Music Thank you. agenda is an addressing issue, which in the meantime, while we're putting our quorum together, I was going to ask staff to go ahead and make their presentation, which actually I think begins maybe on, I mean, the presentation part on page 15, but I think probably before that. And Mr. Lucas, if you would, how long do you think? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? I'm thinking 15. All right. Plus Q&A afterwards. Actually, I will not be doing the presentation today. Today, the head of the addressing section, Paul Hawkinsmith, will be doing the presentation. As most of you know or assume I am the face of addressing because I started doing the re-addressing back in 96. However, for several years, even though that department reports to myself, Paul Hawkinsmith is chair of the committees and does most of the day-to-day operations of the addressing committee. And on that note, I'll be available afterwards for Q&A or any questions historically that predate Paul. But I'll go ahead and let Paul do the presentation today. Thank you, sir. Mr. Ron Eisman. As you approach, I would welcome Mr. Myers as a member of our body and making our quorum. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Welcome. Well, thank you guys for taking the time to talk a little bit about addressing issues 9-1-1. I know that it's been a little bit frustrating for everybody here lately, and hopefully today we can make a little bit of progress and move forward. You might know that the 911 system has been in place here in Lexington since 1998, and our ordinances actually go back to 1980. You might be interested in knowing that this year you'll probably get about a quarter of a million 911 calls to our call center. The majority of those will be for police services, and the majority of those these days will actually be wireless. What our ordinance says is that all properties and structures should be assigned an address, which I think is reasonable considering that if you're going to deliver pizzas or public safety, we should have a place to go to. Sorry? I'm sorry. We'll launch a missile next. The ordinance says that the addresses that we assign are based on an access easement. Since here in the government center we are primarily accessed from East Main Street, we get an East Main Street address for the government center. We don't get a Mason-Headley Road address because you can't get to the government center from Mason-Headley Road. We have a system in place that helps us to consistently assign addresses, a grid system, if you will, which identifies a starting point. It identifies what's going to be north, south, east, and west, what's going to be east and west, that will help us consistently assign those addresses. The ordinance says that only whole numbers should be used for addresses. That's one of the things we're going to talk about. Sequence should be maintained. If you talk to any of the responders that deal with 911 situations, they'll tell you that what they would like to see is as you go down a road, you would like to see those address values either increasing or decreasing. You would also like to see the odds on one side of the street, the evens on the other side of the street. I want to look out the window and see 1357 on one side, 2468 on the other side, and some kind of consistent gap in between those addresses. It also goes on to say that we do not want to duplicate street names. If you have three Clark Streets for Fayette County, and if the only thing that I know is that I am on Clark Street, And if I call 911 and I say I need help, how is it that the call center is going to know which of all these different Clark Streets we're going to respond to? The ordinance goes on to talk about the Addressing Committee, who's on it, and what their responsibilities are. It talks about the display requirements for addresses. Obviously, it doesn't do us any good at all to have addresses if we can't get people to display them. And also, the ordinance incorporates by reference the address and guide. The address and guide is a companion guide to the ordinance which talks in detail about how addresses get assigned. In addition, it talks about specific situations that need to be addressed among those, the unidentified or missing or improperly displayed addresses. cases where there are two or more structures that share an address. And this is something that you see in the rural parts of Fayette County. Farms, typically they may have two, three, four residences that share a common address. The problem being that if I call 911 and I also say that there are three of these addresses, it's going to make it problematic for police or fire ambulance guys to figure out which of those addresses that we want to respond to. It talks about odds and even numbers on the same side of the street. Again, what we are trying to do is to promote consistency, which we believe will enhance response times. the addresses that don't match to PVA. Because PVA records can figure into 911 calls, we would like to have a one-to-one correspondence between what the property record address is and what the owner is using at their structure. We get involved in assigning of units, whether it be for condominiums or for apartment complexes. We also concern ourselves with addresses that misidentify an access easement. Case in point, recently, Boy Scouts of America, the address was changed from Yorkshire Medical Park to Richmond Road. The problem is that there's no access to the Boy Scouts of America from Richmond Road. You can only get to it from Yorkshire Medical Park. What you're doing is kind of creating a situation where you're going to cause a delay in a response to a 911 situation. The last item that we mention up there has to do with disconnected streets, and I'll show you an example of that. What we believe is we are trying to maintain an inventory of addresses for Fayette County. We have some 168,000 addresses that are geographically referenced in this town. We know from doing studies that approximately 25 percent of those addresses are either missing or improperly displayed. We believe that proper display of your address will facilitate response, increase your response times, and toward that end, we will generate somewhere between 50 and 100 notice of violations every month to property owners to encourage them to post and display their address in the proper manner. One of the reasons that we're here today is the situation that's on Elizabeth Street. This is not a very good picture, maybe, but what you see on Elizabeth Street is that as you're going from north to south, on the east side, there's an even number address. After that, the addresses switch to odd-numbered addresses, and then after that, the addresses switch back to even-numbered addresses. On the west side, we see even-numbered addresses, and then they change again to odd-numbered addresses on the west side of the street. If you can put yourself in the position of a guy that's trying to respond to a situation on Elizabeth Street, if he's going from north to south, he's watching those numbers increase as he goes down the road, what he's going to see is 1450 on his right-hand side. The next address that he's going to see is 1601, which is an odd number address, which makes me question how he's going to figure out where 1459 is. I think it's almost unconscionable that you would even consider saying that this situation is acceptable. We can do a whole lot better than this. Another situation, this is over in Cardinal Valley. This is Delmont Drive. If you look at the addresses on Delmont Drive, you'll notice that as you go north, generally the numbers are increasing up until you get to the bend in the road. Once you get to the bend in the road, the numbers actually start to decrease in value, and at the exact same time, the numbers switch where the odd numbers become the even-numbered side of the street, and the even-numbered street becomes the odd-side numbered of the street. And again, if you're talking about responding to a situation at 2 o'clock in the morning in an ambulance and you're trying to save somebody's life, I don't think that this is the kind of case where you want to have people try to decipher what the scheme is for addressing. There's a lot to be said, I think, for consistency addressing. We believe that the more consistent your addresses are, the better response that you're going to get. A word about PVA addresses. What we would like to see happen is the property record address recorded at the PVA be used by the owner of the property. A lot of times that doesn't happen. The case on the left is a case out on Newtown Pike where the owner of that property is using an address other than what was recorded at the PVA. In his particular case, the address that he's using actually does fit in with the scheme of addresses in that part of town. So that was an opportunity for us to go to the PEA and say, we would like to actually change that property record value to make it match what that tenant is already using. In that particular case, what we're talking about is administrative change to get a one-to-one synchronization between property record addresses that are recorded and what's actually used in the real world. In the case on the right, what you're seeing is another case where the owner is using an address that's different from the property record. In this case, they're using 273 Blue Sky Parkway. Parkway, the problem with 273 is that creates a sequence issue with the other addresses on Blue Sky Parkway. And so in that case, we went to the owner and we asked them to stop using the 273 to use the address that the PDA had already assigned to that property. And again, the whole point of this is to get that one-to-one synchronization between what the PDA has recorded and what tenants are actually using in the real world. And you'll see why that's important here in a minute. The last item that we talked about as far as things that need to be fixed is a case of disconnected streets. This is a case out on Claysmill Road. This is Neal Drive. What you see here is there are two sections, basically, of Neal Drive. they are separated by a piece of property that's accessed from Clay's Mill Road. And I'm sure at some point in time it was intended that these two sections be connected, but I don't think that any time in the near future that that's going to happen. The problem that we have here is that if for whatever reason somebody's out there and the only thing that they know or if the only thing that they can communicate to 911 one is that i'm on neal drive how is it that the call taker and the call dispatchers are going to know which section of neal drive they need to go to if they pick the wrong one they're going to have to backtrack they're going to have to go back down clay's mill road and what you're going