# Planning Commission Zoning Public Hearing - March 22, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · March 22, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2445 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2445?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-03-22 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 35,836 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Planning Commission met on March 22, 2012, at 1:32 p.m. in the Council Chamber, 2nd Floor LFUCG Government Center, 200 East Main Street, Lexington, Kentucky. Mike Owens presided over the meeting, which included eight agenda items, nine motions and votes, and seven public comments. The Commission addressed a range of development and zoning matters. Notable approvals included a rezoning and final development plan for Grey Goose LLC (from R4 to B1 Zone), a rezoning and final development plan for Angliana P2 Development, LLC (from I2 to R4 Zone), a text amendment to Article 9 for Hallmark Student Development Company, LLC, and a renovation and expansion plan for four elementary schools by Fayette County Public Schools. The Commission deferred action on a development plan amendment for Baptist Health Care Systems and postponed consideration of the Lexington Trots Breeders Association, LLC's zoning map amendment and Red Mile Mixed-Use Development proposal. ## Attendance **Present:** Eunice Beatty, Will Berkley, Marie Copeland, Mike Cravens, Mike Owens, Frank Penn, Lynn Roche-Phillips, William Wilson, Chris King, Bill Sallee, Barbara Rackers, Jimmy Emmons, Traci Wade, Tom Martin, Cheryl Gallt, Stephanie Cunningham, Rochelle Boland, Captain Charles Bowen, Jeff Neal, and Hillard Newman. **Absent:** Carla Blanton and Patrick Brewer. **Late:** None. ## Votes and Decisions The following motions were voted on and decided during this meeting: **Approval of Minutes** [timestamp: 0:31:43] The minutes from February 9, 2012 were approved by voice vote. Motion by Mr. Cravens, seconded by Mr. Wilson. **MAR 2012-4: Lexington Trots Breeders Association Postponement** [timestamp: 0:32:54] A motion to postpone the zoning map amendment and Red Mile Mixed-Use Development for Lexington Trots Breeders Association, LLC passed by voice vote. Motion by Mr. Wilson, seconded by Ms. Beatty. **MAR 2012-5: Grey Goose LLC Rezoning** [timestamp: 0:51:10] A rezoning request by Grey Goose LLC from R4 to B1 zone at 175 and 185 Jefferson Street was approved by voice vote. Motion by Mr. Penn, seconded by Mr. Cravens. The approval includes a condition requiring verification of executed parking agreements prior to zoning compliance permit issuance. **ZDP 2012-14: Grey Goose LLC Final Development Plan** [timestamp: 0:51:46] The final development plan for Grey Goose LLC was approved by voice vote. Motion by Mr. Penn, seconded by Mr. Cravens. Verification of executed parking agreements is required prior to zoning compliance permit issuance. **MAR 2012-6: Angliana P2 Development Rezoning** [timestamp: 1:05:23] A rezoning request by Angliana P2 Development, LLC from I2 to R4 zone at 527 Angliana Avenue was approved by voice vote. Motion by Mr. Cravens, seconded by Mr. Penn. Conditions include that no building permits shall be issued until the property is rezoned R4, and emergency vehicle access approval is required by the Division of Fire and Emergency Services. **ZDP 2012-15: Angliana P2 Development Final Development Plan** [timestamp: 1:05:54] The final development plan for Angliana P2 Development, LLC was approved by voice vote. Motion by Mr. Penn, seconded by Mr. Cravens, with the same conditions as the rezoning approval. **DP 2012-4: Baptist Health Care Systems Continuance** [timestamp: 3:41:47] A motion to continue the Baptist Health Care Systems development plan amendment until April 26, 2012 passed by voice vote. Motion by Mr. Wilson, seconded by Mr. Wilson. The applicant and neighborhood are to work toward resolution of traffic, landscaping, and access issues. **ZODA 2012-3: Zoning Ordinance Amendment** [timestamp: 4:27:02] A staff alternative text amendment to Article 9 of the Zoning Ordinance to allow group residential projects in R5 zone was approved by voice vote. Motion by Mr. Cravens, seconded by Mr. Penn. The Planning Commission may consider reducing minimum required open space by 50% for projects within 1,000 feet of an existing park. **PFR 2012-2: School Renovation and Expansion** [timestamp: 4:43:21] Approval of renovation and expansion of four Fayette County Public Schools was approved by voice vote. Motion by Ms. Rackers, seconded by Mr. Penn. Best management practices must be used for stormwater runoff and floodplain protection. ## Public Comment Seven residents spoke during the public comment period, addressing concerns about traffic, noise, and quality of life impacts from Central Baptist Hospital's expansion on neighboring residential areas. **Traffic and Safety Concerns** Mark Yanik [1:40:00] presented a petition with over 230 signatures from residents of Southern Heights and Hiltonia Park, describing increased traffic, noise, and light pollution from the hospital. He requested a gated access to prevent employee cut-through traffic in residential neighborhoods. Stuart Wester [2:00:01] highlighted dangerous traffic patterns, including speeding, illegal turns, and 18-wheelers using residential streets. He presented traffic counts and video evidence documenting excessive vehicle volume and unsafe conditions on Glendover Road and other neighborhood streets. Clarissa Spahn [2:23:08] presented data showing a strong correlation between traffic on McDonald Avenue and Glendover Road, indicating that Central Baptist Hospital's access contributes significantly to neighborhood traffic. She emphasized the danger to pedestrians and children due to high speeds. **Quality of Life and Environmental Impacts** Melinda Wester [2:40:00] described the loss of peace and safety on Hiltonia Park due to hospital traffic, noise, and light pollution. She criticized Central Baptist for failing to act as a good neighbor and requested a 50-foot landscape buffer and gated access to protect the neighborhood. Sandy Connors [2:46:04] raised concerns about noise, light, and air pollution affecting residents and wildlife, particularly in the Walnut Woods area. She emphasized the need for a noise study and highlighted the degradation of the urban wildlife refuge. Don McKelvey [2:54:51], a long-time Hiltonia Park resident, shared personal stories of traffic congestion, noise, and safety issues, emphasizing the emotional toll of living next to a hospital that has transformed the neighborhood. **Support for Proposed Solutions** Molly Davis [2:53:49] expressed solidarity with neighbors and urged the Commission to consider a proposed alternative plan that includes gated access and improved landscaping to reduce traffic and protect the neighborhood. ## Contested Items **Traffic and Access Issues at Central Baptist Hospital** Residents from Southern Heights, Hiltonia Park, and Glendover presented extensive evidence opposing the Central Baptist Hospital development plan amendment due to dangerous traffic conditions. They documented dangerous traffic patterns, speeding, and cut-through traffic in their neighborhoods. In response to these concerns, residents requested specific mitigation measures including gated access to the hospital, improved landscaping, and traffic calming measures. **Environmental and Quality of Life Impacts** A heated discussion emerged regarding the environmental and quality of life consequences of the proposed development. Residents raised concerns about noise, light, and air pollution resulting from the hospital expansion. They emphasized particular concern about degradation of the Walnut Woods urban wildlife refuge. Residents stressed that these impacts would have long-term effects on neighborhood health, property values, and overall neighborhood character. **Zoning and Development Plan Amendments** The Commission experienced a split vote on whether to approve the Central Baptist Hospital amendment. The disagreement reflected a fundamental divide between perspectives: staff supported the amendment based on its compliance with zoning ordinances, while the community strongly opposed it based on the documented traffic, environmental, and quality of life impacts outlined above. Rather than resolving the dispute immediately, the Commission deferred the decision to allow for further negotiation between hospital representatives, city staff, and affected residents. ## Lexington Trots Breeders Association, LLC - Zoning Map Amendment & Red Mile Mixed-Use Development [timestamp: 0:32:23] The Planning Commission considered a zoning map amendment and associated development plan for the Red Mile Mixed-Use Development proposed by Lexington Trots Breeders Association, LLC. **Key Speakers** The discussion involved Chris Westover, Mr. Wilson, and Ms. Beatty. **Staff Recommendation and Concerns** Staff recommended postponement of the proposal, citing significant conflicts with existing planning documents. The primary concern was that the proposal contradicted the recommended Greenspace/Open Space designation for more than half of the property, as established in the 2007 Comprehensive Plan and the Red Mile Development Plan. **Outcome** The Planning Commission postponed the zoning map amendment and development plan. The postponement allowed time to address the compliance issues identified by staff before the proposal could move forward for further consideration. ## Grey Goose LLC - Rezoning from R4 to B1 Zone The Commission considered a rezoning request for property located at 175 and 185 Jefferson Street, seeking to change the zoning designation from R4 (residential) to B1 (business) zone. [timestamp: 0:36:05] **Key Speakers and Presentation** Tracy Wade and Keith Clark presented on this matter during the meeting. **Basis for Recommendation** The staff and zoning committee recommended approval of the rezoning. The recommendation was based on alignment with the 2007 Comprehensive Plan and the downtown master plan, both of which support neighborhood business use along Jefferson Street. **Outcome** The Commission approved the rezoning request for Grey Goose LLC, allowing the property at 175 and 185 Jefferson Street to be rezoned from R4 to B1 zone. ## Grey Goose LLC - Final Development Plan **Identifier:** ZDP 2012-14 The final development plan for Grey Goose LLC was presented and approved during this meeting [timestamp: 0:42:22]. **Key Speakers** The discussion involved Tracy Wade and Keith Clark. **Approval and Conditions** The final development plan was approved with seven conditions that the applicant must satisfy: - Verification of parking agreements with Planned Parenthood - Compliance with landscaping requirements - Compliance with parking requirements - Resolution of all outstanding issues **Applicant Commitment** Grey Goose LLC committed to resolving all outstanding issues associated with the development plan. **Outcome** The development plan was approved. ## Angliana P2 Development, LLC - Rezoning from I2 to R4 Zone **Agenda Item:** MAR 2012-6 The Commission considered a rezoning request for a small parcel located at 527 Angliana Avenue, proposing a change from I2 (heavy industrial) to R4 (residential) zoning. **Key Speakers:** - Bill Sallee - Nick Nicholson **Presentation and Rationale:** Staff and the zoning committee recommended approval of the rezoning request. The recommendation was based on two primary considerations: the existing I2 heavy industrial zoning was deemed inappropriate for the site's characteristics and location, and the rezoning would support residential development needs in the area. **Outcome:** The Commission approved the rezoning request [timestamp: 0:53:04], changing the zoning designation from I2 to R4 zone for the property at 527 Angliana Avenue. ## Angliana P2 Development, LLC - Final Development Plan **Identifier:** ZDP 2012-15 The final development plan for Angliana P2 Development, LLC was presented and approved by the board [timestamp: 0:59:00]. **Key Speakers** Tom Martin and Nick Nicholson were the primary speakers on this agenda item. **Approval and Conditions** The final development plan was approved with seven conditions. These conditions included: - A requirement for Division of Fire approval of emergency vehicle access - A land swap to resolve title issues - Provisions for gated access for emergency vehicles **Outcome** The development plan was approved as presented with the specified conditions. ## Baptist Health Care Systems - Development Plan Amendment The Commission reviewed a development plan amendment (DP 2012-4) for Central Baptist Hospital that sought to expand the emergency room waiting room and improve ambulance access. [timestamp: 1:06:36] **Presenters and Participants** Key speakers during the discussion included Tom Martin, Nick Nicholson, Mark Yanik, Stuart Wester, Clarissa Spahn, Melinda Wester, Sandy Connors, Don McKelvey, and Molly Davis. **Issues Discussed** The amendment generated discussion around several operational and neighborhood concerns. The primary focus centered on three areas requiring further work: - Traffic impacts and management - Access improvements to the facility - Landscaping considerations **Outcome** The Commission deferred the development plan amendment, continuing it to April 26, 2012. This deferral was intended to provide the applicant and neighborhood representatives adequate time to collaborate on resolving the traffic, access, and landscaping issues that had been raised during the review process. ## Hallmark Student Development Company, LLC - Text Amendment to Article 9 The Commission considered a text amendment to Article 9 of the Zoning Ordinance (ZODA 2012-3) regarding group residential projects in the R5 zone. [timestamp: 3:49:27] **Key Speakers and Presentation** Tracy Wade, Bill Sallee, and Ms. Westover participated in the discussion of this agenda item. **Amendment Details** The staff alternative text amendment included the following provisions: * Permission for group residential projects in the R5 zone * Reduced open space requirements for qualifying developments * Building height limits for the proposed projects * Incentives for developments located near parks and transit stops **Outcome** The Commission approved the staff alternative text amendment to Article 9 of the Zoning Ordinance. ## Fayette County Public Schools - Renovation and Expansion of Four Elementary Schools [timestamp: 4:31:15] The Commission considered a proposal for the renovation and expansion of four elementary schools within Fayette County Public Schools. The project involved James Lane Allen, Meadowthorpe, Stonewall, and Tates Creek Elementary Schools. **Presenters and Discussion** Barbara Rackers and Kevin Warner presented the project to the Commission. **Project Details** The renovation and expansion projects were designed to be consistent with the 2007 Comprehensive Plan. The improvements included ADA-compliant upgrades to ensure accessibility for students and staff with disabilities. The projects also incorporated best management practices for floodplain protection, addressing environmental and safety considerations for the school facilities. **Outcome** The Commission approved the renovation and expansion of all four elementary schools. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Approval of minutes from February 9, 2012 - **MAR 2012-4** — postponed: Postponement of Lexington Trots Breeders Association, LLC zoning map amendment and Red Mile Mixed-Use Development - **MAR 2012-5** — passed: Approval of rezoning request by Grey Goose LLC from R4 to B1 zone at 175 and 185 Jefferson Street - **ZDP 2012-14** — passed: Approval of final development plan for Grey Goose LLC with seven conditions - **MAR 2012-6** — passed: Approval of rezoning request by Angliana P2 Development, LLC from I2 to R4 zone at 527 Angliana Avenue - **ZDP 2012-15** — passed: Approval of final development plan for Angliana P2 Development, LLC with seven conditions - **DP 2012-4** — postponed: Continuance of Baptist Health Care Systems development plan amendment until April 26, 2012 - **ZODA 2012-3** — passed: Approval of staff alternative text amendment to Article 9 of Zoning Ordinance to allow group residential projects in R5 zone - **PFR 2012-2** — passed: Approval of renovation and expansion of four Fayette County Public Schools --- ## Full transcript Hey, mister, don't play it no more Don't play it no more I can't start it Don't play it no more No more No more I remember on our first date He kissed me and he walked away I was only 17 I never dreamed he'd be so mean He told me, darling, darling Baby, baby, you lied Ooh, you lied You know that you lied Lie, lie, lie Oh, darling, you know that you lie, yeah. You know, I know you lie. Darling, you lie, you lie. You lie, you hold it on me, you lie. Oh, oh, oh, oh, you're lying Yeah, baby, don't play it no more Don't do it, don't play it no more No more, I'll be screaming no more Oh, yeah, don't play it no more Thank you. Ooh, baby Anytime the world is crazy All I want to do To calm it Is just think of you That's where my think of you Baby Nothing else seems to matter That's where my think of you Baby All I think about is love I just get More attached to you You hold me in your arms, you squeeze me When you leave me, you're making me blue Cause then I think of you, baby Nothing else seems to matter Cause then I think of you, baby All I think about is I love I'm so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so in love, so Peace. I'm so in my I just think of you You're not around I When I think of you So in love Break Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah Thank you. Amen. Spirit move me Every time I'm near you Whirling like a cyclone in my mind Sweet Melissa An angel of my lifetime An answer to all answers I can find Baby, I love you, come Come, come into my arms Let me know the wonder of all of you Baby, I want you now Now, now and hold on fast Could this be the magic at last? Thank you. Lady, take me High up on the hillside High up where the stallion Meets the sun I could love you Build my world around you Never leave you till my life is done Baby, I love you Come, come, come into my arms Let me know the wonder of all of you And baby, I want you now, now, oh, now, oh, now and hold on fast. Could this be the magic at last? Could it be magic? Come, come on, come on, come, oh, come into my arms. Oh, let me know the wonder I want of you I want of you, baby I want you now, now Oh, now Oh, now and hold on fast Oh, could this be the magic At last Could it be magic? Oh, come on, come on, come on Oh, come to my arms. Oh, let me know the wonder of all of you. Baby, I want you now, now, oh, now. Oh, now we want on fast. Could this be the magic at last? Could it be magic? Come on, come on, come on, come on Come to my home Oh, let me know I wonder All of you Oh, baby, I want you now Oh, now, now Oh, now Oh, baby, I want you now Baby, I want you Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh you The End That's where you wanna go, take it away from it all. Bodies in the sand, tropical dream, melting in your hand. We'll be falling apart to the rhythm of a steel drum band. Dunn and Coke. A Ruma, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take it. Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama Key Largo, Montego, baby wilde We're down to Coco Mode We'll get there faster, then we'll take it slow That's where we wanna go We're down to Coco Mode Martinique, that Monterey mystique We'll come out to sea, and we'll perfect our chemistry. And by and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity. Afternoon delight, cocktails and midnight. Better dream you're looking back Give me a tropical contact Way down in close I'm a river, Jamaica Ooh, I wanna take you to Bermuda Bahama, come on pretty mama Key Largo, Antigua Baby, wild Antigua Down the coco mode Look at me faster Then we'll take it slow That's where we were to go Way down to the road Oh Prince, I wanna get your glimpse Everybody knows A little place like a moon Now if you wanna go And get away from the law Go down the court Aruba, Jamaica Ooh, I wanna take you to Ruta Bahama, come on pretty mama Key Largo, Montego Baby, why don't we go down the court Go, no, look at me fast And then we'll take it slow That's where we want to go Way down the court Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take us to Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama, Key Largo, Montego, baby, bye. Oh, here it comes That funny feeling again Winding me up inside Every time we touch And now, tell me where to begin Cause I never felt so much And I can't recall getting in love Oh baby, this goes the wrong way It's got what it takes So tell me why can't this be love Straight from my heart Oh, tell me why can't this be love I tell myself Hey, only moon rush in Only time of time We stand the test of time Oh, I know You've got to run to win I'll be damned if I'll get hung up online Hey! No, I can't recall anything at all Oh, baby, this goes a long way It's not what it takes So tell me why can't this be love You wanted space from afar Tell me why can't this be wrong Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Tell me why can't this be love Baby why can't this be love Got to know why can't this be love I wonder why can't this be love I'm sorry. Thank you. I just want you to stay A love like us His love is hard to find How could we let it slip away We've come too far to leave you all behind How could we end it all this way When tomorrow comes and we won't be there The faith is set to wait Oh, my God. Because his life is hard to find How could we let it slip away We've come too far to leave it all behind How could we end it all this way When tomorrow comes and we'll love you The things we said today If you leave me now You'll take away the biggest part of me Now baby please don't go Thank you. guitar solo I'm out. guitar solo Good afternoon, folks. Just a little bit after 1.30, we'll get started, call this meeting to order. First on the agenda would be approval of minutes. Council members, you've got the minutes from February 9th before you. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I move approval of the minutes of February 9th. Thank you. Motion's been made. Is there a second? Mr. Chairman, second. And there is a second. All those in favor, please vote. All right. I'm sorry, all those vote when it comes up. Just the ones in favor. Anybody? Thank you. Next would be any postponements or withdrawals from the agenda. Good afternoon, members of the Planning Commission. I'm Chris Westover, representing the Red Mile, requesting a 30-day postponement to your April 26th zoning meeting for our zone change and associated development plan. Thank you. Anyone in the audience that wishes to speak to this request for postponement? Any commission members? If not, I'll entertain a motion for postponement. Mr. Chairman, I move for postponement. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made and seconded for postponement of MAR 2012-4 until April the 26th. Please vote when it comes up on the screen. Mr. Chairman, we were having difficulties. Could we get the motion and second again, please? The motion was by Mr. Wilson, and Ms. Beatty seconded. Thank you. Please vote. Motion of postponement passes. Any other requests for a postponement or withdrawals? If not, since this is our zoning hearing, we do have two zoning items that we will take care of first. Mr. Selle. Mr. Chairman, it is possible that both of these remaining zoning items may qualify as abbreviated hearings this afternoon. The first appears on the top of page 3. This is MAR 2012-5, a zone change request by Grey Goose LLC. This is a requested rezoning from an R4 high-density apartment zone to a B1 neighborhood business zone for property at 175 and 185 Jefferson Street. At this time, the staff would ask if anyone is present in the audience who wishes to comment or object to this proposed rezoning on Jefferson Street. Mr. Chairman, seeing no one present to speak to this item, this could be our first abbreviated hearing this afternoon. The following item on the agenda, appearing on the top of page 4, item number 3, MAR 2012-6, a request by Angliana P2 Development, LLC, proposes to rezone property from a heavy industrial I2 zone to a high-density apartment R4 zone for a portion of 527 Angliana Avenue. Again, at this time, we would ask if anyone is present, the audience who wishes to comment or object to this proposed rezoning for a portion of a property on Angliana Avenue at Ham Alley. Again, seeing now, Mr. Chairman, we can deal with both of these zone changes in an abbreviated fashion. We'll set up for those and begin in just a moment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Salley. Thank you. brown sheet for the development plan. Ms. Wade. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Owens and members of the Commission. The first item before you today for consideration is MAR 2012-5. This is a request by the Gray Goose LLC. It's a request to rezone the property from the high-density apartment R4 zone to a neighborhood business be one zone. And I will let you know that it is behind tab 3, I'm sorry, tab 2 in your notebooks and on page... Excuse me this way. The revised conditions are in our books. She's bringing them. Here we come. For the development plan, so... I'm going to distribute for you two letters of support for this request. This zone change is located at 175 and 185 Jefferson Street. And Jefferson is in our downtown area. It runs between High Street and then 6th Street to the northeast. This subject property is between Short Street and 2nd Street, and it's on the north side of Jefferson. It also has frontage onto Tower Plaza to the west. In the vicinity is mostly B1 zoning along Jefferson Street, denoted with the red coloring, as well as some residential R4 and R5 zoning in the vicinity for the neighborhood. The orange shading that you can see on the overhead as well as on the color up here is a denotation of historic districts. And the subject property, while not in a local historic district, is within the Northside National Register for the historic district for the Northside. The north side historic district is generally to the south and east, and the western suburb historic district is generally to the west of the subject property. And again, this property or these two properties do not have any local overlay for historic preservation, but they should be treated as contributing properties for the National Register District. The petitioner wishes to rezone the property in order to reuse the existing building on the property. Just a large-scale aerial there. The existing building is residential in character and was a residence in the past, but most recently had been used as an office use. They want to reuse that building for a small restaurant and then also maintain the existing surface parking lot. and the parking lot is at 175 and the house is at 185 Jefferson. The 2007 comprehensive plan for this location does recommend the downtown master plan land use category as it does for really all of our downtown areas. The downtown master plan recommends that the 2007 comprehensive plan recommends following the master plan and if it's not fully implemented to look to other relevant information, including the 2001 comprehensive plan. For this location, the 2001 comprehensive plan land use was recommended for retail trade and personal services. In addition, the master plan does recognize Jefferson Street as a primary pedestrian corridor and within principle eight in the master plan and the comprehensive plan as well, there's a focus on maintaining the primary pedestrian corridors and encouraging businesses and mixed use along these corridors. In addition, the applicant has stated that they believe this is an agreement with the comprehensive plan, for a B-1 rezoning, and the staff does agree that it does meet the comprehensive plan for several reasons. First, the B-1 zone can implement the land use recommendation from the 2001 comprehensive plan, which is referred to in our 2007 plan and the master plan. Second, the master plan generally recommends neighborhood business use along Jefferson Street and its corridor. Third, the B1 zone is consistent with the existing use of the parking lot, and the proposed commercial use is compatible with the surrounding properties along Jefferson Street and would allow for a mixture as well on this property as B1 allows residential to be on the second floor. And then lastly, the B1 zoning would support principle eight of the downtown Lexington master plan by encouraging a mixture of land uses in this corridor and improving the primary pedestrian corridor of Jefferson Street. So the staff and the zoning committee both recommended approval of this requested change. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Any questions from the Commission? Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, I'm happy to present the revised development plan for the subject property. We have just passed out to you revised conditions on the development plan for this property. It is filed as a final development plan, you'll see up there. I have the easiest presentation of the day because since our subdivision committee, the applicant has worked very hard to resolve all of the items that were on there. As you can tell, as indicated by the fact that it was originally recommended for postponement with 18 conditions, based off of the revised plan that has been submitted, the staff is recommending approval with just seven conditions. I'd like to describe the final development plan very briefly. We have Jefferson Street and Tower Plaza. We have an existing house, which she's shown you. It's a one-and-a-half-story house. The applicants are proposing to have a restaurant on the first floor and an apartment above it. Currently today, there are 14 parking spaces in the existing parking lot. All of the discussion items, you can see them all listed, but they all basically came back to providing the required parking for the subject property because there was questions about the landscaping, about solid waste pickup, about meeting the parking requirements, and that has been worked out. There are very few physical changes that the applicant is proposing. Two of the first two parking spaces, the asphalt on there will be pulled up, and a concrete pad that would be available for a dumpster, should this site require one, will be placed in the space. Those two spaces, until dumpster service is needed for the restaurant, those two spaces will act as parking spaces, and they will continue with their Herbie service that they have until such time as a dumpster is needed. Those two parking spaces are not accounted for in the required parking, so they are extra parking spaces until such time as a dumpster is needed. The applicant is also proposing along Jefferson Street, there is existing landscape and material. along Jefferson Street. However, the required three-foot landscape buffer from the property line does not exist. The applicant will tear up a little bit of asphalt there to get the required minimum landscaping and ensure that this parking lot meets Article 18 of the zoning ordinance. The other physical change to the property will be the inclusion of a new sidewalk that for most of its length will be on the private property and then will come back into the right-of-way. That's because there are two existing trees along Tower Plaza that they are going to make an attempt to save those two trees and provide the sidewalk in a sidewalk easement for the subject property. That, in a nutshell, is the change in the physical conditions with the provision of the handicapped parking space and taking out the two parking spaces for the dumpster location, that brings the count for the required parking down to 11 parking spaces. As you're well aware, this parking lot actually currently provides the required parking for the Gray Goose restaurant across the street. That requires 12 spaces. The proposed use on this property requires 13 for a total of 25 spaces. Directly to the north of the subject property is the Planned Parenthood, which is approved in a residential zone as a community center. They have 27 parking spaces, and 22 of those are available for a joint parking agreement. So the applicant has submitted executable parking agreements with the Planned Parenthood to lease out the required 14 additional spaces. So the gray goose and the blue heron will meet their required parking. The staff is recommending the last condition, number seven, that we denote on this plan that verification of the executed parking agreements will be required prior to the issuance of a zoning compliance permit. So we have them in hand in the file, and we will ensure that we have recorded documents before we issue any zoning compliance for a new restaurant on this site. The staff feels that this plan is also that the applicant has taken care of everything that they need, and the staff feels very comfortable that they will be able to get this plan certified in the two-week window and no longer needs to be backed down to a preliminary development plan. Staff is recommending approval subject to the revised conditions. If you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to try and answer them. Any questions for Mr. Emmons? Yes. This is just a technical question. These parking agreements, do they have to have some kind of a term associated with them? In our zoning ordinance regulations, we do not have a minimum number of years, but two years is kind of the working. Two years and a repeatable agreement is the standard, and that is what all of the draft legal agreements that we have in the file do that and meet that standard. That was a standard that building inspection had used whenever they were doing zoning enforcement. So if they were to ever lose that, what would happen? If they were ever to lose that and parking became an issue because they had not requested to get out of their parking requirements for the subject property, they would have to find available parking somewhere in order to continue being compliant with the zoning. Any other questions? Is the applicant here? They are. I'm Keith Clark, 482 2nd Street, and I'm the sole owner of Grey Goose LLC. I live in this neighborhood as well and have for many, many years. and in my plans to use this real estate I first considered my neighbors before I considered my own interests and went to them personally and directly via email and knocking on doors and going to neighborhood associations and made every effort I could to make sure that the path was generally clear with the people it impacted the most. I am the operator of Grey Goose Restaurant and as you might be aware it's a fairly busy place along with Nick Ryan's across the street and I'm cognizant of the fact that we have impacted that neighborhood, I think in a positive way, but we try to monitor and manage it with a great deal of interest and compassion for our neighbors. We're not just doing this and hoping that it works. The long-range plan for this is a small entity that will serve a limited menu and a limited schedule. It's a low-impact use of it, the best and highest use, in my opinion, of the facility. We do have contingencies addressed regarding parking in the event that this parking were to go away. The Jefferson Center has already made offers, and we have adequate space there, and they have adequate additional parking that they don't use in the time frames that this would be available to us. We do feel like that this is an appropriate use for this facility. Jefferson Street has transformed itself to a primary emergency services route corridor. Upwards of 10 or 12 runs a day, 300 plus days a year down the street. It's quite noisy. We really don't think it's supreme for residential, although I live very close by on 2nd Street. We feel like this is the best thing for this property. We feel like we can do it without a negative impact on our neighbors. Anybody have any other questions or concerns? Thank you, Mr. Clark. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you for considering. If not, we'll close this part of the hearing and open it up for any discussions and or a motion. Ready for a motion? Yes, sir. You ready for a motion? Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of MAR 2012-5 with staff recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. Motion has been made by Mr. Penn, seconded by Mr. Cravens for approval of the zone change MAR 2012-5. If there's no other questions, please vote. Motion passes. We now need a motion for the development plan with the revised seven conditions. Mr. Chairman, I move for approval of ZDP 2012-14 with the seven conditions as presented on the handout, with number seven being verified of the agent for additional parking, verifying righting. Thank you. The motion has been made by Mr. Penn and seconded by Mr. Cravens. No further discussion. Please vote. Thank you. The motion passes. Next will be on page 4, Angliana, P2 Development. Thank you. Mr. Selle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the Commission, good afternoon. As you did mention, this item is on page 4, item A of your agenda, MER 2012-6, a zone change request by Angliana P2 Development, LLC. It is a zone change for just under a quarter of an acre of property, being a portion of 527 Angliana Avenue. The subject property is midway between Versailles Road and South Broadway on the east side of Angliana Avenue and the west side of the Norfolk Southern Rail Yard. It is a very small piece of property, about 37 feet wide. At its widest point, it is at the end of Ham Alley, which is a narrow paved area, really separating an existing warehouse from a former warehouse. Both were tobacco warehouses in the day. It is so hard to describe, it's best to use a photo, which we have on the overhead to show you. The subject property, if we could zoom out just a little bit. Thank you. As I mentioned, it's at the end of Ham Alley. There are three warehouses in that photo, and Ham Alley serves two of the warehouses, both to the north of Ham Alley. The warehouse on the left-hand side of the photo has since been removed, and that property is zoned R4, and a residential development is undergoing development on that property. This zone change is from an I2 heavy industrial zone, which matches the zoning to the north to a requested R4 zoning which would match the zoning to the south where the residential development is occurring. It's proposed, here's another view of the subject property. It's generally the grassed area inside the black property line that is 527 Angleana and extends from the alley to the property line with the rail yard. Here's a view of the survey of the property that shows its narrow shape along with the zoning map. It is proposed to simplify the development of the residential property in that it's already been approved for use as a storage building for the development and also a drive aisle for that residential development, as you'll see on the development plan in just a moment. The 2007 comprehensive plan has at its limit the downtown master plan land use category for this general area. As you know, that extends for the core of the downtown area and also to the periphery of the downtown in this area as far west as Angliana Avenue. Generally, the master plan states that it is logical that this area retain industrial land uses and that some existing buildings be creatively or adaptively reused. Thus, the staff cannot find that the R4 zoning request, even as small as it is, is technically in agreement with the plan. However, we do find, and did in our report to you at your zoning committee three weeks ago, that the heavy industrial zoning is no longer appropriate for the subject property. The reason being, it's no longer needed for the warehouse use in the area. It is not appropriately used independently of those warehouse uses for a heavy industrial use. And thirdly, we find that it will ensure that the use of this 37-foot area will not be a nuisance to the new residents immediately to the south of that location. For those reasons, the staff recommended approval of this zone change to your zoning committee. The zoning committee has also recommended approval of this rezoning for the reasons listed on the agenda. Those are that the heavy industrial zoning is inappropriate and the requested high-density apartment zone is appropriate for three reasons. The subject property, first, is not currently used by the adjoining warehouse property. Secondly, the proposed R4 zone will still allow for a mixture of land uses in the area in the Angliana Avenue corridor. And finally, the subject site at the end of the alley is not appropriately zoned for an independent industrial use. Prior to the presentation of the development plan amendment that's before you, I'd be glad to answer any questions from the Commission on our zoning report this afternoon. Any questions for Mr. Sally? Thank you. Yes, one question. Mr. Sally, how big is the mother plot? Not the little plot, but the whole area that's in green and brown. Let me look at the site statistics here and see if I can answer that. We're going to have some talk about an article change, and I just, for reference. That's okay. I'll try and find that after, Mr. Martin. Six acres? Thank you. Seven, eight. Thank you. I couldn't estimate based on the size. So it's just over five acres. 5.78, so 6 minus the .23. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Salley. Thank you. Mr. Martin? Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, the development plan that is associated with this some change is also located on page 4 of your agenda. It is an amended final development plan, 2012-15 Angliana Avenue Student Housing. The area of the zone change is this small area that we've circled and read for you in the rear of the property. It is associated with the previous development plan for this property that this body just approved for the apartment development. Again, here is Angliana Avenue. Here is Ham Alley that leads back to the maintenance building, which is associated with this development. The maintenance building is being shifted just slightly with this amendment. And here is a drive aisle to serve the parking and the maintenance building as well on this development plan. The area in the rear here is associated with a land swap by the applicant, which he can elaborate on. Ham Alley is going to be closed by the urban county government. It is on the agenda tonight for its second reading to be closed. And it's our understanding that the applicant owns, will receive all of Ham Alley. Normally it's split between property owners. interesting enough when ham alley was created it was created to provide access to a fire hydrant for fire protection this property on a retained property a slim slim little six inch strip on on this other side of ham alley so it is staff's understanding they intend to allow this property owner to receive ham alley in return they will receive this area and that's part of the purpose for this own change as well staff understanding it cleans things up title-wise and with the property. Ham Alley will be maintained as an access easement to serve this property as well as an emergency access point to serve this property to allow for emergency access should it be necessary. It will be gated. It's a piece of property that is just a little bit larger than what you saw on the previous own change, but it's a large development plan in terms of the amendment. The subdivision committee did review this plan and recommend approval subject to seven conditions. These are four of them, standard conditions. Then we need them to just delete a little bit of information. That's consolidation. It's not necessary. No building permits shall be issued until it is rezoned R4 for that particular piece of property. and then we're just asking that they clarify that emergency vehicle access that I indicated to you to the approval of the Division of Fire and Emergency Services. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Any questions from the Commission? Thank you, Mr. Martin. Thank you. Applicant. Good afternoon. Nick Nicholson here on behalf of Angliana P2 developers. If you all would like, I would go into basically what this land swap really is. It is very minor and I promise we'll be quite quick. As Tom mentioned, we own a small little six-inch strip on this side of Ham Alley. And once we actually close Ham Alley tonight at the council, that will revert back entirely to 525 Angliana. We are deeding over Ham Alley, the small six-inch strip, and also this little drive, little turn aisle over to VIM 527 Angliana in exchange for this .23 acres back there. Coincidentally enough, they are exactly both .23 acres, so the land swap was fairly easy to do. We did the turn lane because a lot of the 18-wheelers that are accessing these back warehouses were incapable of exactly making the turn. It was causing on the other side of Angliana a lot of curb erosion because they were not actually the roll curbs that are designed to allow those trucks to go up onto the surface and also a lot of damage in the right-of-way to the grass and other areas. So this will allow them to better be able to make their turn radius, and we believe it's a win-win for both property owners. As Tom mentioned, this will basically become their driveway, and they have full access easement to it. The only thing we are retaining on what will formerly be Ham Alley is the emergency access easement, which will be gated off for the emergency access to enter the back part of the property if for every reason they need to. Essentially, that is all I really have to say, but I will happily answer questions. Questions? Mr. Finn? Mr. Nicholson, will there be a crash gate there at the end of that alley, or how will the access be gained by emergencies? I believe they will actually, it will be locked and they won't have a key, but I believe Charlie Schneider will be able to better answer. Yes, Charlie Schneider with Brand Center Carroll. Captain Bowen and myself worked that out, and he's just requesting a locked gate, not a crash gate, so they would just have access to it through a key box. Okay, thanks. Any other questions for Mr. Nicholson? Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone in the audience wish to speak? Yes, sir. Please come forward and state your name. I just had a question about environmental toxic. Since this was a heavy use, you're putting student housing in there now. Has that been looked at, whether there's any environmental questions? Yes, sir. I think I'd safely say that on the previous development plan, that would be one of the sign-offs. that would be required. Mr. Nicholson? As part of the initial purchase of this property, we were tasked to basically look at that to make sure there were no environmental issues and there were none that we found whatsoever. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else in the audience? If not, I'll close this part of the hearing and open it up for discussion from the Commission and or motion. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Mr. Cravens. You ready for a motion? Yes, sir. All right. I want to move approval of MAR 2012-6 Anglana P2 development for the reasons provided by staff. Thank you. Motion's been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made and seconded for the zone change approval of MAR 2012-6. If there's no further discussion, please vote. Motion passes. We need also a motion for the development plan as well. Okay, Mr. Chairman. Move approval of ZDP 2012-15 and Atlanta Student Housing for the seven conditions. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Motion's been made and seconded for approval of ZDP 2012-15. No further discussion. Please vote. Thank you. The motion passes. Next, we'll back up to page one for the development plan, DPE 2012-4 Baptist Health Care Systems. And as they're setting up, I believe that we have a – I'm sorry, one second. Mr. Berkley? Mr. Chairman, I'm going to have to disqualify myself on this one, and for that reason, I have to leave the room. Okay. Thank you. I believe we do have revisions that should be in front of you. Thank you. Under subdivision items, development plan, we have an item. It is DP 2012-4, Baptist Health Care System, Central Baptist Hospital, as amended. Before I start my presentation, I would like to distribute to you a letter that we received from the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association. The, as stated, the property is for Central Baptist Hospital, which is located on Nicholasville Road. You put up the first exhibit on, there we go, this, well, I don't have my laser. They don't always trust me with one. I wanted to demonstrate to you, you can see Central Baptist Hospital on the top of the photograph. You can see Nicholasville Road to the left. My left is, in my perspective, it should be yours. Thank you. Hilltonia Park is immediately below, to the south of Central Baptist. Behind, you can see Shawnee Town and the Great Page Apartments, and further to the east, the Arboretum. To the south, beyond Hiltonia, you can see the Southern Heights neighborhood and associated streets as well. And I wanted to present that to you. Commonwealth Stadium is just off that picture. The second photograph, this is a closer view of the Hiltonia frontage, And you can see the access point at the intersection of Hiltonia and McDonald that leads to the emergency service area of the hospital. And that is the area of the amendment you see before you today on the development plan. And there is a close-up for you of the detail of that amended area. The development plan itself shows the entire property. You have Nicholasville Road again, frontage here. Here is Hiltonia Park, University of Kentucky, Shawnee Town, sits to the rear. To the north is a professional office use. This development plan depicts the entire development of the property as approved and under construction, with the exception of this amendment. We have parking garage here and here, combination proposed garage and hospital here. This area is the main area of the hospital. We have office buildings located in this area. You can see the heavily landscaped along the front here. Along this northern border is also heavily landscaped. This is the result of conditional zoning that was imposed on this property some years ago. The parking and the circulation. You can see in this area highlighted the existing access points for you into the property. Here's one at this location on Hiltonia. This is the access off of Hiltonia and McDonald intersection at this point. This access point into this property was the last amendment that this body saw on this property. It had inadvertently dropped off the plan and was added back on by approval of this body. The property that you see before you has over 390,000 square feet of lot coverage. It has 1,300,000 plus total square footage proposed on the property. There are 3,574 parking spaces proposed on this total development, and that involves surface and, of course, garage parking as well. The area of amendment, again, as stated earlier, is this area right in here, and this is at the emergency services entrance. There is a slight revision to the service aisles for emergency vehicles, and they are adding 745 square feet to the emergency room area, and that is the purpose of the amendment that you see before you today. We have handed out a revised sheet of conditions to you. It is the tan brown sheet that you see before you. The conditions that we have are standard conditions with the engineering, traffic, building inspection, addressing the urban forester, division of solid waste. I would point out the division of fire approval to you. Number seven includes fire gates, if applicable, although there's only one gate and entrance currently on this plan in this area. There was some discussion with neighborhood folks during research on this plan, and they expressed a desire for gates. Should any gates be created by the action of this body, we would want fire, of course, to have approval over those gates. just like you heard on the emergency access to the previous property. We need them to sign off on any possible gates that are added to this property. We have a cleanup condition, correct the numbering of the notes. It's not unusual on a large plan where you make an amendment or change a few things, numbering gets thrown off, just a cleanup condition. We have a condition that they denote compliance with Article 18-3. That's your landscaping ordinance. That's a standard note that had dropped off the plan and needed to be on the plan stating that they will comply. Article 18-3 on this property applies primarily along this border and around your vehicular use areas. As I stated before, there's conditional zoning here that impose a stricter standard than Article 18. and being the same zone, there would not have been any screening here necessarily had that not been done. In the rear, this is AU property that UK owns, and Article 18 does not actually address any screening between AU property and other land uses, since technically that's an agricultural land use. So again, they just need to denote that. In conjunction with that, we've had Article Condition 12, which is to add some landscape details that dropped off the plan. In this area, there was an amendment back, I believe, in the 90s. And this is the 27th Amendment. There's been a fair number of amendments to this plan. When this area was amended, they had landscaping details. And unfortunately, on a subsequent amendment, that detail dropped off the plan, and we're requiring that it be added back to the plan. We also had some concerns about lighting. We understand these concerns are shared by some of the neighborhood residents, so we would like to have a spillage of any lighting addressed by applicable standards. We have had discussions with Central Baptist Hospital, and they've indicated a willingness to adjust the type of lights that they have in this area to address that issue. and I'm sure they'd be happy to elaborate on that. As I stated, we have distributed to you these revised recommendations, and staff does recommend approval of this amendment to you, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Questions for Mr. Martin? Yes, Ms. Copeland. Mr. Martin, when you gave your overview, which was very nice, but you omitted where the major loading dock is, where all the supplies come in, could you point that out for the commission, please? I may need the applicant's assistance on this. I'm not sure where most of that happens. It's between right there, that gray block. Yes, this is a mechanical room, and I'm sure they get deliveries to the rear. of the properties it goes into that big gray square this gray square no forward in in here right that's where the big trucks go okay and i i was not fully aware it does appear to be the logical place for those types of look mr hennon mr martin on your driveway that comes out on hilltonia next to nicholasville road it goes between the office buildings and the parking lot? Yes, sir. Am I to understand you that that may be closed off with a gate? It has a gate, and it's a one-way entrance at this time. Okay, and the purpose of the gate is to do what? I would assume just to monitor who can use that entrance. Okay. I'm sure the applicant could add details to that. Yes, sir. Thank you. Mr. Wilson. Yes, Ms. Martin. We just got a letter. I mean, I just sort of glanced about it from the Southern Heights Neighborhood Association. They had several concerns. I guess you all have seen all of these concerns. Yes, sir, we have. My question is, without trying to get back and forth, I was trying to figure out, have you addressed all the concerns with the development plan? We have not, no, sir. We received that this morning, mid to late morning, and we are distributing it to you. We have addressed the concerns that we felt were appropriate to this amendment. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? If not, we'll hear from the applicant. Thank you. Good afternoon again. Nick Nicholson here on behalf of Baptist Health Care System, which is more commonly known as Central Baptist Hospital. First of all, I really want to thank the staff here. I don't know how much you all know, but they have gone above and beyond the call of duty for this one. I know that I believe it was two days ago they had quite a lengthy meeting with the neighborhood associations. I know we were present. The PVA was also there. Jeff Neal with Traffic has been fantastic. This has really shown how good LFCC can be, especially with this planning department. So I'd like to thank them first and foremost. But I would also like to basically say that we are in agreement with all of these conditions that are up here right now. We agree with their request of approval, of course, and we hope that you all will follow it. But what I really want to focus on right now is why we are here today. It is a very specific and small reason for why we are here today, and Tom did an excellent job at demonstrating what that exactly is. It's for an increase in square footage, approximately 745 feet in the waiting room area for the emergency room. There is not an increase in any beds. There is not an increase in any type of patient services. This is simply to add, I believe it's about 10 extra chairs in the waiting room, which is unfortunately inadequately small right now for people that are waiting to be serviced at the ER or waiting for people that are currently being taken care of. We're also replacing the area where some of the vending machines are going and increasing the size of the area that we'll say will distract children while they are also there to downplay any type of additional annoyance ER rooms can tend to have. Also, we are altering basically the internal circulation of how ambulances deliver patients here. Right now, our canopy is very short. As ambulances have increased in technology and the ability to serve patients en route, they've gotten taller, which I certainly would not have envisioned, but the ambulances themselves have gotten taller. The new models cannot fit underneath our canopy as is. As you can imagine, this is a problem. We are having to unload patients outside of the canopy, and whenever there is inclement weather, this is a very big problem. You have an EMS staff. You're having a patient delivered on a stretcher in the pouring rain, in the snow, in the ice, in the wind. This can be very much a problem. To compound that, we only can fit basically two ambulances in this area at the same time. It's not unusual to have three to five ambulances arrive in virtually the same time period. And when two are already there, you have an ambulance that's stuck basically on the road, on a public road, blocking traffic while a patient needs to be treated. This is a problem and it's an inadequate service that we really want to improve on. And that is why this expansion of the canopy is basically just going taller, and it's adding in a dry vial to allow for, basically, you would be able to stack three ambulances next to each other to serve a total of five. Currently, you basically have to pass the emergency room. The ambulances will then actually back up, and at that point they can unload a patient. This is an inefficient way to do it. Our primary ambulance patient tends to be for a heart attack and other chest pains. We are not a trauma center. This is not a situation where there's been a wreck and someone is obviously bleeding profusely and needs immediate care. They tend to go to UK in this situation because it is the trauma center. This is a situation where you have heart patients where minutes matter, seconds matter, And if you're backing up, if you're waiting out on the street, this can be a serious problem. And that is the reason why this application is in front of you all today, in order to increase the waiting room area and just solve an inefficiency that has been created with the increase in technologies in the ambulances and basically how much demand there is for actual ambulance service. As you can see on the first page of the handout I gave, We are in complete compliance with the requirements of the zoning ordinance and the subdivision regulations as are before you. Yes, we are a very large facility. That I cannot deny. We are almost at capacity for lot coverage and almost at capacity for floor area ratio. But we are not at capacity or beyond it. This application does not require any additional parking requirements. We are well over compliance for our actual parking spaces. I get into this because of the standard of review of why we are here today. On the second page of this handout, I highlight basically Section 217E of the zoning ordinance and also I believe it's 214C. This is the standard of review of what we are here for today. This is not a referendum on the hospital as a whole. What we are here today is to determine if the application as before you will, as it says, adversely affect the public health, safety, or welfare, or alter the essential character of the development. The last part of that, obviously we are not altering the essential character of this. This is a hospital. We are simply finding a better way to get people into the hospital that is already going there. With regards, that basically leaves us to does this application, does this increase in square footage and the drive aisles, will this adversely affect the public health, safety, and welfare? I would submit to you that it is virtually impossible to claim that it would adversely affect. This isn't a situation that there are not already issues with Central Baptist and the neighbors and neighborhoods. This is will this application that's before you today increase that problem at all. I would simply say that it cannot. We are not trying to attract any new patients here. There is no one that is going to be in an ambulance and say, I now want to go to Central Baptist because I hear they have 10 extra chairs in their waiting room. This is not the situation that's going to occur. However, as I basically hinted at earlier, we have had lengthy conversations with our neighbors. We are well aware of the issues, and I do want to go through some of them. I know that there are a lot of people here that are going to want to talk, and I likely will have to make some comments afterwards. But with regards to landscaping requirements, Some of this happened when KU took three mature trees, basically took them out from the backyard that was creating buffer on McDonald. They did this without our knowledge, without notifying us, and without notifying the neighbors. This obviously caused quite concern. We've been talking with that specific neighbor. We hope that we have found a solution in order to replace that buffer. Obviously, we cannot replace three mature trees overnight, but we do believe we are going to be able to find a solution in order to replace that buffer, because that is obviously quite necessary. With regards to the lights, as I said, we have a lot of parking spaces. These light poles are absolutely necessary for our patients' and staff's safety. With that being said, we do acknowledge on the exterior of our parking lot, There are lights that are very old that do not take advantage of the full technologies that are out there today. What we have basically already contracted to do is put large shields on the exterior of this in order to force the lumens to go back towards the actual parking spaces of the sites and not out towards Hiltonia and the other surrounding areas. We have already begun the installation process on a lot of these lights. We are not completed, but we are going to, and that is basically the status of that situation. I will say that this application that's here before you, we are not adding more light poles. There is not going to be more light pollution. There already is a canopy. We are simply raising it, and we are changing the dry-vile situation. This is not an increase in lights. This should not impact the status quo whatsoever. Finally, everyone's most favorite topic is traffic. we are a commercial engine of this town. We cannot refute that, and we don't want to. We are actually quite proud of that fact. We do draw patients. We draw employees. We draw traffic. Right near us is Glendover Elementary. That also draws traffic. There are about over 600 students there that twice a day are drawing parents' pickup and drop-off. I'm not comparing. I'm simply stating that this is not just a Central Baptist problem. Nicholasville Road, as anyone knows that has driven it, can be a nightmare. All Lexingtonians, I think, I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, I avoid that road at all costs. That leads to cut-through traffic. Cut-through traffic is a problem throughout this city. Mayor Gray, when I believe he was still vice mayor, commissioned a traffic study. And then in his first week as mayor, he wanted to update that traffic study. We have a traffic problem in Lexington. But if you think about it, this is a very good problem to have. This means our city is growing. It means it's bringing in people from outside of our community with jobs that are spending money here as far as entertainment, shopping, and eating. This is a good problem to have. Now, that's not saying that when you live on one of these cut-through streets, it's a problem. It's a headache, and it's a nightmare. That is something that Central Baptist cannot directly do anything about. That is why I've been so proud that Commissioner Paulson and also Jeff Neal have been talking with the neighborhood, have agreed to talk with UK, have talked to Central Baptist in order to find new initiatives in order to solve some of the problems in this area. Again, as I indicated earlier, what we are here for today, we are not expecting to draw any new traffic here. There is not going to be a sudden rush for ambulances because now you can do a drive-through. That's just not the situation. Essentially, that is pretty much all I really need to say at this point. I hope that you all will consider the standard that's before you all with regards to whether or not this adversely affects the public health, safety, and welfare with this actual amendment that's before you all. I will turn the podium over to the frenzy that I can feel behind me. Thank you all. I'll also take questions, obviously. Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. Any questions for Mr. Nicholson? Yes, Ms. Copeland. Do you want to comment on future traffic? With what regards? Right now we are going through a construction period, and it is a major construction period as the last amendment that came through. With your question regarding the actual docking zone, it is itself under construction right now. We've tried to basically reroute traffic across Nicholasville to where there is a drop-off station where these 18-wheelers can unload into smaller vans, which we can then service the property with. We are doing everything we can to not have 18-wheelers going through during this construction traffic time. That's a temporary solution right now for the issue that we're facing. With regards to future traffic in general, I don't know if you're referring to patrons of the hospital or employees of the hospital. I can state that we make an active effort to ensure that all of our employees use Nicholasville Road. Every monthly newsletter we put out, there is a large section that says, please use our main entrances on Nicholasville Road. We can't force them to with regards to once they actually get in their cars. All Lexingtonians know how bad Nicholasville Road can be, especially during rush hour times, and they tend to use cut-throughs. I don't know what we can truly do besides having security guards out forcing them to do it, but I don't know if that adequately addresses any of your problems, but I certainly will happily address more questions. Thank you. Ms. Phillips. Mr. Nicholson, is there currently a protocol for entering emergency vehicles onto the property to access the emergency room? Captain Bowen went through this in the, I believe, the subdivision committee. There are speed bumps throughout the – once we hit the main entrance right here, there are speed bumps that would – where you would have to wind through to get here. There also is general traffic that is going through these and people accessing the hospital. I believe ambulances tend to want to avoid that. One, if you do have a situation with a patient in back, the speed bumps are a nightmare. I do believe a majority will access Hiltonia and go through this entrance. This entrance has been here since about 1982. It is not a new situation. I do not believe there is a specific protocol because they are, in fact, independent contractors. Most of them are actually employed through LFUCG. However, it is my understanding that they do use the Hiltonia insurance. With respect to using Hiltonia, had Hiltonia been, I mean, prior to the 1982 amendment, Was Hiltonia a cul-de-sac previously, or has it always been a 90-degree turn to McDonald's? Do you know the historical? I do not know the historical, I guess, the entrance. I'm not positive on McDonald's or on the historical access to it. I have a feeling there are people in the room that will know that, but I am naive. Okay, thank you. Mr. Penn. Mr. Nichols, let me ask you the question. I have been forced and unfortunate, whatever the case might be, to spend a lot of time in your establishment. I have yet to see a gate where it comes out on Hiltonia. There is not a gate. I'm not sure where that exactly came from. It is a one-way exit, but there is not an actual gate there now. Because I've routinely gone to the office part and gone out that way. So that solves the gate issue. Yes, there's not a gate there. And I do apologize for your frequent patronage, but we do thank you. Mr. Cravens. Yeah. How many cars park in that parking garage on the lower? I do not have the exact figures. I do have total parking figures. I am not positive on the actual number. I don't know if our insumers would have that information with them or not. 1,277. I heard 1,277. I'm not exactly positive. That's in that lower garage, parking garage. According to someone behind me, yes. Could you maybe look on the development plans if it's written on here? If it actually shows. There is a note. Okay. I do apologize. It's not actually up on there. That's the issue. It simply says seven total floors, 17s. Can you tell me who parks in there? Is that open parking? It is open parking, yes. Not just employees, but anyone? I believe it is open, yes. And then the lot right beside it, what's that for? I was going to check, but I wanted to be clear. I was looking at the appropriate structure. Microphone. Please, sir. Mr. Cravens, I want to. This structure. Are you asking what's here in this one? Okay. On that seven floor. 770. That's the issue. It's not on there. There was a breakdown of total. 1277. Yes, there it is. South Parking Structure. Pardon me, I was looking for an address. 1277. That's for, I'm guessing, the entire 740. What about the little parking lot right beside it? What's that for? This is for, I believe this is basically temporary parking for the ER emergency department itself. It is not designed for long-term parking, even day-long parking. This is a situation where you are dropping someone off that you have brought to the emergency room yourself. If there is an extended stay, you tend to go to the garage. So you don't know how many is in that? I know you need exact numbers. Did that drop off with all those other notes? We have a total surface parking of 681, but I do not see it actually being broken down per lot. Let me answer that. Sure. Keith Messinger, HR engineers. Mike, the answer to your question is. Approximately 50 spaces there. It is temporary parking for initial drop-offs to the ER, plus it's also doctor parking. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Nicholson, I guess unlike Mr. Penn, I'm fortunate that I haven't needed to be there yet. But we're talking about gates, and you mentioned one-way traffic in or one-way traffic out. Yes. Can you explain the entrances for me? This is the one-way exit out that we are referring to. Okay. Here is the actual entrance for the emergency department. This entrance itself is staying identical. We are not touching that whatsoever. It is only this area right here that we are reworking. Here are two main entrances off Nicholasville. This is where an overwhelming majority of our traffic does actually enter from, and there also is one, apologies, right here as well. I do have actual statistics, if need be, from a quick count we took just yesterday, and I believe it's essentially about, if I can't find it. We're reaching almost 70%, 70%, 80% that are entering and exiting off Nicholasville. These are figures from basically a typical weekday morning access to the site. From Hiltonia and McDonald, you're looking at basically 26% that are entering. I would assume that that includes patients, that includes doctors, staff, et cetera. And exiting, you are looking at a slightly smaller figure. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Nicholson? Does that take care of your presentation? Yes, it does. Okay. Thank you. At this time, I would ask if there's anyone in the audience that wishes to speak in support of this amended plan. One comment in answer to your question earlier. It was in 1929 that McDonald basically teed in, for lack of a better term, to Hiltonia. Anyone wishing to speak in support of this amended plan? Okay. Let me ask, before we start with any of the opposition, who all wishes to speak? Just with a show of hands. Okay. Thank you. is there a spokesperson? Okay. What I'd simply ask is to be respectful and then also try to keep from being repetitive. But you may start. I'd just like to thank the members of the Commission for hearing us today. We're going to start out with someone named Susan. She's gone around for us, and there's a petition out there on the streets, and she's going to go ahead and explain that. I'm sorry, your name's... Oh, I apologize. Mark Yannick, 1822 McDonald Avenue, current resident. Live adjacent to the hospital. We've lived there for about seven years now. I'm also a registered landscape architect, and practice that, you know, ongoingly. Just like to start off with a quick introduction. We're going to start off with our petition, and then we're going to move into landscape issues, which I will address, followed up by traffic issues, and then we're going to hear from the Glendover Association regarding traffic. So to kick us off, Susan, can you come up here and talk about some petitions? Hello. My name is Susan Techmeyer. I'm a member of the Southern Heights neighborhood, and I live on Shady Lane. We have a wonderful neighborhood, and one of the best things about our neighborhood is we're located by a great attribute to the city, the Arboreum. Just a little background of our neighborhood. Many of our houses were built in the 1920s to 1930s. Many of our roads were built by 1922. When Central Baptist arrived in the mid-1950s, what we see now resembles little of what it originally came into our neighborhood. And after all, if you've probably been to Central Baptist, then perhaps you know of our quaint, wonderful neighborhood. At Central Baptist, a new 10-story parking garage, a new 2-story underground parking garage, will join the previous parking garages to make more than 3,500 parking spaces. Baptist Health Care Systems at Central Baptist employs more than 2,400 employees. In the $2 million expansion of Central Baptist and the enlarging of the ER, the traffic circulation through and around the hospital and therefore out and into our neighborhood will only be expected to increase. One reason there's a problem is the lack of Baptist health care system and Central Baptist to appropriately address the huge volume of employees, vendors, patients, visitors to their facility and their ability to access Nicholasville Road or an exit by any other means. This is very apparent in the evening rush hour when Nicholasville Road becomes one inbound lane to downtown. The lanes become blocked, creating an inability for people to exit Central Baptist and to be able to turn onto Nicholasville Road. This has been an ongoing problem for over decades, and without change but increased growth, it will be a disaster to try to navigate the huge volume of traffic, which will continue to exit around an emergency room entrance and through our neighborhood. This traffic route is recreated in the morning. and employees drive to work cutting through our neighborhood through a school zone by commonly speeding and running stop signs. I would like to present for the record a petition signed by over 230 households, included on the Hiltonia Valley, Shady Lane, Glendover, Rebecca, the roads that lead from the back of Central Baptist Hospital to Tate's Creek. Only nine households felt they were unable to sign the petition, and that was primarily due to a conflict of interest with Central Baptist. The petition request, an internal gate or restriction to deter employee traffic from cutting through our neighborhood, a landscape buffer to shield our neighborhood from the light and noise and air pollution that is generated by the hospital facility, and we'd also like the replacement of the evergreen screening adjacent to Mark Annick's property. While the specifics of how to accomplish this are not important at this exact moment, What is important is the concern and the intent behind these signatures of our neighbors. 96% of all people I talk to believe in the following. 1. Traffic is a significant problem to the health and character of our neighborhood. 