Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Субтитры предоставил DimaTorzok Thank you very much for being here, Lisa. This, I mean, this really isn't just LFUCG discussion. No, it's not. And we recognize that. We're all in this together, and I really appreciate that you were willing to take time to come here. And that's what this is about. We have a group of folks here, probably close to 90 or 85. Our capacity is 91. And all of whom have good ideas, and so thank you for being here to take part. I'd also like to say that we're very interested in any proposal that impacts students' lives. So the university will definitely stay in this conversation for the long haul. Okay, very good. Thank you. Council Member McCord. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to maybe put some framework around today's discussion, and then I have a question I guess I need to ask Dr. Stevens or ask the Chair is, you know, as we're watching this and we're looking at the folks in the audience, what I would like to do is maybe just take a minute and describe the framework in which we've got to work through this issue on. One is you have a university who is a major economic driver of this state, a major workforce driver of this state, that has been mandated by the legislature to be a top 20 research institution that has immense pressure upon it to meet that state mandate. And in the next however many years, that college plans on growing its student enrollment 7,000 to 8,000 folks. So we have an issue right now where we're having a tough time finding where to put people and so forth, and now we're going to grow this by 7,000 to 8,000 more folks. And then on top of those things, as mentioned by Councilman Blues, we have certain policies on campus that those policies taken in a vacuum do one thing, but then they start to maybe spread that group out across town and start to affect areas and so forth like that. Then you have issues of housing right now that may be taken out of the stock of on-campus housing because they don't have air conditioning and some other amenities of the 20th century. And so as a body, one of the things that we have to figure out is what is our role in this, what can we do given the lay of the land, given the fact that we have students in the room, we have homeowners in the room, we have frustrated homeowners in the room, and this is an issue that we have to kind of come to grips with. So I think that before we get into any kind of lengthy discussion, you've got to know the background of where we're coming from and where folks are coming at this thing from. So I guess one of the questions that I have to whomever is, is the purpose of today's meeting a day of discussion, of just talking? Is today a day that we're going to bring something forward? What is the purpose of this planning committee meeting? I look upon it as kind of a public meeting to get input from the people who are interested in this issue and I don't plan on making any motions to bring something forward. Okay. I agree with you that the university is a vital aspect of Lexington and has been since 1865, I guess, and we'll be here in 2065 and 2165. And the purpose of my initiative was to see how we as a community and the university can get along better in the future years. If I might add, I'm expecting some folks here to give us some ideas also. I know the university area housing group has been working on some ideas, so I would hope our citizens will come forward too with some new ideas. And I think that there's two things from the citizens that are going to speak and others that are watching that we need to be talking about. We need to be talking about short-term solutions. What are those given the lay of the land and some of the, again, the frustrations and the reasons why this has been brought forward? What are those short-term solutions that we're looking for? And then what are some of the long-term solutions? And one of the long-term solutions, Madam Chair, that I want to put forward before we get rolling and this gets lost too far in the discussion is the University of Kentucky has been putting before the legislature a desire to have their own bonding capacity, to be able to write their own bonds and raise their own monies, and the legislature has blocked that over the last few sessions. And I believe that this body needs to devise a resolution to send to this General Assembly session coming up, supporting their initiative to do that because if you're going to take a couple of dorms out of the mix and it just puts more pressure on this situation, that is a long-term fix where the university then at least has the ability to create a housing opportunity at a later date. So I just wanted to get some clarity and I also wanted to set the framework for the discussion because I know we have folks in here who feel very strongly on all sides of this issue. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. The only thing I wanted to say, and I want to be sure everybody is on the same page about this, all of the student housing problem and all the student housing for that matter is not located off of Elizabeth Street. And it's not even all located near the university. I know in the fourth district we have pockets of student housing with shenanigans that are carried on, similar to what happens on Elizabeth Street at all. And so whatever we do, it's got to be one size fits all. And that's down the road as to what that might be, but we do have to take into consideration that there is student housing all over Fayette County. Thank you, Chair. Council Member James. Thank you, Chair. A couple of concerns regarding now I didn't know anything about the university housing group that's meeting. And one of my concerns is I'd like to know who's actually meeting discussing this issue, and is everyone represented? So do we have landlords represented? Do we have students represented? Do we have government officials represented? And that sort of thing. I've heard Town and Gown meets. I don't know that I've ever seen minutes from Town and Gown. I don't know if those are things that we should know. Should we be getting a report out of what's happening at Town and Gown, as well as any other group that's meeting? So I think if we can have anyone that's here that is either a chair or active in any of these groups that are meeting discussing this, we need for them to come forward. I think we need to be in constant communication with any of those folks to find out what do you see as the issues, because, you know, we can have five different groups meet and have five different priorities out of those five different groups. And I think it's important that we maybe as a government could be that bridge to say, okay, here's a place where we're keeping these, whether we put it on our website and announce these meetings for this particular issue. But I just feel like there's a lot of these little sidebar groups meeting, and I feel like I may not be getting all the information. So I'm concerned about that. And I also respect Ms. Higgins-Hord, and thank you for being here today to let us know that this is something that you will be a part of. I think that's as we've received so many e-mails, and one of the things that have come from that for me is where does UK stand in this? I feel like that we're overstepping our boundaries in some of these aspects, because I think that student housing should be something that the university should be aware of. I'm interested in how many people currently live off campus, and what does the university have the capacity to hold? I don't know. I guess you measure it in beds or rooms, or I don't know how you measure it, but we need to make sure that that's comparable and that it's adequate. But I think that it just – I feel like that something's missing, and maybe it's just me, but I don't know that all that communication has been brought forward. Also, Charlie, if you'll come forward, I have a question about the land bank. You know, we've been talking about this a lot, the issue of affordable housing and making these units available if the buyback policy program does happen. What is defined as affordable? Well, I think that's all just part of the preliminary discussions that we've had about this. There's no proposal even being considered that's been mapped out. It's basically at the idea stage. The way that it works in state colleges is based on the income standards that's set forth by the CDBG program. So if you're 60% to 80%, I think, of the median income, you're eligible under that program. And then I don't know if there is any limitation on the dollar value of the housing, although their housing stock seems to be similarly priced to that in Lexington. The majority of the homes that had been, I think, dealt with under that particular program were in about the low 100s range to mid 100s range. And when you took the value of the land out of that, it put it down toward 90,000, 100,000, that sort of a thing. But as far as how you're asking me, I think, a question about how will this work in our community, we're nowhere near being able to answer that question. To your earlier question, I might respond on behalf maybe of Dr. Stevens or the Vice Mayor, just about the Town and County Commission itself is set up as to be representative of five different basic groups. That would include the local government, University of Kentucky, Transylvania University, neighborhoods, and landlords and students. So there's actually six, I believe, different factions that make that up. We've worked generally as an idea tank over the years where when one gets enough fraction or interest, it generally comes here or to the Board of Trustees for the official type discussion that we're beginning to see today. We did that with several other initiatives that have come through here at different times. So I see it, and I don't know if you disagree with that, but I see us basically at that stage right now. We've done some research. We've seen these different ideas, would they fit our community, how would they need to be tailored. All of that discussion to me is starting in an official way probably with this meeting today. And it's that, thank you so much for that, and it's that traction and energy that I think is the interesting part of it. Because by the time it comes here, then we've built the traction and energy based on those smaller groups. And sometimes being part of that smaller group is where the work should be done, in my opinion. So I think that's the key is the smaller organizations that are meeting, I mean, if I have a group and I have an interest to paint all the stop signs purple, and I go around and I talk to people and say, you know what, I'm thinking about painting all these stop signs purple. And if they're friends with me or if they're okay with that and they become part of that group, then we build that traction and energy on painting stop signs purple, and we come forward with that. Well, then it looks like there's all this momentum. So that's kind of like my concern is I want to make sure that we are as diverse and inclusive as we can be in those smaller groups coming forward with issues that when they come