# Board of Adjustment Meeting - July 20, 2012 > Auto-transcribed civic record · July 20, 2012 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2628 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2628?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2012-07-20 - **Last revised**: July 17, 2026 - **Length**: 21,925 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 Board of Adjustment met on July 20, 2012, at 2:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers at 200 East Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky, with the Madam Chair presiding. The board considered 13 agenda items, which included appeals for various zoning variances, conditional use permits, and administrative reviews. During the meeting, the board took 13 votes and heard 5 public comments. Of the items considered, 12 were approved, including variances to reduce required setbacks and side yards, multiple conditional use permits for churches, an arcade and cocktail lounge, a recreational facility, a school expansion, and a fraternity house. One item—an appeal for front yard parking variance in an infill and redevelopment area—was denied. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on July 20, 2012: - Laurel A. Connors - Charles William Connors - Don Hamilton - Brennan Mayhew - Zeph Maloney - Derek Coleman - Morgan Dye - Nick Nicholson - Stalkine and Ogden - Nicholas Hadley - Kim Hurley - Jonathan Isaacs - Jimmy Toney - Chris Kavitsky - Pastor Paul Sisk - Craig Kuchowski - Mindy Keller - Bruce Simpson - Joe Marshall - Vinny Sandy - Alice Christ - Diane Lawless - Martha Birchfield - Wayne Waddell - Clyde Simmons - Stuart Lowenthal No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The Planning Commission voted on twelve motions during this meeting, with eleven passing and one denied. **Variance Appeals (Voice Votes)** V-2012-38 [00:05:47]: An appeal for variance to reduce the required side yard from 8 feet to 5 feet for a residence addition in a Single Family Residential zone at 3288 Carlsbad Court passed. The new residence must be constructed according to the submitted application and site plan, with all necessary permits obtained from the Division of Building Inspection prior to construction. Documentation of signed utility encroachment agreements must be submitted before construction begins. V-2012-39 [00:06:49]: An appeal for variance to reduce the required 25-foot floodplain setback to 10 feet for a building expansion in a Highway Service Business zone at 1504–1508 Colesbury Circle passed. The property must be developed according to the approved site plan, with all necessary permits including Zoning Compliance, Building Permits, and Special Use Permit approval obtained prior to construction. V-2012-40 [02:54:21]: An appeal for variance to reduce the required front yard from 20 feet to 0 feet for an additional parking space in a Single Family Residential zone at 626 Castle Road was denied. The vote was 4 nays to 3 ayes. Voting against: Ms. Lawless, Mr. Stumbo, Mr. Emmons, and Mr. Singleton. Voting for: Mr. Griggs, Mr. Glover, and Mr. Simpson. V-2012-41 [00:55:15]: An appeal for variance to reduce the required vehicular use area buffer from 3 feet to 0 feet along the eastern property line at 763 Lane Allen Road passed. Development must comply with the submitted application and site plan, with large species variety trees planted in the front yard and small or medium species variety trees in the rear parking lot landscape island. **Conditional Use Permits (Voice Votes)** CV-2012-35 [00:16:20]: An appeal for conditional use permit to construct a parking lot for Gardenside Baptist Church and variances to reduce front yard setbacks at multiple Alexandria Drive and Traveller Road properties was approved. The applicant must submit revised site plans addressing parking space relocation, vehicular use area screening, and a 105-foot setback from Traveller Road. CV-2012-42 [00:44:14]: An appeal for conditional use permit to establish an arcade and cocktail lounge with variance to reduce the setback from residential zone from 100 feet to 60 feet at 574 North Limestone Street passed. Outdoor speakers are prohibited, and the use becomes null and void if the applicant ceases operations. C-2012-28 [00:45:25]: An appeal for conditional use permit for an indoor/outdoor recreational facility in a Light Industrial zone at 709 Miles Point Way passed. The facility must comply with the Old Frankfort Pike Landscape Ordinance, obtain Division of Engineering approval for storm drainage, and meet Traffic Engineer requirements for parking and circulation. C-2012-32 [00:47:00]: An appeal for conditional use permit to expand a church building with a 16x17 rear addition in a Planned Neighborhood Residential zone at 425 Patchen Drive passed. Combined enrollment for the elementary school and child care shall not exceed fifty children. C-2012-33 [00:48:20]: An appeal for conditional use permit to establish a church in a Light Industrial zone at 707 Downs Avenue, Suite 150 passed. Tree line gaps along the north perimeter must be replanted, and all parking must be paved and striped. C-2012-34 [00:49:22]: An appeal for