2, and then in 1998 from R2 to R1D. So 35 years ago or so, they worked on protecting themselves. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, the preliminary development plan that is associated with this unchanged is on page 3 of your agenda. Item C, ZDP 2011-69, Rogers and Clark Subdivision, Lots 21, 22, 23, and 24. The development plan is one of those you've seen recently as well, in that what is depicted on the development plan is what is on the ground. It is how the property is developed today. They aren't proposing any physical changes as an aspect of this zone change. Here you see the residential building in appearance that you were shown. That is a little over 2,000 square feet. This combined building, the connection with the large addition that were on the pictures that Ms. Wade showed you, this is a little over 9,000 total square feet in the structures. There is a one-way traffic movement. You can see through the parking lot here and out these access points. Again, the parking is located in these areas to the rear of the property. This is the playground area that was associated with the school, the playground area associated with the daycare. The plan was reviewed by your subdivision committee, and it was recommended for approval. and I would add for those in the audience that may not be used to this process that you all, as you all are very much aware, the plan is reviewed by the subdivision committee as if the zoning was already in place. Again, your committee reviewed it subject to the conditions that you see before you. Those are standard conditions. There are several cleanup conditions that the submission that was reviewed did meet. However, they weren't part of the subdivision committee action. The plan has condition number six. They do now have the correct plan title. It is the Rogers and Clark subdivision, as I stated in my introduction. They have provided the name and address of the developer. That's number seven. They have denoted their written scale, number eight. Number nine, reorient the plan so that the North Arrow is appropriate. And that they have done those things. Those are cleanup conditions. They have also denoted on number 10 that signage shall be in accordance with Article 17 of the zoning ordinance, as well as number 12, denote that there will be reciprocal access and parking on the property. As I stated before, this property is as it exists, as it's been developed. There are several variances associated with this property. They are necessary in order to accommodate as how it is developed. They concern the parking. There is a request to reduce the parking. It concerns some setbacks and some landscaping requirements that would be applied normally to a new development. Mr. Immons is going to go over those waivers with you in a moment and explain them in detail. But again, as I've stated, the development plan that you see before you is a preliminary. It reflects the property as it currently exists today, and it was recommended for approval by your subdivision committee. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Any questions for Mr. Martin? All right. Very good. Thanks. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, I'm going to present the variance reports for the subject property just for a few housekeeping items. There is two staff reports in your book. The original staff report, which is also those recommendations are also on your agenda. We have also had a supplemental staff report for the two items that were originally recommended for postponement. That should be in your notebooks right behind the original. And there are also additional copies on the back table for the audience. I have passed out two additional exhibits, which I'll just briefly mention. One are the minutes from the Landscape Review Committee that met on August 16th. And the other one is a handout on the observations from the staff on the parking analysis for the subject property. There's the clicker. To look at the subject property, there are five variances that are requested. Much like the development plan is reviewed as if the requested P1 zoning were in place, the variances are also reviewed, assuming that the requested P1 zoning is approved. There are a total of five variances that have been requested, but they really fall into three categories. Setbacks in height, landscaping, and parking. All five of the requested variances all have one goal in mind, and that is in order to keep the existing site as it is. So as you're looking at it, and all of these are results of applying the new P1 zone to the existing property. For the yards and height setback variances, and you'll see on both the agenda and in the original staff report that the staff is recommending withdrawal of one of the requests. And to explain that really quickly, this was originally three pieces of property. According to the zoning ordinance, whenever the applicants built the connector between the two houses and made that one building and they built over that property line, that's considered one line. So that made one of the requested variances unnecessary, and the staff is recommending withdrawal of that as it appears on the agenda. The other yard and height variances are related to the P1 zone, and they're actually related to each other. In the P1 zone, their side yard requirements are 12 feet from the property line. There is also a height-to-yard ratio of a 3-to-1 height-to-yard ratio. So if you were at the minimum 12 feet, you could build a 36-foot tall building. In this particular case, there are two side yards that do not meet the minimum 12 feet. where the associated daycare building was at 154, that building is about 2 1⁄2 feet off of the property line, which would allow about an 8-foot tall building. The existing building is 20 feet tall. They've requested a variance to the existing 20 feet. The other variance is for the side yard that is about 9 feet. They're requesting that side yard from 12 feet to 9 feet. Staff is recommending approval of all of the yard and height variances, except for the one that we had recommended withdrawal of. As far as the landscaping requests go, there are essentially two requirements that are being requested for a variance. The zone-to-zone perimeter screening, which would require a 15-foot landscape buffer area with trees and shrubs. That 15-foot can be reduced down to a 5-foot wide area if a privacy fence is installed. And the other one would be the interior vehicular use area screening. The subject property is at about 3% interior landscaping for the parking lot, and the 5% of that is the requirement of the zoning ordinance. To look at a few pictures of the property, these are slightly different pictures than Tracy has shown you. To show the properties from North Ashland Avenue, there are the three access points that you see on the development plan. And this is the northernmost one in the picture. So you've got the two attached houses, and then the daycare would be the third house. The main thing that I want to point out in this are the existing mature trees along North Ashland Avenue. As we look into the subject property, this is a picture of the first and the largest playground area. This is the screening and landscaping that exists next to the existing residential lots. There is already a six-foot privacy fence there. What is missing is the five-foot landscape area, and it varies on this subject property in width, but the required trees and shrubs are not there. And this is finally looking back towards North Ashland Avenue, and you can see the existing privacy fence that exists. The staff had originally recommended postponement until the Landscape Review Committee could meet. They have met. They did recommend approval of the requested variances. However, they did highly recommend that the care be taken to try and save as many of the mature trees that are on the site as possible. As far as the parking variance, parking variances are fairly new to the zoning ordinance. This site would require a total of 49 parking spaces if it were fully used out at its total square footage. There are 25 parking spaces on site. They are asking for a 50% reduction. When the staff looks at all parking variances, there are essentially three categories that we try to take into mind. That's the walkability of the area, the parking generator for the proposed use, and the on-street availability. In this particular case, this is a very walkable neighborhood. the parking generator they are proposing general office uses and so that would be that would fall in at the one per two hundred standard which would be the highest parking generator for this if there are other allowed uses such as a that would be if this were to redevelop us say another church or a daycare under the p1 zoning the parking generation would actually go down And that leads us back down finally to the on-street parking availability. And I passed out to you a handout that has the staff's general observations on this. We looked at a two-block area around the subject property from Bullock Place to Hamburg Avenue. We did look at the available parking spaces on both sides of the road. In general, there are about 30 available on-street parking spaces. You can see we looked at this for about a week. A particular concern, we did look at it both in the morning, evening, and during some lunchtime observations, and especially with the North Ashland Elementary School, We looked at it around the 2 o'clock to 3 o'clock hour as school was letting out. What we generally found is out of the 30 available on-street parking spaces, the residents in general used up maybe 6 to 7 of those on a regular basis, and we found that there are generally 20 to 25 available spaces on the on-street parking. Obviously, there is a rush for on-street parking whenever the school is letting out, but in general, that was actually kind of hard to count because people were coming and going so quickly. You can see our numbers there. But in general, the staff did find that there were over 20 generally available on-street parking spaces. That led us to a recommendation of approval for the subject property for the requested parking variances. The staff is recommending approval of all of the variances except for the one that we're recommending, the unnecessary one. If you have any questions for me, I would be happy to try and answer them. This also concludes all of the staff presentations, so if you have any general questions about the application, we'll also be happy to answer those. Okay. Any questions for any of the staff? All right. Thank you, sir. Next, we will hear from the petitioner, Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. While King Offit is passing out some material that I wanted to share with you, my name is Bruce Simpson. I am here on behalf of the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center, which, as the staff has pointed out, shared with you, has been in this site in Lexington serving very important needs, actually for 42 years, since 1969, when they first acquired the property. They just recently moved to the Julia R. Ewing School and have had these three properties available for sale for the past 14 months with virtually no interest except for some non-profits. Before I get too far in my presentation, I know it's customary and I think it's important for you because we do have people in support and we do have neighborhood folks that have concerns or in opposition. I am pleased to share with you that we do have several members of the board of the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center here today. We also have members of the board, which I am privileged to serve on, the Lexington Child Advocacy Center at Bluegrass, which we currently have our facility at 183 Walton Avenue, the next block over. And we have a contract to purchase, 158 and 162 North Ashland, the main bulk of the Hearing and Speech Center property. And then Jill Rose is an attorney. She has five people in her office, herself and four other support staff, who have contracted purchase the other building, 154 North Axelon. And I think there may be some neighborhood people here today as well in support. And I would just ask at this time the folks in support of our application from the Hearing and Speech Center, the Children's Advocacy Center, and those in the neighborhood to please stand in support of the application at this time. Thank you. As the staff pointed out to you, there are some challenges associated with this case. It has been a non-residential use since it started in 1969. Back in 1969, the zoning ordinance allowed schools as a permitted use in this particular residential zone. Subsequently, the ordinance was changed, and now in order to have a school in a residential zone, you have to get a conditional use permit. And in fact, the Children's Advocacy Center did get a conditional use permit in 1983 and later in 1993 to expand their services to include a daycare center. So the law has changed, but the uses remain the same. for 42 years. I believe the neighbors will share with you that the center has been a good neighbor. I think the neighbors will also share with you that they believe that the Children's Advocacy Center, which would occupy the great bulk of this property if approved for rezoning, that that would be a good neighbor. They may have some concerns about Jill Rose. she has a very low intensity office she will tell you that her hours of operation are basically from 8.30 to 5 and she has 5 people and they don't work on the weekends the daycare center which is the site that she's purchasing had 9 full time staff 9 part time staff and 38 children every day 5 days a week so the actual use of her property would be much less in terms of impact to the neighborhood, in terms of traffic and noise and the like, as would the Children's Advocacy Center. We have four full-time, four part-time staff. We serve about 25 children a month. We're hoping to grow our services in that regard. I'm privileged to serve as the president of the board. So I'm in a joint capacity. I'm here on behalf of the Children's Advocacy Center urging approval of this zone change and as the attorney for the Hearing and Speech Center. When we filed the application and we were getting ready to be heard the first time, we did hear some people express concerns in the neighborhood, and I checked with them, and based upon that, we decided to postpone to have a neighborhood meeting. We did have a neighborhood meeting. We invited everybody in the notification area to come, presented our proposal, what we wanted to do, I shared with the neighbors our proposed users. There was concern expressed that this was a speculative adventure. We didn't know who the users were going to be, and we wanted to assure the neighborhood that, in fact, we