forward, I mean, just the packet that were presented as far as the planning packet, there's nothing that shows the negative impact of the proposal. And I'm just curious about the negative impact of a student zone. And as a lot of the e-mails have shown, there's a lot of concern about this taking place. So I would love to be able to have continued conversation regarding this inclusive conversation with everyone that's here today needs to be included in on that conversation at some point. Maybe you can't come to the mic right now, but you need to know, be put on a list that you're interested in this. If I could see anyone that's here from Transylvania University, raise your hand or stand up. That's concerning. Transylvania is in my district. There's nobody here from Transy today. I guess that's all that I have to say right now. I may chime in a little bit later. Thank you, Chair. You're welcome. And this is really, from my perspective, the beginning of the conversation. So it's a good way to start. Council Member Beard and then Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you again. And, of course, as we go along, things pop up that strike a nerve and you feel like you have to talk again. Two questions. One, Charlie, on the buyback program, how would financing take place on something where the land is held by one party unless you had a 99-year lease? I'm not sure that a lot of people would want to touch a loan on just the physical property itself. I can't answer that question specifically. I know from the information that we've gotten in the state college, though, it was apparent that private institutions, lending institutions were participating with all those, and they had found some mechanism by which to successfully make those loans and protect their equity. But I don't know a specific answer to your question. Well, generally it involves a lease of something longer than 20 or 25 years, I would think. Right. The second thing I would like to bring forward is this question of town and gown handling this problem. As I mentioned a little earlier, it is more global than the defined boundaries of the town and gown group. And if, in fact, there's going to be further research and discussion, maybe more intense than we might get here, hopefully more intense than we might get here, that we would ask the mayor to form a task force to do this as opposed to hand it back to town and gown. Thank you. Vice Mayor Gray. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Actually, a couple of comments, actually. This is in the context of what Council Member McCord was saying earlier. I'm mindful in conversations about issues like this, increasingly in the role that I have as a Council Member today, that two things about government. Battleships don't make right-hand turns, and as I see Bill Lear here today, Bill often reminds me that if you wait forever to do anything, you're likely to do nothing. And so the two of those represent tension that we have to negotiate always. As it relates to town gown and the work of town gown today, I think maybe a show of hands. I know I see several faces in the room who are involved. Lisa Higgins-Hort already mentioned. She co-chairs it along with me. Transylvania, who else has been involved? Dr. Stephens has been, Dick DeCamp. And Trans-Seas Rep was at the last meeting where we spent, this was two weeks ago, and we spent a good part of the morning, about three hours, and we're actually looking at re-evaluating. Now, town gown's been in existence for about ten years. A good time to evaluate where we are and take a sense of what the issues are today as the issues related to town gown were ten years ago. I think those who participated in that exercise that morning, it was a time when we looked at the structure and specifically looking at how we can break down the existing structure into work teams that will focus on addressing specific projects and problems. is the nature of what we're doing today. Contrast that with what the mayor's initiative has been, which I would characterize as dealing with the acute issues. That is, the problems, the snakes that are closest to your feet, dealing with the problems that the neighborhoods consider to be problematic today. That's what has been the game day initiative. Town gown, more focused on chronic, longer term. In my view, this is one of those issues, and I think Lisa illustrated it well, that it's not a, it's arguably not an overnight fix for us, or at least to become acquainted with it. Dr. Stevens has been dealing with it for ten years. Councilmember DeCamp's been dealing with this issue for a long time, as represented from his district. Today's opportunity, as the chair said earlier, and Dr. Stevens reinforced, is for us to have the conversation about this and to try to see all the points of view. Thank you very much. Councilmember James. Am I allowed to say something again? One more time. Thank you. I had a question for Dr. Stevens, and if there's someone more appropriate, please chime in. But you mentioned that one of the goals of this is for lower intensity of student housing, and I wonder what effect, what do you think happens with increased student housing, or increased intensity? What are the particular aspects of it that you're looking to diminish with lowering the intensity? Well, the problems that are present in these neighborhoods, I think, relate to too many cars, too much litter, too much noise, alcohol abuse, and things of that nature. In my conversations with members of the University Community Council and the steering committee of that council now has representatives from, I'll just read you several of the communities that are involved. I've been chairman of that committee at the National League of Cities and have discussed these issues with those cohorts for the last seven or eight years. And Winston-Salem, Moscow, Idaho, Carbondale, Illinois, Westchester, Pennsylvania State College, Cambridge, Mass., Ames, Iowa, South Burlington, Vermont, Glendale, Arizona, Gainesville, Florida, Waco, Texas, and Newark, Delaware, and Lexington, Kentucky are the communities that represent on the steering committee for this group. And it's been the, I'd say, the shared opinion of those members and the other people who come to our gatherings that if you have a ratio of about 50% students and 50% permanent residents, the neighborhoods get along very well. So that's the background for my thinking on it. May I respond? Well, you mentioned litter, noise, alcohol abuse. Do we not have current ordinances that address each one of those particular issues that would be citywide and not just particularly university-based? Because, you know, litter, noise, and alcohol, we have that all over Lexington. Enforcement has been the problem. And I've been with the police and ridden around some of these neighborhoods, and it's just almost impossible to enforce it. And I look upon, say, reducing the density as sort of like preventing medicine. If you get the right ratio, then you don't have these problems continuing, and it's a way to keep them from happening rather than trying to stifle them with enforcement. You need all these things. Code enforcement, police have to be there, but sometimes it exceeds their ability to control it. So would there not be a risk then of having an area where police, code enforcement, and any other particular group or, I don't know, employee or whoever would be focusing on that and not addressing it in the other areas where it's being violated? I'm sorry, I didn't understand that question. If you have an area that you're saying is an area where we really, really, I mean, we really need to enforce it all over. But if we really, really need to enforce it in this particular area, are we not then doing a disservice to the entire city of Lexington where, even on my own street, we have litter issues, noise issues? Like how do you, why would we want to limit the areas just to say we really need to enforce it here? It really needs to happen here. Enforcement of these particular ordinances, why would we want to enforce them and encourage enforcement all over Lexington? Why would we want to not enforce it? Right, why would we not want to just look at those particular ordinances and say why are these not being enforced all over Lexington? Well, they're trying to be. Mr. DeCamp has had several meetings just dealing with the enforcement issue in those neighborhoods, and we've attempted to, through his efforts and others, we've attempted to increase the enforcement as much as possible. Some of the landlords that are here today are complaining because it's been enforced too much. And who do you enforce it on, the students that come and go, or do you enforce it on the people that own the property? That's one of the problems. So my view is if we can get the right ratio in a certain neighborhood and the problems don't occur with the intensity that they do now, if you look at that map, did you see the map I showed you of the districts? Twenty percent of those homes are owner-occupied. Eighty percent are with students. It's just the proportion that's not manageable. I just think that there are other areas of Lexington where we have that same kind of rental owner-occupied ratio. You know, certain areas of Easton, probably certain areas of second district, certain areas of maybe George Meyers district where we have the same kind of issue. If you go street by street or neighborhood by neighborhood, the rental, the owner-occupied rate is much less than the rental rate. And I'll move on, but I'm just. I don't think it matters whether it's if a family is living in a house. That's what I'm talking about, not necessarily whether they're owner-occupied. If they're owner-occupied, the thinking is that they might be more concerned about their property. I know not all renters are concerned about the property they're living in, but they're better than. Some are better than others. I could probably show you some pictures of some families living in rental units. I don't want to look just as bad, but I will. Thank you, Chair. Okay. We'll hear from Council Member DeCamp, and then we'll hear from those of you who've signed up to speak. Thank you, Chair. You know, all I'd like to say is that, you know, we're not so naive to know we're a college town and that every college town suffers from these same problems, if we call it suffering, but have these same problems of student housing. And I represent a number of neighborhoods where this happens, and there are many good students who are out there living on the economy. It's the bad apples that really make the problem. And also when you get the critical mass in the neighborhood that I live in. We have students living, but it's not near the critical mass that you have in some neighborhoods where a lot of my constituents constantly tell me that it gets out of control. So, you know, we're not here. We're not so naive also to think that we're going to change student behavioral patterns. We can't take that on, but we are trying within certainly my district to keep it down to a dull roar. And how we do this is yet to be seen, but it always depends on kind of the critical mass that we have in certain