conditional use permit to increase school enrollment in a Planned Neighborhood Residential zone at 3601 Winthrop Drive passed. The school will have no more than 200 students with fourteen classrooms. C-2012-37 [02:21:38]: An appeal for conditional use permit to occupy an existing building as a fraternity house in a Planned Neighborhood Residential zone at 320 Rose Street passed 4-2. Voting for: Mr. Glover, Tommy, Mr. Simpson, and Mr. Stumbo. Voting against: Mr. Griggs and Ms. Lawless. The applicant must submit documents regarding alcohol policies, comply with University of Kentucky's Code of Conduct, and submit revised landscaping plans. A six-month review will be conducted by zoning enforcement staff. **Administrative Reviews (Voice Votes)** A-2011-81 [00:52:33]: An administrative review of Craig Kuchowski's compliance with conditions from a January hearing passed. The applicant is in compliance based on the zoning enforcement staff report. A-2012-43 [00:53:39]: An administrative review of Sensibly Chic's appeal to transfer a 15.5 square foot sign from rear to front of building at 2121 Richmond Road, Suite 130 passed. The applicant must ensure the new sign complies with all applicable signage regulations and submit a revised site plan. ## Public Comment Five speakers addressed the board during the public comment period, with concerns focused on two primary issues: a proposed fraternity conditional use and a front yard parking variance. **Fraternity Conditional Use Opposition** Alice Christ [timestamp: 01:32:13] expressed concern that approving fraternities in residential neighborhoods erodes zoning integrity and discourages families from rehabilitating homes. She cited the cumulative impact of multiple conditional uses in the Aylesford neighborhood. Diane Lawless [timestamp: 01:40:30] argued that the city is losing neighborhood character one property at a time through spot zoning. She urged the board to draw a line to preserve the economic and cultural value of the 3rd District. Martha Birchfield [timestamp: 01:52:38] shared personal experience with disruptive fraternity behavior and warned that the applicant has a history of circumventing regulations. She urged the board to deny the request. **Front Yard Parking Variance Opposition** Wayne Waddell [timestamp: 02:46:52] emphasized that the neighborhood has consistent setbacks and no front yard parking. He argued that the applicant has viable alternatives and is circumventing the zoning ordinance in the infill and redevelopment area. Clyde Simmons [timestamp: 02:50:35] accused the applicant of being a poor neighbor, citing past incidents of drunken parties and unauthorized construction. He warned that the applicant operates under the radar to avoid scrutiny. ## Contested Items **Fraternity Conditional Use Permit at 320 Rose Street** The application for a fraternity conditional use permit at 320 Rose Street generated significant community opposition. Residents and council members raised concerns that the permit would erode neighborhood character and establish a precedent for additional spot zoning in the area. The debate extended beyond the immediate application to broader questions about enforcement mechanisms, planning oversight, and potential impacts on property values in the neighborhood. **Front Yard Parking Variance at 626 Castle Road** A request for a front yard parking variance at 626 Castle Road prompted heated discussion among council members and residents. The debate centered on competing concerns about neighborhood character, zoning compliance, and the fairness of granting variances. Multiple residents testified in opposition to the variance, citing safety risks and concerns that approval would set a problematic precedent for future similar requests. The contentious nature of the discussion was reflected in a close vote on the matter. ## Appeal for variance to reduce required side yard from 8 feet to 5 feet The Board considered a variance request by C. William and Laurel A. Connors to reduce the required side yard setback from 8 feet to 5 feet for the purpose of constructing a residence addition [timestamp: 00:04:42]. **Staff Recommendation** Staff recommended approval of the variance. The analysis found that strict application of the zoning ordinance would result in a 25% loss of floor area for the proposed addition. Staff determined that the variance would have no adverse impact on public health, safety, or the character of the neighborhood. **Board Action** The Board approved the variance request with conditions. ## Appeal for variance to reduce required 25-foot floodplain setback to 10 feet **Identifier:** V-2012-39 AutoZone, Inc. requested a variance to reduce the required floodplain setback from 25 feet to 10 feet for a proposed development. [timestamp: 00:06:18] **Presentation and Staff Recommendation** Brennan Mayhew presented the variance request. Staff recommended approval of the variance, noting that the proposed development would be located mostly outside the floodplain area and would not alter the commercial character of the surrounding area. **Outcome** The Board approved the variance with conditions. ## Appeal for variance to