did have definite users under contract, which we do. So we met with the neighbors. They had one request with respect to our application, and that was to limit, to take out a provision in our application that would have allowed for private clubs, which we did. We then met after the full neighborhood meeting. We postponed again to give them time to think about what we discussed. We postponed again. Then we met with the board of directors of the Mantell Park Neighborhood Association. There were some folks from Bell Court that came and attended that meeting. And so we have reached out to the neighbors because we have been good neighbors. And we want to continue to be good neighbors. And we want to set in motion good neighbors to take over where the Hearing and Speech Center has been for 42 years. And we believe that we have come up with an application with appropriate restrictions and appropriate conditions on the users that would provide for that. As the staff shared with you when we filed this request, we asked for P1 zoning. As I will share with you in a moment, we are limiting by 65% the uses that otherwise could be used in a P1 zone change. We've got the only uses that would be allowed on this property, as I set forth in our application, would be offices for business, professional, real estate, government, civic, social, fraternal, political, religious, and charitable organization, Schools for academic instruction, which is what it's been, libraries, art museums, reading rooms, studies for the teaching of the fine arts, photography, music, drama, dance, and theater, community center, house of worship, associated schools for religious instruction, kindergartens, nursery school, child care centers for four or more children. and the P1 does allow for dwelling units on the upper floors of a P1 zone where there's no mixes of uses on any floor. So we've eliminated a lot of the P1 uses to make it a very low intense type use and to really to carry on what's been here for 42 years. we are not proposing to change a thing that has not been here for 42 years. The other commitment that we made, subsequent to our meeting with the neighbors, because there was some concern expressed about, well, what if you want to tear all these properties down? We don't want to see some high-rise professional office building. And the Hearing and Speech Center board said, you're right. We don't want to see that either. And so we made a commitment in writing on October the 20th, which we indicated to the neighbors when we met with them we would do, to fulfill our commitment that we would put voluntarily, we're not required to do this, but voluntarily impose a condition on the development plan which would provide that in the event any of the residential structures are destroyed by fire, natural calamity or whatever reason, they have to be rebuilt as residential structures. Still operate within the limited professional office uses that we have restricted ourselves to in the future. But the residential look would remain. The only exception would be is about the 4,000 or 5,000 square foot structure behind 158, 162, which I'll show the photographs in a moment. They're in your book. That is not a residential structure, and if that should happen to be destroyed by fire or something, that would be allowed to be rebuilt as it is now. So again, it's a commitment in connection with this application to maintain the status quo, both in terms of the use and in the architectural look, so that nothing would be changed. Nothing would be changed from what it's always been. We think those commitments are substantial and will preserve the character of this neighborhood which has existed for a long period of time. One of the real dilemmas that the Hearing and Speech Center people have had is that they've not had any interest in someone purchasing these properties for residential uses. They've had very limited interest in people acquiring them for even professional office uses under the conditions that we have set forth in our application. One of the structures at 158, the middle one with the large building, is almost 7,000 square feet. It's going to be very difficult to sell that property for a residential structure, single family in an R1D zone. You're going to tear it down, which is going to cost a lot, and I have some evidence and some information to share with you about the cost of doing that. I think that's very wasteful to do that, to tear that addition off. And in point of fact, all of these structures over the last 42 years have evolved into non-residential uses in terms of all the features that go into the internal workings of them, such that if someone wanted to come in and buy them as a residential use, they're going to have to pay a significant amount of money, and I will get into that shortly, to convert them from what they have been for 42 years, professional office, to residential. We believe that that's unnecessary and, in fact, would not occur, and if these properties were required to remain single-family, they would, in fact, waste away, and no one would purchase them. Now, it's true that these properties, as the Hearing and Speech Center has done, you can try to qualify for a conditional use permit. Under tab number three in the booklet that we just passed out for you, I have set forth, and just to refresh your recollection, The zoning ordinance in tab number three is R1A, that's single family. But all of the other subsequent single family zones, when it gets to defining what conditional uses are allowed in a single family zone, they're all the same conditional uses that are set forth in the R1A zone. And I've highlighted in black magic marker what those uses are. So if the option, which it would be if you turn the zone change down, if you say, well, we want it to remain R1D single family, and you're trying to sell a 7,000-square-foot building that functions like an institution, and you have a breezeway connected to the other building that used to be the administrative offices of the Hearing and Speech Center, you want to tear out the middle and spend the money to convert that to residential and take away the drop ceilings with the exposed pipes and all of the fire sprinkler systems that are in place there and have to rewire the house to accommodate a kitchen of which there is none in any of the three buildings or bathrooms that have tubs or showers. There are none in any of the three buildings to have to deal with all that reconstruction. If you want to keep it R1D and let it sit there in hopes, well, maybe somebody will come in and try to get a conditional use permit, These are the conditional use permit opportunities that would be available if you denied the zone change. You could have kindergartens for four or more children, but not more than 12. You could have home occupations. You could have a temporary real estate office, which wouldn't apply in this particular neighborhood since everything's developed. I suppose you could apply for a cemetery or a mausoleum, or you could apply for outdoor commercial or non-commercial recreational facilities, such as a golf course. I don't think that's going to work. A zoological garden, a sportsman farm, or riding stables. A fishing lake. Non-commercial swimming pools, tennis courts, campgrounds, or private clubs. We've agreed to take out private clubs, but I don't think any of those conditional uses would be appropriate in this particular area. churches, Sunday schools, and parish houses. That's been on the market for 14 months, and we haven't had a single interest, and it's really not set up for a church. Schools for academic instruction. You have some very restricted and limited opportunities there, which have not materialized at all thus far. You've got basically one market, schools for academic instruction, unless you want to include mining for nonmetallic minerals, family child care for seven but not more than 12, a bed and breakfast for five, or a historic house museum, which this wouldn't qualify. Those uses are very narrow, obviously. In essence, we would be saying if no one wants to come in there and spend the money to fix this place up, these three places up for residential purposes, then we'll just hold them available for churches, sunny schools, parish houses, or schools for academic instructions. And quite probably, in our reality, they'll sit there for years and years and deteriorate and not contribute to the neighborhood. In fact, they would be a hindrance to the neighborhood because I can represent to you that Children's Advocacy Center would take care of their property, and Jill Hall-Rose has a history of taking care of her property, and that would preserve the value and the integrity of this neighborhood much more so than letting it be a speculative adventure, which it truly would be, that somebody would come in here and say, okay, I'm going to go try to get a conditional use permit, which means they've got to go through the Board of Adjustment, have a hearing, spend that kind of money in hopes of being successful to move into those facilities. I think that is a very narrow kind of confining condition that is going to be the death and hell of this property for its foreseeable future, particularly in this economy. What we're proposing is to preserve the status quo, preserve the value and the character of the neighborhood, not change it with the users that we're bringing in, and we believe there's value in that. Now, to deal with the question of just the context of this case, the staff pointed out that there's been some downzonings, which there have been, in connection with this case. But it's primarily been limited to North Ashland and the streets associated with North Ashland. I'm going to discuss that just very briefly. I'll kind of center that a little bit. Yeah, drop it so you can see all of the highlighted yellow on the screen. This area in here, the subject property, the Hearing and Speech Center property, is located right about here on North Ashland. And the down zoning that did take place is R1D, single-family zone. This is the North Ashland area. This area over here and all around here and even over in here is zoned R2. This is not single-family. Mantell Park over here is zoned R2. It has some apartments, four-plexes. It has some apartment buildings that are nonconforming uses. But it's not R1D. In fact, if you see the whole property, the whole neighborhood is mainly R2, except over here along Walton, this portion, there's some professional office, actual residential units that are functioning as professional offices now. The Children's Advocacy Center on Walton is right here. It's professional office. The rest of it is R2, and of course East Main in that area has a commercial orientation. Thank you. I do agree with the staff's report on page 2 when the staff says that the North Axland corridor is a mixture of residential and non-residential uses, including single-family dwellings, places of worship, neighborhood business, a public elementary school, townhouses, and numerous warehouses that are proposed for adaptive reuse. This is certainly a downtown neighborhood. And I can tell you from having represented downtown neighborhoods, and even if I didn't, I think the Commission has to be careful when they evaluate proposals like this. And I also think, as we're asking today, to look at the history and look at our proposal and look at our restrictions. Are they reasonable? Are they protective? Do they ensure the kind of users that are not going to upset the character of this neighborhood, which we believe that they are? It is a downtown neighborhood. There are a mixture of uses in the area. The staff talks about semi-public use and a comprehensive plan that would include places of worship, cemeteries, private educational institutions, private recreation, and the like. The only one that could possibly fit would be schools of academic instruction and how many of those opportunities, how many of those interest groups or entities are out there that you have to hold this property for in perpetuity to see if they're going to come in and buy nearly 9,000 square feet of real estate. I think that's a poor way to accommodate and put some users in there that will take care of their property so they won't deteriorate and they will preserve the status quo in terms of the kind of uses that have been in existence for a long, long time. The staff talks about certainly the comprehensive plan, and the comprehensive plan is important, but under the law, as you know, there's three different bases for getting a zone change. You can have an application in compliance with the comprehensive plan, Or, if you don't, if you have a circumstance like what we find ourselves in, non-residential use for all these years, you can come before the Planning Commission and the Urban County Council and say, we've changed this property from residential use in terms of everything inside the property such that it is really a non-residential use. We believe that the cost of refurbishing and renovating and restoring these properties to residential use is prohibitive, that the existing zoning for these three properties is therefore inappropriate, and the proposed zoning under the law of P1 with limited conditional uses and a commitment to restore these properties in the event of some kind of fire or other kind of destruction to a residential character is appropriate. So you can get a zone change under the law. Commonwealth provided for it has for over 35 years. If you come in on a special circumstance such as this and demonstrate we're not really appropriate for residential use, we are appropriate for a limited professional office use, and this is what we seek. And this is our case. We believe that we're justified in coming down here. In fact, we have no choice. The Hearing and Speech Center desperately needs to sell this property. They don't have the resources to take care of it in perpetuity in hopes that some school will come along and purchase it at some point in time. There's been virtually no interest in doing so, none for residential, and we have substitute users which we believe accommodate the needs of the neighborhood. I do have some photographs. I know the staff has shared photographs with you. I'm going to go through some photographs as well to highlight the character of the neighborhood and the non-residential orientation of the Hearing and Speech Center property. The first photograph is really an aerial photograph, which shows our properties at 162, 158, and 154. All of these are in your booklet. but you can see them a little bit more closely identified under tab number, starting at tab number 6, 7, and 8. You can see them a little better than what's showing up on the screen. But you can see the large institutional building. This whole structure here is close