neighborhoods. I'm very enthused about at this time that the direction of the town gown commission is making. I think our vice mayor is making a real effort as the new chairman to come up with specific projects, to really come up with some work teams that can come up with some answers instead of rehashing and rehashing, which I think we've done too much in the past. So I think there's a real reevaluation to see how we can become a more meaningful organization. So I am encouraged certainly from that point of view, and I never think it's a bad idea to look at different ways in which we can improve our existing neighborhoods or be sure that they don't get any worse than some of them are. So I've heard a lot from people whom I represent over the last 11 years, and there is a sincere concern from many people who have owner-occupied houses, and then all of a sudden the critical mass reaches a point where it becomes very unlivable. Thank you. Council Member Myers, and then the public. Thank you, Ms. Chair, and I'll be brief. In listening to this conversation and looking at the packet and the proposal that's provided in the packet, hearing the conversation today, I think that two people have hit the nail on the head, and that's Councilwoman James and Council Member Beard. We have plenty of laws on the books to deal with the issues that we're having issues with around campus. They also don't happen just around campus. They happen in the 4th District. I've got some of that fallout across Tate's Creek and to the 8th District, and I think what we need to do is look at enforcing the current laws instead of writing new laws to try to bring change in a way that doesn't make sense. I think Councilman Beard alluded to putting together a task force, and I think one of the other issues is here is we've looked at this in a microcosm. We looked at this around campus only as sort of a neighborhood issue when it's really a global issue, and I think that it would be a good idea to put together a task force, bring everybody together that's dealing with these issues and have solutions for these issues, and the issue really is enforcement of current laws. And so I look forward to Councilman Beard speaking later on. Thank you. Thank you. Now we'll hear from the public, and we have a clock up here, a three-minute timer, and if you can limit your comments to three minutes or less, please. And some of you have given your minutes to other people, so first we have Richard Murphy in the audience. And second is Dave Pendry, who has given his three minutes to Richard Murphy. And then if you'll kind of keep the rotation in mind, next will be Rick Bryant and then Craig Hardin. So, Richard, we'll have six minutes. Thank you, Ms. Gordon. I appreciate being here. I'm the attorney for the University Area Housing Association, UAHA. They were the group that sent you the request for this meeting. I'm the attorney for the University Area Housing Association, UAHA. They were the group that sent you the memo, which is in your packet. I'm not going to repeat those topics, but we want to make a few points with you today, and we appreciate being here. UAHA was formed in 2001. A group of property owners came to me and said they were not happy with the way property owners were being portrayed and were not happy with the positions that some property owners were taking, being very antagonistic to keeping up their properties and being very antagonistic to the government. We wanted to be a responsible property owners association. We formed a nonprofit organization to do that, which has been in existence since 2001. We're very concerned about both the rights of property owners and the rights of students. And, Ms. Gordon, a lot of the people in the audience have asked me to ask you if they can be recognized, people in the audience, if you're concerned about rights of property owners and rights of students. Would it be okay if they would stand up? Sure. If you would stand at this point if you're concerned about rights? It might be everybody here. Council members should stand up, too. Yeah, I'm happy to stand up. Thank you. Thank you. And we know everybody is. We understand we're all concerned about those things. We want you to remember a couple things about property owners. One is property owners do have an obligation to provide safe, sanitary, clean housing for people who live in property they own. But property owners also have an obligation to rent to anyone without regard to age, which is very important here, age, race, religion, creed, national origin, or any of those items. That's a legal requirement that property owners have. And under a lease, property owners give up possession and control of their property to the people who rent from them. The property is maintained and property owners have an interest in maintaining property, but property owners are not parents and property owners are not bosses and cannot be made parents or bosses. Dr. Blues mentioned the forces which are acting upon the university area right now, the increased enrollment of 7,000 by 2020, the on-campus housing not keeping pace, the alcohol policy, and those matters. So those are all operating on the U.K. area. We recognize there's going to be occasional conflicts between rental residents and owner-occupied residents. Students have a different lifestyle than some others in the community. Students don't take their kids to soccer games on Saturday night, but they do have friends over on Saturday night, and that's a very legitimate thing to do. And we want to recognize that students have rights and there's nothing wrong with a different lifestyle per se. We understand that excesses did occur, especially after the UofL game, but we're very encouraged that the existing ordinances on alcohol consumption, on keg licensing, on the party plan, having indoor furniture outside, parking in the front yards and that sort of thing have been enforced and are having a very marked effect and a very positive effect on those issues that have occurred. So enforcement does work and is working. We understand issues will remain, but we have some concerns about some of the proposals that have been presented to you. Dispersing students can be counterproductive. The experience of UAHA members is that dispersing often can spread problems perhaps. The issues about lowering density take the form of lowering limits of occupancy, adjusting the definition of family, and spacing. Now, the American Planning Association did a study in 2002, and I'll just read from their report. They were referring to those matters to reduce density. It says a review of research and planning literature finds no indication of links between density of occupancy and a reduction in the type of disturbances that often lead to cities narrowing the definition of family. In other words, this is an approach that likely will not fix the problem. We don't think licensing is called for because it would be tremendously expensive and time-consuming on part of the city and expensive and time-consuming on the part of the property owners themselves. We are very concerned about buyback programs. Regulating the family opens the door to many moral, social, as well as legal issues, and it's a very thorny thicket we get into when we regulate who the family is. I'd like to, in closing, tell you some overarching principles that we have used to try to guide our study of this issue. One is it's vital to our community to have students living downtown. For a downtown renaissance, entertainment district, loft apartments, and all the good things that are happening downtown depend a lot on students. Secondly, we want to have as many students as possible living within walking distance or biking distance of the U.K. campus. Every time a student gets in a car and turns the key on that internal combustion engine, we add to the pollution problems, the traffic problems, and the parking problems. We feel it's very important to get as many students as close to campus as is possible. Thank you. You have about 10 seconds. Okay. I'll just go through my other points without elaborating on them. Students and residents need to feel secure in their homes. We support enforcement to make sure that happens. Neighborhood associations need to invite students and property owners who rent to students to become members so there can be communications. And we feel very strongly that our members can supply safe and secure housing to students, but all parties need to be at the table, as has been discussed. Thank you very much. Students, landlords, you, and the U.K. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murthy. Next we'll hear from Rick Bryant and then Craig Harden, and then we have some deferrals. If you'll say your name and address, please. Rick Bryant, 639 Tateswood. I'm a member of the UAHA. I'm also a member of the Town and Gown and have been so since its inception. A lot of these issues we've discussed tonight, we've discussed in Town and Gown every single year, and it seems like I'm glad these are finally coming to a head where we can get these done. I'd like to begin with a concept many of you are familiar with, and that's just practical problem solving, you know, identifying the problem, identifying the cause of the problem and solutions. I mean, we're here tonight for students' problems in the neighborhoods, parking and traffic in the neighborhoods, and game day behavior in parking. The cause of these problems is pretty easy. It's the University of Kentucky. Each one of these items, if you look at, you know, the students, we have a lack of housing. We have no alcohol on campus. These kids don't want to live on campus. They have no desire. They'll live there one year, and then they want to move on. The alcohol policy dumps students into our neighborhoods to party. It's a very, very difficult thing for the neighborhoods to try to put up with, and I feel bad for them on that. UK had policies in place for drinking on campus. They had hall monitors in their dorms. They had police patrols, and they had penalties for their students who broke these laws. And I think one of the solutions that we have here now is to get UK to try to get some penalties on these students when they're arrested, you know, take a little responsibility for their problems that they cause. The police have done as good a job as they can. They always say they're understaffed. They can't enforce this or enforce that, but that's something that we need to look at to see if they can enforce these laws we have on the books. Parking and traffic. UK does not have nearly enough parking. You look at game day. They make all the students pull off of the parking lot at Commonwealth Stadium, and where do they go? They all go to our neighborhoods. And then on game day, when people are trying to find a place to park, they have to go into the neighborhoods. UK needs to have a policy where our students have somewhere to go to party on game days. Let's have a student lot where they can tailgate. They don't have to have an expensive parking pass. Have picnic areas for them where they can go and party instead of partying in the neighborhood. Most of these items that we have here all have a common denominator in UK, and I'm glad to hear that they're willing to work with the government, which they said they have been wanting to do, but it just hasn't happened yet. And I hope the town and gown in UK will work to try to solve these problems that the university is causing. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll hear from Craig Hardin, and then it looks like we have Martin Bassett, who has given three minutes to Bill Lear. So then we'll hear from Mr. Lear. Hi, thank you. I'm Craig Hardin, Hardin Properties, and I'm an officer of the University Area Housing Association. On behalf of the UAHA, I'm supposed to cover the topic that Ms. James mentioned earlier, which is working together and communicating better. And I know this is kind of one of those soft issues that we all kind of just breeze over. I read a Herald-Leader editorial that said it wasn't that important, but I think on behalf of everybody that there's some real things that can be gained here. We have over 100 property owners in the UAHA that we're representing. We think between 1,200 and 1,400 properties. This is our list of people here. I just wanted to give you an idea of who we're representing. I ran out of room and started writing on the back. We've been contacted extensively, pardon me, about this issue. And we're equally as frustrated as the neighbors who are complaining about the students and with the way that we're treated and the lack of communication and cooperation. We think we need leadership, and I'll also want to comment that we think perhaps UK could be the group that leads. There's another member here that has some information. We're going to try to focus on some solutions that we have. This is going to mention something about Ohio State University, where they have an off-campus housing director who gets off campus daily, regularly, invites property owners and neighbors to luncheons where they deal with issues and the university takes the lead and some responsibility for the behavior when they do that. So we think that would be something that UK maybe could look at. We're excited to have UK participate. Some of the other recommendations that we sent to you are in the letter in the University Area Housing Association in the back of your packet. I won't go through all of that, but some of the areas were to allow and encourage property owners and students to participate in the decision-making process. Good public policy includes all stakeholders in the community in problem-solving. To date, owners who lease out their homes and students living in the neighborhoods around campus have been actively excluded from a lot of these neighborhood associations and other elements of the decision-making process. The Town and Gown Commission, I'll mention, has been mentioned several times, is a good example of creative solution and problem-solving. It's currently being restructured to become more effective, and the UAHA supports that effort. Property owners and residents, UK student government, and the city can do a much better job of communicating amongst themselves. Education is a big part of that. One of the things I put in your packet was the student source book. I wanted to make sure everybody got a look at that. That was sponsored by the UK and the Town and Gown Commission, and we think that's a step in the right direction. We hope UK and think that UK needs to step up in the effort to lead the communication. Mr. Harden, I'm so sorry to interrupt you. We're going to try to stick to our three-minute limit. I appreciate your being here. We want to be a part of the advance in a positive way. Very good. Thank you. Mr. Lear, and it appears that Mr. Martin Bassett has given you his three minutes, so you have six minutes. Thank you very much. I'll try to make the best of it. I'm also involved with Touchstone Properties as well as South Hill Group, which is probably the largest creator of new housing units in the immediate vicinity of the University of Kentucky. Would you say your name and address for the record? Yes, Bill Lear, 732 Lakeshore Drive here in Lexington. To use Dr. Stevens' words in how he described some of the emails he got, we consider this proposal not so helpful. And it reminds me of people who want to have a great university but don't want the students. I don't think it comes in that color, Dr. Stevens. Anytime we deal with a radical departure from the norm, as this proposal would represent, it's useful and important to ask whether it's consistent with the direction of existing public policy. This is not. What are some of our existing public policies that ought to be considered in thinking about this? One, we've decided we want to grow up, not out. This proposal is all about growing out. In our current comprehensive plan, there's a statement that says we want to incentivize in areas like this densification. I don't even know that's a word, but it's in our comprehensive plan. If there is such a word, then anti-densification must be one, and that's what this would do. I can run the math for you, but if you go from an average of four students per household, if that's what it is, to three, you're going to greatly increase the number of units you need. If you're going to go from 80 percent concentration on a block to 50 percent concentration on the block, just based on the 19,000 off-campus students there are today, you're talking about 150 extra blocks that you've got to go from zero students to 50 percent students. I doubt if there's anybody here today representing those blocks that are going to get to be the recipients of that. My experience is that the whole thing works better when it's 100 percent students. The areas that are 100 percent students, we're not getting these complaints from. We want Collegetown, another public policy, we want Collegetown to be a thriving 24-7 environment, and a lot of the area you're talking about is in Collegetown. I don't think we're going to accomplish that by taking college students out of the Collegetown area, which is what this proposal is about. We encourage walking and biking. This proposal would move more students to the point where they'd have to drive, which is a real problem because UK already doesn't have enough parking. We support UK's Top 20 plan, which calls for more money to be spent on research, not on housing, and which calls for an increase in 7,000 more students. And we established the Town and Gown, and this is another important public policy, we established the Town and Gown Commission or committee to deal with exactly this type of issue. And the fact that we're here today and not in the Town and Gown, where all the constituencies are represented, is an issue. We don't understand why, when we've got this organization specifically dedicated to this thing, with all the constituencies represented, why this isn't coming from Town and Gown. This is not coming from Town and Gown. UK has to be a partner in this solution. I think the reasons for that have been very well articulated. There's one other one that I think needs to be understood, though, and not only has UK grown and is going to continue to grow, UK has also eaten up a lot of existing housing, for good reason, for things like the Young Library, for the expansion of the Medical Center, but the reality is UK is gobbling up existing housing in its environs. And frankly, if I owned a property, which I'm happy to say we don't, in UK's acquisition area, it would be hard to get me to spend the amount of money on it that I might otherwise spend. It's like people who own beachfront property where the beach is eroding. They don't spend money on them because the ocean's going to take them and they know it. Well, in this case, UK is like the ocean. They're eventually going to get those properties, and it's hard to convince people to spend the amount of money to keep them up that they would if they weren't in that acquisition area. Let me, let me, I've got a little bit more time left. Let me touch on something that's probably the most important thing that people need to hear today, and Ms. James, thank you for bringing it up. Every single thing that we've talked about as a symptom of the problem is against the law today. I've been through the ordinances. There's some things in here you probably don't even know. Did you know that in the area of solid waste, which deals with all the regulations about how you keep your herby and how you deposit things, did you know that the ordinance says occupants, that means the tenants, occupants shall be primarily responsible for compliance with the requirements of this section and shall be deemed readily determinable when listed as the party responsible for payment of the solid waste disposal fee at a property or when currently designated by the property owner on a form provided by and filed with the Commissioner of Public Works? Property owners here know about that? I've asked several. They didn't know about it. I talked to the receptionist at the Public Works Department today, and she didn't know there was such a form. That's all about placing the responsibility on the people that ought to be rolling the herbies out and rolling them back and taking care of debris and everything else. But everything you've heard about, parking of cars on the grass in the front yards, in the side yards, everything to do with alcohol, everything to do with noise, everything to do with parties, everything to do with all these issues, is against the law today, and all we need to do is enforce them. Thank you, Mr. Lear. Next we'll hear from Katie Humphreys and then David Burton and then Mike Friedman. So Katie Humphreys, David Burton, and Mike Friedman. Hi. Thank you so much. My name is Katie Humphreys, and I'm coming today as a wife, a mother, and a property owner. And last night I didn't sleep at all. I was so anxious. And I have a four-month-old, so that's a big deal. Can you say your address for the record? 804 Golf View Drive. And at any rate, I was terrified because basically as a property owner we're at risk to losing our jobs. My husband and I live on the same street as our properties. We have mostly four- and five-bedroom homes. Without that, I don't know what we'd do. My husband works for a nonprofit. He counsels fraternity students on making responsible decisions. And as for myself, I'm a stay-at-home mother to our daughter, and I can't work outside the home because my daughter has some health issues from when she was born. So I was desperate. I thought, what can I do? So I called my alma mater. I called Ohio State for some possible solutions. When I was there, they had 13 cars set on fire in 2002. There were riots every single weekend. There were dumpster burnings, things like that. I thought, well, let's see what happened there. Maybe they can have some ideas. So I called expecting them to say, well, you know, the riots are all right. Well, I talked to Willie Young, the director of off-campus student housing, and he said that that hasn't happened since because what they've done is the University of Kentucky or Ohio State, first of all, suspended those six students that started the riots. And since then, they actually developed, I took notes, four pages worth of committees and different things that they do to proactively prevent those things from happening. So they get together. They have safety committee meetings with the police, the fire department, the students. The students couldn't be more involved. But Ohio State takes the responsibility, and they drive all those efforts. And Willie does drive around on the weekends with the vice president of the university. And on big weekends, like Michigan, with the president of the university, to talk to students to say, hey, you know, make sure you're being responsible. If they see where a party is going to be started, I mean, Willie calls and gets where the kegs are going to. He can find out where all that stuff is happening, and he's very proactive about that. So you ask for ideas. My idea is to talk to somebody like Willie Young that's done it. I mean, if Ohio State can go from riots and burning cars and dumpsters and anything else that you can set fire to, to having no problems and having relative harmony, I think that that's really what we should do. And it's beyond just the town and gown, getting everyone involved. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next we'll hear from David Burton and then Mike Friedman and then Alan Straub. Hello, I'm David Burton. I'm at 2109 Bridgeport here in Lexington. I'm an officer with the University Area Housing Association. If I could, first, just again, how many people here by show of hands are concerned with the legislation that's being talked about? Okay. Okay. Well, that kind of says it. There is a great concern out there. I think there's a lot of people who are responsible. They're responsible enough particularly to be here today to say, I'm concerned. And I think the person who would show up here today is also the person who would be responsible in doing something proactively with their property. So I think I just wanted to bring that out to show you that these are folks, I think, who are part of the solution. And there are solutions out there, and they're already happening. The game day illustration is one of those. It's a problem. It was met head on, and it's in the process of being solved, if it's not solved already. One concern I did have was with the comparison to Penn State. Frankly, to start there, it is, in my research, one of the most restrictive housing policies in America. And granted, there are a lot of locales that have regulations about housing, particularly student housing. So that is a given. But let me mention, though, again, and you've already seen the difference. This is the borough of State College in Pennsylvania, a town of 38,000 or 26,000 students. That is a college town, if there ever were a college town. They border a very agricultural area. There is room to expand both for the school and for housing around the campus. That needs to be distinguished. It would be like University of Kentucky being on the edge of Georgetown, Kentucky. That would be a pretty fair comparison if you wanted to go with that direction. But what we need to do, I believe, is to look at the other cities in our area. Knoxville, Nashville, Cincinnati, Louisville. Go to those cities which have large schools in an urban setting. What are they doing? Well, the answer to that is they don't have any regulations that target students. I'll tell you, that's the answer to that. Where you'll find most regulations are at the small college towns spread across America, where you have such a dominant university in a very small town. That's where you find most of your regulation. I'm not saying that all regulation is wrong, but be very careful with it. My biggest concern is that the innocent will be punished along with the guilty. While the innocent are 95% of the property owners, 95% of the students, and yet legislation comes along that actually targets them. So be careful where you start your discussion, making sure that you've really got a good comparison. I guess the final thing I would say, just to reiterate what was said earlier about the 50-50 ratio. Dave, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but your three minutes is over, and I appreciate your being here. Next we'll hear from Mike Friedman, and then Alan Straub, and then Sue Feimster. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your service, and thank you for taking time to listen to us today. My name is Mike Friedman. I live at 23 Mentel Park, Councilman DeCamp. I want to say that our laws and our consciences don't permit us to discriminate against the aged, against the disabled, against the black, against the brown, against those who are different than us unless they happen to be students. Apparently, our consciences permit us to discriminate against people because of their student status, because make no mistake, that's exactly what this proposal is about. It is flawed at its core, and if you look at the packet that's been provided, you can see just how intrusive and restrictive and troublesome a government can be when it enacts a bad law. This law, as proposed in these documents, is an extremely bad law that opens a terrible can of worms. It would require renters to justify their non-student status. It would require property owners to inquire into the student or non-student status of a prospective renter. These ordinances would be triggered by a grandmother in the Donovan Scholars Program. This ordinance, or one like it, will disperse student housing across the community. It's a slap in the face to a bike-friendly Lexington, and it's a gift to the oil companies. Dr. Stevens' heart is in the right place, and as a man with long experience with housing issues, he's responding to real problems. But as some of you realize, these problems are already substantially addressed by existing ordinances. We have a splendid police force, we have code enforcement, and we have a host of ordinances which cover the problems that have arisen in our community. And as Dr. Stevens has already said, this is, at its core, an enforcement problem. It's a grievous mistake for this government to try to legislate its way out of an enforcement problem, because you will find yourself with a bureaucracy spending untold hours reviewing, revising, rejecting the applications that are required under this ordinance, and policing the tenants and the property owners who are required to prove a certain status in order to be exempt from this particular ordinance. I urge you to reject it on the grounds that it is unfair, unworkable, and most of all, unnecessary. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Friedman. Now we'll hear from Alan Straub and Sue Feimster, and then Anthony Humphreys. Hello. I'm Alan Straub, and I am a student. I live on 845 Red Mile Road, so I am not actually affected by the proposed policy, not directly. I'd like to say, though, that I have no criminal record. I've never had a drop of alcohol, and I've never set a couch on fire. I have a lot of friends who live in the proposed area, and the same statements apply to all of them. I was always taught that as an adult, I am 20 years old, and as a citizen, I have the same rights as any other adult to live where I choose, so long as it's in compliance with fire code and so forth, and with whom I choose. And the fact of the matter is that this policy would violate those fundamental rights just because I'm a student or because my friends are students, and I don't think that's legitimate. Also, I'm a physics major, so I'm kind of familiar with engineering, and one of the things we learn in engineering is that if you're designing something, the simpler it is, the better, because a more complicated device is less efficient and more likely to break. So the more things that we try to do in order to combat something like this, probably the same rules apply. It's going to be less effective, it's going to cost more, and it's going to break sooner. So the problem really is enforcement, and I think that the existing regulations are the best solution to that policy. Similarly, homeowners have a little discontinuity there, I'm sorry, but homeowners also have rights. They have the right to sell their ware, housing, to anyone whom they choose, and this proposal would also violate that right. And those considerations, frankly, should override any practical consideration. I'm not saying that these aren't problems and that they don't need to be addressed, but people's rights should come first. I realize that most of these things, well, all of them, have already been said, but I think they need to be heard from a student. So I'm here to rehash them, I suppose. And I don't want to seem unconcerned when I leave in about 20 seconds, but I'm going to be hard-pressed to make class as it is, so everyone have a wonderful day, and here's to hoping we reach an amenable solution. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Next we'll hear from Sue Feimster and then Anthony Humphress and then Brenda Wells. Well, we'll get into deferred minutes. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Sue Feimster, 1043 Arden Drive in Villa Hills, Kentucky. I've lived in this area for 40 years, and I've owned rental property for 35 years. And while I was employed by the University of Kentucky, I hoped that I was a champion of students, and I hope tonight to be a champion of students as well. I'm delighted finally to see so many rental owners and property owners here and so many people finally interested in students that happen to be an economic force of this community. I'm especially proud that my alma mater and the place where I retired from, the University of Kentucky, is finally here to take their rightful place in the discussion of this problem. One thing I've heard tonight, and Ms. James, thank you for this, I think it would behoove the Council to establish some form of communication mechanism to let us all know the different branches of government that are attacking this particular problem. We are all interested in it as Lexingtonians and as citizens. The other thing I think, the other thing I believe that we should do is establish and ask the Mayor to establish a task force to bring all the entities that we've heard tonight and all the people that perhaps are somewhat disenfranchised. We have different colleges that are not represented here, different schools, whether a hair school or department of barber school, et cetera, the theological seminary that has students all over this community. As a property owner, I value keeping my property up. In fact, I own property on Columbia Avenue and have for 35 years. I've torn those initial houses down and built housing to code, and that's basically a retirement investment for me. I lease to principals there, not only students but to families, and I have all the city ordinance incorporated in my leases there. I evict renters that do not apply and fully comply with the codes of the city. Therefore, I do not believe we need any additional legislation. We need to enforce the laws we currently have on the books, and if that means we need to hire additional safety patrols to do these things at football games, at basketball games, at whatever special events that other communities and areas are having, we need to