eliminate vehicular use area buffer along eastern property line **Case Number:** V-2012-41 Zeph Maloney requested a variance to eliminate a 3-foot buffer in the vehicular use area along the eastern property line [timestamp: 00:07:55]. The variance was sought due to the existing driveway layout on the property. **Staff Recommendation** Staff recommended approval of the variance request. The analysis found that eliminating the buffer would have no adverse impact on public health or neighborhood character. Additionally, staff noted that the variance would allow for future interconnection of parking lots, providing potential operational benefits. **Board Action** The Board approved the variance after opposition was resolved. The approval allows the applicant to proceed with the elimination of the required 3-foot buffer along the eastern property line. ## Conditional use permit for church parking lot and front yard variances **Case Number:** CV-2012-35 **Applicant:** Gardenside Baptist Church **Overview** The Board considered a conditional use permit request from Gardenside Baptist Church for approval of a parking lot and front yard variances. [timestamp: 00:09:34] **Key Speakers** - Derek Coleman - Morgan Dye **Discussion and Outcome** Staff recommended approval of the request with revised conditions. The recommendation came after the applicant clarified the use of a property that had previously been in question, which resolved concerns and allowed staff to move forward with a favorable recommendation. The Board approved the conditional use permit request with conditions. ## Conditional use permit for arcade and cocktail lounge with setback variance By the Barrel, LLC. requested approval for a conditional use permit to operate an arcade and cocktail lounge, along with a 60-foot setback variance [timestamp: 00:17:25]. **Application Details** The applicant sought permission to establish the arcade and cocktail lounge business and requested a variance from standard setback requirements of 60 feet. **Key Discussion Points** The applicant, represented by Nick Nicholson and Stalkine and Ogden, opposed a proposed outdoor speaker ban. They argued that the prohibition on outdoor speakers was inconsistent with nearby uses in the area, suggesting that similar businesses in the vicinity operated with outdoor speakers without restriction. **Board Action** The Board approved the conditional use permit application. However, the approval included a condition that prohibited the use of outdoor speakers at the facility. This condition directly addressed the applicant's concerns but was imposed as a requirement of the permit. **Outcome** The application was approved with conditions, allowing By the Barrel, LLC. to proceed with the arcade and cocktail lounge operation and the requested setback variance, subject to the outdoor speaker restriction. ## Conditional use permit for indoor/outdoor recreational facility in I-1 zone **Identifier:** C-2012-28 Brenda Tullett appealed for a conditional use permit to operate an indoor/outdoor recreational facility in a light industrial (I-1) zone. [timestamp: 00:44:48] Staff recommended approval of the application subject to conditions addressing landscaping, parking, and stormwater management. These conditions were designed to mitigate potential impacts of the recreational facility on the surrounding industrial zone. Nicholas Hadley participated as a key speaker during the discussion of this agenda item. The Board approved the conditional use permit application. ## Conditional use permit to expand church building Good Shepherd Lutheran Church requested a conditional use permit to expand its building. [timestamp: 00:46:29] **Presenters and Discussion** Kim Hurley and Jonathan Isaacs were the key speakers on this agenda item. **Staff Recommendation** Staff recommended approval of the application, subject to specific conditions. The recommended conditions addressed enrollment limits, required permits, and compliance with applicable regulations. **Board Action** The Board approved the conditional use permit application for Good Shepherd Lutheran Church to expand its building. ## Conditional use permit to establish church in I-1 zone **Identifier:** C-2012-33 The Board considered a conditional use permit application for Lexington Tabernacle to establish a church in a light industrial (I-1) zone. [timestamp: 00:47:30] **Key Speakers:** - Jimmy Toney - Chris Kavitsky **Staff Recommendation:** Staff recommended approval of the application subject to conditions addressing landscaping, parking, and waste management. **Outcome:** The Board approved the conditional use permit application. ## Conditional use permit to increase school enrollment **Identifier:** C-2012-34 Anchor Baptist Church requested approval for a conditional use permit to increase school enrollment. [timestamp: 00:48:50] **Presentation and Staff Recommendation** Staff reviewed the application and recommended approval. The analysis found that the proposed enrollment increase would not create adverse impacts on the surrounding area. Specifically, staff determined that adequate parking was available to accommodate the increased