to 7,000 square feet. You can put the next slides and just run through those real quick. the gas station at the corner of North Ashland, East Main. It's about 650 feet from the Speech and Hearing Center, Hearing and Speech Center property. Across the street is, of course, the restaurant that's been there, different owners over the years. Then as we move down North Ashland, we have the Temple Adith Israel, of course, a very handsome synagogue. Right across the street from the Hearing and Speech Center property is a clothing bank operated by the Heritage Baptist Church. That's another shot directly opposite our property on North Ashland, the clothing bank. And then, of course, the church has two large buildings on North Ashland directly opposite us. And then on down is Ashland Elementary School, about 400 feet away from our property. The next area, this is the Children's Advocacy Center at 183 Walton. This is where we are now. As you can see, we've maintained our property. We've been there since 1995. The next series of slides will be some other residential structures that are maintained as professional offices on Walton, which is the same proposal that we're seeking. This is, we'll go through these. The staff showed you. This is the size of the institutional addition at 158 North Ashland. Two-story structure. This is looking at 154. This would be the proposed five-person law office, the handicap ramp and the play area that are in existence now. It has no central air or heat. This is the playground for behind the law office and all this parking space leading up to the back door of 158 North Ashland. And this is the screening that's currently in existence between the houses on North Hanover, the backyards, and the parking where the Hearing and Speech Center has been parking for the last many years. These are shots of the interior. As I mentioned, we don't have any bathtub shower facilities at all. All that would have to be put in. This is what we have now. You can see the metal framework was designed to protect the children going up and down the steps of our building. This is the hallway. It very much looks like a school because that's what it's been. These are some of the large rooms, classrooms, that we have at 158, 162. This doesn't show up well here, but you can see it in the booklet hearing room, soundproof chambers, where you can have the audiologist be testing the kids with electrical devices that measure hearing decibels. This is a soundproof room that's part of that that's in existence on our property. We have dropped ceilings with the fire extinguishers, the fire sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers too, and the commercial lighting. This is some of our doors that we have on the property. industrial, institutional type doors. This is, as you can see, the exposed duct. This is part of assembly room, multipurpose room. This is part of the breezeway that connects 158 and 162. This is looking at the back of our property. You can see the breezeway here. This is 162, the breezeway leading over to 158. and the large industrial air conditioning units and the like attached. This is just some more of the parking that takes place. I will share with you. There's 14,000 square foot of paved asphalt on this property. The drop ceilings, all this is drywall, and they elected to run wires and the fire sprinkler systems, the other things. It was cheaper just to put in the drop ceilings, which a lot of offices do. rather than deal with renovations that most homeowners would like to see, which is having drywall ceilings. They expose pipes now that would have to be remedied if it was converted to residential. Again, this is another shot of the building, that if this was residential, this is what the property owner is going to be looking at right outside their home, unless this gets torn down, and I'll talk about that. Mr. Simpson, you have about three or four minutes. Okay. I've got several people signed up that will assign me their time. Mr. Chairman, if that's okay. This is, I understand the concern about precedent, certainly. It's always talked about in every land use case that I've been involved in. This is a property located at 198 North Hanover and Kramer. It's been here for I don't know how long. I suspect it's a nonconforming use. It appears to be some kind of hair cutting commercial business. But I haven't seen this being used as a basis to expand anywhere in the area, even in terms of an application. In the Mentel Park neighborhood, Kramer Avenue, or anywhere in the like. And I say that because a precedent is only as good as this body allows it to be. Let me turn the lights on. I think that's it. And the reason why I believe our application will not create any kind of precedent that someone else could come in here and say, well, you all approve this for the Hearing and Speech Center at 154, 158, 162 North Ashland. I have property elsewhere on North Ashland. I'm entitled to convert my single-family home to professional office. No one on that block, no one in Mantell Park, no one in Belcourt, no one in this area can come to this body or the Urban County Council and demonstrate that for over 40 years we have had a non-residential use on this property and over time converted it to be so impractical of conversion back to residential. There's no one. Every president is examined based upon the underlying facts that justified some decision to say, you know, it is a tough case. and we have to be sensitive to the neighborhood and we don't want this to multiply elsewhere. But this is going to cost so much money to convert all of this to residential. We don't want to waste property. We don't want to have to tear down a 3,000 square foot addition just so we can make it more marketable for a single family home. It's an unusual case. And so Mr. Simpson, come to us with an unusual set of restrictions and promises and commitments that will help ensure us and the neighbors that the status quo will be maintained. We're doing that. Now, I do want to have Bob Rouse come up and share with you some of the costs that would be involved. We actually had two professional builders. Bob, do you want to come up? We had back construction. Go in and look at all three structures and give us some idea of what it would cost to convert these professional office uses to residential. And under tab number nine, you will see back instructions report and what they looked at and what they examined. Now, I will tell you, I had no idea it would cost this much money. and that's why I suggested to Bob, I said, you know, can we look at some kind of just lower cost, you know, where you go to Kmart and pick it out yourself or Walmart or Lowe's or Home Depot and maybe you can do some of it yourself. And so he looked at it and was looking at it as reducing the profit and so forth. But, I mean, if somebody were to back construction has an excellent reputation, which is why we chose them. They do major remodeling all over Lexington. They are one of the top companies in our area for this kind of work. For instance, under their memorandum that consists of three pages, they looked at 154 estimated because of the things that would need to be changed, $209,000 for $162,000 would be $343,000, and for $158,000, $217,000. So I talked with Bob, and I said, you know, let's go through this and see if there's any way you can. I'm not talking about building something that's just way over the top, because nobody's going to put that much money into these units. It would be outside the scale of what these houses sell for, what the market value of houses on North Ashland is. The average price on North Ashland is about $210,000. Nobody's going to spend that much money to do it. And I said, is there any way we can cut? So Bob looked at it. He gave me a lot of pushback on it. And we came up, he came up with an alternative, a lower amount. I suspect the reality is somewhere in between. but it may be closer to what Bax said. But Bob's figures are under tab number 10, and he's here, and he's here to answer questions about what his calculations are. But even under his calculations, under tab number 10, 154 to convert it to residential, this is just the things that would be necessary to convert it to residential use because the property has been converted to professional office use. You're going to have a lot of money spent for plumbing and electric wiring and kitchens and cabinets and bathrooms upgraded and a whole lot of money going through each one of those figures. You can see them for yourself. The total that he would come up with, which he will say is very conservative, for 154. This is the place that Jill Rose wishes to occupy. $98,000 to convert that to a residential structure. Just the basic threshold conversion. 150A, which is the larger building, is $240,000. That does include tearing down the back structure to make it marketable for residential. I don't know what single-family home there would be with two-story institutional construction. The cost of tearing that down is $58,000. Then you've got to rebuild the section of the property that was torn down by restoring it, putting in new wiring, drywall windows, and the like. 162, the adjoining property, $147,000 to put that back into some kind of residential configuration. I wanted Bob here. I don't want to go through all of the details on each and every one of these, but he is prepared to do so. And he is prepared to answer any questions about his conclusion of what it would take. But I will suggest to you that $98,000, $240,000, and $147,000 just to convert is impractical, considering the average value of the homes on North Ashland and in the surrounding neighborhood. to force some purchaser to come up with that kind of money with these older buildings that have been used for more than 40 years for professional offices is not realistic and it's not appropriate, which is why we're seeking the zone change. So Bob is here to respond to any questions that you may have. Under tab number 11, I indicated to you that the asphalt that would have to be removed, Typically, most homeowners don't want to have these kinds of asphalt configurations in their backyard and playgrounds and the like, but just the asphalt that would have to be removed is 14,000 square feet. Then you've got to replace it with sod and landscaping and the like. Again, another cost that would be prohibitive. Finally, under tab 13, I've suggested findings of facts and conclusions of law in support of our applications. We have tried to be sensitive. We are trying to be sensitive, but we've got a situation where we don't believe it is appropriate to force the Hearing and Speech Center to spend a half a million dollars fixing up properties to make them marketable for residential uses when they've not been residentially used since 1969. We've got careful conditions. We have careful restrictions. We believe we're sensitive to the neighborhood to preserve its character. We want it to be successful. And I can tell you on behalf of the Children's Advocacy Center, we very much want this property. We are ready to purchase this property. Likewise, Ms. Rose is ready to come in and operate a very low-intensity office. She does corporate transactions and the like. She has very few clients on the premises. She is here to respond to any questions that you may have. We have some other folks that are here. King Offit is the president of the board of the Hearing and Speech Center. I'm going to ask him to share with you something about his efforts to try to market the property, the interest, and the dilemma that the Hearing and Speech Center finds itself in right now. We have a couple other witnesses, Mr. Chairman, and that will conclude our case. King, thank you, Bob. Bob will be available if you have any specific questions about his estimates, along with Mr. Back's or Back Instruction's calculation on what it would take to convert. King Offit, President of the Board. Thank you all. Thank you all for your time. I'm acutely aware that no good deed goes unpunished, so thanks for your all's voluntary efforts on the commission. The Hearing and Speech Center first put the JRU in, well, we closed on JRU in last December. and while prior to closing we had already gone ahead and listed our existing buildings the three bones we've been discussing for some time now on North Ashland Avenue with Fortune Realty Fortune put them on LoopNet, they put them on LBAR you know the residential you know web address where people go to buy residences put it on LoopNet which is much more commercial and they put it on CoStar which is sort of both But during the time that it's been listed, we've had really three serious offers for the two main buildings and the large structure. Only one for the daycare structure that we use, and that's Ms. Rose. The three people that have been very serious about purchasing or have wanted to purchase the buildings were all nonprofits. None of them would be eligible for a conditional use permit because none of them were schools. They all serve children in our community, so they all help a great number of people in our community, but all of them would have required P1 zoning in order to use our buildings. Again, those are the only offers we've had. Fortunately for us, the Child Advocacy Center came along actually after we had engaged Mr. Simpson, Guy Bradley called me on behalf of the Child Advocacy Center. Very interested in looking at it. Their board has spent a great deal of time and money and effort evaluating the buildings. They very much want to move in there. We're under contract to them. The only contingencies remaining in our contracts are zoning. So we're quite optimistic that we're going to get zoning to P1. We would close with both these entities. We feel good about it. And on behalf of the Hearing and Speech Center, we've been in this community a very long time. We're still in the community. We only moved a handful of blocks to the south to Henry Clay Boulevard. I feel like we've done the city a heck of a favor doing that. We certainly helped out the Fairway Neighborhood Association when we bought the JRUN building. We had to obtain a conditional use permit to operate a school there. And we were down before the Board of Adjustment some time back to do that. So, you know, all that having been said, I know the process in terms of conditional use permit. I know how narrow it is, and I know that the only people that have come and looked at these buildings for purchase would require P1 zoning. So my suspicion is, based on that, were we not to get the zoning, the buildings will just sit. And we don't have the money to do anything to them. We've spent all our money fitting up the JRU in school. We've doubled the size of our enrollment. We have over 100 children now. We started the first preschool for children