put those people in place. In 35 years of renting, primarily to students, I have had to evict one student, one group of four students, for violating code violations. I have found students to be irresponsible, and in general, once you inform them, as an active landlord, once you inform them and stop by and check in on them, that they will comply with the law. A point about lowering student density. I believe all the points have been made accurately clear about the counterproductiveness of this measure. It will increase traffic, which coming back to Lexington and looking at the traffic here, that's certainly something we don't need to do. It will drive up prices for those of us who own property near the university. It's going to increase the property prices of those apartments because we'll have less people to live in them. Ms. Feemster, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but your time is over. Thank you for coming. Thank you. And then we'll hear from Anthony Humphress, and then it looks like both Brenda Wells and Todd Rafus have given time to Joe Howard. Thank you. I'm Anthony Humphress, and I live at 804 Golf View Drive, and I actually live by about 60 students on my street. So as I say that, you probably think I'm getting ready to say I hate it, but I actually don't because they're my students and they're my houses, and I just kind of want to paint a different picture for you of what you typically think of when you hear the word landlord. As a matter of fact, I just watched a great movie, It's a Wonderful Life, a couple nights ago, and I think that most college property owners don't want to be Mr. Potter. They want to be a George Bailey, and that's who I want to be. So I moved in my neighborhood about six years ago, a little over six years ago. I was called a street worker. It's an odd name, but basically it meant I hung out on the street with the youth to help the youth there in that neighborhood, and somehow I fell into the whole owning property gig. And I just want to show a few slides, and you guys don't have to worry about turning the lights out, but hopefully you can see that clear enough. That's the first house, one house that I fixed up, and then if you could show the second slide. Here's another. And if you can see that, you know, I don't call that the destruction of a neighborhood. I call that community development, and to me this is a ministry, basically, not only to the neighbors there, of which I am one, but to the students. So, and I also want to read a note that I got in August from one of my tenants. It says, I just wanted to thank you for everything you have done for me and my roommates. I know there were a lot of changes, and I really appreciate how wonderful you are to deal with. The house looks amazing, and I'm really looking forward to the next year. And I feel like, as has been said over and over, that there are responsible college property owners out there. So that's who I am, and, of course, everything else I wanted to say has been covered. This is an issue of boundaries. Expecting college property owners to be the mommy and daddies is not right. I know the city doesn't want to do that either, but obviously we need to come to a resolution. And if you could show the Ohio State. We got this from Ohio State's director of off-campus, and you can't read the bottom left. At least I can't. Maybe I need glasses. But it does say, there we go. It says, this is to the students. They give every student this. Don't let bad decisions and bad behavior tarnish a great season of your education. And you can read the rest, but they're very involved in their off-campus housing, as has been mentioned before. And I think we need to clearly communicate with one another what the boundaries are, the roles are, the responsibilities of each party. And then we, of course, need to follow through with those consequences. And I don't think that licensing college property owners is the answer. I think it will only cost valuable time and money to all the parties involved, especially the city. And I think expecting those property owners to step over boundary lines is not a viable solution, which is where I feel like the licensing would eventually take us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now, Mr. Joe Howard, now we still have about 30 minutes' worth of folks who want to speak. And two people have given your time. Do you think you need the full nine minutes? No, ma'am. I think I'll trim it down to three minutes. Bless you. Yes. Thank you very much. No problem at all. My name is Joe Howard. I'm an attorney with Sherrill Sutherland & Associates. Our firm address is 215 Southland Drive, Suite 200, Lexington, Kentucky, 40503. I'm an attorney, obviously, and I represent the Lexington Apartment Association. We have over 16,000 units, apartments in the Lexington urban county area. And I won't go over a lot of what my colleagues have gone over. I know Mr. Lear is a far greater zoning lawyer than I, but I will say that what has been proposed is basically a de facto zoning. I believe the provisions are draconian in nature, especially the licensing provisions, which will cost an enormous amount of money to the apartment landowners and, for that matter, cost the city of Lexington some money. When you have provisions such that you require licensing before you have occupancy of an apartment, by its very nature, you're holding people up. And when you hold people up, you cannot rent that apartment. And when you cannot rent that apartment, you cannot make the revenue, and therefore the property owners are not receiving their rent and the city of Lexington is diminished in its revenue that it gets by taxing that rent. There's also a measure of timing on this thing and cost. You have an added layer of bureaucracy that you're putting enforcement people out there, and what I've heard today is enforcement is the problem. Well, the very thing you do not want to do is add another layer of bureaucracy to something that you can't enforce already. And there's been no talk of how that could be done. To any satisfaction, I don't believe. Another point that I'd like to talk to you about is basically this. I believe that the provisions whereby you're demanding buybacks or you're basically taking property is unconstitutional. In this country, you can't take property unless you have a valid public purpose. And just because someone is partying or they don't have their Herbie on the curb is not grounds to take their property. And with the very nature of the provisions and the restrictions, whereby the spacing and specifically if you rent to one student and you cannot rent to another student for 150 feet, guess what? You have just taken 150 feet. And when you take that, you have taken their property values. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next, we'll hear from Robert Keston and then Terrell Holt and then Anthony McIntyre. And if you, given our time situation, if you have something that's a complete repeat of what someone else said, maybe you can consider just saying ditto to that. Robert, welcome. Hi. My name is Robert Keston. I live at 3737 Dicksonia Drive in Lexington. I stand here on behalf of Keston Properties and Keston Management, LLC. Myself and my clients own or manage 30 rental units rented to about 100 students, over 100 students in the campus area. I'm also a member of the UHA. However, my statements are not official statements of that body. Rational policy should follow certain guidelines. Those advocating for a change in the status quo should have the burden of proof and know that greater regulation of the rental market is needed because of problems that can't be dealt with by other means and that their proposals will not cause more harm than benefit. Also, to diligently address reasonable alternatives. I want to address a few issues from the perspective of a property owner and manager who is gravely concerned about proposed restrictive regulation. First, I want to address the subject of property values and taxes. Many of us, even though it hasn't been brought up so much today, but many of us in this debate or discussion have heard that the presence of student rentals has, quote, unquote, destroyed property values. I can't speak for the entire off-campus area, but looking at current PVA data for the streets on which I have rentals around campus, property values have increased in the vast majority of cases. The conversion of property from owner-occupied to student rental has resulted in significant increases in assessed and market values. In turn, this means a higher property tax base. From the numbers I've looked at, looking at about 99 properties in the Waller area where I have most of my units, property values about 10 years ago averaged about under 70, under $90,000. Now they're close to 180, so they've basically doubled in that time. I think most of us would admit that the increased density from student housing does place some extra burden on the neighborhoods and infrastructure, but I think that we also agree that the provision of services is not increasing in proportion to the taxes that we're paying. I want to thank the city, U.K., the respective police departments for taking a more active role recently in those neighborhoods in light of recent events. However, the property owners, we bear the expense of new sidewalks, which has spent a lot of money on that, dealing with dead or dying trees, inadequate lighting, among other things which the city does not provide. To impose regulations designed to massively reduce the student density in these areas seems to risk a devaluation of property. Many of these properties have been rehabbed or remodeled with college students in mind. They have floor plans set up for students, layouts that are not really suitable for single-family use without expensive retrofitting. My experience is that typical families, when they do consider renting in these neighborhoods, don't necessarily want or need the space available or are not willing or able to pay the rents that students can. A reduction in student rental density will drive up the price of these units as far as the rental price, able to be rented to students, limited to what the market will bear. This will place a greater burden on the financial means of students and their parents, concerningly for students out of the campus periphery, a natural location for students to live and create clusters of satellite student residences around the city, increase the burden on traffic as more students commute to class. Mr. Keston, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but you've used your three minutes very well. Thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you. Next, we'll hear from Terrell Holt, then Anthony McIntyre, and then Joy Buchanan. Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to speak for a moment. I'm not going to be able to add very much to those before me that have so eloquently addressed this situation. State your name and address for the record, please. Terrell Holt, 3509 Trinidad Court in Lexington, Kentucky. I've owned property in the affected area around the university, serving primarily to students for longer than the previous speaker. I thought she had me beat, but I've been there for 38 years. So I've been around this business for a long time, and I think this proposal is totally discriminatory against the students. And as other people have already stated, there's plenty of laws in place that work well if they're enforced. Over the 38 years that I've owned this property, yeah, we've had a problem or two, but not anything that we can't handle. I appreciate the code enforcement coming around and telling me, if I haven't already fixed it, tell me that I need to fix it. And that's one thing I have no problem with. So we need to enforce the laws. There's no question about that. And I think the students will go right along with that. The other thing I want to elaborate on is the cooperation between the university and the city. What I think needs to be done is there needs to be a code developed between the university and the city, and we only have a very small percentage of people, of students, that act like this. And when they get arrested, that becomes part of their record at the university and the dean of students. I think this problem can be solved in a heartbeat, right now, if you would do that. Put it in the student record, and they cannot graduate until this is resolved. You have an orientation of the freshmen that come in, and you have an orientation every semester when they register. And let them know what the consequences are going to be if they get caught burning couches, destroying property, not doing what they're supposed to do. They have to be responsible. You can't have somebody not living under your roof. You can't control that. As other people have said before me today, we're not their mama and daddies. They're 18, 20 years old. They've got to be responsible. Why wouldn't a university, a top-20 university, want to say, we want more responsible students? We are creating more responsible students at this university. That's got to be part of the top-20 goal. And if you get the parents involved, and you let the students know that there are going to be severe consequences, up to and causing them not to be able to get a job when they graduate, affecting their careers, this problem will go away. Thank you, Mr. Holt. Next we'll hear from Anthony McIntyre and then Joy Buchanan. Good afternoon. I'm Anthony McIntyre, 518 Reed Lane, right near Lafayette High School. I taught for many years at the University of Kentucky and elsewhere, and one of the points that I would like to address is, I see there are a fair number of students still here with us, is a lot of this isn't stuff that I would put in my syllabus, folks, to be honest, because I really wonder what is it exactly that we're teaching here, that it's okay to discriminate if you're not a protected class. Is that something that we really want to be teaching? Are we wanting to teach that personal responsibility is something that you try to shuffle over to somebody else and kind of get around as opposed to something that you internalize and absorb? Do we want to teach that UK is fundamentally disengaged and unconcerned about its student population? I mean, I know if you've dealt with the administration, you've probably felt that a little bit on occasion. I know I have. UK is fundamentally disengaged, and one point that I would add that hasn't been brought up is that in UK's great expansions, they've basically taken over all the high-density zoning right around campus, and so now student populations are pushed further into R2, R1 neighborhoods, and this, of course, spreads the population even more. Another thing that you're being taught is that, and I don't know if anybody else has picked up on this, but in the land-grant program, some people get subsidies and some people don't. I mean, Mr. Bowen was talking about what amounts to a $50,000 housing subsidy that you don't get, and that ties in with the discrimination thing. And also there's an issue about cost priorities. There are serious crimes going on that affect students. Cars being broken into, the police say, well, what do you want us to do? You know, hold-ups, violent crimes, rapes. I mean, there are serious problems, and we're talking about spending money, $50,000 a pop, to subsidize someone else's housing. I really, you know, they say that you, there are a couple of things you should never see being made, sausages and laws, and it's true. Very good. Thank you. Next we'll hear from Joy Buchanan, and then we'll hear from Ike Lawrence, and then Ben Kaufman. Joy Buchanan, 102 Wood Duck Court. There's nothing that I can really add to this discussion other than I agree with a lot of the property owners here. I am a responsible property owner, and I do take care of my property, and I feel like the last 15 years that all the regulations and all the hoops that we've had to jump through as property owners, there's been H1 overlays that have been enforced. There's been, I mean, I had to put on gutters on a house the other day, and I feel the students are discriminated against, but I feel like landlords are discriminated against, too. We are the group that everybody says, oh, you know, they're making a lot of money, so, you know, we're going to enforce every single thing on every property they own. And like Ms. James said, there's a ton of people that are living in properties that do not take care of them at all, and I don't see anything being done to them. It's us. There's really nothing else I can add to this. I think it's unconstitutional, and I think you would have a real challenge on your hand if you ever tried to impose anything like this. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Next is Ike Lawrence, and then Ben Kaufman, and then Nick Phelps. Hi, Madam Chairman. My name's Ike Lawrence, 221 Clinton Road. I will be short because I want to just ditto most of what everything's said, I think the overriding feeling of the crowd is that they still feel that this ordinance is still hanging out over us, and if all the things that you've gained from this would be maybe to take a vote, to consider making this recommendation by Dr. Stevens be no more, no less, than any other ideas that are going to be thrown into committee, and so that we can get rid of the anxiety that this has some greater weight than all the other great ideas that are out there. As you know, there are a lot of great ideas from citizens here locally, and that we hope that a lot of these ideas will come from Lexington and stay in Lexington. We won't go out and borrow all these ideas from these other communities. So I hope you take a vote today or sometime soon to relieve our anxiety. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next, is Ben Kaufman still here? If not, then Nick Phelps, Daryl Ratliff. We do have to be finished at 3 o'clock. Is Nick Phelps here? How about Daryl Ratliff? I'll yield. You'll yield. How about Hal? Is this you? Heedley? Did you sign up? Okay. You're next, and then Tom Routt, and then J.D. Lester. My name is DePaul Heedley. I live on Mount Mullin Street. For the three minutes, I'm just going to try to limit a few things here. I'd like everybody that's a landlord, period, rental property, to stand up. Everybody that's a landlord that does not live within two blocks of your property, please sit down. Did you state your address for the record? Yes, Mount Mullin. The address? 178-189. Thank you. For the record, thank you. Okay. I think the agendas here are the intention of Dr. Stevens and the intention of some of the other council people is good. I think some of the points that have been brought up need to be explored. I think it's good to see UK down here in terms of, you know, getting a strong policy on the land utilization that they have. I agree, I believe, with, if I'm understanding Mr. Lear, that it would be great if UK would go up and have parking on site for the things that they go up with. If you've got a lot of stuff with, say, two or three stories and a lot of asphalt parking, that takes up a lot of land space. To me, it would be much more efficient and go up, and I think that would help out. I heard mention about the land bank and the land trust. Since I've been affiliated with the land trust here for probably a good eight to ten years, I have not really been fully informed about the land bank issue on that. I'd like to have a little bit more knowledge on that. And probably two other things is I don't know that we're trying to say that the students don't have rights, but there are responsibilities to all that stuff. I think the issue is when you get to extremes. If you have a three-bedroom unit or maybe even a four-bedroom unit, that's one thing. If you're building new construction within the last year and you have, say, eight bedrooms and three parking spaces, I think that's when you're really beginning to create the problems. And I know that Mr. DeCamp and some of the other council people, we've talked about this before. I think it's what's reasonable and what's smart. I'm not trying to deny anybody rights or things that they're due, but you have to have some sort of reason. I know that I think Richmond several years ago was having problems, and one of the ways that they solved it, and we had brought this up at council before, was they had gone to a two-parking space per bedroom minimum requirement on their student housing. I think ours currently, and correct me if I'm wrong, is it still .9? Is that correct? I think .9 is not quite adequate, and maybe that may fix some stuff. And like I said, forcing maybe more better use of land and better construction and things like that. I think there's good and valid points on all issues, but I think that these are some of the things maybe that need to be addressed. The thing with UK, the number of bedrooms and the number of parking spaces, I think those are addressable issues, and we need to have some sort of consensus, maybe without going to full law or something, or maybe something in between. I'm not quite sure. In closing, I thank the councils for their time. Thank you very much. And I understand Mr. Nick Phelps has returned. Welcome. How are you guys doing? Fine. If you'll state your name and address, please. I apologize about that. This is my first council meeting. Thanks for having me, guys. A couple of things. I don't want to repeat either. Could you please state your name and address for the record? Nick Phelps, 404 East Maxwell. That's dangerous that I told you guys that. A couple of things. I am the student body president at UK, and I've been lucky enough to get to work with Dr. Stevens on the Town & Gown and do a couple of different things. However the attitudes or feelings are, I commend you on bringing this up, because what I think it's doing is increasing the communication about some problems that are out there. In my heart, I don't really believe that some of this you were too serious about, but put it on the table, and you are creating this discussion, which I think is opening the eyes to a lot of things. So I thank you for doing that. This past week I met with Councilman DeCamp. He invited me over to his house, and we talked about this and a couple of different things. And we agreed that there needs to be the