enrollment. **Key Speaker** Pastor Paul Sisk represented the applicant during the discussion. **Board Action** The Board approved the conditional use permit application. ## Administrative review of Craig Kuchowski's compliance [timestamp: 00:49:55] The Board conducted an administrative review of Craig Kuchowski's compliance with conditions from a prior hearing. Staff presented a report confirming that no violations had been identified and that the applicant was in compliance with all required conditions. Craig Kuchowski participated in the discussion. Following staff's presentation and review, the Board accepted the compliance report and found the applicant in compliance with the conditions previously imposed. **Outcome:** The review was approved. ## Administrative review of sign transfer Sensibly Chic requested approval to transfer a sign from the rear to the front of a building. [timestamp: 00:53:04] Mindy Keller presented the application to the Board. Staff recommended approval of the sign transfer with conditions. The Board approved the application. ## Conditional use permit for fraternity house **Identifier:** C-2012-37 The Board considered a conditional use permit application from Lexington Property Group for a fraternity house [timestamp: 01:05:33]. **Application and Staff Recommendation** Staff recommended approval of the conditional use permit with specific conditions. The recommended conditions included a six-month review period and a null-and-void clause. **Key Participants** The discussion involved Bruce Simpson, Joe Marshall, and Vinny Sandy. **Public Opposition** The application generated extensive public opposition during the meeting. **Outcome** The Board approved the conditional use permit application despite the significant public opposition raised during discussion. ## Appeal for front yard parking variance in infill and redevelopment area **Case Number:** V-2012-40 Stuart Lowenthal requested a variance to permit front yard parking in an infill and redevelopment area. [timestamp: 02:23:54] **Staff Recommendation** Staff recommended disapproval of the variance request. The recommendation cited three primary concerns: - Neighborhood character preservation - Safety concerns - Availability of rear parking alternatives **Key Discussion** The appeal was discussed by the Board with participation from Stuart Lowenthal, Wayne Waddell, and Clyde Simmons. **Public Opposition** The request faced opposition during the public comment period, with community members expressing concerns about the proposed front yard parking. **Outcome** The Board denied the variance request. --- ## Decisions - **V-2012-38** — passed: Appeal for variance to reduce required side yard from 8 feet to 5 feet to construct a residence addition in a Single Family Residential (R-1C) zone at 3288 Carlsbad Court - **V-2012-39** — passed: Appeal for variance to reduce required 25-foot floodplain setback to 10 feet to expand a building in a Highway Service Business (B-3) zone at 1504–1508 Colesbury Circle - **V-2012-41** — passed: Appeal for variance to reduce required vehicular use area buffer from 3 feet to 0 feet along the eastern property line due to existing driveway on property recently rezoned from R-1C to B-1 at 763 Lane Allen Road - **CV-2012-35** — approved: Appeal for conditional use permit to construct a parking lot for Gardenside Baptist Church and variances to reduce front yard from 20 feet to 0 feet along Alexandria Drive and to 15 feet along Traveller Road in R-3 and R-4 zones at 1637, 1643, 1667 Alexandria Drive and 1686, 1690, 1694 Traveller Road - **CV-2012-42** — passed: Appeal for conditional use permit to establish an arcade and cocktail lounge and variance to reduce 100-foot setback from residential zone to 60 feet in a Neighborhood Business (B-1) zone at 574 North Limestone Street - **C-2012-28** — passed: Appeal for conditional use permit for an indoor/outdoor recreational facility in a Light Industrial (I-1) zone on a portion of 709 Miles Point Way - **C-2012-32** — passed: Appeal for conditional use permit to expand the church building (16x17 rear addition) in a Planned Neighborhood Residential (R-3) zone at 425 Patchen Drive - **C-2012-33** — passed: Appeal for conditional use permit to establish a church in a Light Industrial (I-1) zone at 707 Downs Avenue, Suite 150 - **C-2012-34** — passed: Appeal for conditional use permit to increase enrollment in a school for academic instruction in a Planned Neighborhood Residential (R-3) zone at 3601 Winthrop Drive - **A-2011-81** — passed: Administrative review of Craig Kuchowski’s compliance with conditions from January hearing - **A-2012-43** — passed: Administrative review of Sensibly Chic’s appeal to transfer a 15.5 sq ft sign from rear to front of building in a Neighborhood Business (B-1) zone at 2121 Richmond Road, Suite 130 - **C-2012-37** — passed (4-2): Appeal for conditional use permit to occupy an existing building as a fraternity house in a Planned Neighborhood Residential (R-3) zone at 320 Rose Street - **V-2012-40** — denied (3-4): Appeal for variance to reduce required front yard from 20 feet to 0 feet to allow construction of an additional parking