2. The $2 million expansion project will increase the traffic to an endangering and completely unacceptable level. Number three, Central Baptist Hospital employee traffic is a significant part of the problem. We all agree that this problem needs to be corrected. Please reject the DP2012-4 Baptist Health Care System 27th Amended Final Development Plan, as it does nothing to correct the current problem and, in fact, will exacerbate the situation. situation. I promised to read a letter from a neighbor that couldn't be with us. It's a little bit of a historical perspective. Hiltonia did used to look like a miniature Cherokee Park, if you wanted to think of it that way. It was closed off, and this neighbor is a longstanding member of the neighborhood. It's Nancy Thompson at 124 Hiltonia Park. She's 75 years old and has lived there since the 1940s. I'd like to read her statement since she was unable to be with us today, but on February 18, 2012, she wrote, At one time, there was a gate that restricted traffic into Central Baptist from McDonald Avenue and Hiltonia Park. Additionally, the parking lots there were to be only used by doctors and EMS vehicles. At the time, only one or two cars a day used the McDonald Avenue entrance. Traffic was very minimal. We used to have a basketball hoop at the end of the street. We rode our bikes all the time. But now traffic is out of control. Can you imagine playing kick the can out in the street now? Also, the lights at night are so bright I can almost read my book in the home with the lights on. And the sound generated by Central Baptist is, believe me, deafening. Nancy Thompson, 124, Hiltonia Park. Thank you very much for letting me present our letter from our neighbor. and our petition. I appreciate your time and your commitment in this matter, and I would like to bring Mark Yannick back to present further our objection. Ms. Phillips? Ms. Tuckmeyer, I have a question. Yes. I'm just trying to surmise, I guess because of the alignment of homes, existing homes, at the apex of Hiltonia and McDonald. You're making a reference to Cherokee Park, but doesn't Cherokee Park have a bulb at the end of kind of a cul-de-sac turnaround? Did that ever exist here? Mark can probably speak further about that, but I take it that it did and that the houses at McDonald were built after that opened. But I'll let Mark. I have had training with one of those pointer things, so apparently I haven't had that much training thank you yes that's correct at one time this was a bulb and it still is a bulb type condition similar to Cherokee Park Also, at one time, there were two additional houses, one here and one here. And McDonald kind of came in and sort of made a dead-end type of condition. Excuse me. When did McDonald's come into existence? I don't know the exact date, but 1922. In my recollection, the factory of Tony Park was 1927. thank you at this time I'd like to bring up the PowerPoint presentation it's a dated PowerPoint March 22nd I also have some handouts for you guys is there a way to turn the lights down at all thank you recently one of our residents unfortunately passed away but we had the opportunity to go through some of her old pictures and these are views of what Hiltonia Park used to look like down here. Well, maybe I should turn around for you. Down here at the end is where the bulb cul-de-sac type condition was. Over here on the left are where existing homes used to be that have been raised for future expansions at Shunkaback. Switch mics. Switch mics. Thank you. Mark. Mark, those houses were on the Central Baptist side. That's correct. Now, after this presentation, Mr. Wester is going to talk about traffic, but let's see. How do we skip ahead here? Okay. Article 18, development pattern. As you're well aware, there's been 27 development plan amendments. The neighborhood has had a hard time keeping up with these development plan amendments over the years, and not everything on a DP plan that we're experiencing, such as noise and light pollution, air pollution, visual clutter, these sorts of things are noted on DP plans. So what we're going to show is the cumulative effects that these prior development plans have had on our neighborhood, which are noise, light, air pollution, visual clutter, and how some of these things restrict tree canopy growth. And then following that, we're going to be addressing perimeter landscape buffers as they exist. Noise pollution. Well, this is an image of a large HVA squall. Where is the side? I'm just going to put my other side. This large HVA system here generates a lot of noise, and it may not be noted on DP plans. But the important thing to note here is the large structures that are surrounding it. The sound is generally funneled towards Hiltonia Park at this location. This location is actually the one-way access route out into Hiltonia Park that was previously discussed. here's another view of an HVAC unit now on amendment 27 this is exactly where the new canopy is going to be going noise is a safety issue when we stand on our front porches my neighbor and I can hardly hear each other talk and he came to me one day and said Mark I'm sorry for our alarm going off we just had a new security system going in it's been going off all day And I said, well, I haven't heard a thing. So that just gives you kind of the perspective on noise. Here's another view. McDonald Avenue is to your left. This is, again, another view of the Amendment 27. So I guess the bigger question here is what's going to happen to these large HVAC units that are creating all of this noise? And if additional canopy coverage is required in this area, what kind of effect will that have on the safety of the patients in EMS vehicles that are dropping off and serving the hospital? Here's another HVAC unit that's generating noise. Here's a view of the existing canopy drop-off. As you can see, noise kind of funnels around this area and gets funneled back out towards the neighborhood and the arboretum. People are concerned about noise traveling to the Arboretum as well, affecting wildlife and species and that thing. I'm not an expert on that, though, so I can't speak towards it. This is a very, very large HVAC unit, and it does affect the Arboretum as well as the neighborhood. You can hear this all the way towards the Arboretum drop-off area, main entrance, and all the way up to Shady Lane. Here are some other additional things. A helipad, a generator, HVAC units, mechanical rooms. All these things are on past development plans, but the neighbors really aren't fully aware of what's entailed here. Yes, there's a mechanical room, but what's going in that room and what kind of noise is that going to be generating? Light pollution. What industry standard is lighting being designed to? There's good, there's bad, and then, you know, you've got the ugly. There's IGA standards and LEED standards and very typical industry standards, and we'd like to know what are they being redesigned to meet. Here's an image of something the petitioner has done recently to address light pollution, and it appears to be a good solution, but that is ongoing. Here's some floodlights that are directed towards the neighborhood. Here's an image of what the floodlights are doing at night. I don't know how you can successively put shades or screen lights that are facing the neighborhood in this type of situation. They may have to be relocated. So I guess maybe a lighting study, an overall lighting study, might be appropriate. Air and noise light pollution. and here's a view of the helipad. We all know what kind of noise those things make, and this diesel generator runs on smoke, and it makes lots of smoke, and runs every Sunday morning around mid-morning. So you come out after church, and you're sitting on your patio or your deck, and you're listening not only to this noise, but you get a nice whiff of diesel fumes, aircraft fumes, fumes from traffic, 2,500 cars plus a day going in and out of the neighborhood. Visual clutter. Here's a view of a new power pole that feeds existing, well, I'm sorry, it feeds proposed infrastructure. This power pole went in recently. As you can see, burial has existing, or proposed lines, I'm sorry, but yet when you get towards a residential area, they're not. Again, not all these things show up on an EP plan, but they do affect our neighborhood. Here's a view of the tree canopy restrictions. How are trees supposed to grow up and meet your requirements if power lines such as this are installed? As you can see, here's an image of a tree that's been topped. Ferment of landscape buffering. Here's a view of the Central Baptist Parking Line. As you can see, we have a very nice, quaint, tight-knit community here. And the important thing to note, sorry, is this little strip right here. It's three feet wide, and that's the very minimum requirement required by Article 18. Recently, the petitioner has come in and, you know, tried to assess this area, and he has put in some shrubs and trees, one new tree and five shrubs. Unfortunately, a double staggered row is shown in this type of condition. It cannot be possible in a three-foot-wide landscape buffer. And we're talking three feet is less than this podium or approximate use thereof. This actually is a view of a vehicular use area and is wider than the previous area shown. the replacement tree is less than one one half inch caliper in size in previous DP plans this parking this surface lot and I just pulled a quote out of some meeting minutes here and I just want to read it to you it says the new parking space will create a landscape court which should have a positive visual effect on the neighborhood professionally speaking I don't know if this has a positive visual effect on the neighborhood. Existing landscape offer along Nicholasville Road. It looks wonderful. They've done a great job. This is another image along Nicholasville Road. You cannot see cars. In fact, you can't even see hospital buildings and that sort of thing. They've done a fabulous job here. And here's a view of Hiltonia Park. from residence on Hiltonia Park, looking at a structure, looking at cars, visual clutter, these sorts of things. As previously stated, there's a 50-foot-wide landscape buffer on the north side. Currently, what's required is a 3-foot-wide landscape buffer on the south side. A 3-foot-wide landscape buffer cannot provide an acceptable level of landscape screening, given these previously mentioned items. We also read Nancy Thomason's testimonial, which we've heard previously. in 1945 where kids used to go ride their bikes around. At this point in time, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Wester to talk about traffic. And after our conclusion here, we're going to give you our final request and what we're asking for. Thank you. My name is Stuart Wester. I live at 122 Hillton Park. If you all could give me one moment to try to figure out how to work this thing, I'm really not familiar with it. Okay. Let's see if I can figure out how to get up and down here real quick, and I'll come back. Okay. Okay. I'd like to start off with the federal highway definition of a local road. And I highlighted the bottom part of that, just for you all's help. Service to through traffic movement usually is deliberately discouraged. Historically, going back to 1982, this has not been what has been done to Hiltonia Park and McDonald. Stanford? Check one, two. Here you go. Previously, staff, when they started off, they talked about the entrance to Eltonian Park and was talking about the emergency room entrance. What they didn't point out was, or another thing they pointed out was the speed bumps here that the ambulances didn't want to use. What they didn't point out was the access to this parking structure from Hiltonia. They also gave a traffic count, which was done yesterday. Now, I don't know why they would have done that when Traffic Engineering did a study a year ago showing the traffic counts, unless, of course, they brought down the traffic counts yesterday. The traffic counts done in 2011 show 2,500 cars coming in and out of here a day. To be quite honest with you, it's probably more like 3,200. I live right here. I sit out and count all the time. It's become a hobby, unfortunately. Okay. Okay, here is actually, now the traffic engineering will tell you that Hiltonia and McDonald's are local streets. In all actuality, McDonald's at its widest point is 20 feet, and at some points it's 18 feet, which is actually considered a rural local street. When you have nine-foot wide ambulances and buses trying to get up and down on 18 feet, where do they end up? they end up in people's yards. And it happens every day, many times a day. Let's keep going here. Let's just show a little slide to show you what we use, people using the streets. There's no sidewalks. There's no curbs. They've literally been beaten into the ground by traffic. And when I say traffic, I mean 18-wheelers. Not during construction. These 18 wheelers, I've lived there since 1996. This is the entrance and the delivery point for the Central Baptist Hospital. That section right there, that is 16 feet wide. They bring tractor trailers through there. The other day I watched her, I was meeting on the gas station on Shinaway, and there were questions about tractor-trailers going on to a collector road that was 60 feet wide. Now, we have a problem with this, and there's damage caused every day. Questions, sir? I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Do you mind showing us to go back a slide, please? Not at all. Where is that curve? Absolutely. That is right here. Okay. So behind the stroller is McDonald? Or are we looking down Hiltonia? This is Hiltonia. This is McDonald right here. Hiltonia is measured at 20 feet. McDonald, I mean, up here, it's 18 feet. McDonald, I mean, Hiltonia right here is 16 feet. Okay. So that's Hiltonia right there. That is the corner of that. You're looking at Hiltonia right there. But he's turning on to McDonald. Thank you. I apologize for the interruption. No problem. This is a letter we had a civil engineer write for us. He came up and looked at it. And I can read it to you, or you all can probably read it quicker. But currently, Baptist Hospital uses McDonald Avenue as an extension of the emergency room entrance to funnel a large segment of employee traffic into and away from the facility. This accommodation would never be allowed under today's planning practices. McDonald Avenue and the remaining streets of a shady lane neighborhood can be characterized as narrow, often semi-obstructed, with vehicles parked along the pavement edges, vertically and horizontally compromised from sight and stopping perspectives, and totally local in use. To allow the hospital's goods and services, supplies, and personnel to use these roadways to the extent that they are being used is at best impractical and at worst extremely dangerous. It is surprising that the hospital would encourage this traffic pattern with a history of designs and additions that offer no compromise to collector street traffic volumes and uses traveling local residential streets each and every day. A simple improvement would be an internal gate that would contain the hospital traffic to its campus while directing it to its arterial front door, Nicholasville Road. The emergency room entrance would serve only emergency room traffic. Emergency vehicles, doctors, and family members are those needing treatment. This is the traffic count from 2011, one from 2007 that we could find, and one from 2005. Now, in 2011, they did McDonald and Hiltonia. In 2007 and 2005, we could not find counts. We do have counts that go back to 1987, and I'll bring that up in a moment. That was a traffic study done by the city for Central Baptist before they did a major addition. As you can see from this, just over the past six years, it went from 500 cars on McDonald's to 1,100 to 1,800. If you add in Hiltonia traffic, that's 3,269 cars. This bottom number, from what traffic has explained to us, and I'm not really sure, but it says it's 1740 Nicholsville Road. What they have told us, and I'm still a little confused on it, is that actually is the entrance right here on McDonald. Why they have 1740 Nicholsville Road up there, I'm not sure. Maybe that's just because this is the address of Central Baptist Hospital, officially. but I'm not sure, but I can tell you that the difference in those two numbers of 3269 and 2494 are not correct. And I'll show you a video footage that I took at random two weeks ago, a five-minute video of the traffic at 440 in the afternoon, which is not peak hours. And the traffic counts are in the traffic studies where in those packets we gave you. The actual peak hours, I believe, were from 5 to 6. Here's just a graphical look at it. The one on the N2011 has Hiltonia on it because there was actually counts. The other one's on McDonald's. You can see the increase. Now, previously they said there was a $2 million expansion. That's not correct. It's $200 million. This has not been built yet. they're adding 641 parking spots overall which is approximately 20% of their parking just by doing the math 20% of the previous counts puts it well over well close to $4,000 $4,000, $4,000 vehicles which is the absolute maximum of a local road of a currently built local road not one that was built in 1920 or 22 or 32. Traffic was not able to tell us what's the standard, what size vehicle is supposed to be on that road. How can it handle a 50,000-pound truck? Well, they've been handling it very poorly for almost 30 years. As we move forward, this is a normal shot in the morning during peak rush hour, and this goes on for about two hours. Most of the cars, or many of the cars, do not stop. There's only two pictures or one picture in this presentation that have not been taken in the last six weeks. This is one of them. I just want to let you know that everything we've done has been since I went in front of the subdivision committee meeting and talked to you all in the beginning of February. Now we're going to take a walk down Hiltonia We're headed west From the entrance Right here Moving down the street As you can see driving in the median When the 18 wheelers and the other trucks come out At 16 feet across They of course can't make the turn They just go up on the median And this has been going on I've lived there 16 years This has been going on all 16 years, not just recently. There's the curb area. And this picture is further up the street, and I want to show you this one because this is actually, in the next slide you'll see, is where the smokers come out and hang out. And this is where people are coming up and pulling up on the curb and talking to their friends. And I mean their friends because they're employees. Here's a herd of smokers at that same point. they're all wearing scrubs or uniforms from inside the hospital they throw down their cigarette butts they used to be in a big pile until we made a complaint last year and now they come out at 7.30 in the morning and suck them up with their blowers and wake everybody up that way instead of waiting to do it in the evening okay here we're going on down the street so now we're right in this area all this mud is going into the watershed. The city is being sued for our storm sewer problems. And this has been like this for 16 years. They will come out. They will repair it. Vehicles will come up, pull up on there, go in, make deliveries, come back out, and that's how it ends up. And it's like this all the way down the street. You can see the cracked curb. I'm not going to talk on all of them. They're all the same thing. You all can see what's going on. This is going up the street. Now we're heading east. This is the corner down next to Nicholasville. Right here. Coming up the street right here. This individual has decided to put in bricks instead of dealing with the mud. Once again, as we head up the street, that's what the infrastructure looks like. Now, I'd like to make one point here. The bond issue for this $200 million expansion was passed by the Council, $123 million, and bonded by the Economic Development Cabinet. It strictly said that Lexington would bear no cost. I want to know who's going to pay to fix these roads. these sidewalks, these curbs and quite frankly I think it's a really poor example of using state dollars to finance something like this and I think central batteries can speak to that as far as their profits and so on and so forth here we go, we move up the street that curb right there it is even with the street it has been actually pushed down not broken apart but actually pushed down to the surface of the street over years and years and years. And now we're going to have 641 new parking places with more traffic coming. And as you pointed out earlier, this is the loading dock, and this is where they come in. They use this local street built in 1920 or 22, and that's their loading dock. There used to be a gate. Not only here, but there used to be one somewhere in here that blocked traffic from coming up and getting out here. I'm not sure exactly when that disappeared. I can't pin anybody down on it. Just people have told me there used to be a gate you couldn't get out from inside out either. That disappeared sometime in the 80s, and I'll show you when I think that happened. This is still going up the street. you all can see what it looks like. These people just black-topped, and they got sick of the mud. All that mud's going in storm sewer every time it rains. Okay. These are the type of vehicles that are causing the damage. And once again, I've taken all these pictures the past six weeks. And, of course, this was after the subdivision committee meeting, so we have had some talks with Central Baptist, and they know that we've been looking at them, and I know that they have talked to some of their employees about the speeding and whatnot because some of the employees have actually stopped and said mean things to some of the neighbors. And I'm not going to express them here on the record. So it is going around, and they do probably send out memos and newsletters, and I'm not always sure it's pro-help out the neighborhood, not from the words that we've heard this morning and actually from an event that happened this morning. which you'll hear about later. There's another vehicle. This one I especially found interesting. Why a forklift would be going up the street? Now this is right here, once again, turning off of Hiltonia onto McDonald. You can see the mud trailing out behind it. And there's the damage it did. Look at that curb. See, it's pushed into the ground, not from that forklift, but that's where the 18-wheeler's turned. Okay, there's a picture of the 18-wheeler. Here's a truck that broke down, said to bring an 18-wheeler tow truck in. I'm glad that ambulance could get out and wasn't coming in with somebody who was really hurt. There it is, trying to make the turn, backing in and out. If you could... This video, I came home one day at 4.40, put my phone out on the railing wind side and decided to wait five minutes. I ended up coming out and the video was actually six minutes, 27 seconds long. I cut off the first minute and 27 seconds. If we sit here and watch it, there's going to be 48 cars coming in and out of here. About half of them stop at the stop sign. the rest of them go through, go up to Shady Lane, cross over, get over onto Glendover, and pass by Glendover as the students are getting out of school. Now, if you see these, this is not emergency traffic. They're not ambulances. Almost every one of these people is wearing scrubs or wearing a suit and talking on a cell phone. Every day. And this is not peak hours. I don't mind going on through this and not wasting your time, but you can see what's going on. And I will tell you there's 48 vehicles that come in and out of here. There are two vehicles that turn and go down. So you've got two vehicles out of 48 that are not going to or from the hospital. That's what, 4% of the total vehicles? You can go ahead and stop it. Okay, this is where the problem originated. This is the Fourth Development Plan, 1987. As you can see, is there a layer on this thing? Is this the middle button? Or the bottom trigger? Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. This entrance right here runs up to the emergency room. Right there. And then you have the entrance right here. You have the exit right there. And you have another entrance right here. That entrance right there is the key. That's where the traffic used to go to get to the emergency room. As you go forward, this is a traffic study done in 1987. The most important thing is at the very bottom of the recommendations right there. and it says, it is recommended that the number of access points be reduced to three, an entrance exit on Hilltonia-McDonald, a redesigned entrance only from Nichols Hill Road next to the medical office buildings, and one, a new one, a Cherokee Park with a light. Now if we go back, that's that entrance right there that they said needs to stay. Okay, that's the southernmost entrance, and it's the one next to the office buildings. And if you read through the study, the whole study, it says the southernmost entrance. Now, if you move forward, this is 1987. This is the Tenth Amendment Plan, 1992. You see the proposed medical building and the little cut-through going to the next one? They cut off that entrance. They went against the traffic study. Why? I don't know. But what that did, and some of the traffic counts are in the packet from the traffic study. All that did was push all that traffic down to Hiltonia. And now this entrance, this is not an emergency room entrance. This is the employee entrance and the public entrance. And they come in here. They have a free ride right into here and into this parking structure. And it's funny how there's only one speed bump here, but there's like five through here. They're pushing people up through this area, and it was done on purpose. Now, what I find also interesting is right here you have the shaded area, that little bitty parking lot. In the next development plan, you see the addition to the parking structure down here in the bottom. You notice that little parking area is gone. And at the bottom right there was going to be a doctor-only entrance. As we go forward, this is the 14th Amendment Development Plan. If you notice, that lot's still there. They shortened up the building. They added an entrance right there. They added that exit right there. That was not on the plan. Under the current law, and I'm not sure about the laws then, that's illegal. You can't put an access point on a building or a parking structure without an amended development plan. They didn't do it. They also put this in right here, and this shuttles people right out. In those minutes in 1993 when they had this development plan, this right here, there are quotes, and I can get them out if we want to go back over them later on, where they specifically said they were going to cut off access from that parking structure to Hiltonia Park and only use internal circulation. Now by the exact quote, they did. But they also cut this off right here, made it shorter, and have a sign that says, To Nicholasville Road. So they're actually just using that one little section of internal road, and then they go out, McDonald and Hiltonia. And that's to keep people from their inside circulation. Now I know they have circulation problems, and I know they knew they were going to have them before they built this. I mean, who wouldn't know that? But this neighborhood was there before the hospital. These roads were built before the hospital. This just isn't right. And it hadn't been right for a long time. And I look back over all the minutes, and Ms. Gallup over here can attest to my time I spent going over all the development plans. Central Baptist basically lost once. That was in 1981 with Bill Lear. Then Bill Lear supported him in 87. They got the rest of the stuff through. But since then, they haven't been contested. And nobody, the way I understand it is that the state building inspector does the final inspection, but they're not going back over the plan, so they're not catching what they're doing. That's the end of it. Really, the only other thing I'd like to say is that nobody wants to restrict the building of this emergency room. What we want to do is we want to restrict the access to the other traffic and get the neighborhood back. Because emergency room traffic is not a problem. It's all the other traffic. And that traffic, by definition, should be going to an arterial road. Thank you very much. Any questions for Mr. Wester? Yes. Mr. Wester, one question. Mr. Wester, what's your background? I'm an economist by education. I'm a computer programmer by vocation. I'm a political consultant, data consultant, and currently I'm an assistant to the governor. You're an assistant to the... Special assistant to the governor in the finance cabinet. Okay. And you bought your house on Hiltonia Park when? 1996. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Wester. Others that would like to speak? Yes, please. Just ask, please not be repetitive. Hi. My name is Clarissa Spahn. I live at 1909 Belafonte Drive. You've seen me up here more than I've ever public spoke in my life recently. I also want you to know I've got a PowerPoint presentation, and I hope it will be brief, but I decided to try to learn to do PowerPoint in front of people, so that seems like a good way to learn to do a new skill, so hopefully it will go well. I'm here to request that you reject the development plan submitted by the Baptist Health Care System Corporation. And I think I'll go ahead and have you bring up. Yeah, here we go. First, I want to qualify something that you said. Baptist Health Care System Corporation is a $1.2 billion corporation, at least according to their 2009-990 forms. Central Baptist Hospital is just one of the hospitals that they own. They are currently allowing employees to the back ER, which, you know, I'll skip through that. I'm requesting that you reject this proposal for the following two reasons. The first is that the hazardous traffic flow through the Glendover neighborhood, which is where I live, is caused in large part by the Central Baptist Hospital cut-through traffic using the ER access off of McDonnell Road. And the second is that LFUCG is unable to address this problem. As you can see from Stuart's previous presentation, the condition of the roads, they're also unable to address traffic enforcement and traffic calming. As written, DP 2012-4 fails to rectify this hazardous neighborhood traffic situation and, in fact, may encourage a long-term increase in traffic flow throughout our adjoining neighborhoods. Let's see. I'll go ahead and start this. Hopefully I can do this. Okay, this map indicates the route under consideration today. It starts up here at McDonald. The traffic flows down McDonald through Shady Lane, goes through Valley, down Glendover Road, through the school parking lot, or the school crosswalk, rather, down to Shirley, to Rebecca, to Tate's Creek, and by my observation they tend to turn left and go up to alumni because I believe it's just very difficult to turn right on Nicholasville Road to get to alumni because they're always going contrary to the flow of rush hour traffic, either entering or exiting. They're in that one miserable lane on Nicholasville Road that nobody ever wants to be in. So it's easier for them actually to cut down and cut back up, and that's what they're doing. All the roads that I've named are designated as local neighborhood roads. They are all 25-mile-per-hour roads, and as you will see in the following charts, the traffic volume and speed is far beyond what's considered safe for neighborhood roads. From my previous meeting before this commission, Mr. Alexander asked me how I knew that morning rush-hour traffic going through the Glendover School crosswalk at Belafonte in Glendover was actually going to Central Baptist. I responded that several of us counted traffic one morning and observed this. I think Mr. Wester provided a photo showing cars entering the CBH campus. I like to look at data, and I think this chart nicely shows the correlation between Glendover and McDonald traffic. The Glendover data was collected in the 200 block of Glendover Road just before the Valley Road turnoff. The McDonald data is the difference between two sensors, one located on Shady Lane. One is just before the turnoff onto McDonald, and the other is just after the turnoff. So the values that I'm giving you are not the accumulated total of McDonald Road and Hiltonia. They're actually just what turned off of Shady Lane onto McDonald. There are no intervening roads, so I feel pretty sure that the difference shows the cars that went down McDonald. As you can see, morning traffic on Glendover would be possibly reduced by close to 50% if easy access from Central Baptist to McDonald were not provided. Here's a corresponding chart showing the traffic traveling eastbound from the Southern Heights neighborhood through Glendover. I guess I forgot to mention the axes, the vehicle count. You can see it's over 600 in this four-hour time period from 1245 to 445. It drops down to 500 on Glendover. This is the evening rush hour traffic heading eastbound from Central Baptist. Oh, yeah, you can see the huge, this is the McDonald portion of it. So their count, the way the sensors work, they collect data for a 15-minute period. Our neighborhood probably takes about 15 minutes or less to get through. So it's probably safe to say that a car that's on McDonald's is also the same car that's on Glendover. I mean, you're not going to actually see traffic movement through the neighborhood. You're only going to see how many cars were on McDonald's during this time, how many cars were on Glendover at this time. I believe that excess traffic kills neighborhoods. The following two charts will show traffic counts at locations on three neighborhood roads, and they'll be at these locations. The first one is in the middle of Glendover. It's 242, 243 Glendover. One's eastbound, one's westbound. It's over here on Rebecca. We've got 853 and 856. and then McDonald Road, as I explained, is derived from the difference between a sensor right there and a sensor on Shady Lane after the turnoff. Okay, this chart shows the total hourly traffic on the three roads, McDonald, Glendover, and Rebecca. So we got McDonald is the red one, then Rebecca is right through here. They're fairly similar. In Glendover, we do have extra traffic, but you can see we're pretty much running right along there with McDonald. And, you know, dropping off the traffic from McDonald would drop these numbers significantly. This is the vehicle's count per hour. It's up over 350 at 545, and this is on a weekday. This line here, this horizontal line, is from the Traffic Engineering publication. It's the safe traffic volume. It's 100 cars per hour, and it's the maximum traffic volume during peak traffic hours, and it's one criteria they use to determine the need for traffic calming. So as you can see, the maximum volume of 100 cars per hour is exceeded throughout most of the day. This is another representation of the data shown on the previous chart, but in this case, it is the total volume of cars that traveled each of these roads on February 26, 2011. March, yeah, Friday, it was a Friday. Oh, I'm sorry. Again, this line is the same documentation by Traffic Engineering. It's the maximum volume of cars of 1,000 that they consider the trigger point to start considering traffic calming. Here's the next one. The posted speed limit on Glendover Road is 25 miles per hour. Over 500 cars per day exceed the 400 miles. I'm sorry, I'll start over. The posted speed limit on Glendover Road is 25 miles per hour. Over 500 cars per day exceed 40 miles per hour on Glendover Road. I didn't have access to a breakdown of the speed data the way I did of traffic count data, So I'm using summary data, which was provided to me by traffic engineering from the same traffic study. I feel that this data is, at best, the minimum speeds because it included the weekend. So it went from Friday to Monday. This data is from a sensor located in the 200 block of Glendover. So it's between Belafonte and the Valley Road turnoff. The previous count was actually just before Valley Road. I used this one because people are not slowing down for the curve at this point. This is a 25-mile-per-hour road frequented by pedestrians, cyclists, and schoolchildren. Less than one quarter of the cars using this road were willing to drive at or below the 25-mile-per-hour speed limit. Over 500 cars drove almost twice the speed limit considered safe on this road. Ironically, many of the folks speeding through our neighborhood we recognize because there are doctors. Many are young employees dressed in scrubs. At the risk of being dramatic, speed does indeed kill. The risk of pedestrian death and serious injury goes up exponentially with increases in vehicular speed. So as you can see, at 20 miles per hour, only 5% of pedestrians hit would die. But when you jump to 40 miles per hour, 80% of pedestrians would die. and a person 70 years or older will experience outcomes equivalent to that of a car traveling at 10 miles per hour faster than its actual speed. This is pretty relevant to us because we have a lot of elderly people living in the Glendover area and actually living on Glendover Road. I'm going to say one thing. If you go back to this map, But we weren't able to find, my friend Dana and I tried to find data on ADA compliance, because one issue here is that, say, for example, you lived right here on Glendover, and you wanted to try to walk or use your wheelchair to get down over to here, you would probably not be able to cross right here. So the only option you would have would be to cross and go all the way down. So if you were to start in the middle of the street, especially during busy traffic times, you would probably have to walk back up to here and back down, or you'd have to use your wheelchair. If you were older or had any kind of mobility impairment, it would be very difficult. The same is true if, for example, when I go to my doctor at Central Baptist, I walk across the street up here, and then I walk down, just so that I don't have to try to cross at Valley Road. Okay, the next two charges demonstrate my claim that LFUCG is unable to protect us from the traffic hazard. While I was unable to get data on the exact number of officers cut from traffic enforcement duty, I was able to look at 2010 data regarding citations and collision rates in our city. So this is a combination of two different axes. On the left, we have citations that were written. On the right, we have actual collision data. And so, as you can see, from 2007 to 2010, the citation rate went down. And you might be tempted to think Lexington drivers were just getting much better, but interestingly enough, the collision rate went way up. So, I mean, I'm just guessing at this, but I think that it's because we don't have adequate traffic enforcement to write the citations that they used to be able to write. We certainly have seen that on Glendover where we were able to call them and they could come out more frequently. And actually now I even hesitate to call because I know they are very, very busy. Another problem is funding for traffic calming. It's not available. Many cities are aware of the problems caused by what are called LULUs, which are locally undesirable land uses, one of those being hospitals. They are examining traffic problems on a neighborhood basis. Interestingly, Greenville, South Carolina, where our Commerce Lex has gone to examine how they've done such a good job, one of the things they do is they do not look at traffic on a street-by-street basis. They look at a neighborhood, and that's something that we don't do here. They are then retrofitting those neighborhoods to protect them from the increased traffic caused by business expansion. Cities across the country recognize that you can't promote livability while ignoring hazardous neighborhood traffic problems. It's a neighborhood preservation problem, a safety problem, and a city liability problem. And as you can see, I got this document, I'm not sure from where, but this was already written on it, just to let me know not to get my hopes up. No money. So we are turning to you, the Board of Planning and Zoning, for your help. Your mission is to preserve, protect, and enhance existing neighborhoods, and my understanding of how this is done is that you evaluate the desires of the applicant in the context of current data and current conditions. Given the current economic conditions, our city does not have the ability to adequately protect our neighborhood from the hazardous traffic created by the BHS Corporation's expansion and use of the ER entrance as a general parking lot entrance. As shown over this past year, they will not hesitate to use this entrance for general purposes if the need arises, and their proposal must be evaluated in that light. To protect our neighborhood, any development plan presented by the BHS Corporation must ensure that no employee parking is accessible via the ER entrance. Until successful solutions to this problem can be worked out by the city, BHS and other relevant parties I'm asking that this Commission please reject development plan 2012-4 thank you for your commitment thank you yes sir right I just like have mr. Wester come to the podium real quick he's gonna Go ahead, sir. Charles Seymour, 104 Urban Road. While we don't live in this neighborhood, we understand traffic issues because we had the same situation in New Jersey where we moved from. But I want to say that, as Mr. Nicholson has amply demonstrated, the situation at Central Baptist has clearly deteriorated, although I don't think that was his intent of showing it, and the traffic genie is clearly out of the bottle. I understand that there is a note in the plans that has been there for many years to work with UK to provide access to alumni. This would clearly improve the situation, and I think that that needs to be done, and this traffic problem needs to be addressed before any more amendments are made to the plan. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wester. I believe we can fairly say certainly that everyone's concerned about traffic here. Do you have anything else to add besides traffic? Well, I'll try not to be too repetitive, but I promise it's very short, and I have a PowerPoint which you were going to queue up for me, and it just runs automatically. I promise it's very short. My name is Melinda Wester, and I live at 122 Hilltonia Park. Hilltonia was once a lovely street with quaint cottages and bungalows. Children played kick the can, rode bikes, and enjoyed the safety of the street. Then Central Baptist Hospital began to buy the homes on the north side of the street until they had purchased each and every one. The hospital expanded and was granted zoning to build a seven-story, 1,277-car parking garage, with each level being roughly the size of a football field. The homes of Hiltonia were dwarfed by the out-of-scale development on the other side of their once-quiet street, and the character of the neighborhood changed. The hospital opened an entrance to their campus on Hiltonia Park, and Hiltonia became a heavily-trafficed street, no longer safe for children and bikes, as ambulances, delivery trucks, taxis, and patient traffic took priority. The busy, noisy streets took away the parents' feelings of peace and safety. Most families moved away, and today fewer than half of the 12 remaining houses on Hiltonia are owner-occupied. Only two of the resident families have children, and one of those families has already purchased a home on a quieter street. Regarding the landscape buffering on Central Baptist-Hiltonia border, I can attest to the fact that the landscaping around the parking lot is insufficient to screen even headlights of the cars, trucks, and SUVs pulling into the emergency room parking lot. My house faces the emergency room parking lot, and the headlights shine through our living room windows every evening. My son's bedroom faces the street, and he cannot sleep at night without all the shades drawn due to the lights of the hospital. Sitting on our front porch, there's no peace for the never-ending traffic, car alarms, helicopters, and the constant roar of the mechanical systems at Central Baptist. I have to tell you, I was raised Baptist. And I'm a former staff member at Calvary Baptist Church here in Lexington. I currently teach a mission group of first and second grade girls, and we teach the girls that Jesus said was the most important commandment, which is in short, love God and love your neighbor. I'm disappointed and disheartened to tell you that our research and dealings with Central Baptist has shown me little evidence that they are endeavoring to show God's love in this community by being a good neighbor. The residents of Hiltonia and McDonald realize we are wrestling an 800-pound gorilla. Central Baptist is a large corporation that has purchased one side of a once quiet residential street and developed it with no regard for the neighborhood. They've made promise after promise to residents and the Planning Commission about how every new development plan is going to reduce traffic in the residential neighborhoods around the hospital. A recent email from a hospital official bragged about CB's pride in having exceeded landscape buffering on their campus. Yet since then, they've been found to be noncompliant with the absolute minimum requirements of Article 18 on their border with Hiltonia and the annex property. We've shown evidence that the traffic and the intrusions only increase with time. The hospital wants to enlarge the emergency room on top of constructing a $200 million expansion project. These new projects will add hundreds of employees, presumably thousands of new patients. Parking will increase by 641 spaces, bringing the total number of existing and planned spaces on the CB campus to 3,574. And for the sake of reference, that is roughly twice the number of spaces in the high street lot at Rupp Arena. So if Central Baptist stands here today and tells you that they don't anticipate an increase in traffic to the hospital campus over the next few years, they are clearly not being honest. So where does this stop? As a citizen, I'm disgusted. As a resident of Hiltonia, I'm infuriated. And as a Baptist, I'm humiliated. I paraphrase the Planning Commission's mission statement when I say that Central Baptist has been allowed by previous commissions to grow and prosper while the adjacent neighborhood has not been preserved, protected, or enhanced. We respectfully ask this Planning Commission to take immediate action to curtail traffic at the Hiltonia and McDonald emergency entrance to Central Baptist and to require more than the minimum landscape barrier to provide adequate screening from the hospital traffic, lights, noise, and mechanical operations. This is more than a safety issue. It's more than a privacy issue. It's a quality of life issue. In short, we're asking you to help us protect what's left of our neighborhood. Thank you. My husband also pointed out that I should share an incident that happened this morning. I took the day off for it today, and I rarely ever do that. I took my son to school, and when I was on the way back home on Glendover this morning, And I was traveling west on Glendover beyond Belafonte in the straightaway. And I was actually passed by another vehicle on a residential street, an unlined residential street. So I followed the vehicle because I was curious to see where it was going. and I followed it into the Central Baptist lot at McDonald's. It went right into the emergency room entrance. It went towards the parking structure, and it went into the physician's only parking lot. So that was my experience from this morning. But thank you for listening. Thank you, Ms. Bester. Others? I know my time is up for three minutes this morning, cognizant of the demands on your time and how many people would be speaking. I had a PowerPoint. Are we, in regards to the PowerPoint, is it new information? This is a little bit different point of view, if you don't mind. Where's the, does this go for? Okay, very briefly. I'm not going to repeat everything my neighbors have said more than welcome. But I wanted you to just, instead of thinking about all these facts. Your name? I'm sorry. My name is Sandy Connors. I'm the only person here speaking as a Shady Lane resident. I'm a 216. But I want you to sort of imagine what it's like living next to this place. It's a very large. Imagine you have a neighbor. They're our neighbor, Central Baptist. They have a very large lot, much bigger than any of us. They make a lot more money than we do. And 3,000, at least, of their friends visit every day. It's very close to my house. I looked on measuring it out. It's about 1,900 feet. It takes me seven minutes to walk. If you drive a 25-mile-per-hour, it's exactly one minute, less than a minute, from my house to get to Central Baptist, Iltonia entrance. And we were all there before. Most of us were there before the hospital was built. So my neighbor is Central Baptist Hospital. There we are. And that's in comparison. That's how big, according to the city data, how big we are, our population. and you see we're dwarfed by the hospital. And if you look at the figures that Central Baptist posts on their website, how many people work there, how many patients they have, they have over four times more people work there than live in our neighborhood. So the patient volume, if it's averaged over a year, would be about the same as number of people in our neighborhood. It gives you some idea of the pressure on our neighborhood, and you've seen this picture before. But I'm going to concentrate on the little green spot there, mostly looking at the walnut woods. No one's spoken to the environmental impact. No one's spoken to property value, but I'm going to skip through that for interest in time. But all of these things my neighbors talked about, I think will, if not addressed, adversely affect our property value. We have a lot of people, as our neighbors have said, they jog, they bicycle, they walk. I walk my dogs. Pets, wildlife is one I want to concentrate on. No one's talked about the health effects. It's a large literature. I worked at the health department of sound pollution, light pollution, air pollution, and affects people's health. But I'm going to concentrate mostly on the quality of life, the noise. No one's mentioned the noise. I'd love to have a noise study. Instead of just counting cars and the light pollution, but look at the noise pollution as well. The roadside litter, I can't say if it's all by CBH employees or visitors. I don't know. But I know that our litter is terrible. I will routinely fill up plastic bags. I live across in the woods, the Walnut Woods part of the Arboretum. It's not hard for me to fill up a plastic bag of stuff on a work day. It interferes with quiet enjoyment. I do think it may affect our property values, noise, traffic, aesthetics. I could give you similar photographs, as Stuart did, about the road damage to my house and my neighbor's house. One day a few weeks ago, I looked at one of the Central Baptist Hospital buses going one way and the ambulance going the other. They couldn't fit on the road. My neighbor's property was severely impacted by that. I didn't bring the photographs in the interest of time. They also go, we don't have curbing on the great part of my area. The soil is washing out from under tree roots. Those trees will probably be the problem. I photograph a lot of, because I'm at the curvy part of Shady Lane, a lot of the dirt either washes into the culvert or collects there on the road. It's a problem. And I want you to look more at just what we're looking at today, but think about what we're going to look at tomorrow. This is from the State Data Center. It's predicted, and I don't know how accurate predictions can be, but they predict we're going to have a 60% population increase in Lexington by 2050. Not all of those people will be going to Central Baptist. A lot of them will be going to Central Baptist as our economy now increases our health as a percentage of the GDP. So I know some of those people are going to be also starting to cut through our neighborhood. It's going to get worse, not better, unless something is done. More letter, property values lose historic neighborhood. That's a tragedy. Health and safety, I've mentioned that before. My neighbors have mentioned that before. So I want to mention just in my little, these were not accidents by Central Baptist employees, but just indicate how dangerous the road is. Since I've moved to Shady Lane in 2002, we've had three one-car accidents that have taken off fences to my neighbor's property. I don't know how many other accidents have been in the area. I don't know. But I know just how dangerous that road is. That's a very curvy part of the neighborhood. Nobody should be on that road if they don't need to be. They have to be very, and they necessarily obey the speed limit and the other traffic rules. But I also want to just bring up very, very briefly, we're not the only residents. There's non-human neighbors. Walnut Woods is a severely degraded environment. I've read the literature, the substantial literature, the traffic noise headlights affects animals in a lot of different ways. I want to get into that for now. If any of you are interested, I'd be happy to speak more to that. Road kill. As there's more vehicles and more fast vehicles, I've seen a lot of road kill. I'm getting tired of picking up dead animals. Yes, we attract the vultures, but I'd rather have the animals. And as a lot of domestic animals that also use the road. I wasn't able to bring a statement from my neighbor who's a longtime resident of Shady Lane. He's a big bird watcher, and he has told me that there's been a real decline in the bird life in the area since he's moved in that area. I don't know how much of it can be accounted to the noise, the traffic volume, the headlights, but it's a possibility that we're losing probably our only area in Lexington that's sort of an urban wildlife refuge, the Walnut Woods, which is already severely damaged. So I hope you will consider, based on all my neighbors' information, to try to find ways to limit the traffic past Arboretum, which I look out onto. I'm very, very blessed. I have a view. My view is of the woods, walnut woods. And that's one of the reasons why we moved there is to have that view of walnut woods, which would never be developed. So I'd like to have you all consider the environmental impact on those woods. And in addition to all the other things, I'd like to ask you to consider. So why did I move to my last slide? What does this neighborhood mean to me? We moved there for the quality of life. It seemed to be a quiet neighborhood with a lot of serenity. I could sit on weekends when the traffic is less and enjoy all the birds and the other animals, the butterflies. It's wonderful. I also want to be able to safely walk myself and my dogs. I want a non-motor access to the U.K., the woods, the garden, the arboretum. My opportunity to see and hear urban wildlife to me was unique and a very, very attractive feature of this neighborhood. It appeared to be litter-free, not so much anymore. I want to ask you, you know, consider is all this at risk, and what can you help us do to help us preserve our neighborhood? And thank you for a little bit more indulgence. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Conner. Yes, ma'am. Hello, and thank you for letting us speak today. My name is Molly Davis. I live at 201 Tahoma Road. I've owned that property for about two years. I moved there from another neighborhood near UK and near this area, Elizabeth Street. And I am here today because I fully support my neighbors who live on Hiltonia Park and McDonald Avenue and Shady Lane because I think it's very important to understand for Mr. Nicholson that while it's merely an addition to their emergency room, it obviously impacts all of us, and we're all very concerned about it. I know that your mission is probably not to be able to save us or do a lot of things. You have to either approve a development plan or reject it. You have considerations or amendments, things you can change about that, things you can ask the applicant to do. I would ask that you listen to Mr. Yannick's proposal and hear what he has to say in terms of an amended development plan and some recommendations that he has. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Davis. Anyone else like to speak? Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Don McKelvey, born 106, Hilltonia Park, 1946. I've owned that house. My mother died in it last year. I've been in that house more years than I care to count. I'm the ugly little kid in the picture. Okay, I don't need a mic. Oh, recording, interesting. Okay, I can live with that. Okay, as an ex-smoker, I love going outside of my house. It is so nice. I can go, oh, wow, great cigarettes. Traffic backup, we all know that. Landscape buffer, I haven't seen one. Now, if a landscape buffer comes up to my little short body here, that's not much of a buffer. But we're working on that. So, 1969, I love to hear the pop, pop, pop of a Huey coming down to get myself out of where I didn't want to be. Helicopter traffic now, they're getting closer. I can count the rivets on those boys. Now, stop and think about it. We have a turbine failure. You're going to take eight or nine of us out. By the way, the reference is 1969, the great green machine. Some of you all remember it. Some of you probably too young. The buses. Nobody's brought up the buses. Great idea. But anyway, to answer a question, Mrs. Copeland, Ms. Copeland, excuse me, that is my house. I was there before the hospital. So thank you all very much. By the way, when I went to the U.K. for years and years, the more than I admit to, I worked on an ambulance crew. Now, if you've ever backed one of those things up, you really don't care about a cover. You're going to come in, whip it out, drop out. You don't really need the cover to come out from under it because hopefully you've got the oxygen mask on the patient. You've got him covered up with your blanket. It doesn't matter if it's snow or rain. Been there, done that. Now, if you're in a chopper and doing it, ports are a different color. Anyway, thank you all very much. I do want to raise my objections. This is the first time I've had a chance to talk to you all, and thank you. Thank you, sir. Sorry, I left that one statement, but just take a moment. is in reference to the developer's reference to the ordinance law. And he referred to 21.4C and 21.4E, but what he left out was D, which is in between them. And it says the commission may modify or disapprove the development plan if it finds the plan does not comply with the requirements of the zoning ordinance and, when applicable, the land subdivision regulations, or it defines our existing or potential flood drainage, traffic, health, safety, nuisance, or similar problems. I think that applies to this situation. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wester. Mr. Yannick? Thank you, guys. I just have some briefs handouts. This is what we're looking for. Thank you. So, this is what we're going to be requesting, based on all the information you've seen before. The residents of Southern Heights request the following be added to the Baptist Health Care Systems and Company 27th Amendment Final Development Plan. 1. A 50-foot landscape buffer shall be installed along the southern property of the boundary of the property. At a minimum, the landscape buffer will contain a six-foot-tall berm with three rows of eight-foot-tall pine trees staggered 18 feet on center. In addition, the parties will work to develop a landscape plan over and above the minimum plantings described herein that will provide an equivalent level of screening but be done with a more attractive variety of plantings and landscape materials and will resolve other issues such as the width of the berm. Now, this is basically the same conditions that are imposed on the north side. Additionally, all overhead electric, phone, cable lines, etc. shall be buried within the landscape buffer area. Landscape items previously described shall be constructed within a period of no longer than one year from the ER edition reaching substantial completion. Two, there shall be a minimum 100-foot setback along the southern property boundary. Future buildings along the southern edge shall not exceed 40 feet in height. This item shall go into effect immediately. Now this is again a similar request that is on the north side under conditional use zoning. Three, traffic entering and exiting through the McDonald Avenue entrance shall be restricted to be used by EMS vehicles, emergency room patients, and emergency room doctors through controlled gated access points to be operated and maintained by the hospital. All other non-emergency traffic shall use the main entrances on Nicholson Road. an access point onto university court would be permitted should the hospital obtain the right-of-way access and approval from the university. Again, similar language that's already on the plan. Traffic restrictions shall begin immediately following substantial completion of the ER edition. At this time, I'd like to bring up the PowerPoint presentation. And the residents have drawn up a plan, which they think is acceptable. and shows how this can be accomplished. Now here's an example of an ER facility that's just down the road. It's a high-volume facility. It's a trauma facility. And there are 20 parking spaces for this facility. 20. This plan shows moving one adjacent lot here back. Now, in this plan right here, we're showing 45 spaces are possible. We're also moving this one entrance here to here and redesigning the parking lot facility. We're installing a gate right here to restrict traffic from this parking garage coming down. So when they get to this point, they can go, oh, there's a gate there, so we can loop back around safely and back out to the Nicholsville Road entrance. Furthermore, when traffic, EMS traffic, and emergency traffic comes down McDonald or Hiltonia, they can freely enter the campus, turn left into the new emergency room canopy addition area, loop back around, and park. Now, when they try to get out, they'll be rerouted back out to Nicholsville Road. Furthermore, doctors and other EMAS patients can also still have access to this area here. And there would be a gate at this location. This gate would restrict access to the back parking structures. Currently, many people come down under this canopy, through this tunnel, and back out to McDonald Avenue. Now, if they get to this point here, they can come and loop back around and out safely to Hotelnia McDonald Avenue. This plan shows a 50-foot wide landscape buffer, removal of some surface parking lot here and here, and safely allows to reroute traffic through restrictions and accommodate a landscape buffer. The residents of Sogenheis believe this is an acceptable alternative to what is being proposed currently at this time. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, I think I'll ask for Mr. Nicholson to come as a rebuttal. Very briefly, what this has turned into is a referendum on Central Baptist. I think we can all agree there. What has not been addressed today is what we are actually here for. The concerns that are expressed are the concerns that are the nature of exactly why Derek Paulson volunteered to work with Central Baptist UK and the surrounding neighborhoods in order to find out a solution for the traffic problems. All traffic calming issues, all speeding, all stopping at stop signs, these are enforcement issues which are not within Central Baptist's control. The access onto basically UK's property, it used to be Shawnee Place. I believe it's now called University Court. This is something that we can only ask UK for. We have consistently asked since I believe it was around 84 that we can have access. They have always turned us down. Mind you, even if that access is completed, what that is doing is shifting traffic on a public road currently onto a private residential street, which is the U.K., which I believe are mostly dorms for foreign exchange families, which I believe is what is back there right now. Additionally, it will be dumping traffic onto what is the four-way stop right now on alumni, which has already been identified as a problem. They've studied making that four-way stop into some type of traffic circle, but nothing has been done. Also, there have never been plans that have been presented where this could be a feasible option, doing this connection with UK. Again, this is something Central Baptist cannot do on its own. I can't say it enough times. What we're here today is a small expansion for the waiting room area. The traffic is there. It is a problem. It is not something that we can resolve at this phase with an amendment. The reason why I did not identify, I believe it's 214D, is because that is not applicable to what we are doing here today. This is an amendment for a development plan. It is not a new development plan for the area. We are not changing the use. We are not changing the zone. What we are doing is making an amendment of a 740 square footage and what we consider to be a safety concern to better serve our existing patients. A lot was made about the $200 million expansion. That expansion did not increase the bed count of Central Baptist. Yes, we increased the actual size of the building. No beds increased whatsoever. We took semi-private rooms to private rooms. We are someone who very much does care about our patients. We care about our community. As much as the neighbors do want to slander us as the sole driver of traffic, We heard very similar arguments when we were installing churches along Tate's Creek. The Rebecca Lane patrons came in and said that those churches were the sole driver of traffic. That's simply not the case. Central Baptist is not the sole driver of traffic whatsoever. We cannot cut off public access to the emergency department. We can't do that. If you are driving a family member to the emergency room, We can't have them stopping off at gates when seconds and minutes matter. We cannot gate off the emergency department. If this application is turned down, all of these neighbors' concerns are still here tomorrow. This is something that needs to be studied. It is not something that can be handled with this amendment and this amendment before you. It meets all of the requirements of the zoning ordinance. It meets all of the subdivision regulations. The staff has essentially said this with their approval recommendations, that they are in accordance. We do not feel that adding 745 square feet and rechanging the entrance lanes for the ambulances once inside the site, not talking about from Hiltonia into the site, we are only altering inside of the site, that that will have a negative impact on public safety, welfare, or health. It simply cannot be said that that is the case. That is really all I have to say. We have heard everything ad nauseam, and I will take any questions that you all may have. Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. I think that may be Ms. Phillips. Mr. Nicholson, I wanted to correct something that you said. You said that U.K. streets back there, you referred to them as private streets. The University of Kentucky is a public institution. It's a state institution, so those are public streets. Correct. I believe it's just that university court. I think there was a differentiation made on that. I very well may be mistaken. I think that's all part of the university, which, again, is public. When it became Shawnee Place into university court, I was informed that that became a private. But if I am incorrect, that is... Well, then I could potentially be incorrect. But the other thing that I wanted to address is I think the principal issue here is really what's going on on Nicholasville Road and how people do try to avoid Nicholasville Road. But we've also heard that ambulance drivers don't want to take patients from the Nicholasville Road entrance because of the speed bumps. Correct. Has Central Baptist ever considered removing those speed bumps? I do not know, but I do know that if we are dealing with citizen safety, taking away traffic calming devices, I don't think that that can help. If we are inside of a site, even with, you know, with... But you're pushing your externalities onto the neighborhood, and that's what we're hearing. And, you know, your externalities, it sounds to me, are partly caused by the internal, the lack of internal circulation, and those speed bumps are serving as a deterrent. That very well may be true. But the ambulance drivers themselves are not Central Baptist employees. Additionally, the emergency department is very much in close proximity to the entrance on Hiltonia. Not to badger, but airports have rules. They have notice to airmen that pilots who are not necessarily contract employees of the airport, they work for individual agencies. They could be private pilots flying their own vehicle. But there are rules for every airport. And I wonder why Central Baptist doesn't have rules that govern ambulance drivers or delivery trucks or their employees, because it sounds to me that that would resolve many of the issues that we have dealing with here. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Wilson, did you have a question? No? You're okay. Any other questions at this point? Thank you, sir. Any rebuttal from the staff? Mr. Wilson? Yes, unless we've heard some other rebuttal as such. I'm a bit conflicted with this traffic issue. First of all, I have to confess that I've used that Hiltonian street about four times, once with my mother, twice with my son, and once with my wife when she was having my son. So it came in very, very handy, and I also have to confess I probably violated the 25-mile-an-hour speed limit. With that said, I'm empathetic to the fact of the traffic situation because I think that that is a serious consideration. My confliction is I don't know what to do about it. Because one of the things that actually allows people to come to Lexington, quite frankly, is the fact that we have a great quality of life here. And one of the elements of that quality of life is health care. So here we have a tradeoff between a particular community. And again, I was trying to think if we did nothing up here today, what would that do about the traffic issue? I don't think it would do anything. But I'm also inclined to agree with the community. And first of all, let me applaud you for having a well-presented case related to that traffic. But I'm not so sure if we did nothing today that you would be in any better condition tomorrow than you would. And I guess I go back to the Central Baptist issue. What they're asking for is an increase in the size of the waiting room. The ER waiting room, yes. The ER waiting room. And I'm trying to make the connection between that and the traffic issue is my confliction. So I'm kind of leaving it on the table at that is that I'm empathetic with the traffic issue. I have no idea as to how to deal with it. The idea of having Central Baptists increase their weighting, their ER capacity, I'm sympathetic to that. I think that's reasonable. That's nothing. I don't think we have any bad people here on that particular issue. I think we all want to live comfortably and happy in whatever circumstances. But I'm just not sure exactly what we could do, or at least what I could do, to make it any better related to the traffic issue, which seems to be one of the primary issues that you all have hit on. Now, the other issues with lighting and landscaping, I heard some comments related to the fact that the landscaping would not be enough. And I guess my question is, is that something that's still negotiable and lighting is still negotiable? So really what it comes down to is the issue of traffic. Okay, and I have no clue as to what to do. Thank you. Mr. Martin? The neighborhood folks had entered some evidence as to traffic counts and things that they had done. This is the traffic counts that were provided to planning from the Division of Engineering. They did some traffic counts in the area, Division of Traffic Engineering. These are average weekly daily counts. These are counts that they took in a 24-hour period. They are somewhat smaller, we believe, than some of the numbers you heard today. I cannot speak to the methodology. Mr. Neal is here today if you have any questions for him about the methodology. but we just wanted to get those counts into the record since it was introduced earlier. And there was some discussion about traffic counts. These are actual counts that were done by traffic engineering in the neighborhood. Unless you have any questions for me, that's all I had to say. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Questions for Mr. Martin? No? Yes? No? No. Yes, sir. Go ahead, Mr. Pinn. Mr. Martin, at your opening presentation, you talked about all these different things that had dropped off the plan. Without getting into great detail, isn't that an unusually large number to have dropped off, and how did that happen? The things that dropped off, now there's been a lot of amendments, and things were changed on amendments. The information that specifically dropped off in this plan was landscaping in this area, and it was trees. And unfortunately, on an amendment by a different firm back in the 90s, I believe, that information dropped off. And then it was carried forward that way on a plan. And that does happen sometimes. It gets missed. A lot of times it's because of the nature of the amendment. A minor amendment might come through, and there's some information that gets dropped off of it. Staff doesn't catch it. And then this time around, we did go back and research it and find that it had dropped off the plan and recommended that it be put back on the plan. Ms. Copeland? Were you finished, Mr. Pitt? Ms. Copeland? Mr. Owens, do you think it would be a good idea to talk to Mr. Neal and see if he's got some ideas? Mr. Neal, do you have anything to add? Or solutions? There may be a couple of questions if you come forward. Mr. Neal, I was thinking that, and this is probably not doable, but we have one-way traffic. Jake, we have one-way traffic on Nicholasville Road certain times a day, one-way traffic not coming the other way on Nicholasville Road. Could that happen at Hiltonia? Now I want to hear what you've got to say. I'm not sure exactly how you would do that on Hiltonia without some median modifications. It certainly could be wider each side, and we could even add parking if there was an extra four feet, say, to each direction on Hiltonia. I noticed some of the pictures and the video was very convincing that was shown today. It looks like there is a need out there. Well, they're all coming in at one time and all going out at the other time, so just switch it. Well, um... And, like, cut it off. I mean, did that ever happen? I think some of the counts that you saw earlier were just in the morning, and so everybody was, the predominant movement was coming in. And I guess there's shift changes other times of the day where there's actually overlap going in each direction. But Hiltonia could be blocked off at Shady Lane. At McDonald? At McDonald. No, McDonald could be blocked off at Shady Lane. I suppose it could, but with every modification, sometimes there's unexpected outcomes with that. Yeah, but it would solve it. Yes. Ms. Phillips? Jeff, we controlled the lane switching on Nicholasville Road. Yes, we did. And we heard evidence that folks don't want to get on Nicholasville because of the, you know, sometimes they're going against the stream. There's only one lane of traffic. has the urban county government considered potentially revising the lane arrangement? Where does that start and where does it stop? Well, it is a state facility, so it starts at basically Moore Drive or New Circle Road and goes all the way down to Conn Terrace in front of the U.K. Hospital now. I guess when you get further into town, closer than what, Southland Drive, it next down to about five lanes, I believe it is, five lanes in each direction. So the options are pretty limited if you're still switching back those three lanes that kind of alternate throughout the day. So if we could widen Nicholasville Road all the way down to Cooper, we could add a lane and have two lanes going inbound all the time. So you're saying because of the road width, because of the lack of lanes, we can't potentially add a second lane during those times when we only have one lane inbound or outbound? Not without some major construction or eliminate left-hand turns, because we need that center lane to allow left-hand turns off of Nicholasville Road. What about, it sounds too that vehicles leave Central Baptist, they've got to get off the campus however they need to. by Hiltonia, whatever. What about the traffic light there at Nicholasville Road at Central Baptist? Isn't the light there at the main entrance? And it's two lanes of traffic leaving Central Baptist, going out for left turning and right turning. Are cars stacked up at Central Baptist to be able to, and is that why people are, you know, when it's quitting time, I know most hospital people shift 7 to 7, that kind of thing, so I imagine traffic stacks up. But is there any way to adjust the timing of the traffic light so that there isn't the stacking on Central Baptist property? Well, there could be, but during construction there's some limitations. I think eventually the internal circulation will be better than it's ever been, with pulling that first intersection back quite a bit and allowing more circulation and actually pushing more parking towards the north side of the campus. So I think although they will be adding more trips, they will be concentrating more of the traffic on the north side of the campus with the other parking structures. So I'm just trying to think of what we can do from a traffic engineering perspective to help the situation on Nicholasville Road to prevent people from doing the Glendover cut-through. And you guys have explored the sounds. Well, there's limitations on Nicholasville Road. There's 45,000 cars a day going up and down Nicholasville Road in this area, and it's pretty well at capacity. There are certain things we can do more with signal timing, but I think once gas hits over $5 a gallon, I think a lot of traffic issues may diminish. Until that happens, we have to deal with what we have. Thank you. Mrs. Brady? Oh, excuse me. Sorry. While you're here, hearing both sides of this, I understand the issue. I think I understand the issue. But I'm curious, this did not come about just because of this one amendment asking for an expansion of the ER waiting room. There have been multiple amendments. Has this issue not been discussed about traffic now that it has evolved into what seems to be totally out of hand? Did we not discuss this during previous amendments? I don't have the entire history. I know it was discussed numerous times over other zone changes and when Central Baptist accumulated more property and expanded their campus. I remember back in 2010 or so, whenever they went with, I guess, or doing what's shown in gray here, I don't believe there was opposition at that time. Now, I think part of the problem may be due to the construction traffic. The options are limited. There may be some additional traffic. The last count we did on Hiltonia and McDonald was last February. Construction's been going on for another year since then. I don't know for a fact that if the volumes have gone up in the last year, that may be causing some of the renewed concerns over traffic. Okay. Ms. Coble, do you have a question for Mr. Neal? Yes, Mr. Neal, do you think that Central Baptist could adjust their shift hours in such a way, particularly since we've got more daylight hours now, if they could shift the load coming in, the time of the load coming in and the time of the load going out so it is more in harmony with Nicklausville Road exiting. I wouldn't be able to answer that not knowing how the hospital functions. Well, they generally stop work at 3 o'clock or 5 o'clock. If they stopped work at 2 o'clock and at 6 o'clock, would that not help getting out on Nicholasville Road? It would be easier to get in and out of Nicholasville Road if it's off peak times. So during the construction period, they would adjust to accommodate the pressure on the neighborhood. because you say it's going to get better, you think the internal circulation will be better once the construction ends? The internal circulation will be. Yeah. Does that mean that there will possibly be less traffic through the neighborhood? I'm not sure. Okay. Mr. Salley, did you have something you wanted to add? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to address Ms. Beatty's earlier question, the staff in preparing did find some minutes from 1993 where there was a major discussion along the Hiltonia frontage. And I believe, as Mr. Wester mentioned, there was talk at that time of that rezoning about a possible entrance from Hiltonia directly into the garage that would be gated only for doctors' access. But there were three or four pages of minutes at that time about somewhat similar issues, not quite as extensive as you've heard today. But that's the last major discussion on this end of the campus that we recall. We'll be glad to give you a copy of these if you'd like to look at them. Okay. Thank you. I'm just about ready to close this. I did jump over the fact of citizens having a rebuttal comment. in regards to any information you heard in the rebuttal. I'm going to limit this to one person. We're going to go on all night. As far as saying that 21-4-D was not applicable here, it is just as applicable as any of the other parts of the zoning ordinance, and you do have the ability to amend this plan. The second thing that was said by the developer petitioner was that somebody's got a broken leg, can't let their child out at a gate. They did not pay attention to the changes that we tried to make. There is no restriction getting to the emergency room entrance. There is no gate. There's only gates blocking. Nothing about a gate. Okay. No, no. See if it works. Okay. The comment about the broken leg and the child not being able to be let out or whatnot, the gate is going to be here and here. You drive in, you're still driving right up to the emergency room. Nobody wants to restrict that, and I made that comment very clear when I talked. The plan does not restrict access to that emergency room at all. All it restricts, and in fact, the emergency room would be safer under the new plan because all this traffic is not going to be running right by where the emergency room is. The ambulances are not going to be blocked by the traffic, which I showed you in my picture. Okay, and one other thing, as far as the back entrance onto the U.K., that's been talked about since 1981, and we all know that that's not something that's going to jump up and happen all of a sudden. So that's not going to be an answer. And one more point in rebuttal was that we're just moving beds around. We're not adding patients. If they're not adding patients or employees, why are they adding 621 or 651 parking spots? That doesn't make any sense. You're telling me there's building parking spots that are going to be empty? those points don't hold water. If you look at the plan that we submitted right here, that does not block any entrance to that emergency room. It makes the emergency room safer because the traffic's not going by it. Thank you, sir. At this point, I'm going to close this part of the hearing and open it for any discussion between the commission members. Mr. Cravens? Yeah, I want to ask the applicant. We've got these three things that the neighborhood presented us, and I might say that the new development plan that they proposed looked pretty good to me. I mean, it looked like it worked pretty good. Is there anything there you can work with? I did not receive a copy of that. I'm not exactly certain. And I do know that they presented it to us. Yes. Speaking right now, this development plan is what is before you all today. We have studied this, and this is what we feel is what is in the best interest for everyone. With regards to even putting the gate in the internal side, then anyone coming in from the main entrance will have to turn around. And there's a reason why there are not internal gates in hospitals. It's because people, when they are coming in, they're in a panic. They don't know where they're going sometimes. As Mr. Owen said, he's lucky enough never to have been on this property. And that is what I can say about the gate. We're working with them with regards to the landscape buffer. We cannot put a 50-foot landscape buffer on the south side. There are existing structures there that we cannot do. I guess the other plan, I don't know where the plan is, but the plan that the neighborhood had, it seemed like it resolved a lot of the problems. I don't know about these gates, but maybe there's some way you can control the traffic that comes out of that parking garage where they have to turn left. And then maybe some management of the people that come in and out of there would keep them from driving through those yards. Sure. I mean, I have people that drive construction trucks on my jobs, and I say, don't drive through the yards. You know, don't get mud on the street. I mean, that's what you tell truck drivers. And so some management might solve that. I built a couple houses up on McDonald and Shady Lane over 20 years ago, and we couldn't even go to our car and get our tools out without somebody trying to run over us, you know, coming out of that hospital. But I think you have a management problem. And then I think I'm not sensing that you're willing to modify your plan at all. You're saying that's the plan you want. This is the plan that has been submitted for you today. We'll have to decide what we're going to do next. We certainly are more than willing to continue talking with the neighborhood. This is not a hard and fast. We will not do any of this ever. This is what is submitted today. This is the first time we've seen there. submitted plan. That very well might cause a load of different issues that we have not been able to analyze. This is the plan that's before you today. We feel it more than meets the standards, and that is all I can say. Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. Mr. Penn? This has been turned over to the Commission, right? Yes, sir. It has. I hesitate to say this, but I can't think of any other way to say it. The problem with this plan is when the decision was made not to move out to Hamburg and you made this big addition to Central Baptist, we've got 11 pounds of flyer in a 7-pound sack. And the question becomes, can you grow up and not out, and how do you affect your neighbors that are around you. I come there three days a week for rehab for heart. I always say heart because people think it's something else. But the point being here, I would love to postpone this. If I thought there was a possibility that you could create an exit that came out on Alumni Drive, I realize that it's not in your, you don't own that access. I would hope that the hospital will continue to work to make that access work. I think that's the only way you're going to solve this problem here. I don't know whether the Planning Commission should. I know they could. I don't know whether they should postpone this because I don't know how much leverage that we have over your development plan because all we can do is what you're willing to do. We can deny this 700-something square foot addition, but I don't think that's enough leverage to make something as big as this change their way. I would like to see us look at this development plan in total. I don't like the fact that we've had 23 amendments to it. There's a lot of things I don't like about this, but I've got to deal with where we are. And so my fellow commission members, where I'm conflicted here is that do we hold up a relative minor change, hoping for a bigger development plan issue, when we don't see an opportunity because you don't legally own access to the thing? So that's where I am. I'm not asking, this is not a question, this is just an observation. and it's mainly from my fellow commissioners, but I want to address it to the hospital because I think it's very much in their best interest to try to make something happen here that fundamentally changes the traffic pattern internal and external of this development plan. I would make one statement in regards to your observation as far as any possible postponement unless the applicant is willing. We're against a deadline, and we're going to make a decision today. like I said, unless they're willing. Ms. Phillips? I wanted to ask Mr. Neal about traffic calming within the neighborhood. Do you have any recollection, any knowledge of previous applications? I know there's a 1,000 car threshold, and we've seen evidence that, you know, that obviously we've met that threshold. Is it a cost issue if those petitions have come forward? I was unable to compare notes with our traffic calming section. I'm sorry. I was unable to compare notes with our traffic calming section today. I know we have looked at it in the past, and for whatever reason, we don't have the funding right now to do the neighborhood match. Normally, when the program was first set up, there was a cost match, a cost-sharing program for speed humps and chicanes and all that stuff. We don't have that. I don't know if there's been ongoing conversations since then. I know recently we have been going out there and trying to get some more counts due to basically this issue. We have looked at a few of the intersections. I can put some of that out in case the meeting is closed and I can just get with the neighbors after this meeting. But we are looking at changing some of the traffic controls back in the neighborhood. Well, that's what I was thinking, too, is maybe not speed humps, but I know it's penalizing the neighborhood to have traffic lights or something like that, but that will deter traffic. It will keep people from coming through there. Or at one of the traditional, I don't know if there's any space. I'm trying to think of all the intersections back there. I don't think there are, but instead of having a traditional T intersection, cross intersection, maybe making a little roundabout. because those are very effective, slowing people down. And I think that if we put more than one through that neighborhood, then that would de facto really curb traffic. Pardon the pun. I think most of the issues are quality of life issues. We've looked at the collision data throughout the neighborhood. It's relatively low compared to the surrounding streets. But there are some pedestrian issues throughout there that there are some intersections that need some work. Mr. Wilson? Let me get to the point very quickly. Is the petitioner willing to postpone, and would the neighborhood also be willing to postpone to try to work through these issues? Just one more. This is Skip Alexander with Central Baptist. We have postponed two times for this. When we started in January, we were told by the neighborhood organization that they didn't have any problem. But if we say no, that will cause more damage to this neighborhood and hospital relationship than I've tried to build in 25 years. I may lose my job, but we will postpone. What would the neighborhood? Yeah, Mr. Chairman Apple. That's all right. The residents are also in favor of postponing as well. Okay. Thank you. Both of these issues and look at the proposed plan that we've shown you. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask one other thing. I mean, and let me say, first of all, I appreciate both parties saying they're willing to postpone, but I don't mean to procrastinate. I mean postpone. So by some date certain is what I'd like to put into the recommendation. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman. Excuse me. Ask the staff for the recommendation for the postponement date. Staff, do we have any recommendations as far as a postponement date? Or maybe Mr. Nicholson, would you, as an applicant? Your meetings in April are the 12th and 26th. We might recommend a continuance rather than a postponement. Yes, sir. Obvious. Obvious. Thank you. I would say Mr. Nicholson, do you have preference? I guess the is it 26th? I guess April 26th. Okay. Alright, then this would be a continuance then until April 26th to try and work this out. Anything else from the Commission at this point? Yeah, Mike. Yes, sir? I would remind the neighborhood that if we're going to do a continuance, we will not hear all these PowerPoints. We won't go back over that again. This commission has really good memory, and we won't have to do that. What I would ask before I make that motion, Mr. Chairman, go right ahead, is that there's good faith effort, and we make some kind of headway here. Central Baptist doesn't need to be held up any longer. Time is money in the construction industry, and we all understand that. We can't change the development plan in total. Maybe we can create some solutions that make it better. But the people who are going to create it are the applicant and the staff, and we will hear it from there. And if the commission is ready, I'll move that we continue this. Mr. Wilson? I second. Okay. I move a continuance to April 26th. Is that the date that we picked? I move a continuance to April 26th. The motion has been made for a continuance of DP 2012-4 Baptist Health Care Systems until April 26, 2012. And there is a second by Mr. Wilson. If there's no further discussion, I'll ask everybody to vote. Thank you. I appreciate everyone's concern and patience through this, and hopefully we'll get a little bit more resolved. Thank you. I'm out. I think at this point we'll take five minutes of recess. Okay. I need to tell you, folks, I need fire. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Reconvene and get started. Good afternoon. Ms. Wade. The next item on our agenda is ZODA 2012-3. This is a text amendment requested by Hallmark Student Development Company, LLC. It can be found at the bottom of page 4 on your agenda, and it carries on to page 5. And the staff report and text is behind tab 4 in your notebooks. for some housekeeping i've handed out a few things a graphic that the staff presented at the work session last week that really just shows what a group residential project might look like in terms of an apartment complex and a townhouse complex so that's just for a visual a staff exhibit that shows a comparison of what the existing ordinance does for Article 9, the applicant's proposal, and then the staff's alternative text. And then the last page is something new. It's a green copy. This was what I would call a clean copy of the proposal, what Article 9 would look like if adopted in the future. The proposal today is to add group residential projects to the R5 zone, which is our high-rise apartment zone. Thank you, Bill. And also to add some flexibility in terms of the infill and redevelopment area for group residential projects. The high-rise apartment zone is part of Article 8-14, and it permits multifamily dwelling units as a principal use, but only on one building per one parcel. So Article 9 is the avenue in our zoning ordinance where you can do multiple buildings on one lot in terms of building an apartment complex or townhouse development that is similar to an apartment complex. Article 9 currently only allows R1T, R3, and R4 zones to have a multifamily complex and be regulated through Article 9. And that just means they share parking, they share access, share amenities. This applicant is requesting that the R5 zone be added to that mix and be allowed to have an apartment complex where you wouldn't have to subdivide each building onto its own lot. And we've had the Planning Commission and the staff has had several zone changes in the last few years to the R5 zone. And some of them have been for apartment complexes, and they propose to subdivide each lot for each building. In that situation, you have to meet the landscaping, the parking, the floor area, the lot coverage, all of those requirements for each lot. So it creates some awkward subdivisions at times, or could. So the applicant is hoping to avoid that type of situation with this request. The Planning Commission did initiate a text amendment in late 2008 to Article 9 that would have addressed some of these issues that the applicant is facing today. In that time period, 2009, when it came before the commission, the stated goals were to simplify Article 9 because there had been some interpretation issues. clarify some of the standards and then also to intensify or densify within the urban service area because the Article 9 standards really are very suburban in nature. Unfortunately, the work that the staff completed at that time was criticized by some local design officials in terms of the staff trying to address those concerns. we never really came to a point where we came back to the commission with a final product. So that leaves that text amendment initiated by the Planning Commission really lingering, but not the work that we did is still, I think, very valid in terms of research about existing developments in town, about other locales, and how they regulate apartment complexes, and comparing townhouses to apartments. their standard multifamily development. So after developing those texts over a two- or three-year period, the commission's text amendment is still on hold. But since there was that significant work, the staff felt it was important to incorporate some of the work that we did to address those issues with the applicant's request today and intermingle them, in essence, kind of addressing some of the low-hanging fruit, correcting some of the things that people, applicants, often find difficult with Article 9. So the staff is asking the commission to seriously consider the staff alternative today because it is more comprehensive than the applicant's minimal modifications to Article 9, and we believe it addresses the issues and the goals from the 2009 text amendment as well. There was one change that whether the commission adopts the staff's alternative or the applicant's alternative would need to be changed or would need to be added, and that is Article 8-14 is the R5 zone, and a principal use would need to be added to that zone no matter what. So that is part of the staff's alternative. adding group residential projects to the R5 zone as a principal use. The staff alternative that you have in your notebook is the last few pages behind tab 4. It's a four-page document. It does show quite a bit of cross-through and underlining. And as I mentioned to the zoning committee, that is more rearranging than actually adding and deleting. and I think that's reflective of the green sheet. It remains a two-and-a-half-page article. And I will take this time to go through the staff exhibit that shows the comparisons between what's currently there and really summarizes and compares the existing ordinance to the applicants and the staffs. There are really two things where the applicant and the staff propose the same thing, and that is the first item, the zones, where group residential projects are permitted. In both the last two columns, we agree we're adding the R5 zone. And the second place would be on the second page under alternative regulations for infill and redevelopment. The first item, yards, setbacks, buildings, heights, and parking. The staff agrees with the applicant's idea that you would be able to either follow the Article 9 standards as written or use the parking, yards, and there's one other thing, basically the standards from the underlying zone. But you'd have to do them as a package. So you either follow Article 9 or you follow R5. Either or. You can't mix and mingle those. In between those two things that we agree on, it's really the staff suggesting some additional standards, tweaking, again, towards the goal of densification and clarification and deleting things that were confusing. So the first thing would be adding some permitted, what would be considered sort of accessory uses. this proposal also maintains staff approvals for group residential projects that are less than five acres in size and it removes the penalty for a penalty of group residential projects are less than five acres they wouldn't necessarily have to take that 20 percent penalty for floor area anymore the is still a floor area increase allowed for greater open space in terms of yard requirements the staff is suggesting that front yards be what the underlying zone is rather than variable project exterior yards would be at most 20 feet rather than at a minimum 20 feet average setback averaging wouldn't change distance between buildings would be much less half or less than that required today there would be a tweak to the distance between driveways the maximum distance would be 160 feet with a minimum of five feet building heights would be outlined in the article 9 rather than just referring to the underlying zone parking requirements would be matching what is currently allowed if you're only building one building on a lot in those other zones so townhouses there'd be no change multifamily one and a half per unit or 0.9 per bedroom the required open space i understand had some discussion last week at the work session the current current ordinance requires 20% usable open space, and there's been some issues with getting usable open space and the definition of usable open space in Article 1. The staff's proposal is to allow for some variation. Most developments, if they're less than five dwelling units per acre, have innate open space within them. They're just not very dense. your 5 to 15 units per acre would maintain that 20% that's currently today. And then those that are considered the higher density, 16 to really no limit, would get a break on their open space. And that would be because our intent is to densify. And as developments get more higher density, I think there's an innate understanding that you're not living in that complex for open space anymore. You're living there because it's a dense urban development. And so the need for that open space is less. In fact, most of those developments will be closer to parks because they'll be more closer to our inner core by nature. That's something that we saw in the Louisville code and felt was appropriate here in Lexington as well. And then the last major changes dealt with the infill and redevelopment area. The applicant offered one item, and the staff felt that there were maybe some other bonus things that you would be able to do, would be appropriate to do in the IR area. First, to have a bonus floor area. Second, to have reduced open space requirements if you're located within 1,000 feet of a public park. And then lastly, that you'd be able to do some front yard averaging of the building so it could go over much like you could do with a single-family home. That's my summary today. Bill will be presenting several possible tweaks to the staff alternative that really were generated by the Commission last week in my absence. So I'll turn it over to him. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you, Tracy, and also thank you for allowing us to bifurcate our presentation. Yes, ma'am? Sure. Can you say no change? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Correct. That's the staff's idea. Mr. Selle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If you look at the bottom of page four of your agenda, you'll see that your zoning committee three weeks ago recommended referral of this text amendment to the entire Commission. Their referral was partly due to the scope of the staff's recommended changes and also due to the fact that Article IX is a complex chapter of the zoning ordinance as well. Last week at your work session, when we were able to present this to you and discuss it in a little more detail, there were several ideas brought forth by the Commission members at that time, and we've tried to address those with what I'll call the goldenrod-colored sheet of paper in your notebook right behind the tab of the staff report. These were also emailed out to you late yesterday afternoon for different alternatives. In referring to the table that Tracy presented, you'll see a couple of the right-hand columns on the one page are shaded gray. Those relate to the alternatives. Those are the areas that the alternatives would address just to compare the different documents. The first alternative was one mistakenly sent to you by the staff. We would apologize for sending that to you now in retrospect. the applicant pointed out to us that there would be a pretty substantial unintended consequence by making that change where no group residential project would be allowed greater than five acres in size. That certainly was not our intention. The staff restriction of approval for a five-acre or smaller group residential project is already in the draft, so we would suggest taking that alternate off the table at this time. Moving to alternate number two, Mr. Brewer, I think last week, brought up some past work the staff had done to the definition of usable open space. And I think we traced this back to a 2009 or 2008 staff draft in alternative two. This is one that in our collective memory we think did generate a lot of controversy in early 2009, which seemed to derail and greatly delay the staff's efforts at simplifying and densifying Article 9 back at that time. But it gives you a good description of what we were looking at for open space, for the types of uses we would like to see in these types of developments. I think over time you have seen more of these. But again, it's much more open-ended under the current ordinance definition. Each of these alternates is designed where it can be substituted for the text that's before you in the staff alternate. So these can be done individually, collectively, in a substitution-type fashion. Turning the page and looking at Alternative 3, this is one that would address the usable open space graduated scale, if you will, that the staff has proposed in the alternate text. There was a proposal last week to make it only applicable in the infill and redevelopment area, since that is the area we've seen most of the open space variance requests for. And so by taking it out of the one section of the staff draft and inserting it instead later in the document, that can accomplish this by having it apply only to the infill and redevelopment area, where less than 20% could be provided on any given development plan. And then finally, under alternate number four, you can delete one section to remove the open space bonus, if you will, for proximity near an urban county government park. That was also one of the issues discussed last week at your work session. So you may wish to consider these alternates. in part before you finalize your decision-making on this. To be honest with you, we've not had a great deal of time to talk these over with the applicant other than number one, which we're very appreciative that she brought to our attention. But I would summarize by saying that, as is listed on the agenda, the staff is recommending approval of the staff alternate text amendment for you, which is much more involved than what the petitioner has filed. Again, primarily based on our work late last decade to try and simplify and densify Article 9. The reasons listed are, first, that the proposed text amendment in the staff's view will allow for more appropriately scaled and designed group residential projects by eliminating the existing frontage yard requirements, reducing open space requirements, and establishing new building height limitations. Secondly, we feel allowing group residential projects in the R5 zone will allow for residential complexes to be located in the zone in our hierarchy that allows the most intensity of density and development. Thirdly, the proposed amendment will create more flexibility for the designers of group residential projects in the future in the