to do is introduce a delay and a response these are the kinds of situations that we believe need to be addressed. An address, we believe, should describe how you get to a place. It's made up of a number, and it's always made up of a street name. The addresses are assigned by a committee. The committee is made up of representatives of all the groups that you see there on the left-hand side of that slide. We get together on a monthly basis to talk about issues that are presented to us. Some of those issues may be presented by committee members. They may come from citizens. They may come from utility companies. They may come from things that happened as a result of the development plan process or from the building permitting process, or they may come from our own internal maintenance program. When we're lucky, we can get out in front of the situation and we can sign street names and addresses directly to a piece of paper, whether that be a plat that's recorded by the PDA or a development plan. Sometimes we have to assign addresses. Let me interrupt you for a moment. I'm sorry? Let me interrupt you for a moment. For future reference, just as we go along, I would just be interested in who the individuals are that make up the addressing committee as based on your outline on page 10 there. The folks that are involved in it addressing, that would be... Well, that's okay. What I'm saying to you is I would like to know specifically who they are. I'm not asking for it right now because secondarily, we're closing on the 15-minute mark for this presentation. I kind of want you to move along. Okay. The folks in addressing would be myself and Robert Poe, and GIS, Philip Stiefel, and Peter Born, and PVA, Susie Cummins, and... Let us email the list. Thank you. Assignments are made in a case of a strip mall where a tenant space perhaps is split from one big space into two smaller spaces, but it doesn't affect an underlying property record. We generate an address. We make sure that everybody knows what that address is so that the folks that are moving in can receive services. The other avenue that we use is to change property record addresses. Those are done on a quarterly basis. At the end of the second month of each quarter, we will generate a list, send it to council members to let them know what we're proposing to do. At the same time, we're sending a letter to the property owners and their tenants proposing to change an address. That letter offers them an opportunity to appeal if they believe that somehow what we're proposing is inappropriate. If they come to the Addressing Committee and appeal, they don't get the answer that they like. They have an opportunity to appeal to the 911 Hearing Board, which is a group of citizens that's appointed by the mayor to resolve addressing issues. Ultimately, it becomes a council action. When that happens, we'll send another letter to the property owner and tenants, let them know that the address has been changed. And at that point, we will post that information to our website. We have a distribution list of service providers that we let them know that they may need to change their records. And at that point, the issue becomes a maintenance item, where we'll go back and make sure that that address gets posted. The tools that we use to create these addresses are done so that we can try to match up an incoming call from 911 that carries with it an address to one of those 168,000 address pointers that we've already created. What that allows the call taker to do in the call center is to aerially go to a location and identify exactly where that call originates from. The problem that we have with our software is there's no provision to accommodate fractional addresses. If we can't find a matching point to the call that came in to one of our address points, the next thing we'll look at are parcel addresses to see if we can find a match there. Again, the issue is that there's no provision made for fractional addresses to be used in that parcel data. If you look at the address of the concatenated fields that get put together, you'll see that the field that stores the fractional address is not used. If you look at PVA data, you'll see that they have the same problem that we do, which is why if you go out to PVA site and do a listing on Richmond Avenue addresses, what you'll find is you'll see two entries for 28 Richmond Avenue. The reality is one of them is for 28, one of them is for 28 and a half. But the point is that I'm trying to make is that fractional addresses don't work with any of these. applications. If I can't find a match to a point address when the call comes in, if I can't find a match to a parcel address when the call comes in, the next thing that I will start looking at will be street data. We have some 4,000 streets in Fayette County. Each street is made up of one or more segments. Each segment of each street has a range of addresses associated with it. The problem, again, is that the data types are typed as integer for ranges, and they're not something that you can easily use to identify a partial address. So what I'm saying is that the data and the applications that we use on our side of the call center are not conducive at all to using fractional addresses. Now, if you look at web applications and the geocoding engines that they use, you'll see a similar problem. This is Google. If you look at 28 1⁄2 Richmond Avenue and use the Google search engine, what you will find is 2 Richmond Avenue. If you go to Bing and look for 28 1⁄2 Richmond Avenue, what you will find is the 28 but not the half because that part obviously is being truncated. If you go to MapQuest and try to find 28 1⁄2, what you will find is an error message. It won't find anything. So that's on the inside. from the outside of the call center, the stuff that's coming in from the phone provider, what you will see typically is that there is a field set aside, that street suffix field, where the fractional address is stored most of the time. You may also find that if you look through their database, that sometimes the fractional address that goes with the 28 would be located in a location field. So you're starting to see what the problem is. The problem is you've got variable input data coming in from one side. You're trying to match that up against data that does not accommodate half addresses at all. So what I really wanted to get to was a specific example. This is the ALI record that comes right out of WinStream's database. This is for Missy's Pie Shop. They have an address in the database as 201 and 1 half Woodland Avenue. We have made available to the call center two address points that have that address, 201 Woodland Avenue. There's one piece of property that's addressed as 201 Woodland Avenue. There's also a street range on that segment of Woodland Avenue that goes from 201 to 235. So by rights, we should be able to find any of those things. We called Mrs. Pi. We asked them to call the call center so that we could document what happens. What happens is the alley database shows up just like it's supposed to, that previous slide from Windstream. The mapping component that the call takers looking at didn't do anything at all. So it fails in the sense that it doesn't find either of the address points. It fails in the sense that it doesn't find that parcel record. And it fails in the sense that you cannot go to Woodland Avenue, that section of it at least, in this case. And the reason is because half addresses don't work with these systems. The second failure that you find is that under normal circumstances, the calls can be automatically transferred from the call taker to the call dispatcher. The CAD system that the dispatchers use have a built-in instruction set, and what that instruction set entails, among other things, is that the slash in the one-half would indicate to the CAD system that you want me to find an intersection of two streets. What I'm looking for then in the CAD system is the intersection of Street 1 and Street 2. The problem is that in Fayette County we have neither a Street 1 nor a Street 2, and even if we did, in this case, since we're talking about Woodland Avenue, we don't want to dispatch somebody there because that would be the wrong place to go. Finally, if you want to transfer this call to the dispatch side of the room, you will have to do it manually. And so we took the 200 East Main Street address, and we sent that over manually to the dispatch side of the room. We typed in 200 East Main Street, and this is the record that shows up on the CAD side. And what you see is 200 East Main Street, comma, comma, .5. So I was sitting there with the dispatcher when this call came in, and I asked her, I said, well, so what does this tell you? What does this mean to you? And her response to me was that this means absolutely nothing. So there is the third problem that you run into. Now, if that doesn't concern you enough, here's what should. The patrol units have available to them yet another application called Metamap. If they want to figure out how to go from point A to point B, they have the ability to type in an address and have this map zoom you to this location. If you were to type in 28 and 1 half Richmond Avenue and Metamap, what you'll see is the error that you're seeing on the board there that they cannot find any such creature. So there's your fourth point of failure. The last thing that I want to mention has to do with the display of addresses. As I mentioned, we have probably over 30,000 addresses in Fayette County that either are not displayed at all or improperly displayed. Here's a case that you typically see. This is handwritten. This is 104 1⁄2, which you could never see. You would never see that from the street. And what you usually see with fractional addresses is a case like this where you'll have the 109 and then the fractional part will be considerably smaller than the rest of it. If you're seriously considering saying that somehow fractional addresses are going to be okay, then you will also need to revisit your display requirement ordinances because there's a four-inch minimum for residential areas that you need to invoke. If you do that, what you will probably see when you get done is a situation like this where what you're actually creating will appear at least to be a five-digit address. And I think that that makes things actually more confusing than less confusing. Anyway, I know I've talked too long, and I didn't mean to do that, but it's an important topic, and I just want to make sure before you guys do anything that you understand all the ins and outs of it. We are not saying that somebody is not going to get a response because they have addressed. What we are saying is that you are going to get a delayed response and that it may not be the best response that you want. The policies and the procedures that we've adopted over time, I think, were put into place for a reason. The ordinance and the guide should be a blueprint to help you reduce response times. They're based on national standards, local requirements, but the important thing is they're implemented within the constraints of the tools that you've got available to work with. Since we implemented this program, we've changed almost 200 of these half-addresses. I don't know that there's anything that's coming in the future or any reason to justify changing the ordinance other than the way that it already is. But if you do, I would recommend a couple of things, that being I think that you should remove the language that refers to the guide because the guide obviously includes a lot of the information that we're talking about here, and it's going to basically make that information meaningless. I think you should also remove the verbiage that refers to the addressing committee because if there's no guide in place, there's really not going to be any reason to have the committee. At any rate, I've talked too long, but I do appreciate your time. If there's any questions at all that I can answer, I would be glad to do it. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. There's a couple of council members signed up. We may have some members of the public, too, and I'll have some comments, too, later. But first we'll start with Council Member Beard. Council Member. Thank you, Chair. A couple of things. In my district, which is District 4, I would guess that in one way or another, 50% of the homes are not numbered or not able to be seen from the street. As those bushes mature and things of that sort, they get blocked out. There seems to be no enforcement. And I've asked David this question, I think, before about the enforcement situation. If you get a program going where there's some active enforcement, I think we'd have some better luck in getting those numbers that are hard to read, one numeral broken off. You get all kinds of, you know what you get. You've been out there to see what you get. The second question, in this ordinance, there's a cap on four digits for the number itself. Why wouldn't we go all the way to the county line with that? and that made in other we actually when we readdressed the county in 96 we did address the longest road which happened to be Tix Creek Road and it did not reach 10,000 so we surveyed all the road names and it went up to 9,800 plus some but we didn't have any at that time that got into five digits so that's why we created that cafe well i stand corrected i just was i just was surprised at that that it would uh yeah i'll bet um i think that's all i had really thank you very much thank you sir appreciate it council member lawless thank you and thank you all for all your work and um I appreciate the ordinance being put in place because things weren't being numbered in new areas correctly or with any standard. However, in the older neighborhoods that have been there for some of them over 100 years, buildings get torn down, so there are gaps. There seems to be inconsistency. Like you mentioned Elizabeth Street, and the first proposal was to change six numbers, And one of the people that appealed said, my address goes by your standard. So then you all did 30, I guess it was. and I called about a house on Maxwell Street on the corner of Maxwell and Transylvania that has a Maxwell Street address with the PVA. It's a big old house with a very obvious front door and someone new built it or bought it and put in extra apartments And so they put, it had a round porch, and on the side door they put a Transylvania number on it because they no longer met the .9 requirement for an R3 dwelling. And then the apartment dwellers would be eligible for residential parking on Transylvania. and that was turned down and they left it Transylvania. So the other, I've had many constituents who have in several different places say that they've talked to the police, they've talked to the fire, who say these address changes, they all have to be reentered and we know where they are and it causes a great deal of confusion. And one of them was Battalion Chief Hoskins and he said he would gladly go on record as having said that. There doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason sometimes to the changes. Now, my own street name was changed. And it made sense to me. It had been Hanover Extended, and it changed to Hanover Court. But it still shows up on most GPSs as somewhere over on the south side of Maine. And I tell delivery people, don't use your GPS. You'll get lost. And then they'll call and say, we can't find you. We're on Deshaies Road. And I'm like, you used your GPS. And that was over 10 years ago. So I'm all about safety first, but it seems to me that it doesn't add to safety in situations where these are older neighborhoods, Some of them have been there over 100 years and have two-digit or one-digit numbers. On one street, it's 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D where a house was torn down and four townhouses were put up. The next street, the 28 1⁄2, can't be 28A and 28B. So it doesn't seem to be consistent. And fire and police have talked about it is a real big issue when they know these streets. Another comment was made during the addressing board that the police don't have GPS and the police systems don't communicate with the fire systems. So I think in the older neighborhoods, these standards don't apply well. And it's not just in my district, but in a lot of the districts that have older neighborhoods. So I'd like to make a motion, if I could. Yes, ma'am. I'd like to move that we put this on the agenda for either next month or the next month at the most to gather more information and the impact and how other communities may be doing this and what the benefits and what the problems are that arise from going into older neighborhoods that are 100, 150 years old and changing the addresses. So that's my motion. Second. We have a motion and a second to keep this item in committee but provide some more background for it. We would be in discussion. Dr. Blues, would you like to speak to that? I would. Thank you, sir. I think we've been discussing this issue in one way or another for well over two years. And it has extremely serious implications for our entire city. And so I really don't see a serious reason why we should further delay. We've had plenty of time for proponents of making special exceptions for certain neighborhoods to find out what other cities do. I have very serious concerns about the dangers of making an exception for certain neighborhoods that are deemed to be special or older. I represent older neighborhoods as well. Are they not special or historic? I think we've seen from Mr. Hawkins-Smith's presentation how dangerous it can be to have numbers that cannot be seen or that are in fractions or halves. I think that when this ordinance was passed, and as it's been carried out over time, that the primary issue has been the safety of the citizens. I think it's disingenuous to talk about being all for safety first and putting forward an ordinance revision that's going to make it extremely difficult for any council member to work with neighborhoods and with 911 when a residential area is asked to change street numbers or a street name? What do I say now when I go back to the Oakwood neighborhood or the Cold Spring neighborhood and they say, why did we have to change our street name when you are going to make an exception for an even more dangerous situation than ours? How do any of us as council members work seriously with our neighborhoods and with 911, as many of us have done in the past, to make response times faster and to make our citizens safer in their homes. Mr. Chairman, I see no point in further extending this discussion to make an exception that's going to make law enforcement and safety provisions in this city much more difficult. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Next is Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chair. Yes, sir. So help me sort of boil this down. Can our computer systems track these oddly numbered parcels? Is this yes or no? No. Okay. How much would it cost to upgrade our computers so that they could track them? I think everybody understands the need to track them, that it's a public safety issue. That's way outside my bailiwick. I wouldn't have any idea. I think that would be more like a David question. David, you got a guess for us? It's not just one system. It's, as you said, several. If you just mention the three, the GIS that's actually in the 911 center is a six-figure. It cost us $250,000 when we first purchased it five years ago. The CAD system is a million. And it does not do half addresses. 27 and a half. That's correct. But 27B, does it do numbers or letters like 27B? Yes, they go to the unit as in an apartment complex. But apartment complex is all on one property and you're at the campus. These are separate addresses. So the CAD system is a multimillion-dollar change. We need one, but we don't see one within the next four years. But it will do a letter but not a half number. That is correct. So really what this whole conversation is, whether we're going to continue with a half rather than A or B. Is that fair? Half addresses are the worst. That is correct. But we could do an A, B, C, or D. If you use a numeric, you would have to put it in the unit. It has been done. It's not the preferred method. It's like an apartment, though. That is correct. When they're all in the same unit. That is correct. Right. So you could do a 270. But it's not a part of a numeric. When you have a, the example that Ms. Lawless had was Mentel Park. They have 1A through 1F. 1A is not their address. Their address is 1Mintel Park, Unit A. 1Mintel Park, Unit F. Those units go on the back end, and that's how the post office... So they've got to go search around for the units when they get there. Yeah. Okay. But single-digit houses are still fine. Yes. So we have some flexibility, but the half, as I understand, in order to upgrade to the half units, it would cost large amounts of money. And I'm not saying those new systems will handle it. I'm just saying that's how much those systems cost, and when I've looked at those systems overview, half addresses are not handled. And our current systems won't do it. Our current definitely does not. Chair, I think at this point I'm not ready to support this. We have discussed this a great deal. It's unfortunate for the folks who have old addresses that have three-quarters or a half or something like that. But I think it is a small price to pay to have our first responders be able to find them in a timely manner. Perhaps a compromise can be worked out so they can continue to use A, B, and C or something like that. But as far as continuing to extend this, I think we know everything that we know. Thank you, Chair. I would just like to point out that we have done 200 of these address changes. There are 150 that we know of that are remaining, but we're talking about 168,000 addresses. I'm just saying that it's a small number that we're talking about this month. Council Member Beard. One thing which I forgot earlier, I had occasion last evening to visit Patch and Wilkes Farm, and internally, after you go through the main entrance, they have small three-foot-high signs like this with numbers on them to say this is where the manager's house is and all that. Were you involved in that process? Is that something that should be expanded, or has it been expanded, or will it be expanded to other farms? Needs to be, yes. Absolutely. Because it makes things a lot easier. Absolutely. To say the least, once you get in the farm, because farms have gates and all kinds of things. Farms that have 4, 6, 8, 10 residences, 4, 6, 8, 10 barns. You don't have directional signages that tell you you need to go this way to get to this bar, to this residence, and this way to get to this. It makes it confusing, and it's going to delay your response. And what we're trying to do here, I mean, I think everybody's agreed that we're trying to make response better. Yeah. Well, that should do it for that place. Hopefully we can get the rest of them done. It's a daunting task in and of itself. Thank you again. Thank you, man. Thank you, Chair. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. I think the heart of this issue for me is whether any of these changes are required. And in the language of the proposed amendment, both changes say such numbers will not create E-9-1 response issues. I think that's the question. on the merits, if you look at a proposed change for a set of numbers or a street name or whatever it is, will that change create 911 response problems or not? And since the language speaks to that and is very clear about that, I see no problem with, I have a little problem with some of the language, But in general, I see no problem with allowing certain practices to continue when we can show that they don't create any safety issues. Thank you, Chair. Very good. Thank you, sir. I'm going to speak to this motion, but before I hand the chair off to the vice chair to make that, I want to see if there's any members of the community or the public like to make comment. And I see one lady, Ms. Winograd, if you'd like to make your way to the microphone, please, ma'am. Hi, my name is Deb Winograd, and I live at 26 Richmond Avenue, and I hope to never live at 158 Richmond Avenue, which is the game plan, if the street number change does go through. And Charlie Zygman, who lives at 28 1⁄2, wanted to be here today and couldn't be. He has lived in 28 1⁄2 for over 30 years, I believe, has had to call emergency response two times, and has never, ever, ever had a problem. When this first came to the neighbor's attention in the fall, I contacted three or four different emergency responders, and they said to change Richmond Avenue would cause problems initially because people are just used to it. So anyway, I sincerely hope that council will let us stay quirky. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Others in the neighborhood at all? Yes, sir. Welcome. Hi. Thank you. My name is Jay Christian. I live at 31 Richmond Avenue. My wife and I have lived there for about 10 years now. And we would also like to keep our house number. It's one of the things we like most about our house and one of the things that makes it unique. When we first moved in, we went out and looked on the Internet, and we ordered, I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit, about two house numbers that together cost $70 or $80 because they're very fancy and ceramic and done in the arts and crafts style. And I just want to express that I think that while, you know, as an epidemiologist, I understand how important public safety and public health is, but I think in this case that it's steamrolling over these historic numbers isn't really going to help us on the block very much. There's other people who have expressed to me that they've called emergency services and never had any problems, and I think this is a very small price to pay to maintain, like Deb said, a quirky, interesting, historical, cultural facet of the neighborhood. And I hope that you'll reconsider supporting the change to the ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. Welcome. My name is Teresa Edwards. Other one. There you go. My name is Teresa Edwards, and I have lived at 41 Richmond Avenue for 25 years. On two occasions, I've had to call ambulances and have never had any problem getting them to arrive very quickly. and I too would like to have our street remain the same that it has been since the turn of the century. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, sir. My name is Patrick Cleveland. I live at 6 Richmond Avenue. And I've called the ambulance once for like an allergic reaction medication and I'm the third house from the corner on Richmond Road And I find my number that I have now is very easy to explain to emergency operators because, I mean, it's simple. It's 246, and it goes 357. And I'm pretty sure until it gets down to 28, there are no problems on our street. And also I keep hearing comments from them and you all about how it's not safe to continue this. But yet I haven't heard any complaints from my neighbors about response time from emergency officials. And I personally would like to hear some exact cases, maybe, that have been. I don't want to know names or anything, but I would like to know some examples to see if this is really a problem or it's just something you all are saying. Very possible. Thank you, sir, very much. Yes, ma'am. I'm Lisa Cleod. I live at 22 Richmond Avenue. And I just wanted to raise a question that came up during a meeting that we had with David Lucas. And I'm forgetting the other guy's name. But in the fall, following our meeting with the council, when you considered the house change move by E9-1. As I understand, this is a different discussion here to change the ordinance, which was part of the product that came out of our discussion with most of our neighborhood in one house with the E-9-1 officers. But one of the questions that came up was the issue about the software that's being used. Surely there is software out there that can handle the quirky historical nature, including cities like New York City and Boston and historical cities that have long-term unusual numbering systems. So it seems to be an issue of what kind of systems we use, and that was one of the main things that came out of that discussion. So it would be very sad to suburbanize central Lexington in a way that much of America is getting suburbanized with these routine kind of numbering systems, and it would be nice to learn from cities that have a historical path that has worked. That's all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? In order for myself to discuss the motion, I would turn the chair over to Council Member Ellinger. Mr. Farmer. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll be speaking in favor of the motion. The motion, in essence, is to keep this item in committee for at least one month to spend more time with the wording of the addressing ordinance. In putting the packet together today, law made a fine suggestion of a way to change the beginning of the addressing ordinance. And in looking at it, I'm just not personally sure that it gets to the heart of this matter, if you will. because I think that we as elected officials should never step back from the opportunity to represent our constituents. And I think it's easy to look around and go in your mind to No. 10 Downing Street or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and know exactly where you are. I think with a force of police and fire and EMS folks who are at least four years more tenured than any other time in local government because we're using the same people for the fourth year in a row without new hires and only people retiring. We have a force that is very familiar with the streets of Lexington. I know that from commentary, there's an assumption that making this change, if you are the affected addressee, is not that expensive. I disagree. I consider it an increased tax on the folks who have to change everything from their deed to their sticky labels about where they live. part of our resilience in performing these duties and having these jobs is the ability to step back and provide for the human element rather than merely the machine element because if you get right down to it, that's where we are. We're at the difference between 28.5 or any number on Richmond Avenue versus the binary code that writes the software that runs this part of our government. I had a couple questions for Mr. Lucas. The lead page or two of the packet is a research document that Mr. Schoeniger put together outlining other communities that are able to provide for fractional addresses. And I wondered, could you give me any reaction to how those people can and how we can't? I guess it's just the simplest way I know. Sure. Actually, Paul does provide a list of cities that do have fractions. I could provide a list of cities that do not. I mean, it is. They're both on here. And it's about equal. We could go through that all day. But the thing is, I mean, he references the national institutions that how we pass at data around, and I belong to those organizations. There is a standard that does accept and pass data around, and it accepts half addresses. However, when it gets to the final end, we do not have the capability of using that half address to its full potential. These other cities that he's mentioned handle half addresses as the exception. Charleston, South Carolina is a great example. Beyond halves, they have quarters and eighths because you can imagine how tight they are around the coastal area. So they handle it as the exception, and they had a sheer more volume than we did to start with. and I think you do, Chair, make a great point about you all's role in this. The half address we proposed and get through, it still comes to Council for final approval. If Council doesn't like it, don't vote for it. Say it's not appropriate, but I think going to the ordinance and changing it and changing the standards is a bit far. We present the standards. We present the change. Just like you guys don't always agree with the Planning Commission or other things that staff brings is your prerogative at that time and that instant to say, you know, this is an exception. This is worth us bending the rules or doing something. And I think that's a great process, and I think this should go through that process. In Mr. Hockensmith's commentary, I