space in a Single Family Residential (R-1E) zone within the Infill and Redevelopment Area at 626 Castle Road --- ## Full transcript your docket today. The staff has received no other request for postponements or withdrawal. And there are none other in the audience right now? Okay, thank you. Okay, first I will call the items and I want the applicant to let me know if they're here and if there's anyone in opposition. So beginning with V. 2012-38 C. William and Laurel Connors. Is the applicant here, or are the applicants here? Yes. Anyone in opposition? Item V-2012-39, AutoZone, Inc. Is the applicant here? Anyone in opposition? Okay, V-2012-41, Zef Maloney. Is the applicant here? Okay, is anyone here in opposition? Thank you. Sorry. V. 2012-40, Stuart Lowenthal. Is the applicant here? Okay. Is anyone here in opposition? Okay. I would ask that those of you who are in opposition consider going outside and talking to the applicant, seeing if you can have any of your disagreements discussed. If not, you will have an opportunity to be heard. Next item is CV 2012-35, Gardenside Baptist Church. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? Next item, CV 2012-42, By the Barrel LLC. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? C-2012-28, Brenda Tullett, BBC Holding, LLC. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? C-2012-33, Lexington Tabernacle. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? C-2012-32, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? C-2012-34, Anchor Baptist Church. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? C-2012-37, the Lexington Property Group, LLC. Is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? Okay. I would again ask that those of you in opposition, if you'd like to go out and discuss the matter with the applicant before the public hearing. and otherwise if you can't reach an agreement, you will have an opportunity to be heard. And then we have an administrative review, A-2011-81. I don't know if the applicant's here, is the applicant here? No. But building inspection, you're prepared to? Yes, we are. Okay. And then A2012-43, sensibly chic, is the applicant here? Is anyone here in opposition? Okay. All right, so we will begin in the order of the agenda, considering those things for which the staff recommends approval and there's no opposition. After that, we will return to the agenda and consider those things for which either the staff has recommended disapproval or there is opposition. Okay, so beginning with V. 2012-38 C. William & Laurel A. Connors' appeal for variance to reduce the required side yard from 8 feet to 5 feet in order to construct an addition to a residence in the single-family residential zone on property located at 3288 Carlsbad Court. Would the applicant please come forward? Would you state your name for the record? I'm Laurel A. Connors. I'm Charles William Connors. Don Hamilton, their contractor. Okay. And have you read the staff report? Yes. Okay. Do you understand the staff report? Do you have any questions? Are you willing to follow the conditions recommended by the staff? Yes. Okay. Staff, do you have any questions? No, ma'am. Board, any questions? Okay. Madam Chair, I'll move that Item V-2012-38, William and Laura Connors, appeal for a variance to reduce the required side yard from 8 feet to 5 feet in order to construct an addition in a residence in a single-family residential zone on property located at 3288, a Carlsbad Court be approved with the conditions set forth by the staff. Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay. It passes. Good idea. Okay, next item, V2012-39 AutoZone, Inc. Would the applicant please come forward? Would you state your name for the record? My name is Brennan Mayhew. Have you read the staff report? Yes, ma'am. Do you have any questions about the staff report? No, ma'am. Are you willing to abide by the conditions recommended by the staff? Yes, ma'am. Are there any questions or comments from staff? No, ma'am. Board? Anyone like to make that? Madam Chair, I move to approve V-2012-39 AutoZone Inc.'s appeal for a variance to reduce the required 25-foot setback from a floodplain to 10 feet in order to allow expansion of a building and a highway service business V-3 zone on property located at 1504-1508 Colesbury Circle as recommended by staff and subject to the two conditions outlined by staff. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay. Okay, we will skip V2012-40 Stuart Lowenthal for now, and we'll move on to V2012-41 Zef Maloney. Would the applicant please come forward? Would you please state your name for the record? My name is Zeph Maloney. Okay. Have you read the staff report? Yes, ma'am. Do you have any questions about the staff report? No, I do not. Are you willing to abide by the conditions recommended by the staff? Yes. Staff, do you have any comments? No additional comments. Okay. Board? Board? Okay. Any motions? Madam Chair, I move to approve V-2012-41's appeal for a variance to reduce the required... There is opposition. Oh. Oh, you have opposition? We have opposition. Oh, okay. Then this needs to move to the end of the agenda. Okay. Sorry. I