I believe in a love at first sight I'm certain it happens all the time, yeah What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell ya, but it so feels like mad I will help you from my friend Don't you know I'm gonna make you with my friend I will help you from my friend I promise myself I'll give back I will never have to come back Said I'm only tired when I'm too old Could it be anybody? Could it be anybody? Oh, there's gotta be somebody Oh, there should be one of those Somebody's dancing in the night Oh, yeah, yeah I'm gonna get by with my friends Oh, yeah, come on, keep trying Keep on trying with my friends Oh, another. Thank you. Thank you and welcome. Welcome and thank you for being here. One order real quick for all commission members. I've been asked that you do sign in so that everybody will know that you're here. We have no minutes for approval today, so we will move on down to any postponements or withdrawals. Mr. Chair, if I may. Mr. Farmer. I am Bill Farmer, 5th District Irving County Councilmember. First, let me thank you all for your service to this community and to this commission. This is among the most thankless jobs in Lexington, and we all appreciate that you do it with so much constituent work. I'm here representing the neighbors on Shinaway within the area around the proposed fueling station at Kroger. On their behalf, I would seek a postponement until such time as there would be a full commission in order to hear this action. At the time that this issue came up in December, This issue fell prey to a voting oddity that put it in the position of being rolled off to a later time. And subsequent to that, on behalf of the Kroger community, you have done a postponement. And now I'm asking for you to do one on behalf of the neighborhood itself. They would like to have full representation on the Planning Commission before you would take time and energy on this issue so that all members of the Planning Commission would be here to vote and give input on it. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. If you could, real quick, since this has been postponed for, what, I think two months now, is there an additional reason? They're saying that they don't have full representation. We've had 60 days to try and get to this point. I think it goes to, I mean, well, first, one of your members is traveling today and is not here present. Second, at the time of the previous hearing, one of your body is now the commissioner of planning rather than a planning commissioner. And I think given the rather even nature of this body the last time it was heard, this neighborhood would like to make sure that they get full representation from the entire planning commission and would like for you to postpone this until such time as the mayor has made an appointment to the Planning Commission so that a full commission could hear it in its entirety. Okay, thank you, Mr. Farmer. Ms. Wiseman, yes, would you like to? Yes, I would. To the postponement. Yes, ma'am. Members of the Commission, I'm Marina Wiseman. I'm here today for Kroger. I would respectfully like to disagree with the request by Mr. Farmer. I understand that it's not always possible to have a full contingent of the Planning Commission, but we're here. This was heard last in December. We're prepared to go forward. I don't have any knowledge as to when another appointment might be made. I mean, you all have schedules, and again, ideally everybody would be here every time, but that's not always possible. So we would ask that you go forward and let us be heard today. We don't, we're ready to go, and I realize that it would be better, I'm sure, from their standpoint, if everybody were here, but I don't even know when that 11th member is going to be appointed. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Wiseman. I think at this point we've probably heard from both opposition and the petitioner. Ms. Blanton? There is no guarantee that if we postpone this, there will even be this many members here. We voted on important issues with much less, and I think if we set a precedent that we can only vote on issues when the full commission is here, that that's going to reduce it greatly to the number of votes that we can actually take. Thank you. Any other statements from the commission? I'd like to ask legal counsel what she wants to have. You have a statutory period during which you have to make a decision on a plan. Unless the applicant agrees to the postponement, you're up on that deadline at this point. You have to either vote it up or down today unless the applicant were to agree to a postponement. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Farmer, I think with what has been said and the applicant wishing to have this heard, we do have a deadline, and I think we'll have to hear this. I understand. I appreciate your all's work. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any other requests for postponements or withdrawals? Mr. Chairman, staff does have one postponement for you today. We have received notice from the applicant for the plan on page two of your agenda. Item B, DP 2012-7 Tattersall's Apartment Development. This is for property located at 843 South Broadway and 1200 Red Mile Road. they have requested a one-month postponement. And that date would be? Mr. Chairman, your meeting in April is on the 11th for subdivision items. Thank you, Mr. Salley. Anyone in the audience like to speak in regards to this postponement? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, move postponement of DP 2012-7 to, I forget the date. 11th of April. 11th of April. The motion has been made for postponement. Is there a second? Second. If no questions, please vote when it comes up for postponement until April 11, 2012. Motion passes. Thank you. Any other requests for postponement or withdrawals? If not, we'll move to no discussion items or items on the consent agenda. Mr. Sally? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the Commission, good afternoon. About half of your remaining agenda items do qualify for consideration at this time on your consent agenda as no discussion items. We have distributed the consent agenda. The first item on page two of your meeting agenda is the first item on the consent agenda. That is DP 2012-1, Lockmere Estates, Maple Ridge, amended. This involves property at 651 Childsburg Road. There is the need for an affidavit for that plan, but if we receive that affidavit, this item could be considered on your consent agenda. At the bottom of that page, Item 2, Item C, DP2012-10, Rogers and Clark edition, Lots 21, 22, 23, and 24 for the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center. This plan is also on your consent agenda. It involves property at 154 through 162 North Ashland Avenue. On page 3, item E, there is another development plan on your consent agenda, DP 2012-12, Fountain Plaza, Unit 2, Eagle Creek Office Park, Lots 15 and 17. This is the second amendment to that final development plan for property at 211 and 245 Fountain Court. The final item on your consent agenda appears on page 4, item G, of your meeting agenda, DP2011-95, Newtown Springs, also known as Trilogy Lexington Health Campus No. 3. This involves property at 564 Asbury Lane. Mr. Chairman, your subdivision committee has recommended conditional approval of all four of these items. if Mr. Martin, I believe, may have the affidavit on the one item. Assuming that is in order, you could consider approval of these four plans as recommended by your subdivision committee at this time, unless a member of the Planning Commission or a member of the audience would like an item removed for further discussion. Thank you. Any member of the Commission wish to hear any one of these four plans? If not, anyone in the audience wish to hear one of these four plans. If not, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I recommend it. Mr. Chairman, if I may. Yes. I will add that, yes, indeed, we did receive the affidavit. It is in order. We staff received it yesterday. Okay. So we can enter that into the record. And that's in regards to the Lockmere State's DP 2012-1? Yes, sir. Thank you. Mr. Wilson? Okay. With that additional piece of information, I move the consent agenda as presented by staff. Thank you. Motion's been made for approval. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Motion's been made and seconded for approval of the consent agenda as ran. Please vote when he comes up. I'm sorry. I have a question. I'm sorry. One question. The question is to staff regarding the first development plan. The Lochmere states, we have two. The last two items on the conditions are resolved. And just wanted to make note of that, that these are to be resolved. Yes, ma'am. We do believe. We are very comfortable that those can be resolved. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Motion has been made and seconded for approval of the consent agenda. All those in favor, please vote. Or either way. Motion passes. Thank you. Next would be our first development plan for the day. It is a continuation. Shenway Village Shopping Center, DP 2011-96. I would ask and state that while Mr. Martin is setting up, I will remind everyone this is a continuation of a plan that we heard a couple of months ago. I believe there will be some new information, and what I would respectfully ask is that everyone focus their attention on the new information. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, the first item is, as stated, the continuation of the development plan listed on your first page of your agenda. DP 2011-96, Chinoe Village Shopping Center, amended. The staff presented to you conditions and the original plan back at your December hearing. Subsequently, we did receive a slightly revised plan, which we see before you today. Again, you can see the shopping center out wide here, the existing areas. These buildings are built up. Chinoe Drive is in this location. Here is Creekwood Drive. This solid red block you see in this area is the gas canopy and service station that is being requested on this amendment. Here we have the plan that you saw in December. And again, the buildings are here, same location. Canopy is in the same location. You can see we discussed some of the traffic calming that was outlined for you here. I would, right in this area is where the primary change is, and I'm going to demonstrate that on the new plan. the applicant submitted this new plan in conjunction with a list of items that they are prepared to address. That list should have been distributed to you and should be with your packet today. The primary physical change is in this area. They have widened the landscape buffer in this area. In conjunction with that, of course, it's constricted the drive aisle. Again, the canopy has not moved. It has restricted this drive aisle somewhat. It's only 19 feet 5 inches in width. They're also extending the height of the retaining wall in this location in conjunction with the landscaping. And the canopy height has been lowered an additional foot. And those are the physical changes on the plan. On your handout, you'll see some other items that the applicant has agreed to address, and I'm sure the applicant will be glad to elaborate on those particular issues. And again, that is a handout that you should have that says proposed Kroger Fuel Center that should be in your packet of information as well. Again, staff previously had recommended approval of this plan to your subdivision committee. They, in turn, recommended referral to the full commission, as you can see from your agenda. The conditions are standard sign-off conditions until we get to item 9, which is discuss the height of the proposed canopy. As I stated, the applicant has lowered that canopy height to the minimum under state law for bridges. It's a foot lower than what they previously had on the plan. Lighting restrictions. They have submitted a lighting diagram to staff, which it's our understanding they're going to distribute to you and discuss. I think it's similar to the one that you saw before. It is our understanding that they are going to address that even further in an effort to deal with the issue of lighting. the traffic movement and drive aisles that you can see associated with the canopy. We discussed that at length, and it's just staff's concern, and they addressed that with their calming devices and the way we've asked them to align the parking in there. The last item, number 12, is just the addition of some restrictions from a previous development plan. These were discussed as well briefly in the December hearing. These are conditions that were placed on the plan relative to the brick and some screening and those types of items that were previously imposed on this development plan. They have dropped off, and we would just like to have those items returned to the plan. I would also add, just as a matter of housekeeping, we have distributed to you several new communications that we have had since the December meeting. Several of those were emails from people in the neighborhood that are concerned and opposed to this amendment. We have also circulated to you one we received in favor of this amendment. And one other item you will find that will be appropriate to your discussion later on in this hearing, the Division of Traffic has prepared a report on the traffic study that the applicant agreed to prepare for this body. So that has been distributed to you as well. Again, physically the only changes on the revised plan are, as I have stated, it's for the landscaping next to the canopy, the height of the retaining wall, and the canopy itself has been dropped in height. It is not changed in its proposed square footage, which is a little over 3,000 square feet. The kiosk that you see is roughly 180 square feet. None of those things have changed from the original submission. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions I make. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Any questions for Mr. Martin at this point? Yes, Ms. Clanton. With the increased height of the retaining wall and the landscaping, is it sufficiently far enough away from the sidewalk and the street that people who are turning out onto Creekwood would be able to see pedestrians? Yes, I believe so. Yes, ma'am. It's actually moved back into the development. Yes, Ms. Copeland. Yes, Mr. Martin, how many parking spaces are sacrificed for this? That's a good question. I don't remember off hand. The applicant may have that information memorized. I unfortunately try to. I remember I was thinking about 38. Oh, spaces I'm not sure, and the reason being is that this is a B6P neighborhood, and it's based on an area and not number of spaces. just as a rule of thumb looking at it if I was to look at these standard spaces and how they're scaled it appears we're losing somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 spaces and I'm probably on the high side there okay any other questions if not we'll hear from the petitioner Ms. Wiseman Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I'm still Rena Wiseman here for Kroger. We appreciate the opportunity to come before you this afternoon and present some additional information to you. We are mindful that you've heard a lengthy hearing on this in December, so our goal this afternoon is to give you new information. We have Diane Zimmerman, who has prepared a traffic study because there were specific questions about traffic. She will summarize that for you. That has been presented a week or so ago to staff, and that's the report that you've received today that has reviewed and basically accepted that study. Also, Mr. Cornett is going to go over the changes to the plan. I think you have the handout that he prepared, and he will illuminate those points for you. So we'll try not to keep this any longer than necessary in view of your other items today. I did want to make two sort of overview comments before I asked Diane to come up. And first of all, I would like the Commission to keep in mind that this is an amendment to a development plan. And I know there was a lot of conversation back in December about how can we not allow a permitted use. There is a provision in the ordinance that says that in certain situations you can deny an amendment to a development plan. But those are very defined situations that speak to potential or existing traffic problems, drainage problems, topographic problems. This is a power that the Commission has rarely used because you are being asked to, in most cases, deny a use that's permitted. So it's not a question of whether this use is appropriate or compatible or whether you think it's a good idea or a bad idea. The issue is, number one, do we meet the requirements of the zoning ordinance and the subdivision regulations? And I don't think there's been any dispute about that. But the second question is, is adding this fuel center going to create a problem? Now, not just an impact, but is it going to create some sort of negative harm to the functioning of the center or the surrounding area? What we are producing today in terms of traffic and lighting, we believe will show you that, yes, there's an effect. Anything you change will have an effect, but it's minimal and cannot be construed if you're looking at this objectively as a problem. So we ask you to keep this in mind. It's not a zone change. It's not a conditional use. It's a question of does this cause some sort of problem. If you start looking at development plans in the lens of whether things are appropriate, you're going to have a lot longer hearings on development plans, because the amendment process was intended to make sure that that use fit with the requirements of the zoning ordinance and that there wasn't some drastic, dramatic change from what was originally approved and what's being presented before you. Secondly, putting a fuel center at a neighborhood shopping center is not an unusual, atypical use in this community. They're throughout the community. We put them in neighborhoods. There is one like this at Beaumont, across from single-family homes. There is a similar center like this in Heartland, which is surrounded by duplexes, townhouses, single-family homes. For many years, there was a gas station on what we've always called the ideal neighborhood shopping center, Romney Road. There was a gas station in the middle of a residential neighborhood. And even in the expansion area master plan, the community center, which is specifically designed to serve the needs of the surrounding neighborhoods, is to be there for those residents. We allow automobile service stations, not as a conditional use, but as a permitted use. So we anticipate in these shopping centers that there will be these kinds of uses. So we believe that after you hear the information Diane's going to present about traffic, I think it's concluded by Mr. Neal's report that there is no problem created by this, and Mr. Cornett's information about lighting and the screening, that, again, we fail to see how you could conclude that this location, unlike Beaumont or unlike Heartland or unlike Alexandria Drive, for some reason, this is a problem here where it hasn't been found by this commission to be a problem anywhere else. So I hope that we can keep the focus of this process on that. You may disagree, but again, it's not because you like it or you don't like it or you wish that there wasn't a shopping center here. Is this going to cause a problem to the functioning of that center or the surrounding area? With that, Diane Zimmerman is going to come up and summarize her traffic report and hit the key points. What I have done, just to help, and I think I'll go ahead and put a couple of full copies in the record, but I have a handout here that just is a copy of her conclusion page that you can look at. You may have that, but just in case. And then there is a chart where we've just summarized the key numbers, and we can talk about that a little more. But with that, I'll ask Diane to come forward. Thank you, Ms. Weisman. Ms. Zimmerman. Good afternoon. My name is Diane Zimmerman. I'm a licensed professional engineer in the state of Kentucky. I have a degree in civil engineering from the University of Kentucky, and I have over 23 years' experience in transportation planning and traffic engineering. It's my pleasure to be here. It's been several years since I've been in front of this commission. I did prepare at Kroger's request a traffic impact study. We made traffic counts on January the 12th and discovered that the peak hour is 7.15 to 8.15 a.m. and between 5 and 6 p.m. The fuel center proposal with the 10 fueling locations would generate 139 p.m. peak hour trips. 81 of those p.m. peak hour trips would be new peak hour trips. The trips are assigned to Shinaway in a 70% approaching from the south with 30% approaching from the north. There's also a component of fuel center trips that are considered pass-by trips. These are trips that are already on Shinaway or the adjacent roadway that are going to choose to detour into the site to purchase gasoline. And those trips are shown on page 4 of my study in Table 1. The analysis that is conducted is then a level service analysis using the procedures outlined in the Highway Capacity Manual. Those are summarized in Table 2. And in the AM, we have very good operating conditions. It's currently operating at a level service C. and once the fuel center is added, it will continue to operate at a level of service C with an average increase in the delay of 1.1 seconds. That's for the AM peak. If you look at the PM peak hour, it is currently operating at level of service D, and there will be an increase that moves that to level of service E. Level of service E for an unsignalized intersection in an urban area is fairly typical. It's not necessarily a design concern. It does not rise to the level of needing a traffic signal. A traffic signal is not a warrant for our, let me rephrase that, poor level of service is not a warrant to install a traffic signal at this location. Something that could be done that would improve this would be to actually strike separate exit lanes on both Creekwood and at the shopping center that allows a car waiting to turn right to not be delayed by a car waiting to turn left. And I have discussed with traffic engineering the possibility of adding turn lanes on Shinaway to, again, provide that safe refuge for the car turning left and not delaying the through cars. The issue there is whether or not you want to remove parking on any of those places to allow for those turn lanes to exist. Diane, I just want to make sure you could you go through I think you just mentioned a couple of these but you actually looked at the entrance to the shopping center both north of the entrance and I think you were just hit on. Would you make sure you just... Yes, I will clarify. Shinoahe at the center entrance is currently operating in the morning. The exit movement is operating at level service C. It will continue to operate at level service C once the fuel center is in place. The center entrance in the p.m. peak hour is currently operating at level service D. It will continue to operate at level service D. And then the items I spoke of in detail earlier were the Creekwood Drive intersection, which is currently operating at level service C and will maintain C in the morning. And in the afternoon, it is currently at level service D, and it will move to level service E in the PM peak hour. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, with the commission members, I think we'll hold any questions until we hear from all the applicants. Thanks. The one other thing I did want to, again, as I said earlier, the question is not is there any impact. is it one that causes a problem? And we think, given the information that we have presented to you, that it does not create a problem. There is one movement that does increase by 14 seconds in the afternoon, one hour, five days a week, but there is a way that that can be mitigated. Again, you have a choice when you're considering a development plan. If there's a problem, you have the ability under, I would say, limited circumstances, you can establish it to deny, but if there are conditions you can impose to mitigate those, that is the appropriate action the commission can take. So this is a situation where, to the extent something needs to be mitigated, there is the ability to do so. Lastly, the chart that we put together, again, that's just another way to show you that in terms of the Collector Street, the increase of traffic is minimal. She looked at both north of the entrance on Chinoe and south of Creekwood, and you can see that north of the entrance in the morning, there's an increase of 13 trips in that point in the afternoon. That's 24 in the morning south of Creekwood. It's 34 trips in the afternoon. and that's 57. One thing Diane did not say, and I want to ask her back up here to make sure we get this in the record, because there was a lot of discussion last time about the shoppers at Kroger's and whether they're already going to the store and how you count those. I want Diane to just address that briefly. Her numbers do not account for that. Kroger knows from their experience that there is a segment of customers who go to the gas pumps who have already been at the store. So in other words, they are not a new trip. At this point, that's a fairly new occurrence in terms of the traffic engineering world, the experts that do the ITE. And so there's no formula now. There's no traffic generation model that they can put in the computer and tell you how many of those trips account for that. We could tell you on a store-by-store basis, but that would be on our experience for an individual store. What I'm saying is when Diane concludes, and I want her to confirm that and me just not saying it, When we say that there are 81 new trips in the afternoon, that does not deduct any trips that may have been already at Kroger and are going to the fuel station. Those are trips going to the fuel station. So that is the most conservative approach. We're not taking any credit for that. We didn't want to get into that discussion that this is what it is, assuming this is just a regular gas station and there would be no Kroger to go to. Is that a fair statement? Yes, you have stated that correctly. Whereas I have, this is about the fifth Kroger fuel center I've worked on, and we have data from Kroger that indicates that somewhere between, as low as 30% of fuel shoppers have shopped at the store the same day. What I don't know as a traffic engineer was that somebody that was coming to the shopping center that then bought gas or did they come to the gas station decided to buy milk on that same trip. And so rather than trying to assume which trip it was to take the deduction, I have provided the worst-case analysis by saying those are all new trips. But we could have, from the data that Kroger has, we do know that that range is somewhere between 30 and maybe as high as 70 percent, that it's a dual-purpose trip to the center. With that, I'm going to ask Bob Cornett to come up and go through. And I think you have a handout that the staff gave you, and you can use that. And Bob will go through that. I'm sorry, if you could, we've got one question here. Okay, that's fine. But we'll take in regards to traffic study, I guess. Ms. Wiseman or Ms. Zimmerman, I'm not sure. Just for our clarification, because the map is oriented, our development plan here is oriented in such a way, Is the greatest delay traffic that is moving from Shinaway onto Creekwood or vice versa? From Creekwood, sitting at the stop sign, making the left turn onto Shinaway. Here's the entrance to the center. It's this movement here. And it's an AM and PM problem? No. It's a greater problem in the PM. The level of service is C in the AM, which is... Okay. Fabulous. DE is a more urban, typical answer. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Mr. Cornett? Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, my name is Bob Cornett. I'm with the Roberts Group. Briefly, I think Tom covered a lot of the changes, just to make sure that we have covered everything. We did prepare the traffic study, as Diana presented. Kroger has decided to install LED light fixtures under the canopy as opposed to the typical metal halide light fixtures. The light fixture difference, Ms. Copeland asked me what the Beaumont store was because it was extremely bright. That store has between 9,600 watts and 10,400 watts of lamps underneath the canopy. The LED lights are less than 3,000 watts. So that is a significant difference. It's about 2,500, really. The numbers are on a photometric plan that I gave you. Also on one of the sheets, I took the Beaumont light plan, and those numbers are the light levels, the foot candle readings, and they're in red, and the blue larger numbers are the LED light numbers if you wanted to see what the difference. I think you'll see that with the 400-watt metal halide lamps, there's nearly 100 foot candles under the canopy at Beaumont. And under this canopy, I think the maximum is around 28 foot candles. So there's a significant difference. Do you have a new plan for them? I passed out a new plan. Another thing is by lowering the height of the canopy one foot, the angle of projection of the light out from under that canopy is considerably less. We also did a little section through the property, a section through Creekwood Drive and the fuel center to kind of give you an indication of what the differences are. The retaining wall, we said we raised it three and a half feet, and that was to help mitigate some sound from the fueling points as well as headlights. We would normally put a handrail up on top of a retaining wall like that. So we're not just building a wall. We're building a sound and light mitigation. We move that wall over five feet. We're putting in an extra row of 42 shrubs behind the existing shrubs and the trees. Our excavation is now outside the drippage of the existing trees, so we feel comfortable that those trees will survive. The houses on the opposite side of Creekwood are elevated above the road as well. So the height difference between the bottom of this canopy and the sidewalk is about the height of a basketball goal. It's right at 10 feet difference. So it is pressed down into the ground, and we do feel that it's a big improvement with the retaining wall and the additional shrubs and the LED lights. Right now in the parking lot, about where the center of the canopy is, is a light pole that has three full-size heads on it. That pole will be removed, will not be relocated in the parking lot, so it will also be removing spill light out into the roadway, out onto the sidewalk in that area. Since the last meeting, if you saw the large plan, you would notice there's only one set of tanks. It's on the end of the canopy. We removed the tank on the back, and that was the diesel fuel. There was some concern expressed about larger trucks and stuff coming into this center through the neighborhood, so we just eliminated diesel fuel completely from this site. The hours of operation at the last meeting were stated to be 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Kroger changed that to 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. as well. We've investigated the LFUCG noise ordinance. It's kind of in limbo. There's a proposed noise ordinance. It hasn't been voted on by the council, but Crogary is agreeing to comply with whatever the current noise ordinance is. The speakers do have an adjustable volume on them, and we can turn those down. So if the noise ordinance changes, then we can comply with the new ordinance. we wrapped the kiosk itself in brick to comply with one of the development plan regulations but we've also since the last meeting it may be small but we wrapped all of the columns that support the canopy itself with brick that match the kiosk as well I think those are the major changes that were on our list and if you have any questions about the lighting or those changes we'd be glad to talk about Any questions for the petitioner? Ms. Copeland? I'm sorry, go ahead. It's vastly improved. I'm curious as to why, what is the material facing the townhouses on the wall? Why do you need to cover it up? Why do you need to put shrubbery on the townhouse side of the wall? Well, we really don't. We felt like it was a concern about visibility and stuff. The wall is intended to be, at this time, we don't know if it's going to be brick or stone. It may be brick that matches the brick on the kiosk. It may be stone. But there's nothing wrong with the wall itself. It's not going to be a board-in-place concrete wall that's offensive or obtrusive. It will be a nice-looking wall. We just thought additional plants never hurts anything. Okay. Now, you were talking about LED lighting and foot candles. Yes. Well, the whole point of LED lighting is you can get, with fewer watts, you can get the same amount of illumination. So it's really foot candles. Now, can you go over, isn't that right? It's really a foot candle issue as far as how much light. Yes, it is. And Kroger's has also taken a different attitude. Instead of 400-watt metal halide fixtures, and I don't have the lumens that are generated by the metal halide fixture right with me, the same wattage of an LED fixture would generate considerably more lumens. Right. So instead of having 400-watt light fixtures, we've backed off to 150-watt light fixtures. And some of the spots are like 70 watts. Is there a gas station that already has this kind of lighting? This is the first of Kroger. Well, not a Kroger one, but is there one in town that has a similar ambiance? I don't think so. You know, I hate to mention competitors' names or anything, but there is a service station at the corner of Palomar and Manowar that has probably what would be a similar light level to what we're going to be generating. They have approached it with, they still have metal-highlight canopy lights, but they're lower wattage. They don't have 39-foot poles in their parking lot around it. They've got 12 to 16-foot high poles. So the whole thing looks more subtle. So there is a big difference. The next question was, when the center pole that you're removing, when the center pole that's out there where the gas underground tanks are, that you're removing that, is that going to make a no-lit space during the middle of the night? At closing time, two of those light fixtures will remain on under the canopy. one on each side of the kiosk will remain on as security lighting only. Oh, okay. This particular light plan that we're presenting to you with the LED fixtures has 65% less lumens than the LED. The LED plan has 65% less lumens than the Beaumont. Okay. If you noticed in the center of the canopy in red, you've got some 100, 105, 106, 88. Those are foot candle levels. Right next to those with the LED fixtures are 22-foot candles, 18-foot candles. So there's a significant lowering of the light levels by using these LED fixtures. Okay, now I understand that you brought down the bottom of the canopy one foot. Yes, ma'am. What about the top of the canopy? It came down a foot with it. It still has to be a... So the billboard part is how wide? How tall is the billboard part? Three feet, six inches. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Penn. Mr. Cornyn, I understand that you're not going to have diesel trucks come in there to get fuel, but the last time I looked at trucks that bring fuel there, whether they're diesel or whether they're gas, they're still tractor and trailer. Yes, sir. Can you show me how they're going to enter and exit? I can try. We actually prepared a plan that showed the truck path. The trucks come in off of Shinaway. They come in by the fuel tank. They have to offload their fuel on the passenger side. They can't do it from the driver's side. So he will pull in right next to here, and then he will go back down and exit back out this way. But he'll exit out of Creekwood? Yes, sir. And that'll be a right-hand turn out of that parking lot? Most likely, yes. And that street's wide enough for a 54-foot trailer to make that turn? Actually, Creekwood Drive, when it was designed, is a collector street. It has 40-plus feet of asphalt pavement, and Creekwood was supposed to continue on down and serve the area across the creek. And because of some elevation changes, a developer decided they didn't want to do a bridge through there. So it's been terminated, but it is considered a collector's tree. Is it safer to come out on Creekwood to exit, or is it safer to come out on Shinoe to exit? It is safer to come out on Creekwood. You have less impact to pedestrian traffic within the parking lot. That's the reason. We try to keep them out from most of the pedestrian areas. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Wilson. Yes, I have a question related to the second item. I need clarification on this. It says Kroger will agree to comply with the current noise ordinance. And then it says speaker volumes can be adjusted. What am I to assume by that? Am I saying that obviously Kroger will comply with the ordinance, but the speaker volumes will be adjusted lower than the ordinance? Explain that. We try to set the speaker volume to where it's a normal conversation volume, not a blasting volume, somewhere between 55 and 65 decibel level, which is a typical conversation five feet away. That's about what 60 decibels is. What we're trying to say is that we can adjust the volumes on those speakers so that they can comply with the current noise ordinance. If for any reason it is exceeding a level that is not acceptable, we can adjust the volume down. So am I to clearly understand you can adjust or you will adjust? We will. Okay. We will adjust. Yes. Mr. Berkeley? I've got a question going back to the access. I think you said that when the trucks will come in to deliver, that they will come in at the main shopping center entrance. Yes, sir. Is there any kind of workaround for that? because what I see there is Creekwood is at the top of the hill, and then you've got traffic cresting the hill, trucks turning in. I see that as a potential problem if there's a way that, you know, Creekwood looks to me to be a better way in and out. So I'd just like your comments on that. I didn't run turn movements. There could be the possibility we can make some minor island modifications. Minor modifications might be required in order to get the truck turn movements in and out of that side driveway, if that's what you're asking. It may be that we run the trucks down to the front of Kroger, down Creekwood, and come back around, but that kind of puts my driver on the wrong side of the tanks. I'd have to look at that, and then he could go back out the shopping center entrance. While we're on trucks, I just want to remind everybody there is a Kroger there, and they get grocery delivers in tractor-trailer trucks, and they get at least one full tractor-trailer truck a day, and they may come in the Creekwood entrance, they may come in the Shinaway. They're using the Creekwood, aren't they? I asked Todd. He says they could use either. The loading area is in the back. And that's why I think they're using Creekwood right now. But I'm just saying, regardless, there are tractor-trayors coming in and out of that property now. Thank you. Any other questions at the present? If not, I would ask if there's anyone in the audience that wish to speak in favor of this development plan, citizens. If not, we'll start with any citizens in opposition to that. Thank you. Please state your name and address. Hello, members of the Commission. My name is Antonio Posa. I live in 3512 Creekwood Drive. I've been living there for 12 years, lifting the area for 15. First thing I want to say, I send you letters with very reasonable arguments against the gas station, Kroger's proportion for this area. And I hope you read those. And I think they are reasonable and they're completely valid. And I think one of the things I wanted to mention is we don't have enough time here to discuss for three minutes all the problems with the gas station and the Kroger's developing. But the main argument after listening to Kroger's arguments that I wanted to make is that this is very different from all other cases where there is a Kroger gas station near an urban area. The most important fact here is we're dealing with high-density urban residential development. We have 20 houses within a radius of 150 feet from the pumps on this gas station. You're talking 20 families, doubling the risk of any problems that gas station may create in the neighborhood, because of the higher density of population near the pumps. And any other areas where there is a coal gas station near a residential zone, you won't find that. The one on Beaumont, the closer house is single-family residence. It's about 200 feet away from the closest pump. And the one on Harland has one townhouse that's within 170 feet. Here you have 20, 20 residences within 150 to 300 feet, 12 of those within a 150-foot radius. And to me, based on the knowledge we have for health hazards, that should be unallowable completely. Again, the regulations are very old on the business developments with regards to gas stations. You know, the regulations cite a distance of 60 feet between a pump and a residence. newer research says that the effects of gas pumps, fumes from refilling and from the trucks should not be within 150 foot and if there is more than 5 gas pumps the 10 gas pumps should be 300 feet from any residence so again we could be talking for hours but but I think the most important one is that we have never been contacted by Kroger at any point during the development of this plan, and none of the neighbors that live nearby want a gas station right here, knowing the health hazards and all other problems that are going to be created. And that's the big difference between what we're looking at here and any other examples that we may be bringing up today. And to me, this shouldn't be allowed. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. My name is Bill Wilson. I live at 1065 Shanaway. I'm going to use the first 30 seconds or so of my time to make some notes on the map. I hope that those will stay up through my remaining two minutes. Again, Kroger has used a map that suggests that the shopping center is in a vacuum and not near a residential area. Each of those stickies represents either a one-family home or a unit that contains two families. So you can see that there are real people living in very close proximity to the gas station, which they happened to put in red, which I think is interesting also. If I understood Ms. Bowen from our last meeting, she indicated that there were three conditions under which you all could deny this request. One was if it created a traffic problem, as the carver lady said, a health problem, or an insurmountable nuisance. And I would suggest that all three of these conditions exist. You'll hear more evidence from the rest of the speakers. The letter that you got from our gentleman indicates that he had some significant questions about the traffic study that they did, and I think he offers an alternative explanation for some of that. You'll hear from my wife and others about the health and the benzene concerns about pumps, not only people pumping them but people living close proximity to the gas station. and then the other was the insurmountable nuisance. I think the lighting fixtures for especially the people on Creekside and the people in my home, a second level of homes that are on Shinaway, we were definitely going to consider that lighting a nuisance and also the noise from the traffic and the other things. So I'd like to suggest that all three of those conditions will be met as we talk about that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Others? My name is Jenny Wilson, and I live at 1065 Shanaway. I live directly across the street from the Crubber Shopping Center. It's been my home with my children, my husband, for 12 years. And Shanaway Road is one of the prettiest streets in Lexington. Everybody here knows it's one of the nicest streets. We all love our street. We love to see people walk, bike. We like to see them run in front of my house. And I feel proud to call it my street. The reason that I'm here is because I'm very, very concerned about this proposed plan. I came in December, and I've never been in this kind of situation before where I've talked to groups like you. But this is very important to me. and I hope that you're able to hear the information that I'm sharing with you today because I have found information since our meeting in December that I feel like is very relevant to this commission, and I'd just like to share it. Although I do not want a gas station outside my front door, and I am concerned about property values because they will decrease, and I am concerned about crime, and I'm concerned about traffic, and about so many things that go as a result of the change that they're proposing. The very most important piece of my concern is the fact that it actually literally makes me nauseous when I found, when I started researching this information about all the risks of living near a gas station. In a matter of seconds, in a simple Google search, just a simple Google search is all I did. I was directed to pages of information that discuss a chemical called benzene. And I'm certain you all have all heard about it, but this will very much affect me and my family. There are associated short-term and long-term risks that can affect our central nervous systems, our reproductive health, and benzene is a known human carcinogen. The EPA, our government agency, the National Toxology Program, and the International Agency for cancer indicate that benzene is a known human carcinogen and is also linked to leukemia and other blood-related cancers. There are statements that I pulled off the Center for Disease Control website, and these are literal statements I'm going to read to you, and I have all the information if you'd like to see it because I think it's very relevant to your decision today. Pull it off their website. You could do it. Hopefully you've already considered that even before this meeting today. The air around hazardous waste sites or gas stations, this is the same sentence, hazardous waste sites or gas stations, contain higher levels of benzene than in any other areas. This is from the American Cancer Society. Literally, just a Google search, pulls it off their website, the American Cancer Society. Sources of benzene in the environment include gasoline in areas of heavy traffic. Gas stations and industrial sources have higher levels of benzene. Living near gas stations increases the risk for long-term and short-term problems. Such can affect our... I'm sorry, I read that sentence to you already. I'm sorry. I then called a national hotline from the Center for Disease Control just to follow up on this information. and they provided me with other information about living near gas stations and the information they directed to me scared me even more. And this is what they told me. Benzene is a major component of gasoline and increased levels of benzene are generally found at fueling stations. Families are advised not to play near fueling stations. living near gas stations increases benzene exposure. So I'm not sure where we go from here. It is simply not logical to me that a city that has made a stand about cigarette smoke would even consider a plan to have a gas station so close to homes. It's not logical to me. I'm not a scientist, but if these main agencies that we depend upon for our public safety, if their information is not considered today, I just can't truly understand. And as my husband mentioned, we heard the last time that there were several things that this commission needs to consider. This is your responsibility with the commission. And as you're aware, at the last meeting, Mr. Brew made a motion to disapprove the plan. I'm so sorry that he's not able to be here today. After votes, the votes were there to disapprove the plan, but they were counted incorrectly. If only that had been taken care of, I wouldn't have had to come back today. And I ask that the Planning Commission again deny the proposal. Additionally, I'm asking you on the Planning Commission to make a request of the Lexington-Fayette County Urban Government to consider current research that was long, you know, this has been zoned for this, but we have new information, new research that says this is not a good plan for families. And update the ordinance that will more accurately reflect a commitment to ensuring public health and safety based upon current research. We as residents and homeowners are left with a decision you make today and are entrusting you, each one of you, to make a decision on behalf of Lexington residents, my family, my two children, and our well-being and just good development that encourages property values and neighborhood charm. make a bold decision like Anchorage did in response to Kroger's plan and say no to Kroger's plans to blemish our city, our neighborhood. And I would like to read the following information I found from your website, Planning. Your mission statement is to provide a vision and strategy that will allow Lexington to grow and prosper while preserving, protecting, and enhancing existing neighborhoods downtown in the rural bluegrass cultural landscape. If you would want to see Kroger build 10 pump gas stations across the street from your house, I mean, if you would not like to see a Kroger gas station built across the street from your house, Because I think I was told how far did you say, Bruce, we are? How far did we go? 40 yards from Creekwood, 100 from ours. Okay. If you would like to see a Kroger build a 10-pump gas station that close, if you would not want to see it, please do not approve this plan. If you would not want to raise your children, knowing what these government agencies are saying, so close to the gas station could please do us the courtesy of doing the same through our families and do not approve this plan. Because I'm certain that each one of you would want to do everything you could to protect your children and your families as well if this were to come into your neighborhood. If you believe that there are government and private entities such as the Center for Disease Control, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the American Cancer Society, and I have several agencies that I found, with no trouble whatsoever, that clearly believe there is a correlation to increased risk of benzene exposure simply by living in my home near a gas station. I'm asking you to not prove this plan. And if for some unknown reason we don't convince you today, I'm asking for you to request a postponement of their construction plan for one year so we as neighbors can sell our homes and move. And I thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Mr. Olson. Others? Thank you. My name is Lana Thomas. I live at 163 Shinaway, which is right across the street from the subway that the gas station is going behind. What I have to mention really doesn't address any of the problems, and it hasn't been mentioned here today, but I believe that the last time we met it was mentioned that this was a convenience for the neighborhood. So I just wanted to bring to your attention that there are five gas stations that are less than two miles away from my home, 1063 Shinaway. Kroger's 1050. There's a Speedway on Mount Tabor. There's a gas station on Lansdowne. The Mount Tabor is 1.42 miles. The one in Lansdowne is 1.38 miles. There's a Marathon on Center Parkway, which is 1.12 miles. There's a Thorntons on Reading Road, which is 1.63 miles. There's a BP in Lansdowne, which is 1.67 miles. In addition, there's two that are between 2 and 4 miles. There's a shell on Pimlico, which is 2.19 miles. Kroger-Hartland, which is 3.87 miles. And my husband checked today in Kroger and Richmond Road, I believe he said it was 3 miles. So that's all I have to say. I'm going to give the rest of my time to my husband, Bruce Thomas. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. My name is Bruce Thomas. Mr. Thomas, hold on one second. Yes, ma'am? For the present, I think we're doing okay. Thank you. My name is Bruce Thomas. I live at 1063 Shinoah Road. I've lived there for 25 years. I want to address a few of the problems. I asked for a study from the police department on robberies in Lexington. I found out last year there were 578 robberies. They could only give me the information I needed for the past six months from June to December. But they said there were 24 gas station robberies in that period of time. So if you double that, that's 48. They said we want you to take into consideration this is gas stations. It doesn't include the convenience stores that have gas pumps. So, Ms. Wiseman, that is a problem. When you bring crime, it might be very good. If you would please direct your statements to the commission. Yes, sir. Thank you. I consider that a problem. I live in an area that has very little crime, and when you consider that 10% of the crime in Lexington is robberies at gas stations, that concerns me. I did a measurement. This room is a halfway decent size room. But from your seats to that door back there is about 30 yards. You take 10 more steps beyond that. Imagine you're standing in your front yard and there's a gas station 10 steps beyond that door. That's pretty darn close. I've asked Eskiel, show hands, can you see this light? Now can you see it? I lowered that 12 inches. That's what Kroger's doing for us. Sounds great. I appreciate everything they're doing. But it's smoke and mirrors. They're making this sound like they're bending over backwards. I appreciate what they're doing. That sounds nice. But when you lower a light 12 inches, that's not going to make a lot of difference when you live directly across the street. You'll see me all right. Hear me. Can you all still see me? I made a little bit of difference in changing my clothes. I didn't move my position. You can still see me. I don't care what they do with that gas station. It's still a gas station. According to them, you can't see it. They're turning the volume down. You can't hear it. It won't increase traffic. To me, this sounds like the first stealth Kroger gas station that's ever been built. Hell, why build it? I mean, it's not going to do them any good. It's not going to bring any more traffic. I don't know if you all looked at that traffic study. There's 28 pages of it. If you've taken a look at it, you'd have to be a scientist to figure that out. I live across the street. I know the traffic. If you all sat there one evening during rush hour and watched that traffic come in and out, that's going to increase. And I don't know how many cars per hour that figures out to, but it's going to be more dangerous on that street. There's no oops or I'm sorry once this is built. Once it's built, we can't go back and undo it. It's there, and it'll be there permanently. You can't say, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. Kroger just misfigured a little bit on the numbers. We got a lot more traffic than we expected. I'm sorry. If you all have kids or grandkids, like Jenny said, seriously, you would not want them playing across from this. I don't want my kids or grandkids to be within 100 feet of this Kroger. I'm sorry. but if you all looked inside your heart and figured if this was a cross from your house, you would not want it, and I hope you vote that way. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Are there others? Yes, please, come forward. Your name and address, sir. My name is Jim Fields, and I live at 1029 Shinaway Road. Could we put this in a computer? I have two photos I'd like for you to see. I may be a little repetitive, but I apologize for that. Several have gone before me, but I do appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I purchased my home three years ago and every day I see neighbors talking as they walk and stroll along the sidewalks. I see myriads of runners and cyclists on this road as well. Many of them are not even from this neighborhood. This is a recreational route for these people. Runners from Tays Creek High School track teams run up this street all the time, and increased traffic will endanger all of these individuals' lives. And I do recall, I think, but I may be mistaken, from the December meeting that someone addressed the increase in traffic, indicating that there were about 9,000 cars a day on Shinaway and that it would increase approximately by 10%, which would be an additional 1,000 cars a day. This does not correspond to anything that Kroger has presented here today. So if Kroger is granted the permission to build a gas station in Shenway Village, the character of our neighborhood and the quality of life in this neighborhood will be changed forever. And once this is done, as Mr. Thomas said, it cannot be undone. For us, this is not an impact on our neighborhood. This is a problem. Kroger currently is having a cart buster saving event. And yesterday on Shinaway was Senior Day at Kroger. I went over to Kroger, I took my camera with me, and I would like to share with you two photos that I took while I was there. Keep in mind that Kroger has these kinds of promotions regularly, and parking is not going to improve. it's going to get worse. And I do recall, I think from the December meeting, and I can please correct me if I'm in error, that somewhere in the area of approximately 32 spaces would be taken up by this gas station. If we look at photo number one, this is from Creekwood Creekwood Drive. This is the shrubway that's in front of that. And this is at the intersection of Creekwood and the drive that goes in front of Shinoahe Pub. This was yesterday at 6 o'clock during Kroger's Senior Day and the parking lot was full. And as you can see, cars line the area where this gas station is supposed to be. Could we see the next photo please? back up, I guess. Here we go. Thank you. This photo was taken from the street that runs in front of Shinaway Pub. And this is what the parking looked like. On down, it was even four. You may see two or three empty spaces there, but the lot was completely full. My question is, when you put a gas station in that's going to take up this many parking spaces, it sounds to me kind of counterproductive to Kroger, where are their customers going to park? Not that that's my concern. In addition to the major parking issues, we are talking about a nightmare in increasing traffic, and I mentioned the figures I thought I heard discussed at the December meeting. and the congestion, there are three exits as has been discussed here from that parking lot, Creekwood. There's one in the middle of the center and then there's one down past behind the building and even exiting out of there now without a gas station is difficult particularly during rush hour. You put your life literally in your own hands, especially if you're trying to turn left. And this will only get worse. These are blind areas. And common sense should dictate what should happen here. I think Kroger speaks solely in its self-interest. And their comments on more than one occasion, they've indicated that they've communicated with the neighbors. and that is totally false. Earlier they mentioned something about the operating service levels and they indicated, based on the numbers I thought I heard, that there would be little to no change. In which case it sounds like there's not going to be much business. So, Croker has power in its favor. Greed. We don't have the money. that agree to adore the power in our favor. We have only the opportunity to come before you and express our concern. So my questions for you are similar to what you have already heard. How would you like a gas station in front of your home? How would you like your health and safety jeopardized by the presence of a gas station that's only 50 yards away from your home? how would you like to watch the quality of life in your neighborhood deteriorate how would you like to watch the value of your property plummet and this is what's going to happen it seems like everything Kroger has presented here has been minimalized they've asked us to imagine a lot I have a vivid imagination and my imagination does not match Kroger's so I beg you to please deny Kroger this proposal. And thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Fears. Yes, ma'am. Hi. My name is Clarissa Spahn. I live at 1909 Bella Ponte Drive. And I'm here in support of my neighbors. I also had lived in District 5 for over 20 years. My husband and I have bicycled out Shinaway Road for 15 years. and that was one thing I didn't hear mentioned in the traffic plan is what happens to the bicyclists. I heard the other day that Tate's Creek will soon have a, possibly in the future, a double diamond interchange at New Circle Road. That's getting a little even. I mean, there's one less road to get out of town on your bicycle. So Shinaway Drive may be one of the few ways to get out of town. I also want to mention that I think everybody else has, that the comparison to these other Kroger's gas station stores is just not quite the same. These roads, Beaumont, I think, are four lanes. Alexandria has a turn lane. They're all very different roads. But what really sent a chill down my spine was the thought that it could be somewhere near Cooper Drive because what's so different between Cooper and Shinaway? there's a Kroger right off Cooper Drive. Apparently it used to have gas stations. I'm glad to know that I guess Randalls must have taken them out. But to me, I see something that's why, what's so different here? And even the Kroger's on Euclid. Yes, there's a gas station down Euclid, but to add another gas station and then maybe an exit off of South Ashland, it's just not a good thing. So you've got the hazard of the cars. You've got the hazard of the benzene, which these other things just pale in comparison. And then I think the bottom line is I don't see how this provides any net gain to our city. In fact, it's just an additional infrastructure cost. I mean, you now have gas trucks going down Alumni, going down Shinaway. I don't know how they get to the Speedway, but I suspect they're coming up Tate's Creek. So this is an additional route for large trucks coming into our city, coming up Shinoah Drive. I mean, like one person said, once you've let the genie out, we can't really tell the gas trucks which road to come. So the additional pressure on our roads is going to be that much worse. And I think it's important to keep in mind that Kroger Corporation didn't make this decision based on our concern or their concern for the people of Lexington or for the neighbors on Shinaway Road. Adding gas stations to Kroger stores is an important part of their business plan. It adds about 10% to their corporate revenue. We're also not the only neighborhood who's been adverse to the idea. I just did a quick Google search before I came over here, and there's been opposition in Louisville, Harris County, Texas, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, Clintonville, Ohio, and Arkansas, and I didn't know about Agassi Anchorage, and I know that at least a couple that I saw, the plan had been rejected. So thank you for your time. I appreciate you listening to all of us, and I hope you will reject this proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Are there others who want to speak besides Mr. Farmer? We'll let Mr. Farmer speak. Yes, please, come forward. I've just been trying to keep notice. The petition went for about 30 minutes. I'm not saying that the opposition is limited to that by any stretch of the imagination. I won't take much time. Thank you. A lot of my neighbors have already said what I wanted to say. My name is Linda Faulkner. I live at 1031 Chinoaay. And I'm a Kroger shopper. And I would imagine that most of these people are Kroger shoppers. Sometimes I like to go to the mega shop when I have time. A lot of variety, things besides food. But most of the time, I shop at the Shinoah Kroger. And I like it because it's very small. It's easy to get in and out of. The people are very friendly. And I use my Kroger card and I buy gas. But I don't think I've ever remembered coming out of the Shinoah Kroger and thinking, I need gas. I wish they had a pump here for me. Because as I commute around town, I can find their pumps. I normally stop at Regency Center on Nicholasville or over at Alexandria, and I can buy their gas. And then as my neighbor was saying, there are gas stations within two-mile radius of me. If I end up planning poorly and I'm home and need gas, it's not a problem for me to get gas. I love where I live. And I love Lexington. And I love the fact that in Lexington, you can just drive a few miles and you can be on a windy country road with farmland around you. Or you can be in the middle of the horse farms. Or you can be in one of the areas where you have the old, established, aristocratic homes with those old neighborhoods and the trees lining the streets. I mean, it's beautiful. And that's why I'm here. That's why I took a half a day off work, was to come and ask you, your job, if I understand it correctly, I know you have to look at the laws and the registrations, but your job also is to protect that part of Lexington that we love so much. And I'm here to ask you to please protect my neighborhood. Please vote no to pumps on Cheneway. Thank you, Ms. Faulkner. Others, which would include Councilman Farmer? Sure. Please come forward. Either one. This is the first time I've spoken in front of Bill Farmer in my life, so I'm glad to get this opportunity. My name is Mike Stratton. I'm a retired high school principal. I've lived in Lexington for over 25 years. I live at 3349 Pepper Hill Road. And excuse me, I might not be dressed for occasion, but usually I get off the golf course at this time. But I had to stop over next door. So some of my friends said we had a little conference going on about Kroger and their ideas and plans for a gas station. So I want to be very brief. I'm going to be right to the point because I see we have emotions on one side. I live on Pepper Hill Road, and I like to speak and stand up for my fellow neighbors. Number one, I love my Kroger. I love my little shopping center. It's very convenient for me if I need to get something to eat. And I think that Kroger does a great job in their food services. I love it. But now, I also see a lot of emotion from my fellow residents. and I can see the reason why. This service station is probably a little more than two drivers and a pitching wedge from my house. That's close enough for me that I think we need to separate a neighborhood, which I love, and I love Lexington, and I love my neighborhood. But I also feel like that we need to separate a business, a commercial business, the stature of an oil company, a gas station, then a neighborhood. And I'm sure if I was some of these people right here, they had to look out in front of my yard with my kids and see in a gas station. And I don't have anything against gas stations, people, because I sure don't want to buy an electric Chevy Volt. I want a gas car. And I've got three of them. I like to run fast. I like to run hard. And that's why I was here. I had to pay a ticket. But anyhow, beside the point. But now, people, I've never been an advocate because I haven't had time I had to work all my life. Now I'm retired. I've got a little time on my hands to see what's going on. And I think we need citizens to voice their opinion concerning their neighborhood, concerning our state and our city. Now, I love Crover, but I think the idea of a service station in the middle of a neighborhood that I love is wrong. I think we need to use common sense when we make judgments. And I would like reaching every one of you before you vote. I don't even know if you're voting today. I don't know the procedure here. But I'd like for you to put your shoes and your minds with these people. If you have kids and you're looking out and seeing a service station, they say, what time are you guys going to close the service station? Are you going to run to midnight? Are you going to run all night? You give an inch, you take a mile, and you all know that. So, ladies and gentlemen, I've already said enough, and I think that you need to search your minds, you search your hearts, put yourself in these people's shoes to live across, possibly from a service station, and I guarantee you, you wouldn't like it. Thank you, and you all have a good day. Thank you, Mr. Stratton. Councilman Farmer. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, I'd already thank you all for your service, I need to take a moment to tell you what an honor it is for me to serve as council member for these neighbors and the members of the 5th District. You all agree. Thank you. You can hear from these folks. Kroger is a good corporate citizen. Kroger is a large corporate citizen. Kroger is in a very tough business where incremental profit is the difference between making it and not. But as I look at the proposal for a possible gas fueling station, fueling pier, I read a large concern in relation to, you know, there really was a small gas station on Romney Road next to what was Randall's. And it fits the Goober and Gomer variety that I think each of us can remember. I mean, a couple of service bays, a couple of pumps. It's a place I got my very first bicycle tire pumped up and fixed when I ran over my first nail. The intrusion into this neighborhood of 10 pumps under a rather large canopy and all the ancillary comings and goings that go along with it provides a much higher cost to these neighbors and this neighborhood than the incremental value it will have for the Kroger corporate citizen. These people will live with this each and every day if, in your wisdom, you give them the opportunity to put it in. And it's much different than having soda and crackers delivered to the back of that store to pervade each one of us. This is having a large, flammable tanker come down your street to your front door and pumping these flammable liquids out. Unlike the other Kroger gas stations, which are located at high traffic areas, where there are multiple ways in and out, every adjacent street to this location dead ends. There's only one way in and one way out, and only one way for the traffic to go if this is permitted, and that is up. I was lucky enough to stand with many of these folks and protest this opportunity at the corner of Creekwood and Shinaway. And I will tell you that numbers on paper are different than lines of cars trying to turn left and right out of Creekwood. Or inbound traffic on Shinaway, mounting that hill at just the moment that that tanker's crossways trying to pull in. This provides more than one kind of hazard. There's been excellent testimony about health and safety and traffic, all of which I believe are founded in fact that you all can use. You sit in seats of decision. You have the opportunity to make decisions on behalf of citizens and those who are affected. Council will tell you that you may have only certain things you can do, But you always have the opportunity to serve the citizens of Lexington. And specifically today, I would ask you to serve the citizens of the 5th District in this neighborhood. Save one phone call to the 5th District Council office in support. All tangential information I have received, all interpersonal conversations, phone calls, emails, have all been negative and been against this. And this is not drawing a bad bead on Kroger's. This is drawing a bad bead on changing the neighborhood in a way that really does it a disservice while only profiting Kroger. And the final analysis, I don't believe we're here necessarily just to provide that opportunity. We need to give context to the decisions we make and make them on behalf of citizens who have to live with them once we walk from this chamber and the gavel has fallen. I would ask for you all to find on behalf of those folks today. Again, there's not a villain here. There's just a lack of opportunity. Find the opportunity on behalf of my neighbors, our neighbors, your neighbors, and come away with a decision that will benefit them rather than the corporate boardroom. Thank you all. Thank you, Councilman Farmer. Are there others at this point? If not, I would go for rebuttal at this time. Ms. Wiseman. And I think I will put time limits of like five minutes on this. Okay, I will try to rebut and sum up in one of those. Quickly, and I have Joe Hamilton, one of the engineers from Kroger, that can talk more extensively about the issues about safety, but I'm not going to do that unless you want to ask him questions. Just some information he provided in terms of the concerns that we, Kroger installs vapor recovery systems, which include a stage one vapor recovery system that's designed to recapture vapors during the unloading of fuel from the tanker truck. They also install an enhanced vapor recovery system for the underground storage tanks and piping through a series of equipment and system improvements. This is installed to increase vapor collection efficiencies. So, again, we are not putting anything in our estimation that is dangerous or safety. It meets all the required state, local, and federal requirements as they exist today. And those are continually improved and changed, and we're going to meet these. So we don't think that the health hazard, I understand the concern about that for your children and your family, but we sincerely believe that the technology and what is done on these stations, as are all the stations in this community, meet those standards. I want to just hit on a couple of other points. Again, at your request, we came back with a specific traffic study. There's been a lot of talk about, conversation today about seeing the traffic and so on. We hired a consultant who has appeared before this body many times. Her firm did actual traffic counts in the morning to develop these numbers. It was reviewed by your Division of Traffic Engineering, and the conclusion is that it will have a minimal impact that Chenowee, which is a 70-foot-wide collector, and Creekwood, which is a 60-foot-wide roadway, can handle the minimal increase in traffic, and we use the most conservative approach. Traffic engineering does recommend some striping on Creekwood to help that turn movement, and again, that's something that could mitigate that issue in the afternoon for that movement, and Kroger would be willing to do that subject to the approval of traffic engineering. We believe we've addressed that. Lighting the chart that Mr. Cornett produced in terms of illumination rather than wattage does show that it is significantly reduced if you compare the red and the blue numbers. And you have that, so I'm not going to go through that. So I think significant impact has been made using the scientific approach photometric study to improve that and also removing that standard. Quality of life. And that is really the heart of what folks are saying here today. But I want to show you one area. It's not that good because I wasn't thinking about this. Okay, it's pretty poor. But if you can, all right. What that is, is that's the Heartland Shopping Center. and what we hear is that this shouldn't be in the middle of a neighborhood. This is the Kroger at Heartland and Kennesaw. That is a canopy there. There are four pumps, eight nozzles, which is the way I think of it too because the pumps confuse me. That is a neighborhood just like these folks' neighborhood. We have townhouses. We have duplexes. On either end, you have single-family homes. There are hundreds of people who live within 150 feet of this fuel station, and that has been there since 2001, and I don't think that anybody would tell you that their quality of life or their safety risk has increased since that fuel center has been installed in Heartland. We have the same situation in the Beaumont that we've mentioned before. It's across the street from single-family homes, and there are hundreds of homes in that neighborhood. And all the neighbors here have been very complimentary about Kroger as a customer, and they like their service, but they also say they don't need this gas station, they can go to other gas stations. So what they're telling you is they'll be glad to drive through somebody else's neighborhood to go to another gas station in this neighborhood, or somebody else's neighborhood but not put it in their neighborhood. That's not the test before you. If gas stations were such a noxious, unsafe use, then they probably should only be permitted in the heavy industrial zone. And that's not true. We have acknowledged for many years that these are appropriate in residential and neighborhood business areas. If you think of Nicholasville Road, you might just be thinking down the road of the businesses. But there are people that live behind those. Malibu, all those gas stations, there are apartments and people that live behind those service stations. Ms. Wiseman, please wrap up. I will wrap up. So, again, we think that as hard as it is to not be emotional, I understand that when you're talking about your home, I think we have to discount that and answer the question whether this causes a concrete problem in terms of traffic, et cetera. We think what we submitted demonstrates it does not, and we would ask that you approve it for the conditions set forth by staff. Thank you. Yes, would a member of the opposition like to provide a rebuttal in regards to what Ms. Wiseman was rebutting? we're not going to rehash the whole thing. I looked at Kroger's traffic study, and of course I had no idea what I was looking at, but I seriously doubt that the study was impartial. As I looked at the photograph that she showed of Heartland, there was no photograph of our neighborhood. There was no way to make a point of comparison in any way regarding, I can't tell, I presume where I see that line, that that's the gas station. But it's very difficult to judge distances there or make any point of comparison unless you have another image of the area where we live and that we're talking about. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Wilson. Yes, sir. The slide that just showed that neighborhood of Kennesaw and Heartland, I walked that neighborhood two nights ago. And what I found was the people that lived outside of the gas station loved it. But the one man that I did talk to who lived directly across the street and you could see it at night and day, he thought that he would totally dislike being there and thought that if he tried to sell his house, it would hurt the value of his house that he could get. So he was against it. Thank you. I just had a quick comment when she mentioned that Kroger didn't feel like there was any problems or dangers. I'm sorry, once again, your name, sir? Bruce Thomas. Thank you. But there wasn't any dangers. Just sitting here, I pinched in on Google, fires at Kroger gas stations. Here's one, March 12th. Ford truck catches fire at Kroger gas pump. It's on YouTube. February 12th, Kroger gas station on fire. May 19th Moreland Avenue gas station roped off after a 20 gallon spill here's December 6th, 2011 here's Raleigh gas station armored truck stolen during robbery at Kroger grocery 519 spill at Kroger station there's numerous spills and fires at Kroger gas stations thank you Mr. Thomas ma'am would this be in regards to the rebuttal it would be in regards to the rebuttal my name is Betsy Carnes and I live at 3500 Creekwood Drive and I have for 20 years and I just very quickly would like to point out from the picture that we were just shown of the Heartland Shopping Center first of all Kennesaw is not a very short dead end street Second of all, the distance between the filling station or gas station and the residences from any point is much further away than 40 yards, which is the distance between the proposed station and the residences across the street. Thank you. Yes, sir. My name is Antonio Pausa. I just talked to you before. And this photo will only look the same as Creekwood Drive if you move those pumps all the way to the sidewalk in front of the houses on the other side. There's only two of them. You cannot see very well here. I wish it was a color picture. But the distance between the pumps in those houses is a third more than the ones in Creekwood Drive. There's only two of them there. Again, those pumps you see in the photo, I wish I could point to it. You move the canopy all the way to the sidewalk, and that would be our case here. And then you have houses from both sides, very different. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. I don't know if I could just show you a couple of pictures, because the aerial. took a couple pictures with my eye. Ms. Wilson, you would need the microphone with you. What? Yeah. I just got the iPad. A lot of us did. They're wonderful. I did want to just rebut the one part that she was talking about, the Heartland Parkway that was built in 2001. I will just say that the research I got all shows that we have so much more information even than since 2001. So maybe the decision was made, not understanding. But I did mention to you that there are studies about this. One thing I forgot to tell you was that a lot of states have adopted warning labels on the pumps that specifically talks about benzene as a carcinogen. I got this from the Speedway website because a lot of states have already adopted this. Warnings on the pumps. This is not something I'm making up. And again, I mentioned to you that there is all kinds of information. This is the one from cancer.org, the American Cancer Society. I'm happy to give it to you. CDC.gov, I'm happy to give it to you. This is OSHA. I'm happy to give it to you. Ms. Wilson, we're specifically asking for a rebuttal. I think we understand what you have said and understand your statements there. You can give that to us as a matter of record, though. Okay, I'd be happy to do that. Thank you. Sorry. Anything else on the pictures? Can I tell you about the pictures? Yes, real quick. Back to the microphone. Okay, sorry. As I said before, I'm really not good at this, and the only reason I'm here is because it's important to me. Right there where I took the picture, those are the houses. So you can see, that's how close it is. That street is so small, it doesn't even have lines on it. That's how close it is. We're right there to those people's houses. Can you do the next one? Oh, gosh, this is really too much. Okay. I really can't do this. Okay. I'd rather, I just can't do it. Okay, so anyway, the other issue there is I'm also there at the shrubs. Again, you'll see. That's the street. Again, please understand, this road is so small it doesn't even have lines on it. Can you show the next one? Okay, this is in my front yard. And this is Mr. Cravens. I did a couple pictures for you because the last time you mentioned you didn't know that you would be able to see it from Shinaway. I want to make sure you can know. This is from my area. Okay, if you could just go one more. this is from my front yard and then that's the street right there that those gas tanks will be coming down and the next one please and again that's another house that's what you'll be seeing on Shunaway I'm sorry I'm not following rebuttal procedures that's it thank you Mr. Wilson at this point I'm going to ask staff for rebuttal. Comments? Staff has nothing to add. If not, I would ask if traffic, Mr. Neal, would have anything to add at this point. Okay. Would there be any questions for Mr. Neal at this point? Otherwise, I think he's happy to stay in the back. Yes. Yes, sir, Mr. Berkley. Would you have any opinions on my comment about the entrance in using Creekside versus the main shopping center entrance? I don't see any problem with that. It's probably better sight lines at the top of the hill than down at the main entrance into the shopping center. So if they can get the turning radiuses worked out, which they probably can, I think that would be an okay thing to do. Any other questions for Mr. Neal? So since you're here, Mr. Neal, I would just ask very briefly, are you in agreement with the traffic study that's been presented? Yes, the traffic study is reasonable as far as the trips generated by the gas pumps. The volumes on Shinaway go along with everything else that we've been provided and is accessible online. And there will be some more turning movements in and out of the shopping center, which would be expected. But I guess if you've got my memo on the backside, those are some things that traffic engineering will be doing in the next month or so, is to lower the speed limit through that curve area. I think at the last meeting it was brought out that there was some accidents in that area. and when we did the study, it actually showed that there was a concentration of accidents all the way around that curve. And so what we're going to do is do an advisory speed limit lowering to 25 miles an hour. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Phillips? I almost forgot what I was going to ask. I just forgot. Oh, I know what it was. Is it customary to include, because we've heard testimony from more than one person who spoke to the pedestrians and the cyclists, the bicyclists in the area, is it customary for the traffic studies to incorporate non-vehicular traffic? That is something that's really not customary unless it's asked for specifically. You know, there's no trip generation rates for pedestrians and bicyclists for developments that we're still dealing with vehicles, and so that's what the study was gauged off of. Are there bike lanes in front of this Kroger-Chinaway? There are no bike lanes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Neal. Any other questions from the Commission? since there was a small amount of new information that is presented from the opponents I'm going to see if Ms. Wiseman needs any sort of rebuttal for that now okay thank you if that's the case I will close this hearing then and open it up for any discussion or any other questions from the commission yes Mr. Berkley I just have a question about this access again. Should this body decide to agree to this plan, would you all be willing to make a condition on the plan that the Creekside Drive is used for deliveries? Yes, sir. I believe it's Creekwood, I think. Yes, they'd agree. Any other questions from the Commission? Or, as I said, open it up for discussion at this time. If not, I would... Yes, Ms. Koblen? I just want to say that tonight when you watch the news, be thankful and kiss your flag that we're able to do this. Thank you. Yes, ma'am? Yes, ma'am, I'm ready for a motion if there's no further discussion. Mr. Jim? Yes, Ms. Phillips. I wanted to ask our attorney. Ms. Wiseman very clearly, I think, articulated what the conditions are for our disapproving a development plan when the permitted use is authorized by the zoning. And she said there are only three criteria, a traffic problem, a health problem, or an insurmountable nuisance. Do you agree with Ms. Wiseman's assessment of the verbiage of the ordinance? In Article 21.7, subparagraph E, Major Amendment Procedures, it basically says, it talks about the same procedures for approval of a development plan will apply. However, in addition to the standards listed in Article 21-4C, The Commission may also disapprove or modify the requested amendment if it finds that such amendments will adversely affect the public health, safety, and welfare, or alter the essential character of the development as originally approved. approved. So it's, I mean, I think that Ms. Wiseman emphasized what the particular problems were that have been brought out in this that in effect would qualify for these public health, safety, and welfare issues. but it's just stated a bit more generally but I think that what she identified are the issues that have been recognized as relating to this plan so I think that is in essence an accurate presentation but which section were you and actually Ms. Phillips I think one of the neighbors quoted Ms. Bowen about the three criteria not me I was referring to Commission Action 21.4.D, where it says that the commission may modify or disapprove the development plan if it does not comply with the requirements of the zoning ordinance and, when applicable, the land subdivision regulations, or if it finds that there are existing or potential flood, drainage, traffic, topographic, health, safety, nuisance, or other similar problems relating to the development of the subject property. And then the section that Ms. Bowen just cited says that in addition to those standards, you also considered that as well. But our point is that it is a specific problem. I'm not saying it's just limited to those because it says there are similar problems. But it's not just you think it's inappropriate was our point. Yes. What you cited is this? No. Or what someone else alleged? I'm trying to figure out what it is that we're talking about. Now they've put up, there's two different sections. She quoted 217E. And I just wanted to make sure that you consider all those underlined. And what I referred to in my presentation was the underlined language on the left. That's all. I just want to make sure you hit the full picture. They do act together. I agree. I was talking about when you're looking