with autism in Central Kentucky in that building. We've done a number of things. We've got to sell these buildings. We counted on the money from these buildings. Now, that's not your problem. It's our problem. But it's really the community's problem because they're just going to sit where they are otherwise. So thank you all for your time. That's our formal presentation, Mr. Sharon. There may be other board members of the Hearing and Speech Center or the Children's Advocacy Agency or somebody in the neighborhood in favor of the application that we have crafted that may want to speak, but that's our case in chief. Okay. Thank you very much. Were there any questions from the petitioner? Yes, Ms. Copeland. Mr. Simpson, your photographs that you showed of the interiors, it seemed to me were all in the new annex. Do you have any photographs that show the character of the houses, the interiors of the houses? I've got about 50 more photographs I can show you in terms of the existing rooms and so forth. and I know you were over there the day that we were touring on behalf of the Children's Advocacy Center. And I think probably Bob would be able to answer your questions more about the kind of movement in the rooms and the walls that had to be changed to make it residential, if that's your concern. No, it just seemed one-sided, that we got the impression from your photographs that everything was all this industrial school look. And the inside of the two front houses that are joined with the walkway are pretty much still intact. All the woodwork's there. True, the bathrooms are gone, but the woodwork's there. And so to get a full view of the property, we could have used some interior shots of the two front houses that are pretty much intact. Well, they actually have been changed, And I do have those photographs, and I can go get them and put them up on the board if you like. Well, maybe later in the hearing. Yeah, I've got those. Bob, can you come up and share just about, because he's been in these properties, he's been on the crawl spaces, he won't go anymore. But can you share just in terms, she's asking about the 158, or excuse me, 162 would be the far one on the left as you're looking at the Hearing and Speech Center property, and then 154, those properties in terms of what they're like, and describe for her the non-residential features of them and why they would have to be changed to convert to residential. Okay. 162 is the building for it. Wait just a minute. Okay. Why don't we describe what's good about them rather than what's bad about them? Could you do that? Well, what's good about them is for commercial use only. I mean, you know, I've built over 150 homes in this town and surrounding counties. If you have to go into a building, move walls, you know, because they're all for offices. Move walls to accommodate for bedrooms. Add bathrooms. Add a kitchen. Structurally fix up these units to where they need to be. you know you're just the use right now is just commercial I mean you know that's why these numbers are so high I mean I could go down each number and explain why we came up to these numbers but any other questions for are you done Mr. Simpson I am if there's further questions Okay, is there any more questions? And the other folks that may want to speak in favor, they could come up at this time. Okay, Mr. Phillips, there's a question. Mr. Simpson, you had said that you might be interested in placing some restrictions on, was it on the development plan? Yes, ma'am. Or was it a deed restriction? It could be a deed restriction as well. I mean, we made a pledge that if the residential units are ever destroyed, they'd have to be rebuilt back as residential units. The only way that I could do that with the government, since conditional zoning doesn't address it, is to voluntarily impose upon ourselves and our successors the commitment that I just made. In addition to that, we have also attached a provision that the staff has a copy of, that in the event there's any change, any change whatsoever in this property, that the president of the Belcourt Neighborhood Association and the president of the Mantell Park Neighborhood Association has to be given 30 days advance notice. As you know, when property owners come in changing development plans, no one gets notice. And again, an effort to maintain our history of being a good neighbor, whoever owns this property if they're thinking about changing any part of that development plan before they're heard they've got to serve notice even though under the law they're not required to do so we've tried to put in every redundant safeguard possible to ensure there's not going to be any baiting and switching it's going to be as we committed to do for now and in the future so, okay very good Okay. At this time we'll hear from the people in favor of the zone change. If there are any in the audience who want to speak, you have three minutes each. And state your name and address when you're speaking. Please. My name is Guy Bradley. I'm treasurer of the Children's Advocacy Center. I live on Sycamore Road in Lexington. I wanted to just say real quickly on behalf of the center that there are several things that make this a good fit for us. Number one, we're attracted to the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center property because it is residential in nature from the look. And as you saw a photograph of our place, it's residential. It accommodates our future needs. We're out of space. We don't need necessarily all the parking that goes with this, but we need the extra square footage. In terms of repairs, we've already negotiated with the Lexington Speech and Hearing Center a very reasonable amount of repair that we're comfortable with, very reasonable. We're very comfortable with that. we want to maintain the integrity of the real estate. We don't want to alter it in any way. And I think we can assure the surrounding neighborhoods that there's going to be a lot less usage of this property in terms of people and traffic. As Bruce says, we've got four employees, four part-time. And lastly, let me just say this. the two-story addition, which obviously is commercial, looks commercial. We work very closely with the detectives of the LFUCG on our investigations. It's just part of the whole of what we do. And one of our hopes is that they can use more and more of this property as more of a permanent type of facility. Right now, we're really out of space, and they're in our shop daily. And, you know, it's really hard. And so this would, I think, really help the center in that regard as well. Thank you all. Very good. Anyone else? Who wants to speak for it? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Commission. I do feel somewhat like a lone ranger because I am one of the actual neighbors in the neighborhood. I actually am the neighbor as I am at 150 North Ashland, which is next to the daycare center since I moved there in 1980 and they were there beforehand. I do first off thank the Lexington Heritage Speech Center for being great neighbors when they were there and really working hard to find people to come in who will utilize the property and keep the vibrancy of that little area going. It simply has been that way since I've been there, and it feels very comfortable the way it is. When I started looking into it initially, as many of the people here had concerns, and speaking with the individuals and with Mr. Simpson, they have met mine and several other members of the neighborhood issues about doing the restricted areas. and also particularly I'd like to note the one about rebuilt in residential character because many of the neighbors were falling that line that if a developer would come in and tear it down and throw up an office building, well, I would be the first to be upset about that. But they have really been over backward to try and maintain the area. They're providing less traffic than the previous individuals here in the speech center. Once again, nothing against them, but this is a good group. I've spoken both with the Children's Advocacy Center and Ms. Rose about what their goals are and use of the property. Both seem committed on a very, very long-term schedule. They are not looking to develop it into anything but what they're doing. As I said, they made their adjustments. I did, although I heard about the neighborhood in the very last days before this hearing, that they had decided to vote against it. I did take an opportunity with the time I had allowed and went through on my street alone and talked with some of the neighbors and have some signatures and a letter of support, including one that I think may be sort of telling, is that individuals, after I spoke with them and made them aware that these restrictions were in place, that the private club was out, that the buildings had to be rebuilt as residential structures, they couldn't be commercial office buildings, signed my petition after they signed the other one because now they seem to have more of a clearer picture of the use of the property in the future. Thank you for your time. Can we get your name for the... Oh, yes. I'm sorry, sir. David Care, C-A-R-E. Thanks. Okay. Anyone else want to speak in favor? Okay. All right. Now we'll hear from the objectors. Just come right on up. Hi. I'll start off. I'm Louis Gardner with the Mentel Neighborhood Association. Why am I here? Well, we had a lawyer until 520 yesterday. Mr. Mike Moiser had agreed to represent us, and at 520 I got a call that said that he had a conflict of interest. So I'm really nervous right now, and I'm not terribly focused. And, yeah. So anyway, we're going to proceed here because I think that this has gone along. Why I'm here is because neighbors asked me to do this. Last night when I said, oh boy, lawyer's gone, I got seven, eight emails. One of them said, postpone. Everybody else said, you can do it. And I said, whew. Then I sat here and listened to Mr. Simpson. I just about got convinced. I wish I'd stepped outside. But, you know, I really want to thank you all. I want to thank the planning staff. I'm really a neophyte at this, and they've been extremely helpful. Mr. Simpson has been very helpful. I mean, he's been very accommodating. The delays, you know, there are reasons for those delays, and we might get to that and we might not. But anyway, a little bit about our association. We started off in 2006. Our area was very unusual in the downtown area in that we did not have a neighborhood association. One of the reasons why we didn't have one is because we weren't fighting zoning battles. Zoning battles, two reasons why you have neighborhood associations, in my experience, is you have zoning battles or you have to be a member. We are a voluntary outfit, and we distribute newsletters to every residence in the area. We do these. We make sure that any kind of gathering we have, we try to get a newsletter out at least two weeks in advance. We're open to everybody. While we may only have 60 or so paying members, I distribute over 200 email addresses. trying to be inclusive. We had a meeting about this, and, you know, I was kind of, and they're like, Lewis, no, the correct response to this is no. And so we've moved along that path, and, you know, we do all kinds of stuff. We plant trees. We do rain gardens. We're fixing mental media, and we do all that sort of thing. We have a very working-type neighborhood. As a result, I mean, the number one thing you hear is, I can't come down at 1.30 in the afternoon. I'm like, well, I understand. But we do have some people here. Anybody that's objecting to this, if you all can please stand right now. We had at least one had to leave as things moved along. And the reason why we haven't had this down zoning had a major effect. I mean, we've not been, you've got Walton Avenue right over there, and we've been somewhat insulated from that. So at our meeting, I guess that was last Tuesday, that everybody had at least a week's notice on, we took a vote, and people voted to oppose this. They voted to hire a lawyer. They voted to do a petition. I'd already talked to Mr. Moyes on a get-to-know-you basis and sort of take a look at this. And we thought we were ready to go. So one of the things I would like to do is we did a petition, and I'd like to, I guess what I need to do is give the clerk the actual written copies. And I made a tally sheet, and I'm going to give each one of you all one. Because the results, this is how most of the neighbors felt most comfortable speaking to this issue. Essentially, we had several circulators took these petitions around. They were fairly simple in character. It's that the Mentel Neighborhood Association is opposed to rezoning the former Lexington Hearing and Speech Center, properties at 154, 158, and 162 North Ashland Avenue, from R1D, single-family residential, to P1, professional office, for the following reasons. P1 is not in the character of the neighborhood. The Planning Commission has recognized this twice by downzoning most of our neighborhood to R1D, especially this neighborhood where this right is. Zoning several lots P1 in the middle of an R1D area can put rezoning pressure on surrounding properties. And professional office usage could change the character of our neighborhood. And additionally, the screening variances, you know, it's an unusual property, and as things went along, some people could foresee that that might be a problem for the neighbors. But we sent, let's see, one, two, three, about six, seven people out, and they went around, and we sent people out to go to 371 different residences. From that, they received 203 signatures. Of that, the column says owner may not be the best possible title. It's what I was using early on, but it's essentially a person that's not renting. The person who's signed may be the domestic partner or something like that, but they're not a renter. This is not, we took signatures, we're inclusive, we'll, you know, whatever, but we thought it would be somewhat important to differentiate the ones who had skin in the game, more or less. And then we also, you know, if people were absolutely opposed to what we were doing, in other words, they supported the rezoning, I asked everybody to let me know, you know, where those were. And we had, oh, 10. Now I understand that there's one that has changed. And, you know, we may get, so it's pretty much an overwhelming sort of thing. I didn't, I didn't, we'd been keeping an eye on this because we knew it was going to happen. But I hadn't, it really hadn't been the big thing on my radar. But, you know, people started calling. People started sending emails. And so folks wanted to get involved. And as you can see, a bunch of people did. The main reason why we didn't get more signatures is it was a beautiful weekend. We started on Saturday