didn't see them before. Did you see them before? No. Have you all tried to work out your differences or had a discussion? Would you all like to step outside and maybe talk a little bit and see if you can work it out? Okay. Yeah, they must have just got here because there was no opposition at the beginning. Okay. All right, the next item has been withdrawn. Okay, now moving on to CV 2012-35, Gardenside Baptist Church. Would the applicant please come forward? Madam Chair, as the applicant is moving forward, the staff would like to point out that we have received a revised application and additional information since your staff report was originally written last week. The staff is recommending approval of this application. I do have revised site plans that I can pass out copies of to you, and we have our revised recommendations up on the screen. There is one portion of the property that the staff has recommended disapproval of. In talking with the applicant, I believe that they're going to request withdrawal of that particular portion of their request right now. Would you please state your name for the record? Derek Coleman. I'm Morgan Dye. Okay, have you read the staff report? Yes, I have. And the revised report? Yes, I have. And the conditions? The conditions and the revised conditions? Yes, I have seen the changes, yes. Okay. And are you willing to abide by those? Yes, I am. Okay. To explain the revised staff recommendation, the revision is so simple, I just simply put it up on the board. At the top of page 4 in your staff report, where it says the staff recommends approval of the parking edition, If you insert the words church use and variance request, those findings for approval and conditions will satisfy that part of the application. And with the applicant's revised plan, the last two parts where it's recommended for disapproval and postponement can simply be deleted now. Otherwise, the staff report can stand as is. Staff fully recommends approval. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them. Are there any questions? Jimmy, is this an expansion of a daycare operation by 50 children? I'm sorry, the Gardenside Baptist Church, it's not a daycare. These are really church expansions. The primary focus of being in front of you today is to add additional parking, a parking lot along Traveler Road and Cross Keys, a new parking lot on Alexandria Drive, and a portico around the back of the main building so that they can have a drop-off place for their membership. So is the drop-off what you're calling a church use? The church use, if you see along Alexandria Drive, 1643, which is the building that is in between the main church and the new parking lot, It was unclear with their original application whether that was going to remain a residential use or a church use, and the applicant has clarified and given us documentation that they intend to use that as a church use. Is that something that should have been notified to the neighbors? No, that piece of property was on the original site plan that went forward, and the letter simply stated that they were asking for conditional use for the church and the parking expansion for all three properties along Alexandria and all three properties along Traveler Road. There is not a notification issue with this application. Thank you for bringing me up to speed. No problem. I'm happy to. And I have a question on this. So the buildings have been demolished on 1686, 90, and 94 Travelers Road, correct? Yes, ma'am. But right now they're not asking for a parking lot where the buildings have been demolished. Exactly. The original plan as it was submitted would be a parking lot for the entirety of those properties. The staff felt that that was too much of an intrusion on the residential character of Traveler Road and recommended a significant setback of 105 feet from Traveler Road with a revised parking lot to the rear of those properties that would be a more efficient parking than they have currently. This allows the opportunity, should the church wish to rebuild along that front area at some time in the future. So they will have parking back there? There will be parking, but only on half as much of a parking lot as they had originally requested. Okay, so right now it's going to be an empty lot with parking behind it? Yes, ma'am. They are also proposing, according to their site plan, upgrading the landscaping, including the hedges and the street trees that are required. but we don't have any grounds to approve or disapprove what they do as long as the parking lot is far enough back the staff has recommended approval we feel that as they've proposed it it is it is justifiable and and reasonable to approve it Are there any other questions? Madam Chairwoman, I'd like to recommend approval for CV 2012-35 Gardenside Baptist Church. their appeal for a conditional use permit to construct a parking lot for the church and variances to reduce the required front yard from 20 feet to 0 feet along Alexandria Drive and to reduce the required front yard from 20 feet to 15 feet along Travelers Road in a planned neighborhood residential and a high-density apartment zone on