staff's view and also in the infill and redevelopment area. With that, again, we'd be glad to answer any questions from the Commission about the staff alternative or a recommendation to you prior to hearing from the applicant. Any questions for Mr. Sally? No? Okay. Okay, thank you. Ms. Westover. Good afternoon. Thank you for your patience for this very long day. First of all, I really want to thank the staff. They have devoted hours to this, working on this very complex matter, and I think they've come up with a very, very satisfactory and appropriate staff alternative that will work not only for my client, Hallmark Student Development, but will also fix a number of things on a more global basis that have long been in need of reexamination. So at this point, I will just say that I support fully the staff alternative, and I will leave it to your discretion about alternative two or three or four on the goldenrod sheet for the reason that any of these would work for my particular application. I would say it's possible that for alternative number three, on a larger basis, there might be a little more flexibility there to consider various types of open space that maybe are not expressly iterated in alternative two. But, again, I would leave that to your discretion and that of the staff and be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you, Ms. Westover. Any questions for Ms. Westover? No? If not, thank you. And I'm hoping for discussion for the commission members. Yes, ma'am. I want to talk about some concepts when I was studying all this rather than definite things. One thing that bothers me is this five-acre business and not going at it with a big overall plan. And I'd like to see something where it says when the density, or just think about this, When the density gets so great in an area or there's such a great change, then that's a trigger to have some sort of overall plan as you go forward. Well, it could be a master plan or it could just be stepping back and forcing the commission or the staff or whoever to look at the whole thing, like the situation we've got out at Angliana Avenue now. But another thing that I want to talk about is that I want to incentivize going up. I'm a big going up person, high density, but I don't think we do it on the backs of the parks. There is a carrying capacity to parks, just like a carrying capacity to a school playground. And I can see this going down the road and becoming something like Central Baptist Hospital for a particular park. I would like to go at having a different way of getting an incentive for high-density housing rather than giving them so much open space. And that is to take the model that's used with rapid transit, where you have a rapid transit line and it's all new, and you put shopping and marketing and all of the services that you want to use when you got off of the rapid transit, and then behind it is high-density housing, and then behind that is lower-density housing, and then on back is the single-family neighborhood. I would like to take that model and say, if you put your really high-density apartment buildings next to a major transportation service line or you furnish your own buses for your student housing to take them to UK, then you don't need as much parking. You can reduce your parking. If you are next to a service place where you can get a loaf of bread, a quart of milk, and you could possibly do without a car because you're within that certain distance, then you also get a credit. So take parks off the table and put transportation, public transportation on the table and public services on the table. I think this would go a long way in serving a certain niche of the population that could do without a car if they could live without a car. And that parking space then becomes open space or more apartments, whatever you want. But it would incentivize a public transportation model. I liked the Louisville open space standards because right off at the top, right up at the outset, it says a minimum of 10% of the gross area of the site shall be preserved as common open space. And then it goes on down and it lists the amenities in their outdoor open space. The open space that I read seemed to be not outdoor open space so that you could essentially take the whole first floor and make it a swimming pool, an exercise room, and a party room, and you'd have your common space. And so do we really want to eliminate and not put a rider on it that says there's got to be a certain percentage that's common outdoor open space? So I think that's pretty well got it. I'm trying to be brief and not repeat myself. On the other hand, I'm working toward an Academy Award. I think some of us were today. The other thing is, I think this park thing might not fly through the council because we had trouble with swimming pools getting funded. And if we take the parks off, we might have a cleaner vehicle to go through past the council. Another thing is that the single-family neighborhoods that mostly face the parks are a neighborhood watch. And if we start impacting the area surrounding neighborhoods, which we're going to share this, but if we start taking the responsibility off of those single-family homes and putting them into eight-story apartment buildings, I doubt if we have the same censorship of the behavior in the park. So I just think this other model might fly better, and you might come out way ahead swapping off parking spaces and being relieved of that responsibility. So what do you think, Ms. Westover? I think that there have been a number of efforts ongoing over the last several years since we've adopted the infill regulations to look at issues of parking and reduced parking. And I really think that there are proposals ongoing. When we did the adaptive reuse project, when we did the mixed-use zoning categories, We looked at ways to try to do better about sharing parking and reducing parking under certain circumstances. So I have no problem with that in theory. I think my dilemma is that we are trying to get this development, and in fact you will be seeing the final development plan, preliminary subdivision plan, next month. And my dilemma is being able to craft the appropriate language now at 20 after 5 to get this moving forward so that we can meet our schedule quite honestly. But if you were inclined to do that, what I would request is maybe a follow-up study to do it right. Because offhand, on an entirely separate project that you all haven't seen yet, I'm trying to work with the staff on parking for B4 use and whether some of those parking requirements aren't a little antiquated. So I can see at some point that it would do to have a good examination throughout the urban area on are current parking requirements justified, do they need to be modernized, and so forth. Well, I'm just thinking that if we had, say, Hanover Towers sitting behind Southland Shopping Center, they would not need as much parking as we'd probably require. That means you could use it. I mean, you could put the parking in. But rather than nestling these high-rise apartments next to parks, which is a luxury, Let's go to the necessities, which is eating and transportation. And it would also spread the park load so you wouldn't just, if you were so inclined to use a park, you could get on the bus and go to any park rather than the park that's 1,000 feet. And I'm thinking that you wouldn't have to be right next to it. People walk a half a mile, so that's 5,280 feet. So within 2,000 feet of a shopping center or a major transportation node, you'd get a break. Right. And I think that that, I certainly think that that bears closer examination, and I think that's what the government has tried to do in its various iterations of the mixed-use zoning category and also in the adaptive reuse to hit on things like if you provide bicycle racks, for example, you get a reduction in parking and so forth. That's on the order of what you are suggesting, and that's some of the steps that we have already taken. And it sounds like you want to go farther in that direction. And let me turn it over to the staff to see what their opinion is. Maybe they think I'm too pink. Go on. Mr. Craven's got a statement or question. I'm not sure which. Yeah, a statement. Of course, as you might guess, I disagree somewhat with Ms. Copeland. But because I've used this article many times in my developments, the five acres or less is, I know you think somebody would use that to develop 20 acres, but you probably wouldn't use group residential if you were going to do a 20-acre lot and do five-acre. Okay, so we don't need a trigger. Right. Okay. And then on the park, I'd hate to think how much money I've paid for park land. Anytime you get a building permit, at least for single family, I don't know about multifamily, but we have a park fee. It's $180 every house you build. And they have, I think that would entitle people somewhat to use the parks and to use this tool just for open space, I guess, is what I'm thinking more that you're using to get your open space than you are to cram people into a park that are living in the multifamily. It's more my opinion. In other words, you're trying to put four or five buildings on a lot, and you're trying to meet all this criteria of open space and that sort of thing. And then if you're not quite there, then you say, hey, that's within 1,000 feet of this park, you're there. That doesn't mean that the people in the multifamily are going to go over there and use the park. It's just a tool to get you the open space. Right, but I guess I'm saying that a park, you can have a green space park, or you can just be in downtown Lexington, which is a park. When you get to some commercial areas, there's so much energy there that it is a park. Like South Limestone right now, where they've already done it, that has a certain energy. Yeah, but they're talking about city parks here. I know, but I'm saying that there are other places that you could be dense without as much open space because you're living where it's happening. Well, this is just another tool to make this work. Well, I'm saying expand it. Well. I'm not. Okay. Yeah, I don't think we are either. I think. Well, I'm saying yes. Yes. Incentivize the location of high-rise buildings so that it works for the better of everybody. We really don't have that much land left to even go through all this, but that's another argument. I don't want to live up. Ms. Westover or Bill or Tracy, do you all have anything to add? We were just conferring while you all were having this discussion, and the way this draft is written by the staff, this park issue would be entirely discretionary by the Planning Commission. So in a given case, it may not be a good idea, but in a given case, it may be appropriate. It gives you a tool that you can use in an appropriate location. So it doesn't always count is what I'm trying to say. As Chris mentioned, to kind of make sure that it's clear, the Planning Commission could consider it. So revising that text so it would read, for projects located within 1,000 feet of an existing park, the Planning Commission may consider reducing the minimum required open space by 50%. But you don't want to magnet these projects to transportation routes or to essential services? Well, I think the transportation connection for reducing parking is already in our ordinance. In Article 16, if your project is within 300 feet of a transit stop, you can reduce your parking by 5%. If it actually has a shelter, you can reduce it by 10%. So that's available now, and projects sometimes choose to and sometimes choose not to. What about essential services? The relationship to land use, I think, is a good idea. I'm not sure how we word that today. I think it is worth further consideration. Maybe they don't want to do it. Are these alternatives, they're not in the green, clean sheet? No. No, not yet. There are options. There are options. What we need to consider is, one, do we want to go forward with this? And then, two, if we do, do we want to consider any of these alternatives? Options. Great. I'm not speaking for everybody, but it sounds like alternative one is pretty much off the table at this point. Well, that was the one that Ms. Westover said wasn't a good idea. I'd go for two and three. So we've got two and three, and then we've got, I guess, four up on the screen as well. Thanks, Lynn. Any wishes? Want a motion? Sure. Are we ready for a motion? I think I've got someone willing. Mr. Cravens? Yes. Yeah, I guess I can move to accept the staff recommendation of Article 9. Second. Motion's been made for approval of the staff recommendation staff alternative for ZODA 2012-3. Mr. Chair, before the question votes, also the staff alternative did include a change to Article 8 as well. We just wanted to put that for the record. Thank you. Thank you. And you're taking number 10, the Planning Commission, may consider reducing. No, it's not in this clean sheet. No, it's not in the green sheet. But would you say, okay, they'll just consider it. Yeah. Well, I may not have to consider in the whole thing. Okay. Because that would be a ministerial otherwise. Okay, I'll put that in there just so it can go on. Thank you. Will you agree with me? What was the alternative we had to put in there? Eight. Article eight. Right. I'll put that in there. It would be for article eight and then article nine. motions for article motions for article 8 and then also article 9 and I guess the only other alternative is changing what's up on the screen there is that okay with Mr. Penn as far as a second yes sir okay so we do have a motion and a second for approval of staff alternatives for Article 8 and Article 9. Everybody please vote. Thank you. Motion passes. Next. Ms. Rackers? Can she be brief? You got to go? I mean, we'll still have six. I will say real quick, as Barbara's coming, we did have a discussion as far as possibly seven time limits in our subdivision hearing. And at this point in time, the staff will be coming up with text for possible bylaw changes to do so that we will discuss next week at our work session. May I make a suggestion? Yes, ma'am. That we give a neighborhood an option. They can either have a bucket of minutes, like an hour, for their presentation, or they can do it three minutes at a time. But they cannot, and they can choose, but that would force them to get organized. And then if we wanted to grant them more time, we could. Okay. We can further that discussion next week as well. But that's a possibility. Right now I think it's pretty much be consistent with the zoning hearing. But we can discuss that next week. Okay. Ms. Rackers. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. Evening, almost. This is on page five of your agenda. It's item number one under commission items, and it's PFR 2012-2. It's a request made by Fayette County Public Schools for renovation and expansion to four other elementary schools, James Lane Allen, Meadowthorpe, Stonewall, and Tates Creek Elementary. Each of the buildings has been in its respective location for several years. Two of them have been there since the late 1950s, and two have been there since the early 1960s. And each has had a minimum of two major building additions since they were built. And the latest one that's documented was for J. Lane Allen, I can't get that out, in 1995. The 2007 Comprehensive Plan recommends public education for each one of these buildings or each one of these properties. And that is based on its historic use as well as its desire to remain there. and the public education land use applies to all Fayette County Public Schools facilities. We'll get to that in a minute. The 2007 comp plan also addressed the renovation of many of the school sites in its text, and it says that Fayette County Public Schools, as part of its future plans, is to become a world-class school system by 2020, and so they're doing a lot of renovating and a lot of expanding of their schools, doing new schools. and several have been completed. Several are under construction right now and these four are ready to begin construction. Stonewall is projected to begin in April and the other three in June and they hope to be completed with everything by December of 2013. They will all be occupied during construction by use of portable classrooms and portable restrooms and as far as the comprehensive plan there is nothing in opposition to these just like with the other school public facility reviews, there was nothing in opposition. There was only support for this. It's addressed in both the text and the goals and objectives, and the goals and objectives that apply here are all on page four of your staff report. Okay. James Lane Allen is the first one. It is located on 1901 Appomattox Road. We've got Appomattox right here. There's Della Drive here. It's in Gardenside. Alexandria Drive is here. and Maywick Drive is here. Maywick Drive and Appomattox both provide access to the property. The zoning is all residential, all around here, except for this little pocket right here. That's the Garden Site Crover, and that's Zone B1, and there are also other commercial uses in there. It's a 15-acre site. It's a one-story building, and it contains 58,546 square feet, as it is right now. And, Bill, if you could put the site plan up there, please. What they propose to do is to demolish 11,000, a little bit over 11,000 square feet, and to add a little bit more than 25,000 square feet. That will give them a total of 72,592 square feet when it's done. It will be a complete renovation, and when it is completed, it will be able to accommodate 600 students. They're planning to expand the parking and revise the parking layout, and then add an access only for buses, which would be right there. And all of the improvements to the property will be ADA compliant. That's one of the things that they do is make everything, as far as site improvements and building improvements, ADA compliant. There is one issue with this property. You can see how it slopes downward this way. So there is a creek along here, along that property line, and a FEMA floodplain area. And that creek has caused many, many problems in the area. And in order to not exacerbate anything, we are asking they do best management practices. And the site is probably big enough to accommodate any stormwater runoff, but we ask that they use best management practices in order to not exacerbate the floodplain. There's nothing shown on the site plan as far as detention or anything like that. So just use best management practices in order to not exacerbate the creek problems and the floodplain. And before you ask any questions, there isn't anybody here to represent James Lane Allen. Kevin Warner is here to represent the other three schools in case you have any questions about them, but there's nobody here for James Lane Allen, unfortunately. Anyway, next one is Meadowthorpe, and Bill, if you could put that one up, please. This one is located at 1710 North Forbes Road. It's at the end of North Forbes. This is the property right here. New Circle Road is here. North Forbes Road is here, and it's at the very end of North Forbes. This property is zoned R1C, and there is all residential zoning around it, except for along here. That's I1 zoning and I1 uses. This is also a one-story building. It contains 45,230 square feet, and it will also be a total renovation. and if you could put the site plan up there, please. There is going to be selective demolition and new construction associated with this, and it will have a total of 69,460 square feet when it's finished, and it will also accommodate 600 students. The site improvements are new paving and additional parking. The additional parking will be up in this area right here. They're expanding. Actually, it's this area right here. They're expanding that parking. It's less parking than it is right now than it will be, and everything will be ADA compliant. Stonewall Elementary, which is the next one, please, is located at 3215 Cornwall Drive. It's zoned R1B, and it's about a 12-acre property. Everything around it is zoned R1B. We have residential uses all around here, and then this is an urban county government park. and they will be doing selective demolition and new construction and we'll end up with a total of 78,176 square feet and we'll accommodate 775 students when it's done. They have two parking and drop-off areas. The site plan, please. This right here is basically for parent use and then this is the bus loop, and it also serves as the service drive and a fire lane. Once everything is done, those will remain essentially the same. And there's also a floodplain issue associated with this property. Along this northern property line up here, in the park, there's a creek, and it creates a floodplain, FEMA floodplain. And so in order to, and I was going to say, in order to not exacerbate that, then we ask for best management practices. It doesn't show any kind of storm drainage management on this property either, so we ask that they use best management practices for that. The last one is Tates Creek Elementary, and if you put that one up, Bill, please. That is located at 1113 Center Parkway. It's zoned AU, and it is the entire Tates Creek campus. It includes the elementary school, the middle school, and the high school. It's about 64 acres in size for the whole property, and then the elementary school takes up about 9 acres of that. The property is zoned AU. Most of the property around the elementary school, which is this right here, is the Tates Creek campus, and that's all zoned AU. And then there's residential down in this area, and it's a mix of residential zoning. This is a one-story building, and it's 64,000 square feet, and it will also be totally renovated. There will be a small area demolished, and then they'll add about 20,000 square feet so that they'll have a net increase of almost 16,000 square feet and a total building square footage of about 80,000 square feet. Everything will be ADA compliant, and this school will be able to accommodate 725 students. And we also have floodplain in this area, which would be down in this area here along Green Tree Road. There's a severe FEMA floodplain hazard area down that area, and that has also caused major problems. And so even though this probably won't take up any more green space than it already has, it's all going to be done on paving that's already existing, we ask that they do best management practices as far as construction and site improvements so that that won't exacerbate any problems in the floodplain. All of the renovations to the schools will be similar. They're going to replace their mechanical, their electrical, and their fire protection systems They're going to replace all interior finishes. They're going to add new door hardware and renovate the cafeterias and add new kitchen equipment. And then the new construction will vary depending on what each building needs. I mean, one building will have, one school will have eight new classrooms. One of them will have a media center added to it. And all of them are going to have new administrative space. So in summary, everything that they're doing, there are no goals or objectives or text in a comprehensive plan. that are in opposition to this. Everything is in support. The land use element recommends public education for the properties, and the text of the plan and several goals and objectives are in support of this. And so we have recommended approval of this because we find it to be in compliance with the comprehensive plan. And we also recommend that any applicable permits with regard to building and or remodeling be obtained from building inspection because that's a life safety issue. And use of best management practices for construction and site improvements. And as I said, Mr. Warner, Kevin, is here in case you have any questions about any specific sites, and then I'll be glad to try to answer any questions about the staff report. Any questions from the Commission? No. Mr. Warner, would you like to say anything? Get on the record of being here. Thank you for your patience today. No problem. I'm Kevin Warner with Carmen, and as Ms. Rackers indicated, I can speak to three of the schools, she indicated that there were no detention facilities shown on the plans. And the reason for two of those, Stonewall and Meadowthorpe, is because for all of the additional pavement that you're going to see on those sites, they're going to be permeable pavers, and we're actually removing some existing asphalt paving to offset the additional building square footage on those two sites. The Taste Creek site, we are enlarging the existing surface detention basin to handle the additional runoff there. So there will be no additional runoff at any of those three projects. So we are talking about runoff and not children detention. Correct. Okay. Ms. Phillips. I wanted to ask a question of the art. So is the new construction going to be LEED? The Fayette County schools do not actually certify their schools with LEED due to the extra cost. However, KDE has a program that's similar called Green and Healthy Schools, and we try and pursue as many of those goals which are parallel with LEED as possible. There's not a certification that we have to obtain like you would with a LEED project. It sounds like you guys are working towards being as green as possible. We absolutely are. In the new construction of schools, when they build new schools, they do that as LEED. they do attempt that. Yeah, I was just wondering if this remodeling was going to be done as greenly as possible. We certainly do. Any other questions? No, thank you, sir. Thank you. I'll ask for a motion. The motion would be that this is in compliance. Mr. Chair, I recommend that we accept the staff report stating that the remodeling that will take place at these four elementary schools in Fayette County is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Thank you. The motion has been made for approval of the PFR 2012-2. Do we have a second? Second. The motion has been made and seconded. If there's no further discussion, I'll ask you to vote. Thank you. The motion passes. Mr. King, anything else? Nothing from staff except that I do need your attention after the meeting is over on a noncommissioned matter for a very brief second. Okay. And I think we do have a work session next week. Yes, we do. At 1.30. Yes, Ms. Biddy. Mr. Chair, I would just like to be sure that the minutes reflect on the approval of the minutes of February that we approved for February the 9th. I think that it recorded me as abstention, and I was having a technical difficulty here. So can you correct that to approval? Thank you. Thank you.