at an amendment, but it also states that the underlying bases for considering approval or disapproval of any plan still apply. So I don't think we're in any form of disagreement at all. I think what's been told to you is accurate. Okay. Any other questions? Mr. Penn? For somebody that wasn't bright enough to get in law school and has a hard time understanding when the lawyers tell you, I just don't think this passes a smell test. And it's a tough thing for me to do because it was a referral, which means that almost like the staff didn't take a position, it's referred. and so it's up to us to make the decision. And that's why we have referrals. If the staff had made a recommendation for approval, they'd have had reasons for their approval and we'd have had to find reasons that it didn't meet the approval. So because this is a referral situation, I certainly want to take into account what both attorneys have told us. But folks, the buck stops here. And I want us to think about the testimony that's been there. I want us to think about the practicality of it. And I don't know whether we're ready for a motion or not, Mr. Chairman, but I'm just telling you what I thought about what's happened as far as the competing attorneys. Ms. Blanton. I just wanted to get a clarification from staff. When Mr. Penn mentioned it was referred to the full commission, It was referred by the subdivision committee, correct, not staff? That is correct. Staff actually did recommend approval of this amendment to the subdivision committee. Thank you. Let me ask you, Ms. Bowling, do we have reasons to disapprove it? Have you written any out for us? I know it's not a zone change. I mean, it's not up to me to make the decision. I understand that. I think that the legal standards hopefully have been set out sufficiently for you to determine whether the facts give you sufficient reason to disapprove. Thank you. Mr. Cravens. I think Kroger's done a good job modifying their plan some, but I'm inclined to vote against this. I just don't think there's enough room for these gas pumps and canopy and so forth in that parking lot. While the people are concerned about how close the pumps are to their houses, if you look at that, I mean, they're pretty close to the front door of that Clover store where you have a lot of people going in and out of there. And I went over there this morning. I've built many houses in that neighborhood and lived in it. And I went over there this morning. I just don't think there's enough room for this whole operation in that parking lot, so I'm going to be opposed to the gas station. Ms. Copeland. I guess I see it as a two-way street. The community, the neighborhood, needs a healthy shopping center. It needs a grocery store there. And right now, the choice is a Kroger. And so you want to have Kroger succeed so you don't have an empty grocery store or there goes your bell cow, your magnet to make your shopping center live. At the same time, Kroger doesn't want to be in a diminishing area, it's got to have a healthy neighborhood or it's going to move out. I mean, you don't see many fancy ongoing Kroger stores in blighted areas. So what can we have the most health? And I'm inclined, and it's not easy. This is a gray zone. I'm inclined to be against the gas pumps because I think Kroger can stay healthy and the neighborhood can stay healthy if we go that path. But it wasn't easy. Mr. Roberts has done a great job making a nice gas station, and I hope you get to use it in another place. Any other comments or questions? Ms. Phillips? I'm really conflicted about this because I took your advice and thought, what if this were within 40 yards of my home? I do try to put myself in the position of citizens who are faced with the conditions. But I'm just wondering why, and I guess it does have to do with the movement of these fuel trucks that make deliveries, why can't the fuel pumps be located deeper into the shopping center? And, you know, that seemed to me to be an obvious solution last go-around when we saw this, so that we do have greater distance from the neighbors. So I'm really conflicted. I applaud Kroger for having modified the plans. I think that you all did a fabulous job trying to meet the neighbors halfway, which is what my intent was in making the motion that we postpone this. I had wanted to get Kroger to try to work with the neighbors to come to a common agreement. So I'm really conflicted. I hear what the neighbors are saying, And I recognize that the distancing may not be adequate, but it does meet the terms of the ordinance. And so it is, as Marie just said, it's definitely a gray area. Thank you. Anyone else? We're in a now of commission members that hasn't spoken. But Ms. Blanton? I think based on staff's recommendations, the fact that it does comply with the ordinance and the fact that Kroger has done a lot to modify this. I support this plan. I may be alone, but I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? If not, I'll entertain a motion, folks. Yes, Mr. Cravens? Yeah, I'll make a motion. I move disapproval of DP 2011-96, Chenoway Village Shopping Center. Motion has been made for disapproval. If I can make a suggestion, there is not a required process for formal adoption of findings of fact for approval, but the zoning ordinance does indicate that in the case of a postponement of disapproval, the minutes have to clearly reflect the reasons for that. So if you could maybe add something to your motion that would be a clarification. Okay, for health reasons, for traffic reasons, and for I just don't think they have enough room to do it. I'll second. Okay, motion has been made and seconded for disapproval of DP 2011-96 Shinoahe Village Shopping Center. If there's no further discussion, please vote, and I will remind everyone this is for disapproval of the development plan. Motion for disapproval did pass. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think we'll take just a five-minute recess, and we'll be right back at it. Thank you all very much. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's good. Thank you. I think we've got all the commission members back, so we'll resume. Our next plan is DP 2012-11 Lexington Mall. It's on page 3 of our agenda. Mr. Salley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Indeed, this is on the top of page 3 of your agenda, and this is for an amended development plan, actually the 13th Amendment to the Lexington Mall Development Plan, DP 2012-11. During the break, the staff handed out one exhibit on tan-colored paper. That is a copy of the minutes from the Planning Commission from September of 2010, where you last approved a development plan involving the Lexington Mall. Also, there was an earlier exhibit packet from the staff handed out with a topo map of the area entitled Staff Exhibits for this Development Plan, dated today. The staff exhibits will form the outline of my presentation to you this afternoon on this development plan proposal. Also, there is a good bit of information that is a result of your discussions at your subdivision committee meeting. First, though, I'd like to show you an aerial photograph of the subject property just to get you oriented to its location. This is looking from the west to the east at the site. This is Richmond Road. This is one of both of these are signalized intersections. This one is directly opposite the entrance to the Kentucky American Water Company property. This is just to the east of the Eidel Hour subdivision and just to the south of Eidel Hour Park here. In this photo, we can see the former Lexington Mall. This building is still in existence and is being renovated. However, this is a 2010 photo. If you were in the same location today in an airplane, you would not see this building. You would see a much smaller building that is under construction. The Home Depot store is in existence in its location here. That has been approved on this development plan for a number of years. There are also four outlots that are visible in the photo. There's a branch bank here, an Applebee's restaurant, which was redeveloped a few years ago, this location, a gas station, which is no longer in business at this location, and a Perkins restaurant at this location. And separating the restaurant and the former gas station is a portion of the former reservoir, which, of course, continues across Richmond Road here as well. To orient you to the development plan, again, this is at the northwest quadrant of New Circle Road and Richmond Road. The two signalized intersections are here, and this one being opposite the entrance to the Kentucky American Water Company offices. The four outlots are shown in orange here. The former Dillard's department store is shown on the development plan, and that is being used by the church, which is under development on this property, and they are building a new auditorium immediately to the east of that former two-story building. Home Depot store is unchanged on this plan, as are the four outlots in orange. There is an additional outlot here that has currently not been built. That is a 2,750-square-foot space approved where there used to be a car wash establishment that's no longer in business. This is at the intersection of Woodhill Drive and New Circle Road, which is also a signalized intersection. Of course, the off-ramp to New Circle Road parallels the rear of the Home Depot store. Amendment number 13 seeks to change the outlock configuration between the former gas station and the Applebee's restaurant, and it is shown in solid colors on this development plan, and we have that also on the overhead. Again, between the two signalized intersections here, the entrances are to remain unchanged. However, the service drive that connects those two on the church's property is proposed to be relocated farther interior to the property, and as a result, the previously approved front lawn area will be diminished slightly in size. There is proposed a 5,400-square-foot restaurant proposed closest to the Applebee's here with a drive-through facility to the rear and associated off-street parking. The other outlaw proposed is for a branch bank with a drive-through facility located here. Both will access the new service road, and there will, of course, be no access to Richmond Road or to either of the two entrance roads on either side of those outlots as well. The property is Zone B6P. That is a planned shopping center zone. The former mall, of course, was permitted in that zone. Churches are also permitted use in the zone. The banks and restaurants, of course, also were permitted uses in the B6P zone. The development plan has a couple of other changes proposed as part of it. The current development plan shows 1,400 parking spaces. There's a slight reduction with the proposed amendment number 13. 1,356 parking spaces are proposed. The surplus on the current development plan is just over 1,000 parking spaces. This development plan shows a surplus of 972 parking spaces, The surplus being so large because the area of the buildings has diminished so much, and that area is now also able to be made available for parking. I have on the overhead just a blow-up of that. What is on the overhead that is not on the rendering are two additional lines of information. both dealing with the floodplain associated with the existing pond. The dotted lines is roughly the edge of the existing pond here, and the red dashed line is coincident with the 50-foot building line that's required by the B6P zone. That is the proposed floodplain line to allow the pond area, if you will, to be filled and these lots to be developed. Associated with that, there is a revision proposed to one of the plan notes dealing with a conditional letter of map revision. That has been approved for a couple of years now for the site to indicate that construction can begin on these outlots once that information is submitted to FEMA. Our understanding is that it's possible that a special use permit may also be necessary for that, and that would be reviewed by the Division of Engineering before any activity like that could occur. One other item, these outlots are subject to the Richmond Road landscaping ordinance. And in a similar fashion to what happened years ago for the Applebee's lot, when there are changes proposed to the landscaping portions of the treatment of different properties along Richmond Road, those do have to go to the Urban County Council and be approved by that body. Staff understands that the petitioner is aware that that would be required in this case as well. The next item on the overhead is the same as page 3 in the staff handout packet. We wanted to take a moment to show the existing development plan from 2009. I'm sorry. There is one other item on the overhead, not in your packet. I wanted to show you this because on the overhead you saw a dashed area. This was shown at one of your committee meetings most recently as a water dry basin feature of drainage, and that is why that is indicated on the development plan in Hatchim. It's not shown on the current version but was shown at your committee meeting. Now then, page 3 in the staff handout is the current development plan for the property. It proposes one-out lot and approximately 40 percent of the existing water feature being filled. That is the difference between the solid blue and the blue outline there. That is one of the major proposals of this development plan amendment that's before you today. The one-out lot is a 7,000-square-foot building. I believe on the latest plan, which was approved again in 2010, it is not identified whether that would be a retail building or a restaurant. I believe it is flexible for either of those uses. And that, again, is right across the entrance from the Applebee's restaurant. Last week at your subdivision committee meeting, the committee discussed this development plan for about 50 minutes. They heard not only from the staff, from the applicant, and the members of the subdivision committee, also from the neighbors in the Eidel Hour subdivision. Eidel Hour is immediately adjacent to the west of this location. and the neighborhood had a number of questions raised at that meeting. Pages 4 through 7 of the staff handouts is a response to those questions from the Urban County Government's Division of Water Quality. There are three members of that division here present today, should you have any questions about this information. Division Director Charlie Martin and Engineers Susan Pfluger and Greg Lubeck. just to cover some of the basics of this information on pages 4 through 7. Item number four, Strand's engineering report gives the pond a normal pool at 972. The elevations of the water drainage in this area were considerably discussed a week ago at your subdivision committee meeting. That item goes on to compare it to some of the neighborhood elevations as well. Further down the page, on page 4, under number 7, you'll see filling the pond does not violate the consent decree. That also was discussed considerably at your meeting a week ago. On the top of the next page, on page 5, in the worst-case scenario, the downstream reservoir would increase less than one inch. In terms of sanitary sewers, the pond and sanitary sewer problems are substantially unrelated. In number eight, the CLOMER allowing the adjustment to the floodplain was accepted by FEMA in August 2009, and the proposed development plan is not materially different from the accepted CLOMER. Those are some of the highlights of this three pages of information. You'll see not all the questions were germane to the Water Quality Division, but they did make an attempt to identify a lot of the issues that were discussed considerably a week ago at your subdivision committee meeting. The next few pages in the staff exhibit are some of the maps that the staff has gathered since your subdivision committee. in an attempt also to help illuminate your discussion and some of the issues that were brought to your subdivision committee. One of the issues regards floodplain, and I'll get to that in just a moment. However, on page 7, this is a map that the staff uses in preparing some of our reports to you. This is information from September of 2006 regarding flooding issues. And when I say flooding, I mean primarily the dots are indicative of overflows of either sanitary or storm sewers. You can see in the circled area on this page, there are about a half a dozen that were documented in September of 2006. That's one of our worst storms in recent times. So we use this kind of as a base to gauge frequency and location of those types of items. On page 8, the next page, this is an environmental map from the staff dating back to the 1980s. And there was talk about how this location has an area draining to it. That's what this map generally will show you. The very thick, solid line is the upper reaches of the watershed that drain into the reservoir on both sides of Richmond Road here. The dots correspond to sinkholes, so we know there is karst activity in this area. The dashed lines indicate a couple of faults, one of which goes right through the middle of the Eidliar subdivision. That would be, again, on the north side of Richmond Road and the west side of New Circle Road. on the following page is a map that's in color taken from the urban county government's atlex map and again i'd ask you to look at that northwest quadrant of the interchange if you'll see the number 44 and a lighter shading that is indicative of the idlour park which is immediately to the north of the church's property the tributary that serves the reservoir is identified on the atleks it's also important to note as you discussed at your subdivision committee meeting a week ago the idle hour subdivision also drains toward the park and toward this area I would ask you to note though where the words idle hour tributary are that line is very straight and as you know from creeks that's a very unusual circumstance The reason is that's not a creek there. It's in a pipe. And it basically is piped from the park to Richmond Road in this particular area and then drains across the frontage of Richmond Road and then ultimately under Richmond Road. On page 10 of the staff exhibits, the environmental issues in this area have been known for some time. This is an exhibit really from the 1980 Conferencing Plan. The point dots are sinkholes as well. It matches some of the other information that we have. In this particular area, there are no caves or other hydrologically known problems other than the faults and the sinkholes. We did want to include that in the information as well. The item on the overhead now reflects information that's on the 11th page of the staff exhibits. the limit of detailed study for the floodplain in this particular area. What you're looking at on page 11 in the black and white photograph is the current D-FIRM floodplain maps for this area. What is of significance is the floodplain on the north side of Richmond Road is much wider since 2008 than it was previously. I'll explain that in just a moment. Also, the pipe is very much referenced in this that I just covered. And also of importance, the limited detail of study really ends at the park by this exhibit. It has not been studied beyond much of the bounds of the park for the floodplain in this area. The next sheet is one. what you're looking at on the overhead is also that 2008 map. The next sheet on the map is tied to what's now on the overhead and shown in color. We wanted to depict in one exhibit the different floodplain information involved for the subject property. The area in orange is the 1992 FEMA floodplain, and it relates to the area closest to Richmond Road. As you can see at its greatest dimension, it's about 40 or 45 feet from the right-of-way of Richmond Road. As I mentioned, in 2008, the floodplain map changed significantly for the area. The entire pond area became in the floodplain. Also, the Perkins restaurant and the former gas station were indicated to be in the floodplain through the 2008 FEMA map revisions. What is shown in the red line on this overhead is the proposed floodplain, given the clomer, that has been accepted by FEMA. So it proposes to make it coincident with the 50-foot building line that is required in the B6P zone for this property. Again, all the floodplain, sinkholes, a lot of the environmental issues took a lot of the 50 minutes of your time last week at your committee meeting. The staff wanted to bring you as much information as we could. We very much appreciate the contributions from the Division of Water Quality to answer a lot of the questions that came up at your meeting last week. Although there is a lot of information about the environmental issues, the character of the development is an item that has been of concern to the staff. The staff recommended postponement of this plan at your technical committee meeting. The technical committee agreed with that recommendation. the technical committee, and your staff recommended postponement of the plan last week at your subdivision committee meeting. The primary reason is the amount of fill that is proposed on the front of the property. Again, if you'll go back to one of the early staff exhibits looking at the existing development plan, We estimated about 40% of the existing pond area was proposed to be filled in the plan that was approved in 2010. This plan is probably closer to 80% of that pond area being filled. And the staff believes that this is a significant change from the plan that you approved in 2010. The final item on the overhead is the same item you just looked at in the prior case. Your ordinance gives some guidance to amended development plans. And perhaps unlike your last case, there may not be much on the left-hand column that is still applicable given all of this information, although there may be a few items that will surface at your meeting. However, looking at Article 21-7E, the Commission may also disapprove a plan if you find that it has altered the essential character of the development as originally approved. The staff has recommended postponement of this plan in the hopes that the plan would be revised. It has not been revised, and the applicant indicates they wish to go forward today with the plan. I think the reasons that appear on your agenda for postponement number one and number two are germane to Article 21-7E. First, the new bank outlaw seems to violate the visibility and setback that was in effect for the adjacent big box stores recently as 2010. And then item number two on your agenda, the amendment will adversely alter the essential character of the development originally approved along Richmond Road as a significant water feature approved in 2010 is to be virtually eliminated. Without a revision to the plan, the staff would recommend disapproval of the plan for those two reasons that appear in your agenda. In closing, before I might address any questions from the Commission, Mr. Turner did supply the staff with two letters that will circulate to you at this time. One is from Home Depot and the other is from Kentucky American Water. Both of these letters are in favor of this proposal. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared remarks. At this time, I'd be glad to answer any questions from the Commission. As I've mentioned, there are other LFUCG staff here available for your questions. Thank you. Yes, I think we do have a question. Ms. Blanton? Yes, I'm confused about the first reason about violating the setback. I'm probably not looking at this right, but does this dashed line represent the setback? It does not, no. This was an issue, and thank you for bringing this up. I failed to mention this during my prepared remarks. In 2010, there was discussion through the committee review process for the plan about a site, I hate to call it a site triangle, it's not the same thing as a site triangle. The interest in the store having visibility to Richmond Road in this general area. The applicant has been conversing with Home Depot since filing the application. I believe that letter indicates that they have resolved that issue. But we did note early on through the technical and subdivision committee reviews that this is a difference from your 2010 plan. I had one other question then. Your point number two about it changing the character, but there's not a concern about the reduction of the water feature is a character issue but not a flooding issue? I think that's true given the clomer. Okay. The clomer seems to indicate that the floodplain can be reduced in this area. The 2010 development plan proposed to fill in what is current the 2008 floodplain area as well. So, yes, I think it's much more of a character of development issue than a floodplain issue. Okay. The engineering department may want to comment on that as well. If I could ask just one more question. The recommendation of postponement, what would you like to see, or what do you think would move the staff's recommendation from postponement to approval, or what kind of compromise do you think that could be worked out to allow this to move forward? Well, and Article 21 would also allow the commission to require modifications to this plan, to make it more in line with the feature that was shown to you two years ago. Yes, ma'am. I lied. I have one more question. But that would probably require removing at least one of the outlots? Removing or a major redesign, because obviously if this outlot were to be moved, the circulation and everything else would change in the area. Thank you. Yes, Ms. Coakland. Mr. Sally, you lost me on these two pages. They're included to show the environmental sensitivity of the neighborhood and of the general area. This one was what? That is focusing on the general area around the subject property. And what you see there are reports of flooding that occurred in 2006 all over the community. Circles are just indicative of the reports in this general area. Those are combination sanitary sewer and storm sewer overflows. Okay. So why? And Clomer knows about these. Those occurred before the Clomer, yes. So Clomer would be a bus. Then what's this page for? That was primarily to show the upper reaches of the watershed that drain to the subject property and then beyond the subject property into the reservoir, the larger reservoir area, like Ellerslie. I know we're in this quadrant. Yes. So what is this line? I beg your pardon? What is this line? Nothing's labeled. What's this line? That is the upper reaches of the watershed. That's a ridge line where everything drains to the south of there. And so this is what now? What did you say it was? It's the upper reaches of the drainage. I got that, but what's this black dot here at the back of the building? The black dots are sinkholes. Oh, okay. The dash lines are fault lines. So there's a black dot in Lexus parking lot. Very near. Thank you. Any other questions? I would like to say thank you for Mr. Martin and some of his staff being here today and the patience that they've had since they've been here. I'm sure they can't answer any questions that might come up. One question real quick to try and make sure that the whole commission understands. There were several questions that were brought up, was brought up in the committee last week in regards to flooding in the Adelaar neighborhood. And I guess my question would be that flooding, is it a result of this basin that we're seeing backing up into their neighborhood, or is it a result of simply the water not getting out of their neighborhood fast enough? Mr. Martin. Thank you, sir. Thank you. We would rely heavily on, obviously, the consulting engineers' analysis of the hydraulic conditions leading to the pond site. But it's our opinion, based on anecdotal information we've had previously, is that flooding that you see or those dots that you see, those come from what's called complaints. and that in the upstream areas you have many culverts that actually serve as a control and retard the water moving out of those neighborhoods, and so the pond really doesn't ever come into play. The analysis I have is kind of you've got a mixture of two-lane and four-lane roads and you're trying to move traffic. You know, behind Breckenridge Elementary School, that is an open channel, But as it tries to go under St. Anne, there is a constriction there. There is a culvert that goes under the road. One of the priority stormwater projects that we completed in 2005 was to tear down two houses there at St. Anne. And the engineering report identifies the culvert as being the culprit of that because just so much water could not possibly get through there, and it backed up in those areas. So long story short is that our GIS system doesn't even recognize the pond as a stormwater control. There are a whole lot more controls that are going on upstream from that area. Now, in the Idle Hour Park area itself, the floodplain maps will show that the floodplain does extend up into the park area. the water that tries to get into the culvert that goes underground, I think Mr. Salee mentioned that, that goes through the mall's parking lot. I'd have to rely on their analysis to make sure that under normal conditions the changes that they're talking about making at the pond don't create a backwater effect. But I can tell you from my own personal experience is that when we have a major rain event like we had in 2006 or Derby weekend of 2009, is that the pond, I don't believe, is the issue. There's so much water that's trying to get into those culverts, and it's like trying to pour a bucket of water into a funnel. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Ms. Phillips? I wanted to ask Mr. Martin a question, if I could. Irregardless of the clomer, any kind of changes to the water feature will require a 404 wetland permit, won't it? I'm going to have to defer to Mr. I brought Mr. Lubeck along with me since he's my certified floodplain person, so if you want to work up here and let me know that, because I don't know whether or not it would. That's quite an extensive process. Yeah, regardless of the clomer, yeah, they would have to get the DOW permit and a core since that's a blue line water feature. So they would have to go through all those things also. Do you know if the applicant has started to make headway in that direction? I don't believe so. Did you? They say they've got them. I've probably got them in my file back in my office. Thank you, Mr. Lebeck. Any other questions? If not, I would say that the fine folks of Water Quality. I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Martin, before you leave, Mr. Saleh said that they hadn't finished the water studies up like in the park behind Dillard's. That that area hadn't, in other words, the water studies were almost to the boundary of the Southland property. They hadn't extended up there. When they extend those water studies, will that affect a new clomer, or will they say, oh, my gosh, we didn't think about that? I'll defer to Mr. Lubeck if he's still up here with us, because he's my floodplain expert. I usually ask him. Could you repeat your question just so I'm sure of what I'm answering? Up behind the McAlpin's Dillard's building, the watershed goes up there up a hollow. Yes. I think Mr. Sally said that that was not part of the current water study. Well, since that's part of the watershed, wouldn't that affect the future Clomer? Well, if you look at the page that has the floodplain map on it. Which one is that? What page is that? Page 11. Okay. You see the words Idle Hour Park in the bold letters? Yes, Idle Hour Park. Okay, right directly above that, it might all be on the show, is limit of detailed study. Where do you see limits? Kind of toward the top right corner of the page. It's underneath my staples. It's kind of my staples in the middle of it. Okay. That's as far up as FEMA ever had that stream study as far as mapping the floodplain. So doesn't that sort of do something to the credibility of the flow map? No, because that is the limit that they establish, and it's probably where they're getting close to a square mile of drainage area. Typically, that's where they stop those studies. Smaller than a square mile of drainage area, they typically don't have a detailed study on it. Got to go back to my... But if you go to this page, it may be outside the square mile, but the lines go up there. The lines go up, but anything upstream of that won't affect anything downstream of it. By the way, these models run. They start from downstream and work up. So anything above there won't affect the park and below. Is that what you're getting at? Well, I thought water ran downhill. Well, it does. This is the uphill end. The mall is the downhill end. Let me take a cut at this. The way I think FEMA does this with most models, they're assuming that that upper reach is a point where they're dumping all the water in that's coming from the drainage area above it. So as they get into detail analysis upstream, All they're doing is trying to establish how it spreads out up there. But they're putting all that water in right at that point. Okay, thank you. It's still all going down. Whatever's coming from above it is at that point. They've accounted for it. Yes. Thank you. I would say, once again, I'd like to thank Mr. Markman and Mr. Lubeck, and I think there's one other one back at Ms. Pflueger, for coming today. and their patience primarily just to hopefully give confidence that what, at least not knowing which way this is going, but at least what is being proposed is not attributing to any problems upstream or uphill into the neighborhood. Any other questions at this point, Mr. Cravens? Mr. Salley, is this a final development plan? It is. It is an amended final development plan. So they're going to build these buildings exactly like this, the parking and everything? If the Commission approves this plan, they will be tied to these square footages in these locations. Any deviation from that would require an amendment. Thank you. At this time, we'll ask to hear from the petitioner. And I think I would say real quick, I learned from experience. I might be slow. There was no time limit set in our earlier discussion. I'm not going to do it here either. Let's just try and keep this thing moving. We understand and we are going to try to keep this brief. I'm Darby Turner, representing the applicant Southland Christian Church. Here with me is Craig Avery, who is the immediate past chair of the church board. and project manager for this, if I said that correctly, Greg. Kirk Braun, who is the chief financial officer of the church. Mike Wollum, Sarah Tuttle with Strand Engineering, and Morgan McElwain, who's going to speak to you, landscape architect, about what we're trying to do here. And I appreciate Bill and the staff's presentation and Charlie and all those folks being here as well. One thing that Bill passed out to you was the answer to these questions, and some of those he's deferred to Strand for information. And what I have here is, in red, what the city folks have said in blue, what Strand has. I'll pass those out to the show. Is there any additional information? Let me explain first kind of how we got here from a couple of years ago from 2010. I was here in 2010, and a number of you were on the commission at that time. And at that time, of course, the church was in the process of purchasing the property, and this was a condition of that purchase. Obviously, since that time, a great deal of additional design work, engineering work, and cost estimates, bids, et cetera, cost ascertainment has been made. The bottom line is when they started, the church ended up about $4 million over budget when all the numbers came in. The pond itself has got about a foot of water in it. It is almost completely full of sediment. They were able to value engineer about $2 million out of that number. Then they've got roughly $750,000 in getting the pond cleaned out and reconfigured, and the balance of that, about $1 million and a quarter or so, in blacktop and resurfacing the parking lot. The task then was to find the $2 million, where we find that. And that's the reason for coming back to you for these outlots, very frankly. That's going to pay for getting the pond cleaned out, and that's going to pay for getting the parking lot resurfaced. One of those outlots was already shown on the original 2010 plan, and the second outlot is added. and that's frankly the reason we're back here to do this. We want to clean up that front, and it's going to take that kind of money to do it. So that's why we're here. As Bill accurately, let me talk about the staff's report here just a second. With the subdivision committee recommendation, Number one, related to the viewshed line that was talked about with regard to Home Depot, that is not a public viewshed, if you will. That's not required by the Herbicette government, nor it is in a private agreement between the two property owners, the Home Depot lot and the church lot. And we have resolved that with Home Depot, and only a small corner of that one building is in that lot or is in that viewshed, and they are happy as indicated by their letter. So in our view, and Bill, I would look to you too, in our view that issue has been resolved, number one. It's still a fact, and we'll see how the Commission wants to go with that. It's still a what? It's a factual statement that they may or may not choose to rely upon. which is a factual statement? Are you speaking of condition number one? Mm-hmm. Yes. It is a difference in the plan. But is it on the plan? No. That's what I'm saying. It's a Home Depot issue, and Home Depot says they're fine with it. So I don't mean to debate it with you or to get there, But that's solved. It's Home Depot's right to hold us out of that viewshed. They choose not to and dare in favor of our proposal. And that's a private contractual right between two parties. The second reason for postponement relates to adversely altering the essential character of the development plan from the last plan. And you've got a good, I guess, review of that with RENA in the last case as well. Now, in order to approve a development plan or to not deny a development plan, as RENA indicated, you need to find that the plan does not comply with the requirements of the zoning ordinance. When applicable, the land subdivision regulations, or if it finds that there are existing potential flood, drainage, traffic, topographic, health, safety, nuisance, and other similar problems related to the development of the subject property. That's the standard for improvement of a development plan. With regard to 217E, the major amendment process, it essentially kind of recharacterizes those kind of health and safety issues, if you will, and then has this statement that alter the essential character of the development as originally approved. That's very curious to me. You have a higher standard for an amendment to a plan than you would to adopt in the plan to begin with. To rationalize that in my own mind from a legal point of view, that must alter something related to health, safety, and so forth that was the original criteria for denial of the original plan. It doesn't make logical or legal sense for it to relate to the aesthetics of a plan. So I'll leave that with you. As was indicated by Bill and your questions, a good deal of discussion at the subdivision committee was related to the flooding impact that the reconfiguration of the pond may or may not have. I think we have Mike Willem here, and I'm sure that he's prepared to answer questions and make a presentation. Charlie has already indicated. The bottom line, I think, from all that has Charlie said, the reconfiguration of the pond at Lexington Mall at Richmond Road has no effect on what happens in the Idle Hour subdivision in terms of their flooding issues, and they do have them. They do indeed. And frankly, if we could do anything to help that, we would do that. But that's not the case. It has no impact one way or the other. So when we get to flooding issues on the criteria, there's never been an issue about traffic. There have never been any of these other safety issues involved in this. So with the resolution of the flooding issue, there's been no change in the criteria under which the plan was originally approved. There are no health or safety issues associated with the proposed amendment. Now, whether this is a significant change to the overall plan in the alternative to my earlier discussion about what that means, it's a very small part of an overall plan. I mean, the overall plan relates to half of Lexington Mall, and we're dealing with two outlots and a pond in the front of it. So it is a change. Any amendment is a change by definition. But it's certainly not a significant change to the main core of what is going on on Lexington Mall, the old Lexington Mall site. What I'd like to do at this point, one other thing I wanted to indicate to you as well. Well, we had their neighbors here from the two Adelaide associations. They were present at the subdivision committee meeting, and they had their concerns and legitimate concerns related to what is going on in their neighborhood. We met with them on site yesterday morning with the engineers and walk through what we were doing and the impact on the watershed and all of that. And they can speak for themselves, but I think we made great headway in understanding what is happening in the watershed related to their flooding issues and the impact or lack thereof that reconfiguring this pond will have. So with that said, what I'd like to do right now is introduce Morgan McElwain to the podium and let him take you through exactly what we are trying to do. And aesthetics are always a concern. They're a concern to the church. While I'm not sure they're material in this process, technically, everybody always likes to see what you're doing and to understand it and so forth. This is the front door to the church. And so it's very important to the church that it be presented properly as well. So, Morgan. As Darby said, I'm Morgan McIlwain, registered landscape architect, principal landscape architect of McIlwain and Associates. I've been around for a while and have actually done a lot of work for the city over the years on a number of the corridor projects. So I certainly am familiar with a lot of the issues that the Quarters Committee has had to deal with over the years. So I'd like to briefly just walk you through. Basically, the site plan on the right-hand board is kind of an illustration of what we're proposing to do with a little perspective view of the entry from the first intersection at Applebee's as you come into the property viewing the restaurant parcel. So one of the things that I was asked to take a look at is what can we do to kind of maximize and maintain this idea of entry to both the church but also the other properties that the bank, the Applebee's and the other properties, Home Depot, that are served by these two access points and make sure that we have an element, a landscape that visually is very attractive and really presents the entry and the whole idea of experiencing access to the property. So on the left-hand side, we had developed the idea of actually it anchors both ends, kind of a nodal element or kind of a round basin, if you will, that really kind of accent the entry points to the church campus and the property. Those are, as you can see in the right-hand illustration, there's an architectural wall. We're thinking that it will be constructed of board-formed concrete, which is consistent with what the church, the new auditorium, and some of the architectural features of the redeveloped property. And potentially we're looking at issues of signage, and perhaps that might become an element of that as well. In addition, as you can see on the site plan, at each side we have these kind of nodal elements, and those walls anchor each corner. We have basically a permanent pool, and along those areas basically fairly heavy landscape treatment. looking at more native kinds of trees, somewhat water tolerant, if you will, because obviously the elevations will be going up and down somewhat. But basically, in addition to that, we looked at this idea of integrating kind of rock ledges, if you will, spillway, kind of native stream idea. Obviously, it's relatively abstract, but the idea, and particularly on the left-hand side, and Mr. Salee had mentioned the idea that we have a dry basin, and if you will, I'll just kind of point to it real quickly. Basically, we have a dry basin that occurs right along in this area that would be kind of like an intermittent stream, and water would be recycled. it would be similar perhaps in a more urban setting to what we have downtown at Triangle Park where you have