properties located at 1637, 1643, and 1667 Alexandria Drive, and 1686, 1690, and 1694 Travelers Road, as recommended by the staff and subject to the revised site plan and the revised conditions. For the record, one technical. Reducing the required front yard from 20 feet to 15 feet along Traveler Road, that's what was withdrawn at the beginning of this discussion. We can correct that. Thank you. I second. I've got a question. In our staff report, the staff recommends postponement of the requested conditional use at 1643 Alexandria Drive. The applicant has since given us a documentation that they intend to use. 1643 is just part of their normal church uses. And by adding the word church use on that one recommendation as we've recommended that, we'll cover that one. You can drop both the postponement and the withdrawal, disapproval and postponement recommendations. Okay, thank you. Okay, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed. Okay, it's approved. Good luck. Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda is CV 2012-42, By the Barrel, LLC. Would the applicant please move forward? Could you state your name for the record, please? Yes, Nick Nicholson with Stalkine and Ogden here on behalf of By the Barrel. We do have an objection to one of the conditions, conditions four, which is prohibiting outdoor speaker use. Okay. To give you all kind of a precursor on what exactly this we are asking for today, it is a very unique use to Lexington. Essentially, it is an 80s-style arcade. We are focusing on games similar to Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, everything that kind of America came to know that is video games in an arcade. With the realization, as in the past five to six years, everyone understood arcades were unfortunately not tenable in today's economy. We've seen examples in New York, in Philadelphia, in New Jersey, and starting to sprout up also in Austin, Texas, and also in California, where they have started combining uses, essentially. We are proposing to combine the arcade with a craft beer bar. As you all know, in the past couple of years, Lexington has seen an increase in these craft beer joints, such as West Six, Country Boy Brewery, Beer Trap, Beer Works, and et cetera. It's clear that there is a niche market that is here, and we are hoping to be able to join that. I give you that background simply as an indication of where all of our traffic and our customer base will be. They will be indoors. We feel that the outright ban on an outdoor speaker is simply inappropriate at this time. Our outdoor patio is approximately 400 square feet. It is not a service patio. It is not something that's like cheapside patio. It's nothing like the pavilion that is currently in use downtown where waitresses will come out, give drinks. This is simply a place where people can go outside and smoke a cigarette before going back inside in order to partake in the arcade. I tell you all this in order to ensure you that this is not a location where someone will come at the beginning of the night, sit outside, and be on the patio all day listening to music. The reason why we feel that the outright ban is simply just inappropriate is directly across the street. Al's Bar has a larger patio in size and in the intensity of use. They have service out there and I believe also speakers. They are within 45 feet of a residence itself, and there is no outdoor speaker ban. The way that this property is in fact set up is it is a commercial duplex with 572 and 574 North Limestone Street. There is a lot in between this property that is basically used as a side yard, and then there is actually a residence that's at 560 North Limestone. You all received a letter from the owner of the 560 and 566 that essentially showed concerns about future use in this location. Without being able to directly quote, to paraphrase him, it was the concern that this would become a full-scale bar down the road, that this would be almost tiptoe zoning, so to speak. We have agreed to a null and void condition, which would mean that basically this use and this applicant alone is receiving a conditional use permit. It cannot be transferred and it cannot be carried over if for some reason this is not used as a bar slash arcade. We feel that this is a very unique location in Lexington. It is an area that is in the midst of a revitalization. It is not peaked by any means, and it is not to the level that Jefferson Street is. We need the support of our neighborhood. We cannot achieve what we want to be able to do. This is, as I said, a very unique use that will require support. If we are upsetting our neighbors, this isn't going to work. We want this area to brighten the spotlight that is already on this intersection of Limestone and West 6. This has been a commercial oasis, so to speak, since its very development in the early 20s and 30s. Alcohol has actually been sold on this intersection since 1956. We do not feel that we are proposing any type of adverse effect to the area, and we feel that a hard ban on outdoor speakers is premature. Right across the street, there is not a ban that has a higher intensity and size, to be