heard the software and tool constraints as reasons that we couldn't at least initially account for half addresses. We can account for them, but they are getting inferior service. They are getting slower service than people who have whole numbers. And then I heard at the end of his testimony that if we were going to review this in any specific way, that we would remove the guide language, I think was the term he used. Yes, his concern, and I don't speak for Paul completely, but his concern is if you remove these aspects from the ordinance, it will make many aspects of the guidelines irrelevant. And what is the need? Which is why I would prefer that as these come up, the half address on Richmond Avenue, the Elizabeth Street, after it goes through our process, the two appeals that we have, they still come to council. And I think that's the proper way to handle these exceptions or these historic areas that people feel strongly about. I mean, as you know, we've done this for a long time, and there has been times that the addressing committee has proposed an address change, and it got to council, and the council said, you know, that's extreme. You're taking a sledgehammer to an issue, and they've said, no, we're going to do it a different way. And then as staff, we abide by that. Can you ever envision a time where we would have the capability to use half addresses if we so decided? I personally do not believe that half addresses will provide you the same level of service as whole numbers. If that's acceptable to the council and acceptable to the people who live there, so be it. but I do not foresee in the way that our systems work that people with half addresses will get the same level of service as those that do not. If we were to sit down and try to go through this a little more personally, do you think there are some changes that we might make to the addressing ordinance that would make it better? There's always ways to make it better. I mean, we've changed it four times since 1996, as we've learned going through the process and things to make it smoother and better. So to say that there isn't would be a short sight of me. I'm sure there's a way to improve it. And we actually compile suggestions over the years between changes saying, you know, this didn't work. That's how we added the committee. That's how we added the appeal process. That's how we've added certain aspects to be flexible. You know, half addresses are not the worst thing in the addressing community. Actually, vanity addresses are. We've eliminated all those. Those vanity addresses where someone just makes up their address. I'm one airport drive. That doesn't exist. Or one East Plaza. They make up like a vanity license plate. They make up their own, and those are the worst case scenarios. Half addresses, I would say, would be second. And to Julian Beard's point, not posting your addresses has to be right there on top. Because regardless of what the address is, regardless of how we receive it, if it's not posted, we're not going to find you. I mean, that is the critical aspect of it. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would just ask the members of the committee to vote in favor of the opportunity for us to keep this in committee for one more month and see if there's a middle ground that we could reach that I'd still like to service the needs of the constituents over the needs of the governmental entity. And I would just ask for you to vote for the motion as tendered by Councilmember Lomas. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I will link the chair back to you and call on Ms. Lawless while you take the chair. Member Lawless. I think for me, life safety is of paramount importance, and it's not necessarily about historic or it is about confusion, older neighborhoods, and the safety issues that go along with that. If we have an ordinance that is not followed to the letter, it says no single digits, but those are allowed. We can do 28A or 28B because we do it on other streets. It is expensive, but it also, after, for instance, on Elizabeth Street, the first houses in the block are currently 1403 and 1404. They'll be numbered in the 1440s. So when they get to that first block that's 1404, it's going to be 1440-something, and it seems to me that the emergency vehicles would whiz by thinking it's going to be in the middle of the block if it's 1440 or 1448. I've also heard numerous police, 911 call center people, and firefighters who say it does make it more confusing and it does make it more difficult for them to find addresses when they're changed. So if it is a life safety issue, I want to know that. But if it's not and it's going to make it, you know, the response time longer because they get to what should be 14.04 and fly by it because all of a sudden now it's 14.40, that's going to delay the response time. So I'd like to gather more information on, first of all, can we use A's and B's? And it's not about one neighborhood being special. It's about what is the safest and most logical and fair way to number and name our streets. and what is the cost to the constituents if there's no benefit for safety. And I have asked over and over, can you cite me one case where the emergency response was slowed or couldn't find an address, and I have yet to hear one from anybody that I have asked, both in the address board folks and residents. So that's why I'd like to keep it into committee for another month. I'd like to gather more information about how this impacts. Is it true that the police and the fire can't communicate with each other? Is it true they don't have GPS? Is it true that 28A would be harder to find than 28 and 28 1⁄2? because obviously letters are used. And I agree with Council Member Beard. One of the biggest dangers is people not having their numbers on their houses because you can go down the street and, you know, if there was more energy spent on that enforcement, I think we'd have a much safer response time and a much safer community than some of these other issues. So that's why I put forth, let's keep this. I'd like more information from the fire department and the police department. I'd like examples of when the response was delayed and what is the consequence for if there is no benefit, why are we doing it? And I think that that's what we as a legislative body need to look at is, are we making policies that are beneficial to the community? So, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Blues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with you that, as you said, we should not step away from representing our constituents. I think that's important. I've always thought, too, as a Council Member, that the needs of our constituents are the needs of the government. When we have a system where the government is not representing the needs of constituents, we have failed government. So I think this is an important question. It's been my position in working with neighborhoods and with the 911 folks that anything that both of us could do to help make our citizens safer is what we should do. And I appreciate the fact that nobody likes to change a house number or a street number, a name. I've been through this. I've heard the same things that you folks are saying here today. We've had We've had long discussions about it in the neighborhoods. It's a very difficult issue. But for me, it's always been, how do I best represent the people I'm responsible for representing? And what haunts me, too, in this language here of the revised ordinance, such numbers will not create E-911 response issues. So it seems to me that we work on the premise that we devise a system that is calibrated to make the best provision for the safety of our citizens throughout the city and to work with that. There will be cases in which we will know that a number will create a 911 response issue only in retrospect, which seems to me too late. This is preventative action, not reaction. So it's very important to me that we do this right. I'm extremely concerned that if we pass this legislation as proposed here today, we will have no reason not to make all the exceptions that we are asked to make. And that we can simply ask our 911 folks to go and make sure that there are house numbers on houses, because none of us up here will have any grounds for rejecting changes when we're rejecting the status quo in future cases. That's what concerns me, and that's why I think that the needs of my constituents are the needs of the government in this case. So that's why, Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to support this motion. I think this has been debated thoroughly and delayed extraordinarily over the last two years, and it's time to come to the conclusion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, sir. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair. I'm usually not in favor of kicking the can down the road. and this has been discussed, I gather, at greater length than I've been on the council. Nonetheless, I have some serious questions that I think haven't been answered. I have one specific question that, Mr. Jarvis, maybe you could answer for me. David. About the half addresses. Lucas or Hawkinson. Either David Lucas or Paul Hawkinson. I'm sorry, Mr. Lucas. I've got the wrong, I've got the. I've been called Jarvis several times, that's okay. You shouldn't have the same first name, that's not fair. We went to high school together, it makes it worse. My question is really two-part. You said that half addresses do not provide the same level of service. Do you mean if they're not in the system or even if they are in the system? If they're in the system, they do not provide the same level of service as whole numbers. Can you explain that to me? on the surface of it, I don't understand. Well, as Paul outlined, none of our software or none that we have located handle non-whole numbers. So half addresses are an exception, and with exceptions you get delays. So a half address in a computer system, we don't carry it. I mean, the way they're set up is for integers. Half addresses have to be pushed or set aside in a unit field. We can do that internally, but that doesn't mean everyone who sends us the data, all the phone companies do that properly. And then when we get to the mapping, none of the mapping systems that we've seen in the five examples we had today handle half addresses. They do not. If half addresses could be handled in a routine way rather than as an exception, would they still create the same problem? No, it would not be the same problem. Okay, thank you. I, thank you very much. I'd like to know, I'd like to have a lot more information about what the real cost of adding half numbers would be to a system. Since they exist elsewhere, this may be a major expense. It may not. It looks on the surface like it may be a simple matter of adding a field and making it operative in certain ways. And if it's not, I'd like to know that. It would help me to make a decision about whether this proposed modification should go forward or not. I'd also like to hear from first responders. We've had the best conflicting testimony about whether this change would in fact provide more safety as much or less. I don't feel comfortable making that determination at this point, So I will be voting in favor of the motion to postpone a month to get more information if we can and then to make a determination at that time. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Council Member Beard. Thank you. I appreciate the third chance. I've been sitting here designing a cottage industry while this discussion has been going on of people with the half numbers and such purchasing signs that my son is going to make and that people can run out and hammer it into the ground right at the street level and people will be able to find it, the first responders will be able to find it. And if there's only one person in the house, they can also sell one to the neighbors on either side. So that's three sales. Really what I'm interested in, David, is typically in the older parts of Lexington, the numbers increment 2, 4, 6, 8. In other parts of Lexington, they increment 4, 8, 12. Back to the farms now. There are farms now. They may be subdivisions later. how do you handle that along let's say winchester road where you've got one number but you've got a mile and a half of a farm how do you know how it's going to be sliced and diced up to and then what what do you increment what on a farm situation what do you increment the number Do you actually plot it out? How does that work? You are correct. Those are very good examples, and they're all correct. I would like to say it's as much art as it is science. We did not choose the method that many counties did, which was re-address the whole thing based on every tenth of a mile with so many digits. One, I'd be run out of my own hometown for trying to do such an act. But Winchester Road is a good example. When a development plan comes in, we look at it and we assign addresses every stage. So every time they change a development plan, we say this causes these changes. We prefer to go with the larger gap, the four to six, because you never know what's going to be squeezed in. And corner lots, we actually assign one on each side until they build a structure, and then we know which way it's facing. And we've been working extensively with the horse farms especially because, as you well mentioned, They have multiple structures, and we've worked with several individually to renumber internally and to require the signage. Those are a little more difficult than a new subdivision because a new subdivision is starting from scratch in most places, and maybe only one or two of the original structures remain. However, I would say in 80 percent, 90 percent of those cases, the original structure will get a new address because they get a new easement once they build new roads internally. But that's part of the addressing committees and the addressing staff's responsibility is every development plan, every building inspection that comes through, we review the addresses to make sure that a construction change or a demolition or taken away, if that affects the address ranges or the gaps, and we take that opportunity to fix problems or to alleviate issues in the future. and as with the nil drive example, we don't always get it right. I mean, there are times when they're building from both ends, and we've seen that a lot. A lot of times at the end, like Floyd Drive, they connect. Sometimes, like Sandersville or Lucille Drive, we're still waiting for the gap in the middle. So we did put a time period how long that gap is allowed. But there is some art to it as well as science on how to do that. Okay, second question, or actually the question is more of a remembrance. Once upon a time, about six years ago, we had a commercial building on, I guess it was Harrodsburg Road as opposed to South Broadway, somewhat inside of 1733. I don't know how far inside. 1733 though, Harrisburg Road is where IBM had the sales office at one point and ACS is there I believe now Across the street, however, they were in the 1500s What did we ever do about that, if anything? I believe across the street is actually a white building I believe it's on Shaker Drive, I think, is that the corner? Not that street. I'm talking about across Edford Road. I know there was a building that was behind the dry cleaner that was removed and added. And in those instances, we correct those ranges so that they parallel up so that across from each other is pretty close. But we do leave a little gate leeway, but we don't get them all. And over time, we try to correct them. so that across from that 1,440 is not 1,600, but something a little closer to the range. So we get them as they come up. That's just an example of some of the things you've had to deal with over time, as I remember our visits out there. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. First thing, to apologize to Vice Mayor Gordon, who has not spoken, and I should have called on you before he got the three time up there. No problem, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I do have a few questions that I'd like to ask while I'm deciding whether to kick the can down the road a little. David, I guess my first question is, we're not the only entity in town who deals with House numbers and addresses. That is correct, but we are the only entity who assigns them and can change them. On our committee is the PVA and the U.S. Postal Service because those outside of government, our government, are the largest users. And at one time, the post office used to assign addresses. Somehow they got out of that business. But we took over that in 96. and the PVA, we work with them very closely to make sure that property addresses and the structures are as equivalent as possible. And the county clerk is the other group, Don Blevins' group, who uses addresses a lot, so we work very closely with them. So have any of them, have they expressed concern? Well, the two representatives that are on the committee obviously have, because it is a unanimous decision. The post office often says that if you have a half address, your delivery is automatically delayed two days because of their automated system. Do you still get your mail? Yes, you do. Just like you still get an hour-on-one service from us, but it is not the most efficient, and you are getting an inferior service. Okay. My next questions are for law, and I see both David Barber and Keith Horn here. And I'm wondering, David, welcome. Did you write this? Did I write what? Yeah, yeah. Well done. The proposed change. I was providing a previous draft, and I cleaned it up a little bit, but I understand it's a work in progress. Okay. I think that's where it is right now. Okay, a work in progress. I like that. Who is the urban county government that would determine? Well, see, that's part of the issue that we need to clean up, boys. I'm not clear who we would designate. If there's a public safety component where a decision needs to be made, we probably need to designate a specific commission or public safety or someone like that to make that decision. Because one of the things that person or entity will do is determine if there are historical or cultural issues. But that's part of what needs to be discussed is who makes that decision and how does it play into the ultimate decision on that. And I think there's also been some discussion from you all about perhaps where that should take place. I mean, if it's in the ordinance, then I think it would take place before it even possibly, it would be a consideration before it even goes through this addressing committee potentially. That's one of the advantages of putting something like that in the ordinance as opposed to having you all deal with it on the back end, so to speak. So it should be considered if it was in an ordinance at the front end. So all the folks in the 90s and the 2000s who had their addresses changed, if this wording is in here referring to historical or cultural significance, I mean, that wasn't considered when previous addresses were changed. Right. I mean, what we're trying to do also is protect you all from being arbitrary in what you do. The way that's drafted now, it would only work going forward and it would only be a consideration on properties that already had that as an issue right now. So you're not going to open the door for someone that already changed it to be able to change it back. It would be limited to the non-sequencing and the half-address issue if it already existed and it was recognized. I think we're still struggling with the correct wording on historical cultural consideration. but we're also, I think, trying to protect the public safety component as well to make sure that that is an overall consideration in the final decision. What seems to me the most important is the public safety component above anything else. And it's a little bothersome that there's no, to me, it's bothersome that we've heard anecdotal testimony that this firefighter says this or this police officer says this or, you know, public safety says this, but we don't have any indication of that in here. I would hope that if it's drafted the right way and it actually goes to this board for review that that would get vetted out at the board level. The people, they have public safety representatives on it, and they should be able to say in this neighborhood it may be different because this is how it's been for the last 80 years, and it's a small area and we all understand what the impact is going to be if you change it the other way. I think that's part of the discussion on the confusion is if you have people that are used to responding that don't even have to necessarily refer to the maps and stuff because they know where it is, they're going to have their own opinion about what the impact of that is going to be. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I would like to ask staff if you would work this out so we can have an electronic vote on this. This is a motion to keep this item in committee for one more month, looking for more information and more communication from some of the involved parties. There you have it. If there's no one else signed up to speak, I would ask the committee to vote, if you would. And I believe we are complete. That motion passes, 6 to 2 at this time, and we will have some follow-up conversation with several people in this room between now and the next meeting. I appreciate your all's time and attention, both staff and the public. Thank you very much. Next on our agenda is the harboring of animals, an issue that has come from a couple of different council members. I was going to ask Council Member Kay to make commentary. This is on pages 44 and 45 of the packet. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll give you a minute. I think I can be brief in my description of this. I think the only question I had is how it got on the agenda as harboring animals. That makes it sound criminal. This is keeping animals. Okay, and that is in the heading. I see that, keeping of hogs, goats, and pigs. Okay, yes, sir. I'm sorry. We're just keeping them. This item I developed an interest in because people had contacted me who presently keep things like chickens and rabbits in their backyard, which are acceptable under existing ordinance, and are interested in urban farming, advancing the notion that we can feed ourselves. It's economically and agriculturally sound practice. And the proposal was to include, as it says here, hogs, goats, pigs, and make that applicable and allowed, given certain kinds of restrictions that are clear in the language. I think that's pretty much it. So I would move approval of the... Page 45. I got page 44. Yeah, move approval of the proposed ordinance language on page 44. So move. Well, so you made a motion to pass on what is on page 44, Or, again, I believe what is on page 45 addresses horses also, at least in terms of its drafting. Vice Mayor, we don't have a second at this point. Vice Mayor. Mine was a technical question. Yes, ma'am. Which one is from our law department, or are they both? 45. 45. Okay, thank you. Because it addresses, unlike our last non-fruitful visit to this issue, it addresses horses. So it's an ordinance amending section 14-11A relating to the keeping of hogs, goats, and pigs to also prohibit the keeping of horses in areas not zoned agricultural and to permit the keeping of pygmy, dwarf, or miniature goats, and pot belly or miniature pigs, which that heading does succinctly wrap up the group of issues that this has become. And next, Vice Mayor, anything else? Not right now. Thank you. I have Council Member Blues up next, and we may have a member of the public, too. But go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for Keith. Mr. Horn from our law department, are there grandfathering provisions that would enable some properties within the urban services area to keep horses? Not as this is presently written, but we could add that if you want to. No, I'm not interested in adding it, but there is a property in my district where horses are kept in a corral-like enclosure behind the house. And I had understood that that was allowed because that was still, I think, an AU zone, even though it's within the urban services boundary. Now, right now, there are no prohibitions. This ordinance is drafted to say that if it's not an agricultural zone, then you can't keep a horse. except those zoned agricultural, it's hereby prohibited and declared unlawful. So if it's an agricultural zone, it still will not be prohibited by this ordinance. Okay. So it would make no difference. And even though we're in the middle of a residential area, surrounded by houses, So this revision would not touch that situation? Assuming that's an agricultural zone, that's correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor. Council Member Lawless. Yes, it was brought to my attention that there's a miniature horse that lives in my district, and it's not very big. And I also saw a documentary or whatever that they're starting to train miniature horses as seeing eye instead of dogs because they have a life of about 20-something years whereas seeing eye dog has a life of about six years, given my vision issues. I really don't want a little horse or a dog. But anyway, all I'm saying is I'm not for or against it, but miniature horses apparently are kept in the city and are pets and not very big. So if anybody wants to speak to that or consider that. Thank you. Mr. Horn, in this drafting, thank you again for agreeing to be here. Yes. Did you take into account the potential for, or is there a definition somewhere else of miniature horse? I, in cleaning up this language, did not consider any particular animals. This is what you guys presented to us and said, let's add horses. So I added horses. If you want to add miniature horses as an exception, we can do that. I'll need someone to help me with the description as someone did with goats and pigs. Thank you. Thank you. I'm enjoying this more than ever. Council Member, pardon me, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy you're enjoying this. Valentine's to you too, Mayor. Happy Valentine's Day. So my question about horses is, then if someone lived in, according to this, is this correct? If someone lived in the urban county and lived in a non-agricultural zone but had 10 acres or 15 acres, this means they could not keep a horse, correct? That's correct. I would not be supportive of that. I think that space is everything. A blanket rule against horses when you might have plenty of space is maybe not what we want to be doing. And I think the instance where the horse came up, that was in a place that didn't have space and was in the middle of the city. So I would hope that maybe we can continue to employ you to clean this up in relation to horses, unless the committee decides something different. Mr. Chair, may I raise a point of order, please? I made a motion that had to do with the language on page 44. You did. And the reason I did that is because I had hoped to keep horses out of this discussion. Yes, sir. If there's a discussion about horses that needs to happen, hopefully it could happen separately, but that we could go ahead and deal with hogs, goats, and pigs without getting into it. I think the question and the reason for that is horses raise a whole huge set of questions. So I believe that the appropriate discussion is about the motion that I made that does not include horses at the moment. But died for lack of a second. Yes. We have a motion of second on the Section 14-11, Hogs, Goats, Pigs, Semicolic Keeping, on page 44. May I finish with one more comment? I did not mean to interrupt. No, that's okay, but page 44, have you written this? No. Okay, that concerns me that this is not our language. Then let me say that if you look at the language I've drafted, if you remove horses from that, I would ask you to consider whether or not you've got any issues with it. I've changed it very slightly in terms of what was presented to you in the ordinance, But if the ordinance I drafted, which has draft 020112 at the top, if you remove horses from that and just look at the miniature goat and miniature pig, I'm sure those are improper terms. Language, if you have no issue with that, that's the language I would end up putting on the docket if something were to come out of the council. Okay, I guess my understanding was that the language was going to reflect the language on page 44, and I did not do my due diligence, and I didn't look on page 45. It does reflect it with the addition of prohibiting horses. The only difference in the language I drafted as asked was to include the prohibition of keeping horses. But we do have a motion and a second on what on page 44 at this time. Yes, and if it needs to be an ordinance language, then I would want to move. Well, I don't know what the appropriate procedure is. You help me. I'm still a new guy here. What? Well, we have four people lined up to talk on the issue before we had really come back to make the motion. In my opinion, we can continue in discussion whether it's on the motion or not because we had people lined up. So I think we'll just let the motion ride until we get to the appropriate end. Council Member Martin. Thank you, Chair. Mr. K, so is there a limit on the number of these pygmy or small goats that could be kept at a particular residence? Right now, no. Yeah, so if they had 18 dozen pygmy goats at a house, that would be legal in Lexington. Is that correct? As the language is drafted, there's no limit on the small goats, but there is a limit on the small pigs. Okay. Well, my concern is that we have zones, and I realize that a number of our residents and citizens wish to grow their own food at home. I'm not sure that these are of dinner table quality. So maybe somebody can correct me. These are probably pets. Is that correct, Mr. King? No. Sorry. Although what does seem to happen is that they often turn into pets, but I think the intention here is to allow people to grow animals for consumption. So is this common that these miniature goats are in fact done for that purpose? They can be, yes. So what they always told me at the legislature is, you know, what's the problem and how is this solid? So is there a great outpouring of people who want to do this that is generating this interest? There are two people in our audience today. Laura and Curtis, I believe, are here to make commentary. And I look forward to hearing from you as well. Oh, me too. But, you know, obviously that, well, I have a lady that is just a constituent who is very upset because they've got 30 chickens next door. And apparently that's legal in Lexington. And I realize it's not in this. But as a larger policy thing, as I wrap up my comments, we should understand that folks who move to neighborhoods live in neighborhoods, and folks who move to farms live on farms, and so maybe we should respect that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next on the list is Council Member Beard. Thank you. I kind of started this rolling at one point with the horse that was found, complained on Tahoma Road in a backyard that was 50 feet wide and 70 feet deep. There are other issues other than the fact that there is a horse that maybe is being maltreated. The excrement of a horse versus the excrement of a goat, I think, probably is a magnitude of 10x or something. Some of these things can be solved with a variance, can't they, Keith? To have a variance process, if, in fact, somebody has a 10-acre lot in the middle of the city somewhere and has a horse. I don't know. It probably depends on the zone and whether or not it's a conditional use, permitted use, or something like that. So it probably varies by zone. So then we change the zone. I mean, I understand what the vice mayor's concern is, and there are people in that area or arena that maybe can validate that. I find it interesting that on page 44, the goats and the... Yes, sir. They are matched here, so we must have gobbled up information from 44 to swing it over to 45 to define exactly what a pygmy, dwarf, or miniature, whatever, whether it be the pig or the goat, thank you it even goes so far as to the poundage for that now of course I'm sorry to hear that they're abusing miniature horses for seeing eye animals because supposedly a dog is six times more intelligent than a horse so good luck not according to 60 minutes Oh, I'm sorry. I wish I had an opportunity to kneel with that when I first heard that. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I hesitate, but Councilmember Blues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Listening to this discussion, and I realize the discrepancies between 44 and 45, which are going to need resolution, the question of numbers of chickens, various herds of pigs, issues with the size of horses, zoning questions. I really think that we need much more information on this. And since it's a practice to keep things in committee until we do get more information, I move to table this motion until the next planning committee meeting when we can have the information brought forward that is required. So moved. We have a motion and a second to table this discussion for further information and or rewriting of our legislative opportunities on page 44 or 45. I believe that's non-debatable, isn't it? Motion to table is not debatable. All those in favor of the motion to table, please signal. We had one, two, three, four, five. Any against? Okay, this has been mercifully tabled until next month. I believe that there's some drafting issues we'll need to take up based on the conversation here today. Council Member Kay. Mr. Chair, there are at least a couple people who have come to speak to this issue. We could hear them on this since they're here and not drag them back if they wish to speak. Please, if you would. Thank you. Our practices, as you are familiar, name, address, and about three minutes, please. My name is Curtis Caldwell. I live at 3401 Gatewood Court, and I am a sustainable agriculture major at this university. Since coming to school, I've made Lexington my home, and I have a serious interest in farming and integrating a small-scale system on my home, whether I live in town or I end up out of town eventually. My point here today is I want to talk about the way that goats have been used to cleanly and sustainably mow grass, clear out brush, combat invasive species, I know they can be used very effectively to help manage grounds. I think this has a place, especially in larger properties that are often neglected and allowed to become overgrown. I think we have an issue in Fayette County with Japanese honeysuckle. is just one big example that goats can be used to mow out. I do think there should probably be some kind of limits on a number of goats per property. I think this proposition is a work in progress, obviously. Yes, yes. But just as a beginning, I think that small animals are an integral part of an urban agriculture that can help us support the city and localize the food supply. I also think that there are small markets of people interested in goat meat and cheese and these animal products as well as people that just want to produce for themselves. I would look forward to being in contact with you for some of your input input on what would be a potential size of a herd or a brood or a kin or whatever one would keep of these. I appreciate you spending time with us today very much. Ma'am, did you? Please. Hello. Thank you to the council for hearing us today. I am here today. My name is Laura Doth. I live at 613 Big Bear Lane. That's Julian Beard's district. I'd also like to take the opportunity to represent another member that came, Melissa Schwarberg, if I can read some comments she wrote she had to leave. She lives at 587 Kingston Road, and she'd like to express her opinion on this. In this tough economy, I lost my job last year, and my husband lost part of his income due to an increase in his employer's health insurance costs. Our grocery items and costs have not gone down. They continue to rise. Our son requires natural and organic food. They are very expensive. I would like to be able to provide natural foods myself, not full of antibiotics and steroids. Goat milk and meat would be an integral part of this. This generation of children we are raising do not know how the food gets to their plate, how to care for their animals, or the value of hard work. families should be able to raise their own animals. On my own behalf, or I'm here to represent, rather, we have a group called the Bluegrass Goat Justice League that was founded in August of last year. We currently have about 70 members. We're working on a petition specifically to address this issue of legalizing goats in Lexington, and on our petition have currently 56 signatures. We would like to see goats legalized in Lexington but not at the expense of other animals. And we feel that if a residence is allowed to have a St. Bernard or a Great Pyrenees, a Great Dane or a Mastiff, a Pitbull or a Rottweiler, that we should be allowed to have goats, even standard-sized goats and sheep. It would be very well to have the language consider a limit, a cap of the number of animals, and to cap it at the upper limits of those dog size. I think that full-size animals do not have a place in city limits, but that miniature animals would provide a necessary source of food for families that want to do this. And as Curtis said, there are people that may not have the space on their own property but are interested in the products that these animals would provide. they're fantastic at controlling the invasive species one study that I saw said it took a goat flock, I'm not sure how many it was and what the size of the property was that they were doing in the study I've forgotten that, but it took them four years to control invasive species, the Japanese honeysuckle briar rose, noxious weeds poison ivy, that's another one that goats like to eat and one on our property we have a problem with So I think that there is some language that needs to be considered. We have worked on our own version of a proposed ordinance for them and would like to also see something that would include liability issues. I might want to ask you to make a copy or let us have a copy of that. Your time has expired at this point. Okay, thank you. But you have given us excellent testimony. We want to remain in contact with the both of you as we mold this issue for our meeting next month. I appreciate it very much. Thank you very much, sir. My pleasure. So we've disposed of that issue for this time and place. Council Member Martin, if I could ask you. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm sorry. I apologize. I have a quick question about this. and of course this is one of the beauties of serving on a legislative body is all the interesting issues. Did we table the law department's ordinance or did we table the other? The other. Well, okay. So it's creating, I guess I wanted to say, I appreciate Council Member Kay bringing this to us because I think it's an important issue. But it's confusing to everyone involved to have two different versions. That will not be the case next month. So whatever version we have next month, could we please ensure that it's been through our law department? That is not outside the realm of possibility. Thank you. I appreciate it very much. We're glad to do so. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Martin, the last issue that we had on our active agenda was kind of an update on the repaving program, which I don't believe we have time for now. But if you would tell me what we were trying to get from that potential presentation today so we can make sure we get it next month. I believe Director Williams was here to update us on proposed improvements in our repaving standards and procedures. And, Sam, can you give us maybe the 30-second overview so that the committee will have a appetite will be whetted and they'll be just excited for next month? We can do that, sir. As you know, I've talked with you, Councilman Martin. I've also talked with Councilman Farmer and Councilman Spendley. He's not here. And I think I've talked a little briefly with Councilman Blues. But we've taken the input that we've gotten from your committee and with what we have gleaned from managing the paving that we've done up to now. And just for your information, we have completed about 60 plus or minus percent of the FY 2012 paving plan, and we anticipate finishing the balance of it as soon as the plants open in the spring. So we've gleaned that information, and we hope to have a specification together probably in mid-April with intent to get the FY 2013 paving plan bid so that we will be able to commence the work at the beginning of the fiscal year. Mr. Chair, if I may, do you want to come back and talk to us next month, or do you want to maybe skip a month so you have more time to be further along in your process? We're in February. Maybe April would be the better time because then we should have our specification complete and be able to share it with you and let you know where we're headed. Thanks for hanging in there with us today. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thanks for your time today. Members of the committee, we don't have time to go over the entire referral list that's on the back. I did want to ask just a couple of questions. of specific council members. Council Member Martin, on the erecting of large utility poles in the right-of-way, is there a direction you want to give us or some follow-up points that we might want to work on for this issue during this upcoming year? Chair, my hearing is not what it used to be. You might be asking that again. No, that's all right. There's an issuing committee called Erecting Large Utility Poles in the Right-of-Way that is placed in there by you, And I'm just trying to see, do we want to try to work on that issue sometime during this calendar year? And if you would give us some direction on that. And don't have to do it right now, but I think we're going to round it up. We need to kind of... Thank you. And repaving program with your name, also buy it. And then also review street tree and tree protection ordinance, if you could kind of give us some leads on all three of those. And then, Council Member Blues, I was going to ask you kind of the same question. the Oliver Lewis Way project does get a quarterly update which we will look forward to I was going to ask you for some direction on the fence issue also to see if there's something we want to do with it during this calendar year I would like to get back to the fence issue so if and I intend to work with Director of Planning Chris King but he's been busy with the transition and the merging and other things have gotten in the way. So if we can just kick this can also down the road a little ways, I would certainly appreciate it. It's not a problem. I just wanted to make sure if we're going to make a plan, we can. There are other issues on that page. We will not make light of them right now. At this point, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. And a second. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you for your time and attendance.