with this, and we finished on Tuesday night. People weren't at home. I mean, you had to go back two and three times to manage to catch somebody. So there were a lot of places that didn't do that. I personally covered North Ashland Avenue. I think there's only probably three or four properties I wasn't able to get a response from that were vacant or that sort of thing or nobody at home. And it's, well, we've got, let the petition speak for itself, on North Ashland. We've got 16 signatures, eight of which are from folks that don't rent there. So there's an awful lot of folks that are not in favor of this. And I'll just sort of, I think I'll give you what, as I was going door to door, the thing. A lawyer sort of, he says, well, what you're calling it isn't what it is. And I'd go, well, what they're wanting to do. They say, what are they going to do? well, we've got three properties here, and we want to rezone them to something different in the middle of all of this. And that's spot zoning. And this guy said, well, that's usually not a good idea. In the long run, it tends to end poorly. And the other item was that there's been a lot. I meant to start with this. We really like the Hearing and Speech Center. They're great neighbors. We'd love to have the Children's Advocacy Center. as neighbors. There was not a single person I talked to that wouldn't love to have them as neighbors. But, like the man says, this is business. When you change the zoning in the middle of an area like this, it can have negative impacts. And one of the things that has been argued here today very well is that this is a unique property and we have these very unique people who were going to come in and buy it. Well the other thing that usually is not a good idea is when you rezone for a specific buyer because zoning many times, most times probably, outlasts an occupancy. So these items are the thing that had most people that they understood. and zoning is complex, and most people don't spend much time with it, and so they don't really understand it. You put a document like the, and I really did like the staff report here, but it summarizes most every argument I've heard very well. You hand them a document like this, and they start reading through it, and they get lost. So the simple part is that spot zoning is a bad idea in general. Zoning for a particular purchaser is that sort of thing. And that would be about the extent of what I guess I need to say. I have another neighborhood resident who would like to speak. and a gentleman from over nearby that would like to speak. And can I reserve comment to maybe if I think of something once I sit down I can come back? You'll have a chance for rebuttal after everyone speaks. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman Cravens. You're welcome. Good afternoon. My name is Gil Dunn. I live at 38 Mentel Park, which is mid-block, two streets east or north of the property. I have lived on Mentel Park since 1994. I started as a renter, eventually was able to purchase the property because it was an affordable property for me at the time. I live at Mentel Park with my wife and children. Over the last 17 years, I have watched with increasing joy and optimism the renovation and the influx of young families to the Mentel, Kramer, Hanover, North Ashland streets. We are a truly unique neighborhood. Your staff has done a remarkable job in describing the very unique neighborhood experience that we have in the Mentel Park area. walkable, very mixed experiences from Wilson's Grocery to the restaurants and gas station. We agree with the staff's recommendation. It's very simple. the spot zoning and the change of the neighborhood the change of the zoning in that one particular area will have a detrimental effect to the rest of us who want families and individuals who live not 9 to 5 on North Ashland but who live there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week A family neighborhood is what will keep us healthy and strong, not business owners who come and go and are not there in the evenings or weekends. Simply put, we ask you to accept the recommendations that your staff has made and disapprove the zoning change. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions? Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, my name is William Kevin Murphy, and I live at 141 West Belcourt. I am not a member of the Mentel Park Neighborhood Association, and I'm not here officially representing the Belcourt Neighborhood Association, although I have been president of that organization in the past. I believe you received a letter that I wrote on September 26, 2011, to you stating my objections to this requested zone change. and I believe that the staff has pretty much covered what I put in that letter, so I will try to be brief, but I do want to make a few comments, things that I observed today at the hearing, things that sort of went through my mind and I jotted down as a few notes, that I think are very significant and very important for you guys to consider in this very complicated case you're dealing with right now. You know, first of all, yes, we do live in Belcourt, and yes, we are one of the other near-downtown neighborhoods. We're separated by Walton Avenue, but we're very close. And I think you saw some photographs of Walton Avenue, and you can begin to understand the transition that's occurred there that has gone more commercial and more professional office. However, I would like to applaud Lewis. Lewis has presented to you what I have observed to be an incredible grassroots effort to fight this zone change. The meetings that I attended, the petition that he circulated, that's what this process is supposed to be about. It's a shame when you have to hire a high-powered attorney to fight your battles to keep your home values up and be able to maintain the kind of lifestyle that most of the people in these neighborhoods have been able to achieve not by going in and paying back construction, $150,000 or $250,000 to redo, but by their own sweat equity. 1969. It was a lot different then. I was in high school. I had darker hair. It was longer hair. I would have loved to have been able to buy a house on North Hanover or North Ashland in 1969. But the pendulum has swung. It's continuing to swing. There's a great movement in these neighborhoods to maintain them. Is that the 2001 comprehensive plan? That's the 2007. I'm going to do a quick show and tell, and then I'm going to quit. Here's my concern. When you look at this 25-year guide to growth for Lexington, Fayette, Urban County, you see the map and the colors, and then you see what all those colors mean. How many of them are there? How specific does a 25-year plan need to be? How many zoning categories are there versus long-range plan use groups? That all came about, to my understanding, around the year 2001, and they expanded those uses. In 2012, they're going to be updating that comprehensive plan. that will be brought before this body and I would really urge you to take a second look at how many of those 25 year land use recommendations you need because I'll tell you, in 1986 I had the distinction, I won't call it the pleasure but I was appointed to serve on the update committee in 1986 for what eventually became the 1988 Comprehensive Plan. As part of that effort, many neighborhood associations requested that members of that update committee, which met in this room for two years, come to their neighborhood meetings and talk to them about the Comprehensive Plan. I did that on several occasions. I spoke to neighborhood groups, and Lewis pointed out, Show them a staff report, much less show them a how-many-page document that the text of the comprehensive plan is? Many, many pages. They're lost. So I coined a phrase that I used every time I went to a neighborhood group and spoke to them about this. In order to get their attention, in order to let them know how important this document is, I would tell them, this document is where the neighborhoods lose the war before the battles ever begin. That got their attention, and it's very true. It is a very important document, and the update of that is going to be a very important process. In closing, you know, all I can say about 1969 again, and listening to all the testimony, I can only say if you build it, they will come. And it was a very different set of circumstances in the real estate market in 1969 than in 2011. So thank you very much. And if you have any questions, I would be happy to try to answer them. Thank you. No questions. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? You've got plenty of time. Like, 12 minutes. Hi, my name is Stephanie Ashman Spires, and I live at 111 North Ashland Avenue. And I'm a parent of a child at the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center. And I feel for them. And I've been Switzerland in this entire process. because I understand what it's going to take to change this building. But that building's not alone. We have a house that has been used as a dorm by Kentucky Baptist College in the 1990s. We have a house that was owned by Kentucky Female Orphan School. And by the time we're done renovating, we'll spend way over $200,000. I'm currently saving my money for a $60,000 siding project that Mr. Rouse has given me the estimate for. I feel for the Hearing and Speech Center. And I've sat there and prayed that another school or conditional use building can come into the center. I think that when they took this project on, they needed to recognize what they had and try to work to figure out how they can move forward. I don't want it to sit vacant, and I hope that it won't. But I can't, when I moved into the neighborhood, I didn't move into a neighborhood two years ago that had law firms, that had doctor's offices, that had hair stylists. That was Walton Avenue. That's one block over from my house, and I love that street. And I love that I can walk to Oni's M's for dinner, and I can walk down and get a Coke when I'm out of Coke at the gas station. But I think that if we rule that this could be P1, I think it changes the demographic of the neighborhood and it changes the image of the neighborhood. You know, we're also foster parents, so I can't speak highly enough about the Children's Advocacy Center either. And, I mean, if there is a way that we can figure out that they can come in to this center and the Hearing and Speech Center. I think that works. But I think the law firm just needs to be removed from this picture because this isn't a neighborhood for law firms. This isn't a neighborhood for professional use. This is a neighborhood with schools and churches and children and families. And that's what we need to preserve. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else? now your turn okay now we will move into the rebuttal and closing statements and Mr. Simpson the petitioner refers five minutes I'm going to enforce this to you thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, I do appreciate the concern of the neighbors. We tried to anticipate those concerns as much as we could, given the constraints and the dilemmas that the Hearing and Speech Center has with this property, about which we have attempted to persuade you of the impracticality of trying to convert at a minimum of $500,000 just to start homes, which have not been homes for 42 years. The Hearing and Speech Center made it very clear when they asked me to help them in this case that they wanted to educate the neighborhood about our project. And they said, invite every single person within the notification area to a meeting. And let's give them the opportunity to hear firsthand what we are about and what our proposal is. We did that. We met at the Heritage Baptist Church back in September 13th, and there were about 15 people that showed up to that meeting. We laid everything out in as transparent a manner as possible, and I think the president of Mount L. Park would agree with that. He would also agree that we corresponded with him and were candid with him in every step of this process. One of the dangers of a petition is that people are approached and sometimes, perhaps not even intentionally, information is not accurate upon which they might rely on signing a petition. In looking at the petition that was signed, the information says that Mentel Park Neighborhood Association is opposed to rezoning the former Lexington Hearing and Speech Center. And one of the reasons is that professional office is not in the character of our neighborhood. The Planning Commission has recognized this twice by downzoning most of our neighborhood to R1D, single family. The truth of the matter is, as I share with you on the zoning map, is that the great majority of the neighborhoods surrounding this property, our property, is R2, not R1D. Mantell Park neighborhood is not R1D. It is R2. But people want to sign petitions, and they should. They should come down and voice their opinions about what they like and what they don't like. It's not in dispute that the neighborhood would like to see the Children's Advocacy Center come in and replace the Hearing and Speech Center. There's one or two people who have some reservations about law firms. This is a 2,000-square-foot house. the person that owns the property next to it who has owned the property next to it for over 40 years Mr. Kerr came up and said I'm okay with this why? Jill Rose's property the former daycare center is the perfect buffer with all that asphalt parking it's the perfect buffer no one is going to buy that property and look at all the institutional uses next door all the asphalt parking in the back. You're not going to spend that much money to dig all that up and plant sod and shrubs, tear up the playground. It's not going to happen. She's the perfect buffer with Mr. Care's property, and he agrees. I don't know that we can't. I'm open to suggestions to the extent that we can carefully craft more restrictions and still make it marketable. We've cut 65% out. There's concern expressed about doctors' offices and hairstylists, they can't come in and operate. These properties, their future is basically as nonprofits. After the Children's Advocacy Center, which I hope stays a long time, that's our plan. We're going to spend a lot of money to buy this property for us. And we have a lot of dreams and aspirations, and I hope we're there for 40 years or longer. Jill has five people in her office, five people. The daycare had 38 kids, 18 staff, nine full-time, nine part-time. We think we have listened to the neighbors. We try to anticipate their concerns. And the bottom line is this. I've been before you many times. If this property was just residential and they came to me and said, look, we want to take a shot, we'll give you a $100,000 retainer, you get this thing, Zone P1 in the middle of this neighborhood, with no history of any kind of professional office use, we'll give you a $100,000 bonus. I would say, you know what? The only thing I've got is some level of credibility, and there is none in trying to do that. You guys are the guardians of every single case that comes before you. And I hope that you can appreciate, and I think you do, that this is an unusual circumstance of 40 years of basic professional office use. And all we're asking is to affirm that same use, give this neighborhood the opportunity not to have deteriorating property, which benefits no one, very limited uses, a commitment to restore it to residential, if need be. I don't know of any other applicant who's ever come before you on any case like this and made those kinds of serious commitments in an effort to preserve the integrity of the neighborhood than what we have. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next, we can hear from Citizen Objector if you have some new rebuttal information. Well, I have just a couple of comments. State your name at the end, please. I've left my pens everywhere today. My name is Jess Lewis Gardner, president of the Mentel Neighborhood Association. There's no park in it. You all have a tough decision here. I mean, it's hard. You're looking at a very unique piece of property. And as Mr. Simpson said, nonprofit is where it probably needs to be. That doesn't extend to the next door. So, you know, that's one thing that people were very clear about. They were very clear that there's a difference between the Children's Advocacy Center and nothing, and most everybody would say nothing against lawyers and nothing against Jill Rose, you know. But that is a very different thing. When you put up a sign out in front and you have a business that basically operates in the trade of some sort, that's a different thing than a nonprofit, you know, do-good type operation. There were not a whole lot of neighbors at the meeting at the church. And one of the reasons for that was, you know, I never knew. I didn't receive a notification of it. The people who got the notification originally got it. I got the original notification, but I did not receive any notification of this meeting. If there had been, especially if I'd had a little bit of time, I would send out an email to everybody, and they would have been able to come over and talk about this. But as it was, I found out about it, I think it was the day before, put out an email, and a couple of people came off that email, but not very many. The representation, and at that meeting, I had noticed something in one of the myriad of documents I'd looked about that had to do with intentional or accidental demolition of the structure. And I ask, I ask at the meeting, well, what about intentional or accidental destruction of the building? And I was looked at sort of like I may have three heads. I'm glad to see that's in there, but I don't believe I received any formal document that said that. And we were operating under what any normal person would assume, which is if you have three properties there, and something happened to the buildings, and they were all zoned a certain way, then the consolidation of those properties would be the most likely thing that would happen. I mean, I can't imagine that it wouldn't. If there was something really big happened to the big building, then you'd try to consolidate those and that. And when I spoke to Mr. Moyes about this, he was basically along the lines of, well, you can come up with more conditions to keep the height and the width, and try to make it to where it's less appealing. So I just wanted to clear those two points up. I wanted to thank you all for your time, and I don't envy you for this decision. I mean, it's a hard one. It really is. There's nothing in the future that is for sure. You never do know. But I do keep that thing of that planning is what we say, what we want to do. You look way down the road and say this is planning, and then zoning is how you implement that. And you all, your predecessors, you know, we all stand on the shoulders of the ones who went before us, have made this decision before. They've said, let's move this neighborhood this way. And from some of the neighbors I've talked to, that was a fairly, especially the 98 one, was fairly contentious. There were some people who got really mad at each other and things like that because they saw it cutting into that. And so this would be, while it appears necessary, in many ways it appears like this is what we have to do, I'm going to leave it to you all who have infinitely more experience than this. I can't tell you, you know, the world's certainly not going to end either way. But I'd like for our neighborhood association to get back to planting trees and working on that thing and all that. I really would. And one of the biggest fears everybody has about this is spread, and that we'll be doing this again and again and again and again. So that's where we are, and I thank you for your time, and I really appreciate everybody's time and effort. Okay. Ms. Phillips. I apologize to fellow commissioners, but I have to leave. I've got my 15-year-old is waiting for me, and she has an appointment at 4 o'clock, so I'm going to bolt out of here so I won't be able to vote on this case. But I wanted to just speak to the commissioners if I could. And I appreciate the chair letting me speak out of order, but I did want to get this out. It's my understanding from the neighbors that you're not offended by the proposed land use. The Bluegrass Advocacy, Children's Center for Advocacy, has been a good neighbor over on Walton, and the neighborhood association does not have that much heartburn with that specific use going into the property. The law office, maybe not so much. And there are a couple things. I know that the staff and I talked about the possibility of declaring the Children's Advocacy Center as a semi-public use so that there would not be a rezoning required because the rezoning from residential to P1 is what is creating this friction. And I wondered, well, the staff had decided that it was not a semi-public use and therefore would have to come before us for a rezoning. I don't know if it's worth considering an appeal to the Board of Adjustment on that decision or to even contemplate a text amendment to allow this proposed use by the applicant. This is not an easy rezoning decision because of the issues that you all have that the Neighborhood Association has accurately cited. It is three lots in the middle of an existing beautiful residential area, and I would hate to see the erosion of this neighborhood through any kind of inappropriate zoning or inappropriate use. but I also am empathetic to the concerns of the Children's Advocacy Center, and I'm damn glad that I don't have to vote on this. So just kidding. If there's some way that we can work this out, that there's not a reasoning required, I think that that's the best solution. And with that, I thank you all. Okay. All right. We haven't closed a hearing yet. Would it be proper to postpone to have that considered? We're going to have, go ahead. If it is not rezoned, it has to be a permitted conditional use in the zone or more substantially similar to a conditional permitted use than any other possibility. The Child Advocacy Center, I mean, we looked through these listed conditional uses in that zone, and I think it would be almost impossible to fit it within any of those conditional uses. So I don't see that without a zone change, that particular use could take place on the property. Okay, let's continue on. Staff rebuttal. Do they have any rebuttal? We don't have any rebuttal comments, just available for any questions. If you'd like us to further go into that, we can do that. Mr. Wade, I have two questions. I guess one for you is when the addition was built on that private resident for the use of the Hearing and Speech Center, was that a permitted, was that within the scope of what was permitted in an R1D, or was that not an R1D at that time? Let me see. I would have to check my records of when the Board of Adjustment approved that particular edition. There was a, I believe both of the Board of Adjustment cases were between the two downzonings, so most likely it was an R2 zone at the time, they would have been allowed to expand by the Board of Adjustment as long as it was done in agreement with their site plan. So they were allowed to change something that looked like a residential to something that looked more like an office or a P1 use? Correct. At that time? For a school. The key to that is for a school? For a school use. Okay. If the law firm was not involved in this, if this was strictly for a nonprofit, and I heard what our attorney said, would the staff have a different recommendation? I don't think so. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Simpson, did you need to rebut anything for anything else since Ms. Phillips spoke? I thank you all perfectly. Okay. All right. Hereby don't want to. Is there anything between R1 and P1 that would allow it, that would give the neighbors more comfort? The office P1 zone, professional office zone, is the first zone in which professional offices are permitted. Home occupation permits a home office, but not a professional office in the way that these two uses are proposed, which means no one's living there as well. And then I just have one other quick question. My concern is if we do nothing, those buildings remain vacant, which is not going to be good for the neighborhood either. You know, what is the likelihood? How often do you see a small school of that type come before us or before the Board of Adjustments to start? I mean, it just doesn't seem to me like there are many of those options or opportunities floating out there. And if we don't approve this, we are, in fact, kind of condemning that block to three vacant buildings? To be honest, I couldn't answer that question. Dealing with zonings, rather than the Board of Adjustment, Mr. Selle may be able to address that. I'd be glad to try and answer that. I think the basic question you have is, germane, most of the Board of Adjustment cases we see for schools are for expansions and not so much for new startup schools. Okay, Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for Mr. Gardner currently. Mr. Simpson did go to and mention, one, they've offered, I think, a lot as far as restrictions to try and make this work. He did offer, I think, something that I don't think we can actually mandate, but he voluntarily said that they could go with a deed restriction. You kind of in your rebuttal alluded to that, but not having much information, had not heard much about it until just recently. What are your thoughts, since you're the spokesperson, and getting paid all the big bucks. I'm going to retire soon on this. What's your thoughts as far as that being a possibility? Well, there have been a lot of people who they, I am by no means an expert, but, you know, folks have said, well, can't they make it P1, but when they move out it changes? I'm like, I don't think you can do that. You know, there's all these kind of things everybody thinks would be a great solution. you know I think the folks that were in the meeting the other night were fairly unequivocated I was standing up there and I was going well we could you know we could propose this or we could do that or we could you know scoot this way or that way and they were kind of like that's all the way too complex if we're going to move forward we're just going to have to say no and I'm like yeah the one about only rebuilding with residential character is, I mean, the first time I've actually heard about it is today. And I really feel bad about that because I would have thought I would have heard something about this. I would have thought I would have somebody would have handed me a piece of paper or I got an email or something that said that this was what the deal was. I remember seeing a thing in one of the staff documents, it was very small, about that the variances would not be enforced. You know, they were going to give variances on height and screening and this sort of thing. Those would go away if there was intentional or accidental, I think maybe just destruction of buildings. So, you know, I've always thought that was a good point, it was a good thing. But I really can't tell you how all those people who signed the thing, how they would fall on this. I mean, that's the issue. They basically see P1 as being a problem, especially as it relates to something that is out of character for the neighborhood, which is a law office. I mean, that is out of character for the neighborhood. And, you know, as one person says, just imagine if it was on the other side of Main Street what you'd have down here. You know, that would, you'd have a firestorm down here. So I really can't say about that. I'm sorry that I didn't ask you all if you had any questions earlier. Does anybody else have a question while I'm up here? Okay. Oh, yes, ma'am. Has the neighborhood thought of the perfect buyer or the perfect use? Well, in many ways, the perfect use would be the Children's Advocacy Center would be a very good use for the big building, yes. So you're for that? Yeah. I cannot think of a single person who opposes them. They're joined with a hallway. Does the neighborhood want both of those houses to go for the Child Advocacy Center? I would assume so. I mean, that's what they're willing to buy. So we just need to find a way to make it legal and not P1, right? That pretty much would make people really happy, yes, ma'am. I appreciate that. You clarified my ramble. Okay. Can't wait until we close. It should. Okay. All right. Anything else? Okay, I'm going to close the hearing. and turn it over to the Commission. Now, you can still ask questions of the participants if you need to, but the hearing is closed and they can only speak if spoken to. All right. So, Commission, Ms. Copeland. Yes. I want to ask Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson, do you have any creative way that we can get the Child Advocacy Center legally into those two buildings that are connected by the connection and not be P1? Not without a zone change. Well, it can't be P1. What would it go to? To get the Children's Advocacy Center in there? Uh-huh. Nothing that I know of. If it's P1 or nothing. We wouldn't qualify under any other zone. Well, let's think about changing some of the text somewhere. How would we do that? Could we have a conditional use again? Well, to do a text amendment, you'd have to, you know, that's probably a six to nine month process, typically. Sometimes longer. there's a lot of unintended implications when you start changing the text to allow as a permitted use offices in a residential zone you know you tend to create