basically a dry basin, water is kind of shooting up and it becomes kind of part of this whole entry experience along Richmond Road with the idea of the water would spill down in this area at perhaps two to three foot increments, kind of a waterfall feature. So that is developed along with additional plantings of river birch, some flowering dogwoods along these edges, and then looking at some native trees like bald cypress, sycamore, and other kinds of elements. So in addition, we're looking at developing enhanced low masses of shrubs, which are similar to the elements that were contained within the existing plant. So we're looking at not reducing actually the number of landscape features in it. In some ways, we're enhancing it even more, I think, even though the focus here is going to be much more linear, obviously, than the other one was. but the idea is to really focus on the corners and the entry points to the campus. Thank you, Morgan. And, Morgan, I'll certainly be here for any questions. You've really got our whole case unless you really want to get into, have questions for Mike Woolham with Strand relative to the flooding issues that Charlie's already talked about. But they're certainly here to answer questions. I think that the gist of their conclusions and the city's conclusions is that this does not affect the issues in Idle Our Neighborhood, either of the two neighborhoods. It will not have an impact, positive or negative, although there is more storage in this than there is, there's 45% more storage in this configuration than there is in the current approved CLOMER. So to that extent, it does provide some relief. So with that, obviously we would request approval of the amended development plan and would reserve the right to speak to any comments that are further made and answer any questions that you might have. Thank you, Mr. Turner. Any questions at this moment? Ms. Copeland? Yes. What is the scale of the left drawing? One inch equals 40. I believe it's one inch equals 40. Okay. No, one inch equals 30. Sorry. Okay. Okay, so can you, Morgan, could you please put your finger where you were standing or where the little. . . Where this view is? Yeah. Right out in here. Okay, so you're standing down. . . It's looking from Richmond Road back into the site. Right here at this. . . You can see the edge of this island here. Right here. So you're looking right along in that direction. So if you're on the bottom of the gray line, it's like one, two, three, 150 feet back from the black corner to the building. That's correct. The building setback line is right along here at that point. And this is a 50-foot building line. and then the building is actually set back probably another 40 to 50 feet beyond that. I'm just interested in your perspective because your building got so little, and it's only 150 feet from this black and white corner of the median back to the building, yet the building got to be two inches tall. It's a little... Well, it's a one-story building. I mean, it's not a very large building. For very short people. Well, I think if, and I'll be happy to bring this up just to give you a relative sense of scale, if this is helpful, there are some people in front of the restaurant. Yeah, they're short, too. It's only 150 feet. In other words, that building is going to be a lot closer to that corner or that entrance than it looks like it is. Any other questions for the petitioner at this point? I would ask if there's anyone in the audience that would like to speak in regards to supporting this at this time. If not, we'll move to anyone as far as opposition. Well, I don't know how to say it, but I'm kind of like in the middle. If you could, state your name and address, sir. My name's Jim Capley, and I'm the president of the Idler Neighborhood Association. I've lived in Idler since 1956. just to give you a little history our neighborhood has pretty much handles I would say anywhere the majority of the water that comes through our neighborhood in the watershed when it comes to the storm water issue comes through our neighborhood it starts at Liberty Road, works its way through the golf course through St. Ann. Here's a photograph of what it looks like behind Breckenridge School on a two-inch rain. I think that was a one and a half, maybe a two-inch rain. Proceeds underneath St. Ann into the park, but we also get water from Woodhill Shopping Center, from W.T. Young's, all that paved area up there. We have a substantial, those are the pictures of the two homes that the city deemed our flooding probably serious enough to tear down, and with the amount of water that was coming up to those homes that was talked about earlier. We get a tremendous, massive amount of stormwater that comes through our neighborhood. And of course, it all goes, This is directly across the street from those two houses across St. Ann, looking from the park entrance to the back of the mall. That was probably an hour after the storm, and it was still that high. That little culvert there is probably 15 feet deep as you go down the entrance to the park. and needless to say three weeks ago when we heard that was two hours after the storm where there was actually people standing around the shelter house and the background was flooded needless to say three weeks ago when we heard that there was a plan to fill in the pond in front of the mall it scared a lot of people in our neighborhood because in hindsight living there for so long we've seen the massive amount of water that comes through our neighborhood and all ends up down there in that pond. Slowly but surely. Yes, it ponds up in certain areas because of, I guess, you know, in the 50s when they put those culverts underneath our streets, they didn't make them as big as they thought they had to be today. So there are issues. and we have sanitary sewer issues that will be, this is behind St. Anne, the creek that comes from behind Quantrell Cadillac and through the park. That's when it's not raining. The next photo will show you when it is raining. That's a four-foot chain-link fence that's completely gone. We have sanitary sewer issues that are required to be repaired under the EPA lawsuit behind Breckenridge School. There are seven or eight manholes that overflow every time we get a one-inch rain and it fills up the creek, ponds up, fills those manholes up, flushes everything out, and everything that you can put in a toilet goes down to that pond eventually. So we do have problems. Now, are they attributed to, will they be worse based on what they want to do? Yes, yesterday we did meet with the engineers of the project. We brought along an engineer ourself because none of us really knew what was going on. And the individual he brought reasonably assured us that what they're attempting to do will not cause more than what you see now. It's not going to create more of a problem. But what we want to get on record is the fact that once this project is completed, and as a neighborhood association, based on what we were told by the man we brought down there, this is coming, the two houses that were tore down, this is coming from behind Breckenridge School, and then it crosses underneath the street right there in front of those houses into the park. We agreed as the officers of our neighborhood association not to oppose filling in the pond, but we wanted to demonstrate to you all the fact that the amount of water we get, we demonstrated that to them, and that we wanted to get on record that once this project is done, they fill that pond in, they put white castles on a bank down there or whoever they're going to put down there. And when we have significant rain events and we see substantially more than what we're looking at now, then we hope their liability insurance is going to be able to compensate the folks whose homes get flooded and damaged, because that will be our only recourse once this process is done. So we wanted you all to look at that because, yes, what they're trying to do there, they're telling us is not going to adversely affect us any more than what we are adversely affected by. But at the same time, we hope it doesn't fail. We're putting a lot of confidence in them. They're reputable companies. We're not disputing anything that the church wants to do with the property. We want them to be the best stewards of that property, considering what it's been like for us for the past ten years. We want them to be the best neighbors that we can have. We want them to support our neighborhood, our ideas. But at the same time, we have to look out for the folks that are going to be mad at me and be calling me up and saying, why the heck did you let this happen? Okay, look what it's doing to us now. And that's what we're here for today. We want that to put on record. So once this is done and everything is up and operational and we have that, and we're not talking about 100-year rain or anything like that. What you're seeing there is an inch-and-a-half downburst that lasted one hour, and it was still sitting there two hours later at that level the photograph with the kids. That was two hours later. It was still sitting there. And again, that was in the park. There's no impediments of that water once it gets to the park to go down to the pond. It goes down to those two 72-inch pipes, down to the basin in front of Applebee's, over to that pond, and into the reservoir. So the impediment is right there. What you're looking at, those houses there, are the culvert on St. Ann impedes that water, but the water that comes to the park has no impediments at all except the culvert that it's supposed to go to. And they are 72, 72-inch pipes versus one, I think, 36-inch pipe and maybe another one that's maybe 24-inch or something like that on St. Ann. so you know what's been brought to our attention in all this process though is the fact that yes we have serious storm water management problems in our neighborhood that need to be addressed by the city we have the seriousness of the sanitary sewer issue and no offense to the folks that looks great right there but until that EPA situation is repaired and those seven sanitary manholes stop overflowing, that pond is not going to look like that. It's going to have anything that you can put in a toilet that's going to end up down there in that nice little pond there. And I mean, if they want to spend the money to do that now, under those circumstances, taking that chance, I mean, that's their problem as far as I'm concerned. I'm just concerned about stormwater management and the potential effects it's going to have on people in our neighborhood and the flooding of their homes. And like I said, we were given reasonable assurance by several people that's not going to happen. but until reality sets in and once this stuff is done and we have a one-inch or a two-inch or a three-inch rain event, we'll see what goes on. Excuse me. Thank you. Do you have any other information pertaining to this itself? We understand your stormwater concerns and sanitary sewer problems, And we do have water quality people here that's been very patient with us, and we're glad that they're here. And believe me, I believe you have been heard. Are there any other direct information concerning this plan right now? In regards to? This plan right here. The only, you know, my only lingering question is in regards to reducing the pond. They say that the pond that they're going to put in is going to have a 45 percent capacity more than what the one has now. And for those of you who know the size of that pond, there's not one foot of water in that pond right now today. There's three or four foot of water. that bank to the bottom is substantially higher and holds a lot more water than what can be put in there. And I asked them yesterday, tell me how much water can that pollen hold today? How many gallons? Whatever it takes. And tell me how much water that's going to hold. but you know they told me they'd get me that but I still haven't heard it I still don't know those numbers and to me that's the indication to relieve my last fear would be to know exactly how much water the pond can hold now when it's completely full before it flows over Richmond Road which it has done three times in I think the last 18 or 19 years versus what that is going to hold today. Thank you, sir. Are there anyone else that would like to speak that has anything else to add? If not, Mr. Turner, I'll give you a few minutes for rebuttal. I really don't have too much more to say. I think we've covered the ground. Again, there's a whole lot of technical information related to the pond and the flooding issues in Idalaya Drive that have all been addressed and reviewed in great detail by your water quality people, our consultants, and so forth. And we are very comfortable that we're certainly not adding to the situation and hopefully will relieve some of it, but we're certainly not going to make it worse. As one engineer told me one time, from sanitary, you start at the bottom and work up, and for a storm, you've got to start at the top and work down. And we discussed the sanitary sewer improvements that have already gone on that the city has been able to do at the bottom of this project that hopefully will continue to go back up the stream. So we hope we're the beginning of solutions for those neighborhoods, and that's in all good faith. Okay. Thank you, sir. Staff, any rebuttal comments? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me put one item on the overhead, please. Mr. Chairman, we did receive a note from someone who was here that had to leave, Ms. Spahn, Clarissa Spahn, who asked me to circulate this to the Commission. This is a, I would call it a note in opposition. Thank you, sir. As to the two findings that appear on top of page three of your agenda, the staff really has no preference for whether the Commission would use finding number two alone or finding number one and two if you were to disapprove this plan. Finding one looks to be a factual statement that is true despite the letter that you have. Either one is fine with the staff. We do think without change to the plan, though, it should be disapproved. The change from filling the existing pond from about 40 percent to 80 percent and moving those buildings up, or the one building up, does change the essential character of this development, in our opinion. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. I'll tell you what, at this time we'll close the hearing as far as any testimony from citizens or petitioner and open it up for questions and or discussion. Do we? Okay. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. We won't allow you. Thank you. Right where your finger was. That is the watershed for this area before Dillard's and McAlpin's was built. that was all underwater. Over here on the left, I drew a circle. Can you put your finger where that is? Yeah, that's the golf course, okay? And then go back down to the black line. That's Richmond Road. Yeah, and go back up to the site, okay? That's back in the 60s or whenever it was before, they filled in all of that wetland. That's what the body of water looked like as you traveled down, and that's the Southland Christian Church site. It's my understanding that, let's go to the next one, because they built the buildings on piers. okay that's current and i put a red line around the old body of water or you might say riverbed or the basin or whatever you want to call it but it's not stable area and they when they put the green building right there oh you're helping when they put that green square where McAlpin's or Dillard's or whoever was there in there, they had to put that building on pier. So in the 50s, when you drove down through there, you saw an expanse of water on both sides. Right now, we've got that little half moon leftover place, which really started bigger than that the first time they heard the Dillard's plan. It was not a silted-up, leftover, abandoned basin, but much bigger, and it had weeping willows and cattails. It was a naturalized area, but it was bigger and it was well-maintained. It hadn't been let go. So today, we're looking at diminishing that body one more step, and if you will, maybe losing it. Because it's not too far to just putting it underground and losing the water body on that side of the road. So I just wanted to let you know that that's what happened within 40 years. Thank you. I'll tell you what, at this point I'm going to let Ms. Blanton speak. Thank you. It seems to me we have a plan before us that is solving a decade-long problem of an eyesore in the middle of the community. and we talk all the time about trying to be flexible and encouraging infill redevelopment, about preserving our precious green space, and we've got a plan that does that. Has it changed substantially? Maybe so. I think they've brought very compelling reasons as to why it's changed. They didn't bring in a plan that they knew they couldn't deliver and then tried to slip in a new plan. There are extenuating circumstances behind it. I think if they had brought this as the initial plan, we would be overjoyed. And I don't want to send the signal that set the bar low and we'll approve it, but if you set the bar high and need to come back to us for legitimate reasons for change, we're going to penalize you for it. I think that might be the unintended consequence if we postpone this. So I'm ready to make a motion to approve after we've had whatever appropriate discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Blanton. Others? Ms. Phillips? Yeah, I agree with what Carla said about our procedure. I think that with respect to the staff's reasons for postponement, yes, it did change the essential character of the development plan as we originally approved it, but I really like the water feature, the new addition, some modification. I don't think it doesn't go as deep into the tract as we had originally approved in 2010 whenever it was. But I think that this is fine. They still have a lot of permits to get, and personally I have no problems with this. I don't think that what we do on this property will have an impact on what happens in Idle Hour. I mean, the topographic maps will show you that. And if we do have flooding across Richmond Road, we've got the reservoir on the other side of the road to be able to accommodate it. So I don't have any problems with this plan, and I would make a motion or second your motion. Thank you. I think we still have a lot of discussion. Mr. Penn? Yeah. I'm a little wondering, is this the only place that you could have found an out lot with that much property? Is it a parking issue? Is it availability? issue. You all own a lot of land there. My question is, if I take it at face value, which I do, that this is a financial issue, that you need those outlots in order to be able to complete the project, you're still going to own those lots. You're going to lease them out. Is that correct? That's correct, but they will go on the tax rolls as non-church related. I wouldn't go in there. Where I was going with this is it strikes me as a little bit odd that a church would put a restaurant and a bank in front of the view site of their sanctuary. And Southland Christian Church has made a lot of good decisions over a lot of years. I'm not questioning. I'm just trying to ask why. As much land as you all have there and as roads you're going to build, why did you have to put both those lots right on the view shed of Richmond Road? Well, let me, I'll speak to a little bit of that, and I'll ask Craig Avery maybe to say a few words from the church perspective about the presentation of the church to the road. Just on the pure economics, Frank, obviously we get those outlights out of sight and way back off of Richmond Road. They become, one, less valuable, and they could become problematic. If we're going to have them there, we want them to have the best chance of success as possible. so that they don't become a problem. And so that's the rationale there. The other thing is we didn't want to crowd the church. We didn't want to push them back into the lawn area that's still coming down, and we wanted some separation from the church building and that commercial area. And the church needs parking, so it would take valuable parking. We're 1,000 parks over surplus, as Bill told you. So from what you normally do there, but from what the church does on Sundays and other days when that facility is being totally utilized, we need the parking spots. The church needs the parking spots. I'll let Craig talk to you about the mission of the church and the view of the church. Well, rest assured we haven't done this lightly, and there's been a lot of discussion inside the walls about this. Certainly our preference is to be the way we originally proposed it, with nothing here in the front. but as the monetary issues became, as we've stated, as Darby's done well at stating, we just concluded this was something we had to do. And so as we sort through this and we work with Morgan, it was how, if we do this, how can we make this the most effective way to do that? Okay, so as Morgan worked through it, it was like let's try to improve landscaping and make the entrance into the property much nicer than the way we were proposing it previously. So we hear you. We don't like needing to do this, but that is the facts of where we are. And, you know, a lot of people thought when we went from Hillandale Drive to Harrodsburg Road and there were no houses out there, that it's the dumbest thing in the world. and I think certainly that's one of the best things we ever did. So one of the good things that we will have here, a side benefit, is we're going to be generating a lot more traffic on the property of people just coming in and being curious about what's happening there. So there's all kinds of ways to look at it, but it certainly is not what we would prefer to do, but it's what we think we have to do. I'm not questioning your success. Yeah, well, it's all the Lord's success, I'll tell you that. Mr. Berkeley? I just want to say I really don't have any problem with the plan. I see this part of this corridor in a redevelopment phase. You've got the old Walgreens is now being raised. It's going to be an upscale restaurant. My only hope is that maybe this will spill over to the BP lot, because I think that has become quite a bit of an eyesore. Thank you. Any other comments? Mr. Wilson? I'm curious if I may ask Mr. Sally a question related to this. First of all, I don't particularly have a problem with the plan either, but when your staff made the recommendation of postponement, It would seem to suggest that there was a possibility of a compromise. But I think I got the impression that there was no possibility of a compromise. Why didn't the staff just oppose it? Well, my closing remarks during my original presentation were if the applicant did not wish to postpone the plan and revise it, that we would recommend disapproval of the plan for the two reasons on the agenda. And based on everything that you've heard, there's no further discussion that would ameliorate the conditions. Right. In my rebuttal remarks, we still think that the amount of fill will change the character of the development. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Copeland? Yes. You can go on the website for traffic and find out the traffic count for this road. And I thought that traffic would be here. They've left. But I think it's in the realm of 29,000 people travel this road every day. and this is not a neighborhood issue about the aesthetics here or losing the water body. This is a city's situation. This is the quality versus quantity of our neighborhood, I mean of our city. So if we postpone and look at all the data that's come before us, that's not going to hurt anything, and it might help the city see and give opinions about what they want, this amenity that we've all taken for granted for a long time, having water on both sides of the road. They would have a chance. I think it would be a good idea. There's a lot to be discovered as we talk about the aesthetics here. And the public has not had a chance to come in and have input on this. So I vote for us doing postponement. They can certainly handle postponement so that we don't have kickback. If the public comes forth and says, we want this plan, that's fine. If they say we want more water and we want reciprocal parking and push it back a little bit, then we're up for a compromise. What have we got to lose by postponing and letting the city come in and have an opinion? Ms. Blanton? I think it's been well publicized, both in the newspaper and on TV, that we were going to be meeting about this today. and the Neighborhood Association is the only one who's come forward. And I think the public would have a much greater right to infringe upon the design if they were going to put up some money to help have a grander water feature. So I'm going to stick by my – I'd like to make a motion when we're done to approve. Okay. I think we're close to that point. I'm going to back up just a little bit. I jumped the gun a little bit. I knew Mrs. Copeland had some information that she wanted to present. and in doing so, in all fairness, Mr. Turner, would there be anything that you wanted to rebut with what she showed? No, I think she's very, well, relative to the history here, I think she's very accurate. I remember as a young person here where the reservoir was, and it was a part of Reservoir No. 1 originally, and I remember it being there. But the decision was made a long time ago to change that, and we are where we are. Okay, thank you. Mr. Salley, would you have anything? No. Okay. I think we're pretty clear there then. We'll go back to a closed type of situation. We've had quite a bit of discussion. If there's further discussion, fine. If not, I'm ready for a motion. Move approval of DP 2012-11 Lexington Mall Amendment 13, Southland Christian Church. Second. Okay. Thank you. There has been a motion for approval of DP 2012-11 Lexington Mall, amended number 13. Just point of procedure, I guess, Mr. Saleh, do we need to have any requirements as well, sign-offs, et cetera, et cetera, on any of this? Mr. Chairman, if you look at the other items on your agenda, the first four conditions, that would be urban county engineers' approval, traffic engineering's approval, building inspection approval, and addressing an office approval would seem to be obvious conditions perhaps for this plan. Also, we have listed several suggestions from the technical committee that if the commission wishes could be considered. I think they will be part of the review as these outlaws go forward at any event. But we'd be glad to share those with you if you're interested. All right. Thank you. With that said, are you have a discussion on the motion? Yes, sir. If we're going forward with this, I'd like to take a five-minute recess and let the staff put together the conditions that they'd like to have on this before we pass it. I just think that makes prudent. Okay. It looks like you have them. Can you put them on the overhead? Just put them on the overhead? We don't need it. Put it on there. Again, I would say these are based on comments given to the applicant two weeks ago at the technical committee. Okay. Okay. Can everyone read these? So we've got four which are typical sign-offs. And then we've got the additional. The first four, number one would be urban county engineers' acceptance of drainage storm, sanitary sewers, and floodplain information. Number two would be urban county traffic engineers' approval of street cross-sections and access. Number three would be building inspections' approval of landscaping and landscape buffering. and number four, addressing office approval of street names and addresses. And at that point, we've got five through 11 on the screen. Mr. Turner, are you agreeable to those? I think so, Mr. Chairman. Bill, could you explain number 10 a little bit more? That was, I can't remember which division. It may have been the Division of Water Quality. I can check my file. That was a note from one of the divisions. That is a water quality. Okay. That's due to erosion. The whole rate is still on. Okay, good. We're fine. You're fine. Okay. So we have 11 requirements to go along with this development plan, and the motion is for approval. Can we get that in? I will amend my motion to include the 11 conditions outlined by staff. Thank you, Ms. Blanton. So the motion is for approval, and who did second this? Then you are fine. The second still is there. So if no further discussion, please vote when it comes up on the screen. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank everyone for being here. We do have one more plan on page 3, DP 2011-62, Riddell Plaza. Yes, sir. As we're setting up, yes. Mr. Chairman. Yes. Move for a resolution call of bonds. Thank you. There's been a motion for the approval of the release and call of bonds dated March 8, 2012. Do we have a second? Second. And a second. All those in favor, please vote on the screen. Yes. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Emmons. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Move on. I'm happy to present the last development plan on your agenda today. It's located on your agenda on page three. item F DP 2011-62 for Rydell Plaza Lots 1 and 4 these are for two properties located at 301 and 313 Burley Avenue Burley Avenue if you don't know where that's at it is located off of South Broadway south of the Red Mile Virginia Avenue intersection and the next major intersection that you would get to about halfway in between there would be the Waller and Mason-Headley intersection, so if that gives you some idea of where Burley Avenue is. The subject properties are currently zoned R4, and together the two properties constitute about 1.3 acres of property. What's before you today is a continued discussion on a previously approved plan. This property was previously approved to your right with a single apartment building with 24 apartment units off of Burley Avenue with an associated parking lot, a basketball court, and their detention basin. The applicants have submitted and wished to change the development style for the subject property to a townhouse group residential project for the same property. They are now proposing 22 individual townhouse units with associated parking. The stormwater management will be handled with underground vault detention on this plan. If we could back it out just a little bit more. We have the exact same plan up on the screen. This plan was reviewed by the subdivision committee. The revised continued discussion was. However, right after the subdivision committee, the staff and the applicant did meet, and we have received a revised plan since that subdivision committee. There are really two significant changes since the time of the subdivision committee. When this plan was originally filed, there was a 20-foot building line along and through here. This property being inside the infill and redevelopment area and also being developed as townhouses, it actually has a – the regulation is for a different building line. There's actually a range of building lines for townhouses on the infill area with a minimum of five feet from the street and a maximum of 15 feet for the street. The applicant's proposal has five townhouses that would face directly onto Burley Avenue. The remaining 17 houses would be focused interior and front towards their interior parking lots. The five units that do front on Burley Avenue are now within, they've changed their development plan so that those are within the range of the 5 to 15 feet. However, none of these, even the units that are at the closest, do not get closer than 10 feet to the right-of-way. The applicants have come back with this change to the proposed development plan because they had met with the neighborhood, and there was some changes that they made to the plan as a result of meeting with the neighborhood association. If you remember right, one of the interesting things about this plan when it was originally approved is that the second lot, 301 Burley Avenue, is actually Burley Park, owned by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. That's still the case for the subject property, and you'll see a very odd condition that prior to certification that the applicant owned this property. The reason why the applicant is going to be able to own this property is that he has always been proposing a swap of a new park in exchange for this. At the time that this plan was originally approved in September, the new park was going to be located further away from the subject property and closer to South Broadway, kind of at the edge of the neighborhood area. Since that time, the park swamp is going to be directly across the road on three lots on Burley Avenue, at the corner of Burley Avenue and Edwards Avenue. So it will be a much closer park. According to the applicant, when they met with the neighborhood, that was very important. They didn't like their neighborhood park being moved to the edge of the neighborhood. They still wanted the new park to be fairly centrally located to the neighborhood area. Also of concern to the neighbors was the fact that this three-story apartment building they felt would be out of character. The applicant has come back with two-story townhouses. for the subject property. I would like to go over the conditions that are listed on your agenda. The original 12 conditions that were approved in September are still valid conditions and very important. I would like to draw your attention to number 11, which was document compliance with 15-7 of the zoning ordinance, and that's because inside the infill and redevelopment area, residential development has to meet certain design criteria to have things such as a front porch or a raised stoop or a recessed entry things that would make new development more compatible with older areas there are also requirements for group residential projects inside the infill redevelopment area that keeps parking lot lighting to a lower level and more compatible with older neighborhoods that that is was a concern that the staff had brought forward with you on this one and it will continue to be a documenting compliance of that will will still be important prior to certification there were a few new conditions number 13 at the bottom of your agenda was provided that the Planning Commission makes a finding regarding the use of the access easement for the sole access for the townhouses we have passed out to you it should be at your places a findings that would be appropriate that would allow these 17 of these 22 townhouses to access the parking lots as their sole frontage and and access out to Burley Avenue it in short it's unnecessary to build a public or private street system in and for this project in order to serve these lots this they are proposing to be able to subdivide each of these individual townhouses off one after they are developed Number 14 was that provided that the Board of Adjustment grants variances on the maximum parking, open space, and the required project exterior yard. Today is the filing deadline, and today we did get the application for the Board of Adjustment to request those variances. In short, because this is a group residential project, it requires a 20% open space for the overall project. At the time of the subdivision committee, the only statistic that we knew of was that each individual townhouse would be able to meet their 10% open space on their lot. Since that time, with the revised plan, the applicant has looked at the overall open space for this project, and they are up to 18%. So it does not meet the 20% required by the ordinance. They have asked for a variance from the Board of Adjustment. It would require you to continue with that condition, provided that the Board of Adjustment does allow that. If the Board of Adjustment does not grant the variance, and this is true for any of the variances, this plan would have to be modified to meet the ordinance. The maximum parking, because this is a townhouse group residential project, the parking requirement is one and a half parking spaces per unit, which works out to be a total of 33 minimum required parking spaces. Because it's inside the infill and redevelopment area, that would mean that there is a maximum of 50 parking spaces for the subject property, and they are providing 60 parking spaces. So they are asking for a variance to allow the 10 extra spaces for the subject property. According to the applicants, they've told us that whenever they met with the neighborhood, that that was one of their concessions was to try and keep as much parking on their property as possible and not create a burden on the on-street parking. And then finally, the required project exterior yard, as a group residential project, the front yard is set by the zoning ordinance, the 5 to 15, but around the surrounding properties where it's adjacent to the surrounding properties it would have a 20 foot setback on there at its lowest point these townhouses are shown at about six to eight feet away from there so they are requesting a variance from the Board of Adjustment to lower that 22 the to the minimum that they are proposing. Number 15 on your conditions, clarify the overall open space in the site statistics. The applicant has done that, and you could delete condition number 15. Conditions 16, 17, and 18 are cleanup conditions about getting revisions to the site statistics and things of that nature. and then finally review by the technical committee the both the staff the division of planning felt that it was important that this was a big enough of a change that it would be wise to send this proposed development back to the technical committee for their comments finally note condition number 19 was discussed note 18 I don't want to get confused on the numbers there note 18 at the time of the subdivision committee it was basically saying that the applicant could change the plane around after it was certified to allow the flexibility to do what they needed to do because they did not know what the exact look of the townhouses were going to be the townhouses themselves were not designed yet the staff has always felt on the final development plan because it calls for a final development plan to have the exact nature of the development on the property that we have felt that a reasonable building envelope is acceptable but a blanket note saying that this plan can change after the planning commission has approved it and it's been certified we feel that that was too much flexibility. The note now is unnecessary. They were trying to deal with the Article 15.7, the specifics of the building types for the front porches and projections and things of that nature. I feel that we can just change the discuss to delete note 18 from the current plan, and we will work with the applicant as they denote their compliance with Article 15.7 to make sure that we have a reasonable amount of control and flexibility for the subject property. If for some reason the applicant and the staff cannot come to an agreement, the applicant can always bring it back to you and say, hey, Jimmy's being ridiculous. So they would always have that option. With those changes, the staff at your subdivision committee, the staff was ready to recommend approval of this plan with very similar conditions. We still feel like that we can recommend approval of this continued discussion item. The subdivision committee recommended postponement of this plan because there was concern over the parking and open space for the subject property. So the open space, there was generally a feeling, I believe, that there was not enough open space, and I believe that it was a feeling of not enough parking also for the subject property. If there's any questions for me, I'd be happy to try and answer them. Of course, I've got more things that I can put up on the overhead if it will help answer any questions, but that concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you, Mr. Emmons. Mr. Penn? jimmy i want to congratulate you this is probably the most variances on one development plan that i've seen a long time the question i have for you this is this materially changes a development that we first saw materially changes in a lot of ways so this is an amended development plan actually this is a continued discussion the the plan that is here for the one apartment building has been approved by the Planning Commission, but the applicant has not gone through and certified this plan. Okay. So it's coming back to us. That's the reason the Technical Committee is going to review it after we see it. And this is all hinged upon the Board of Adjustment granting all these variances. Yes, sir. If the Board of Adjustment does not grant these variances, the applicant would need to change their site plan in order to meet the ordinance. And so you ought to bring approval because you're comfortable with where we are now. Yes, sir. For instance, on the perimeter setback, if that's one that... That's the one I'm particularly asking about. The perimeter setback of the 20 feet, the applicant could rearrange it so that all of the buildings were interior and meeting the 20-foot setback and put their parking on the outside of the property. I'm not sure that that would necessarily yield a better result in this case. It's hard to say until we've actually had a chance to go through the entire Board of Adjustment case and looked at all of the facts on what that position will be. Any other questions for Jimmy? Thank you, Jimmy. Mr. Cayley, thank you for your patience. As I've said already today. I've stayed this late. Sorry about that, but how are you with this? Rory Kaley, the EA Partners. I'm in agreement with Jimmy's conditions, the difficulty in trying to figure out what those variances were and which ordinance trumped the other ordinance and what I had to do was the delay. So you know, and I know you have some other plans coming your way, two of my variances are to Article 9. Both of those, this townhome development, I was trying to get it to not meet Article 9. The open space meets the townhome requirements, and the side yard setbacks would meet the townhome requirements as well. So I was gearing towards that when I was attempting. Trying to add work to this? No, just putting it out there so you think about it. Okay, any questions for Mr. Kegley? No. Mr. Emmons or staff, as far as this findings for use of access easement, we need to recognize that in any sort of possible motion we have. It would be fine just to adopt the provided findings. Okay. I believe that would be. All right. Thank you. Any other discussion? Any questions? If not, I'll close the hearing and I'll entertain a motion if everybody's ready. Are we ready for it? I think so. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of DP 2011-62 with the inclusion of this tan piece of paper and also with the conditions and the request for variances as stated on our agenda. Will that work? I think it will. A motion has been made and seconded for approval of DP 2011-62 Rodele Plaza. Before we vote, Jimmy, you got a problem? No, sir. I was just, during our presentation, I did recommend deleting condition number 15. Yes. Changing the word on 19 from discussed to deleted. So we've got 18 conditions, deleting number 15 and changing what is now number 18 to delete note 18. Change the word discussed to delete. Yes, thank you. And this motion includes adoption of the findings for use of access. Yes, we've got that up. That's what he was referred to on the brown piece of paper. So everybody clear? This is for approval of 18 conditions now with findings. So when it pops up, let's vote. Mike, sorry. I need to put on the record that my colleague to the right, Mr. Berkeley, has a conflict, and that's why he left early on this particular one. So we'll denote his abstention. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I think we're now ready to vote. Thank you. Motion passes. Commission items? Anything? Staff items? Mr. Saleh? Mr. Chairman, we would just inform the commission that you do have a training opportunity next Wednesday afternoon in the Division of Planning Offices. There will be an APA audio conference, Urban Agricultural and Food Systems Planning, good for an hour and a half worth of credit. Thank you. Thank you. I would say I'd like to thank everyone's attentiveness and patience, as I've said often today. So if nothing else, a motion for adjournment? Mr. Chairman? Yes, I'm sorry? I'm not sure we got a motion on the bonds and letters of credit. We did. Yes, we did. Thank you. Thank you for covering us. Motion for adjournment? Move adjourned. Second? All those in favor? I think that works. Thank you.