responsibility is there for students, but is it clearly communicated? No. I just moved into an off-campus house for the first time, and I'm still probably a very uneducated housing owner, I guess, or renter at least. I'm respectful to my neighbors and to my house, but I don't know the rules or what it's supposed to be doing. Honestly, I think people assume, whether it be a Herbie on the curb, it's what they see before that is kind of what dictates their actions. So on the discrimination matter, that's pretty obvious. I think students, as we know, there's plenty here, and there's only more coming. So as large part of they are is this economy. We want to endorse them and build them up, not break them down. But, you know, the biggest thing I want to make a point on, and that is when a problem is identified, I guess, in the U.K. or Lexington, they're pretty good at working it out and successfully fixing it. The last few years we've had a fatality in the first couple weeks of school regarding to alcohol or something along those lines. Joe Monroe, who's the interim chief at UKPD and Lexington PD, they took a whole different level and a whole different focus this year in attacking that problem in the first couple weeks, party and socialization. And there was no fatality. There was no, you know, large accident or anything like that. And the reason I tell you that is that if students are communicated with, if we take a positive stance, if you take the attitude to work with them, then more than likely there's going to be success and the problems will be fixed. And so that's the main thing I wanted to say today. I appreciate you guys all being pretty honest. And if you have any questions, Vice Mayor Gray and everybody knows where to find me. So thanks for having us, and hopefully this will die out and none of these people have to worry about their livelihoods. Thank you very much. Next we'll hear from, we have about seven minutes left, and we'll hear from Tom Routt, J.D. Lester, Dr. Saksima, and Joe Gardner, if we can pack you all into seven minutes. Hi. I'll be quickly. My name is Tom Routt. I live at 150 Shawnee Place. I've been a student here at the University of Kentucky for nine years. I have progressed. I'm in my last year of law school, getting ready to exit, but hopefully to stay here in the community. I do want to say ditto to most everything that's been said here, and it's good to be on the same side as landlords, as a leasee for so many years. You know, sometimes we're opposed. But ultimately I want to ask, you know, in addition to the discrimination, all the points about discrimination and about enforcement, I do want to ask that as this discussion goes forward, that even though the students have traditionally been silent when we've been called on to vote and to participate in electing of our leaders, that you still take the time to listen to us, and that even though maybe we don't all show up when our third district council is up, that you still consider that we are a large part of this community and that we are part of the success, and hopefully that will change. Not the success, but our voice, that we'll choose to exercise our right to vote. And that's ultimately what I wanted to say here, and thank you. Thank you very much. Next we'll hear from J.B. I would actually like also to add that hopefully as this discussion goes forward, that maybe if you all would have the chance to come to campus, because I think a lot of students, this being right before the Thanksgiving break, aren't going to be able to make it here. But if this proceeds, I'd love to have you all at campus. Okay, thank you. Ms. J.D. Lester, Dr. Saxema, and Joe Gardner. And we have about six minutes left. I'm J.D. Lester, 300 Strathmore Road here in Lexington. I'm a native Lexingtonian. I went to Lafayette High School, and don't hold this against me, but I went off to Chapel Hill for college, and I'm back now, and I own garden properties here. We have some properties in the affected areas, Aylesford, around Woodland Park, and the wonderfully revitalized South Hill area. I try to acquire properties on the Woodland Park side of Euclid because I like to go to church on Sunday morning. I don't want to go pick up beer bottles. And I'm sympathetic to the neighbors who have that problem. But my concern about this policy is that it's misplaced. People have spoken at length about the discriminatory, exclusionary nature of the policy, and that is a primary concern to me. I think there are lots of creative ways we can get at enforcing issues. But this is simply wrongheaded. And as a small business owner, I want to protect my investments. I want to do the right thing as a property owner. And I would just like to work in an inclusive way, as Ms. James said so well, to bring interested parties to the table to do what we can in a better way. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I believe this is Dr. Saxema. I hope I'm not saying that wrong. And then our last speaker will be Joseph Gardner. I'm Dr. Saxema. I live at 272 Kentucky Avenue, Lexington, Kentucky. And I share some passion with Dr. Stevens in the past. I've got a different spin on the whole thing. Number one, that learning is a lifelong process. I'm a student, Dr. Stevens is a student, and everybody else is students all their life. Here we're talking about a certain age group, like in the 20s. That's what I think we're talking about. Now, this particular age group, so-called adolescents, have got three major characteristics. Number one, as a pediatrician, I know that they've got risk-taking behavior. They drive fast, they drink, they use drugs, stuff like that. That is a normal growth process. But ultimately, all of them come out good. They become president of the United States, Bill Clinton, whatever. So it's just a matter of a nurturing environment to help them to grow up with certain supervision. Any amount of legislation cannot really overcome that issue. Other thing is these children or these adolescents have got so-called a feeling of immortality, like they're indestructible. You tell them that you smoke, you get the cancer of the lung, they don't care because it's too far down the road. So same thing, you know, this is a developmental process. And the third thing is they also have the tendency for limit testing. First they test with the parents, and then they test with the legal issues and stuff like that. And any amount of legislation is not going to eliminate the whole thing. We can only control it by enforcing the existing laws and law enforcement. That's the first thing. Other thing is that as this country is urbanized, we are having many health issues, like diabetes, hypertension, and all this stuff, because we go to school in the bus, we go to grocery store in the car, we do everything in the car, we don't walk and bike anymore. So really the ideal place for kids to live is within two miles of their school. And therefore, if this is kind of counterproductive, we are pushing the students out and making them to drive and all this stuff, which is undesirable thing. Now, this is only a few minutes time. So my recommendation is this, that this body should legislate that the housing is safe. Second thing is the housing is sanitary. The third thing, housing is comfortable. And most of the students live within two-mile radius. If they can accomplish this, we'll be doing good to the kids, okay? And the final thing is that this is a very, very complex issue, and therefore we should probably have a special committee. We should look at these things, specializing in the area of adolescent behavior, environmental issue, urban planning, and then sit down and have it defined more appropriate planning, rather than just putting out things like this and trying to legislate those things. Thank you. Thank you very much. And last, we have Joseph Gardner. And, Mr. Gardner, if you can limit your remarks to new information. I'm so sorry you laughed, but we're just about out of time. Well, we've heard today from a lot of landlords. We've heard from a couple of students. I'm here to speak from another point of view, the point of view of a threatened homeowner. My name is Joe Gardner. I live at 236 Farberry Lane. I love the street. I love the neighborhood. And I emphasize the word neighborhood. One of the things that I found just outrageous was the student who was quoted in the paper as saying that the Elizabeth Street area north of Waller, all right to trash it because it never was much anyway. What appalled me was not only the arrogance of that statement, but also the stupidity. Do you know how Bunker Precinct, which covers that area, got its name? It got its name because when the city was redistricting after the merger, the panel that was doing this, one member, they wanted to put the towers in with that area. And another member of the commission said, oh, we can't put those students in with all those archy bunkers. And that's how Bunker Precinct got its name. It used to be a neighborhood. My neighborhood, Seven Parks, fortunately still is a neighborhood. And we have student renters. But we want to keep it that way. And I think the people who have been driven out of Bunker Precinct probably didn't want to be. When we had a meeting to discuss this in the neighborhood, there were several people, especially elder people, older people who lived in that area, who said they were simply afraid. And as a homeowner, I don't see why I have to pay my taxes to pay the fire department to come and put out a burning couch. And that happened about four blocks from where I live. So take our point of view into consideration as well. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I want to thank all of you for being here and Mr. Councilmember Beard and then Councilmember Stephens. Thank you, Chair. I would like to originally thought I would do this at work session, but I want to do this before all of you all left. I would like to move that the vice mayor form a task force. We had a short caucus a few minutes ago, and he suggested that it fall under the umbrella of town and gown, but with longer tentacles that would touch the whole community. And so I would like to move that to study this whole issue and vet it as stringently as we possibly can to get this thing off of all of our plates. I second the motion. Okay. I have a motion and a second for the vice mayor to establish a task force. Is there any discussion? Quick discussion. I think we should be open to the framework, whether it's within town and gown or whether we spin it out. I could tell that y'all were having that conversation on the other side. Welcome that contribution. So we'll have a conversation about the proper structure of it. Okay. Okay. Anything else? If not, will you please vote electronically on the motion, which is for the vice mayor to establish a task force? I can't vote. And do we have everybody up there? I'm not on the list, but I will vote yes. If you can put me on the list, please. Thank you. The motion passes, and I appreciate the mayor ceding five minutes of work session to the planning committee. Again, thank you all for being here and letting us know your opinions. I think this meeting is adjourned.