more problems than you capture if you made certain permitted you can't just say only non-profits can operate in a residential zone by right Okay, so we can't do spot text either, huh? You know, I try to be creative as possible because it's really about getting an outcome with the least amount of controversy at the quickest possible way. but under the current rules, with the current available tools, the P1 with restrictive conditions, we've almost created in this instance, I don't know of any other professional office zoning case, not in my 25 years, that has been so severely restricted, not only by conditional zoning, by taking out 65% of the available uses, but by commitment on the development plan that restricts any future rebuilding to residential for those existing residential. Someone may know of more restriction, but I think we've created, in terms of being creative, the kind of situation you're talking about. Could you chop off the law office part? But we really can't because I don't believe that you can have making that exclusively residential and expecting a homeowner to live next to such a large institutional user, 7,000 square foot two-story building like that with all that parking. Really, a low-intensity nonprofit or a law office, as Mr. Care, who lives right next to this office, will, has said, it's the perfect buffer for me. Thank you. All right. Okay. I think I want to address this to our attorney. This bothers me for a lot of reasons. The spot zoning bothers me tremendously. The idea that we are zoning something for a specific use bothers me more than I can tell you. The idea of the fact to be able to, as Mr. Simpson said, do away with 65% of the uses that are permitted in a P1 zone, would that hold up on a deed restriction if it's sold to another person down the road? In other words, if that restriction goes on that and for some reason the speech and hearing sell it to them and then they turn around and decide they want to build a new building somewhere, are those restrictions, do they go with the deed and will they stand up in court? Well, deed restrictions go to court all the time, and sometimes the courts support them and sometimes they don't. I think that the concept could be legally enforced. I would be concerned about the wording when you say rebuild only in a residential character because that really is so vague that without more than that, I'm not really sure the courts would find it enforceable. That doesn't mean they wouldn't. It would obviously be a condition, a deed restriction that was put in place for the benefit of the surrounding neighborhood. So it would befall them to take it into court to ask the court to enforce the deed restriction. And then the court would have to interpret that deed restriction. But if you just say residential, well, would that apply to apartment building type style? I mean, I think you'd probably have to say single-family residential. I mean, I think they'd have to work a little more on language to make sure that it was specific enough to be enforceable, whether down the road someone, you know, a future owner in 20 years could go in and say, you know, Your Honor, this is just not feasible. This is a P1 property where I can have offices. These houses burned down. It's just not economically feasible for me to be able to have a permitted use on here with this deed restriction. I don't know. I mean, you know, the court may say tough. It had that when you bought it, and it's enforceable. You'll see, that's what I was getting at. We don't know. I hate to make a decision as much as I want to make this decision. I hate to make this decision. Mr. Simpson, let me address that to you. If you put this on a deed restriction, and let's just say for whatever reason your board votes to build a new facility somewhere, and you're in the position that speech and hearing is now, you're trying to market this piece of property, how comfortable are you going to be going to court to get that overturned or going to court to get that upheld? Well, I think we're talking about two different issues. Obviously, the Planning Commission and the Urban County Council has no jurisdiction over deed restrictions. Those are something that are privately negotiated between a property owner seeking a land use, let's say, and someone who might be objecting. And the reality of it is, in probably 60% of my cases, that we've had controversy, and there's been a settlement. We've negotiated deed restrictions. I've never had one overturned. I've had plenty challenged, but they're usually specifically crafted, and they supersede zoning so that you couldn't even get a zone change. That's private. You all have no control over that. What we've offered in terms of what you can enforce is the note on the development plan. And that is enforceable to subsequent purchasers, and you all have the right to enforce that. And I would go so far as to clarify the language simply to say that in terms of the note on the development plan, that in the event the residential structures that exist today are for whatever reason destroyed, that they shall be substantially rebuilt in the same style and architecture as they were prior to destruction. You know, you take pictures, you put them in your file, that's as enforceable as you're going to get. And I do make that clarification in terms of the restriction that we're voluntarily imposing on the development plan to that effect, those words. And I do believe that's enforceable. Thank you, sir. That's on the record. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess my question would be for the staff or legal. Mr. Penn asked most of my questions, which I appreciate very much. To follow up, looking at the agenda, this has an October 27th date, meaning that we should be doing something today, making a decision. Would it be appropriate? Would it be possible if, I know we cannot ask for a postponement, but if the applicant asked for a postponement to come up with language, that would hopefully satisfy everyone, that would that have been an appropriate move to make at this time to let him voluntarily postpone to come up with language, whether it's for deed restriction and or information concerning the development plan notes? I think really that's for Mr. Simpson to answer. Mike, I don't know that I can be any more specific in terms of the note on the development plan. And I don't think this body wants to get involved in pushing off deed restrictions, because typically most legal authorities are planning commissions. They try to steer away from that. But I will say this without the need to postpone. The language that I said, or that I amended, that would go on the development plan, that in the event of destruction of the existing residential structures, They must be substantially rebuilt in the same style and architecture as existed prior to destruction. That's on there. I can't be more specific, and a postponement wouldn't help. And I will do this. We'll give pending successful rezoning that's not appealed and not challenged, okay, so that it's a valid zone change. We'll give the neighborhoods a deed restriction that incorporates the provision of the conditional zoning language in this case. and the covenant that I'm putting on the development plan. I'll voluntarily do that as a deed restriction. Okay. But I can't do that, you know, if I do that now and then I don't get rezoned, then we're stuck, see. Yes, sir. I'm just telling you as a representative of the Speech and Hearing Center and the Children's Advocacy Center, of which I'm president, we can live with that restriction. Okay. Thank you, sir. Okay. Any other commissioners want to explain anything? What are they thinking? Mr. Wilson? This is the first time I've ever been in a situation where the good on both sides couldn't negotiate something. I'm kind of baffled with that. But let me ask one question of this gentleman sitting here on the front row. Did I understand you say that you've already had two or three serious offers on that property? Yeah, other nonprofits that serve children that wouldn't be eligible for conditional use permits. So without getting into the business of the deal as such, this is really a business issue. It's a financial issue. That's what I'm saying. Absolutely. Okay. You bet. Thank you. Just clarifying. Thank you. Can I say one other thing? It appears to me that we don't have many choices here. We even have to vote it up and vote it down. And I find myself in the same position that some of my colleagues have expressed. I am not comfortable with the position that I find myself in, But at the same time, I'm not comfortable with doing in making a zone change in this particular method and means. So for better or for worse. All right. Go ahead. Will? I'm going to just echo some of the comments some of the other commissioners have already made in regards to my, I think my concern, too, going forward is what's going to happen to this property if we don't rezone it. I think that's going to be a worse situation that we would have to face and the neighborhood would have to face. I think the effort that the owners have put forward in limiting the types of uses that can go on the property within the P1 zone, 35%, is very important to me. And it shows an effort on their part to work with the neighborhood. I also look around at the other surrounding neighborhoods and how professional uses are incorporated in those areas. The Woodland Avenues, all of the neighborhoods between where we're looking at and downtown, these types of uses are already present. So I will be supporting the zone change for that reason. Okay. Anyone else? I just think we need to say at this time that we are in the process of a comprehensive plan review. And I do not take the map colors lightly. I do think they're very important. And I think your point was very well taken, that we need to look at this. This is why I have such a hard time with what I call spot zoning, because I think it's a hard thing to do given the context of where we are. I don't think I've seen something like this, and I was dumb enough to come back. I really don't think I've seen anything quite like this. I echo what my colleague Mr. Wilson said. There's good on both sides here, and we just cannot come to a legal situation. I do think that Mr. Simpson has given as much as he possibly can on that, maybe more than people would like for him to have, but I understand what the neighborhood is facing here. And I think my colleague on the right here summed it up pretty well when he said, you all live in that. There's no doubt about it. And I don't blame you for being concerned about what might happen down the road. I came to this commission as an eternal optimist. I left there with unintended consequences I've always looked at. And that's what I'm afraid of. I'm going to support this. I really don't like to go against what the staff has put there because I know why they put that there. And they have very valid reasons for putting that there if you look at it from the whole broad context. This is not something this Planning Commission needs to do lightly, is spot zone. But I believe that the good outweighs the bad here, and that's why I will support the motion, support the applicant. Okay, I might just get in on this a little bit. and I think Mr. Simpson said it, that if this were just a piece of residential property that was a house and been used as a residence and they came in to rezone to P1, you know, we wouldn't have any problem with that decision at all. But where this has been an existing use since the year I got out of high school, 1969, I mean, that's a long time ago. that's been used for that that long. And the whole street is mixed use. I mean, if you look at it from the satellite photo, I mean, there's churches, there's schools, there's a gas station on the corner, there's a law office right there on the corner on Main Street, just around next to that little restaurant. Maybe there's less residential there than there are all the other uses. and then he pointed out, Mr. Simpson pointed out, that it was R2 and the plan called for an R1D. That's even down-zoned even farther. So all those houses at R2 could all be duplexed. And then I wonder if you were to keep this residential. Nobody said, but I don't know how many units we could put in those billings if they could be more units than three, residential units. I don't know. Nobody said that. But a 7,000-foot building, I suppose you could put apartments in there, maybe. But the petitioner has given lots of, he's tried to make this work. He's tried to get to yes on everything and all these conditional zoning. if something were to happen in the future most likely this body would see it again you know a development plan or something if it were to burn down we'd probably see a new development plan or something so we'd get another chance to remind them of all the things that happen in these minutes here but I can support this zone change And I think I've seen this before. I think we could say as a commission this is a very unique property and a very unique case and maybe raise the bar a little bit to where it doesn't set a precedent for other zone changes over there, that this was only for this property, and I think we could probably do something like that. So, having said that, I think we can entertain a motion if everybody's in. Yes, sir. I think I'm ready to attempt this. The first would be for the MARV 2011-12, as far as the staff recommendations, what's shown as the staff recommendations. I would move for approval of MARV 2011-12 for the zone change to P1 with the findings as being first and foremost, I think, most of the permitted uses listed in the conditional zoning restrictions could be considered semi-public facilities in agreement with the comprehensive plan. Further, the impact of the permitted office uses will be minimized by retaining the residential character of the original structure of the property. Oops, we've got more. I knew I shouldn't have done this. Number two, rezoning the property to P1 with the conditional zoning restrictions will allow the same intensity and types of uses and general hours of operation on the site that have taken place here for the last 40 years. These types of intensity uses integrated well with the adjoining residential property. Number three, rezoning the property to P1 will protect the character of the neighborhood by maintaining the status quo because of the uses, intensity of uses, and the appearance of the property will remain substantially unchanged with the conditional zoning restrictions. This will provide continued stability in the area. And number four, approving the rezoning will not trigger the major change provisions of KRS 100.213C because of the intensity scale in existing buildings and uses will remain the same under the P1 zoning. That would be my motion for approval of MARV 2011-12. All right. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. I have a second by Mr. Penn. Everybody vote when we can. The motion carries for rezoning. Mr. Chairman, do you want to do the zoning? I need the variance next. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I'll continue if I may. I'll move for approval of the requested variances. This is MARV 2011-12, the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center Incorporated, as the staff has recommended with the withdrawal of the height variance and the approval of the remaining variances. I believe that's correct. That sounds right. Okay. We have a second. Before we vote on this, can we get the applicant on record as accepting the recommendation for withdrawal of the unneeded variance? Very good. That way we don't have to get into the complications of that. We do accept. We do withdraw. Thanks. All right. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Penn. No. I vote. That motion carries. And then thirdly, I'll continue. I'll move for approval of ZDPE 2011-69 Rogers from Clark Subdivision, as staff has recommended. Okay. I think there's, are there revised conditions on that? They're shown as 13 conditions. Are we still going with those 13? If you'd like to keep it simple, you certainly could do that. Okay. Thank you, sir. We'll keep it simple. Yes. All right. We have a motion for approval of the development plan. Do we have a second? Second by Mr. Penn. Everybody vote. Motion carries. or the same intensity. And what I would say is pretty much bending over backwards to try and make it work. I appreciate everyone concerned and everyone coming down here. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all very much. That concludes the zoning hearing. Thank you. Oh, I didn't know you should do it. Oh, okay. You laid it. I just need to get it. You need to go to the team. I wish you could. You wouldn't let me talk. Really? We don't work that much. Right. Oh, okay. I wish you could. I wish you could. I wish you could. I wish you could. You wouldn't let me talk. That's what I wish you could. I wish you could. I wish you could. I wish you could. I wish you could. I wish you could. I wish you could. I wish you could. Good afternoon, Chairman Cravens. Our next item today is a consideration by the Planning Commission of initiating a zone change for an ND1 overlay for the Meadowthorpe neighborhood. This area generally is north of Leastown Road. I'm going to use this map. Leastown Road, an inside new circle. and to the west of, I guess this is Price Road area with the railroad tracks and the cemetery, Lexington Cemetery, inside of the railroad tracks. So Meadowthorpe is also across from the Sharkey Development or Townley Park area. And they've been going through a neighborhood process of surveying their neighborhood to establish ND1 restrictions. and they have come to the Planning Commission today to ask you all to initiate this zone change. And they have done a considerable amount of work, including they've brought for us the petitions that they have circulated throughout the neighborhood. In addition, at your place is their application booklet, which includes all of the research that they've done for the standards that they're proposing, seven in total, as well as 12 appendices. You can see what they've presented to their neighborhood, the map, et cetera. The zoning committee considered this, or heard me speak about it briefly a few weeks ago, and were, I believe, supportive of this. In terms of the Planning Commission's bylaws, there's a requirement for postcards to be sent to the properties within the area proposed for rezoning with the rezoning overlay. In this case, the Meadowthorpe neighborhood, I believe, has just a few more than 480 properties, and the Planning Commission mailed notice earlier this month for that, and we received 239 postcards back, which is just shy of half. You can see our GS department helped me prepare some maps of the area. There were 198 postcards in support, which comes to 82.8%, 15%, 15.5% that were opposed, which was 37 homeowners, and then four individuals expressed no opinion but did kindly mail their postcards back. The handout I gave you is a summary of the restrictions that the neighborhood would like the commission to initiate for further consideration and a recommendation by staff, and the same process that any zone change would go through. And again, there are seven. Only one of them has two items, which deals, I believe, with all three of the land uses in their neighborhood, single-family duplexes and multifamily units. All right. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any, and the Neighborhood Association is present to also kind of represent their work. I would note that we do have one letter to circulate in opposition to the initiation. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Tracy, I'm sorry. How many postcards came back? 239. 239. How many was mailed out? 484. Thank you. And can you, you stated you got 198 back in favor? Yes. Well, that's less than half of 480. I mean, do you put some kind of weight on the ones that didn't send in? I mean, would they, if they'd all returned them, would they come out 82% to 15% or do you know? Well, I believe the Planning Commission really only needs to consider the ones that are submitted back, or we tell the neighborhood that the count we present to you is a reflection of the people who've sent their postcards back. Obviously, those people that didn't send them could have. I can't really say how you should weight the fact that they didn't send them. One thing I would say is the neighborhood had to do two or three rounds of contacting people in order to get them to look at the petition and to speak with the neighborhood association. So I think perhaps there's some apathy that first time. That's all I could really. Any other questions for Tracy? Very good. All right, we'll enter these in the record for you. I guess we need to hear from the neighborhood now. They'd like to. Hey, Mr. Chairman, commission members. My name is Coleman Bush. I live at 324 Pelican Lane. And I want to thank you for seeing us. I want to thank the planning staff for all the hard work they've done. This has been a three-year process for us. And you heard earlier when we were talking about the first zone change, you heard Ms. Wade talk about the various guidelines, the goals of the 2007 comprehensive plan, and those goals are to preserve, some of those goals are to preserve and protect the older neighborhoods. And I know that you have expressed that you are interested in that through your approval of the Chevy Chase neighborhood and the Montclair neighborhood ND1 petitions. Now the question is, before us, is Metathorpe worth preserving? and without question the residents of Merriott do believe it is worth preserving. The neighborhood was established in 1949, now 62 years old, and we are fortunate that we have not seen some of the changes that have occurred in Chevy Chase and in Montclair, the predecessors at this effort. I know that in some of the previous hearings, I know that Brad Hawkins with Chevy Chase, he said that these older neighborhoods are a non-renewable resource, and that is a fact. Mattathorpe is now characterized by homes with brick facades, and not all around on all four sides, but with stone, almost exclusively. Very little siding, but some. The beauty of Mattathorpe is obvious if you take a drive through it, take a walk through it. It's got the brick and the stone. They're medium-sized homes. some larger homes, but mostly medium-sized, characteristic, I believe, of the mid-20th century. And the homes, the setbacks are consistent. There is just an appealing feeling when you walk through metaphoric. So definitely metaphoric is worth preserving. And if you think about the time, 1949, when it was developed, I think about, as I was preparing to address this body, you think about the greatest generation, Tom Brokaw's greatest generation. And that greatest generation, they were the first occupants of this property. So it's not just the buildings, but it's the thoughts, the ideals that went into those buildings by that greatest generation that I think is worth preserving. If you think about what would it take, how do you answer the question, why was it built how it was built? How has it changed? And you're looking at all the disciplines of sociology, science, economics, to try to figure out those answers. Why is it like it is? And so I think until all those questions are explored and answered, yes, it is worth preserving. Mattathorpe is. And Tracy mentioned the postcards. That was a one-shot thing, the postcards. The government does not send out a second to follow up. We did have to follow up with our neighbors because people are busy. People get so much mail. But we followed up several times. We followed up not only with the residents or with the owners who live in the neighborhood, but with the absentee, what we call absentee owners, at least three times in some cases. We ended up with a 77.3 response rate to our petition, which frankly is just a little bit higher than Chevy Chase got. We ended up with, I didn't have numbers on Montclair for that, on their own petition. We did it a little differently. we had seven standards recognizing that some might not appeal to everyone. We gave each property owner the chance to say yes or no to each one. Well, our range of acceptance was a low of 85% to a high of 87% on all of those standards by the 77.3% of the people who responded. Frankly, that was a little higher than Chevy Chase. So, Metathorpe is without question, I think it fits perfectly in where ND1, at its life cycle now, before these changes have made, the representatives of the Montclair subdivision, I think it was Ms. Tatum, she said that she didn't want her neighborhood to turn out like the Elizabeth Street neighborhood. And then, it kind of goes like that, well, we don't want ours to turn out like that either. We don't want it to turn out like Chevy Chase has turned out with the pop-ups and the teardowns. So we're at a life cycle. We're at a point where it has not yet occurred on any great scale. And so we think the timing is perfect to do that now before we do have those problems, those controversies, to preserve and protect those ideals that existed in 1949, those ideals as they are represented by the properties that are in metaphor. And so I will close by, these are our goals for preservation. To protect against the degradation of Metathorpe, a special place of aesthetic and cultural significance in Lexington, and to encourage the preservation of Metathorpe's original structures through adaptive rehabilitation when necessary, and when adaptive rehabilitation is necessary or desirable, to encourage construction that will lead to continuation, conservation, and improvement in a manner appropriate to the scale and physical character of the original buildings, and to foster civic pride in Minnethorpe as a community, and as an exemplary subdivision of the post-World War II area. So I certainly encourage, I've got several neighbors here. I think they're the only ones left. And, you know, we've had a lot of support. This has been a transparent process. We've had strong neighborhood involvement. We've been at this three years, and we truly believe that now is the time for Metathorpe to be preserved and protected. So I thank you. All right. Any questions? Yes. If you're asking us to initiate an ND1 overlay on your subdivision for the reasons you just gave, The work that you have done, we would hope you would continue to do, because when the rubber meets the road is when this thing is initiated. And when I do the figures and start looking at it, we've been through this several times before, and some of the people that didn't reply want to know what you're doing to their property rights. So my encouragement for you, assuming we're going to initiate this, is that you all continue to work your neighborhoods. you continue to tell the reason why you're doing it because this is just the first step. And we would like to avoid a situation where we had a room full of people and half of them said yes and half of them said no, and we were down there fighting the numbers game, the validity of the petition, the validity of how it was pitched. In other words, it's up to you all to make this thing happen. So because we initiate it doesn't mean it's going to automatically happen, what it means we're going to start down this road. And so I would like to hear from you all that you're willing to continue to put in more effort than you've put in now because there's a lot of people out there that haven't spoke. As soon as they realize what this does or doesn't do to their perceived property, you'll have to defend. Yes, sir, I understand that. You have our commitment, and I think I can turn to our neighbors, and they will say yes. Thank you. Okay, any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this time, the Chair will entertain a motion of some sort. Mr. Chairman, I move that we initiate a zone change for an ND1 overlay for the Metathorpe Neighborhood Association. Or, Metathorpe Neighborhood. Chairman, I second. Okay, we have a motion to initiate the zone change by Mr. Penn and second by Mr. Wilson. Any other discussion? Everybody vote. Okay, that motion carries. So that will be initiated. All right, is there anything? Oh, we have the meeting schedule we need to approve for next year. Looks like we're going to be here quite a bit. Do you want to go over it, or do you want us just vote on it? Chairman, I'd be glad to answer any questions. It is in the basic format of your meetings over the last few years, where you have your subdivision meeting generally on the second Thursday, your committees on the first Thursday, work session on the third Thursday of the month, and your zoning meetings on the fourth Thursday. I think Frank still needs somebody to explain the term. He didn't get it to first. All right, let's have a motion for this fire schedule. Carla? So moved. Okay. She has moved to adopt the meeting and filing schedule for 2012. Do we have a second? Second by Mr. Wilson. Everybody vote. Motion barely carries. Okay. Thank you. We have no further business, so let's... You might do that, Mr. Penn. It's been brought to my attention that the fellow that has the same hairdo as I do over there has a birthday, and we want to wish him a happy birthday and many more to come. The meeting is going to be adjourned before we find that out. I didn't think you were the oldest I was. Thank you all to the Commission and to the instigators of the, I couldn't call it a floral arrangement, a plan arrangement that showed up in my office yesterday. Thank you all.