quite frank. This is only about 1,000 square foot of an interior and the 400 square foot patio. There are several other alternatives that can be utilized if the residents around here have issues with our noise. There is the noise violations. This conditional use permit can be reviewed. There is no way to prove we will not be an annoyance to neighbors if there is a hard ban. There is a way to prove we are an annoyance if we are actually allowed to have these speakers. We are more than willing to accept any type of time restrictions, any type of volume levels, but we feel the hard ban is very inappropriate. We are about 85 feet away from the closest residence. There is significant sound barriers with foliage on the empty lot as well as right on our property line. We will be willing to put up a fence on the property line. We want to do everything we can to appease our neighbors. Before you go any farther, can I ask you a question? I'm confused by the map. Sure. And I'm thinking that either the directional arrow is wrong or I don't know where this property is. Is this the old? This is the old Spalding's Bakery. So that means it's diagonally across from Al's Bar? It is diagonal to Al's Bar, and it is right across the street from the uses that are about to open. That is a bike shop and a coffee store and donut shop. Okay, in that case, I think your map is wrong. I mean, just looking at it, the direction, the directional arrow is wrong perhaps or something. Go back to that graphic, the first graphic you put up. I don't know if that was our map or not. Yes, that north is incorrect. North limestone is headed this way. Yeah, if you just turn that, if you rotate that 90 degrees, you'll probably... Yeah, that north is incorrect. That is, I guess... Rotate another 90 degrees on the oak. That is north, and north limestone would be... One more 90 degrees and I think you'll have... How's that? Now we're looking north, right? Now you are looking north, headed up Limestone Street. Okay, good. So this is the southern side of east and west 6th Street. All right. Sorry to interrupt you. No, no, not at all. And I do apologize for not clarifying, I guess, earlier. I had a catty-corner. Yes, I have a question. In your application for this conditional use, why did you not request outdoor speakers at the time? And wouldn't it have been good for the neighborhood to be notified that you intended to have outdoor speakers so that they would be able to be here to object if they had objections? We are evaluating the use. We have not even basically guaranteed we are having outdoor speakers. The first time this came up is in discussions with the staff on whether or not we would be using them, and that was the first time we heard about the ban. We are not having live entertainment outdoors in any way. We did not feel it was necessary to put in the application. we will also have outdoor speakers when that had not really even been discussed. May I direct a question to the staff about what is typical if there's a change of use for a commercial building and it would include outdoor speakers? Wouldn't that be part of the notification process for the neighborhood? If I was a neighbor, I'd want to be notified of that. Outdoor speakers are not particularly addressed by the zoning ordinance whatsoever. The proposed use of the cocktail lounge or bar for this property is still required to have the typical language of soundproof to the maximum extent feasible. But those soundproofing technologies are really inside the building, keeping the doors closed and everything of that nature. The staff felt that it was appropriate, especially considering the variance request to place this use closer than 100 feet to a residential zone, that a ban on outdoor speakers was appropriate. I 100% agree with that. But it's not that it's actually the zoning ordinance is silent to it either way. And so that is just something that as the staff was reviewing this request at this location that we felt it was appropriate. I've been on the patio at Al's Bar, and I don't think they have speakers. And the other two corners do not have outside speakers. So you were alluding that you weren't sure, and I think that there are no outside speakers at that intersection. But Al's Bar does not have a ban against it. When it received its conditional use permit for the live entertainment further, it did not receive a ban, and it is actually 40 feet closer to an actual residence than ours is. We feel that an outright ban is, at this time, very premature. Sure. There are basically routes in place in order to address any type of noise violations if they do occur or if they are an annoyance to the neighborhood. We are not trying to annoy our neighbors in any way. We have not even decided if we're putting outdoor speakers there. When we received the staff report was the first time that the ban on the outdoor speakers had really come to our attention with regard to thinking about, did you all want to put a speaker outside? And that's still being evaluated. Again, we'll agree to conditions or time restrictions as well as noise restrictions. We just feel that a ban is inappropriate, especially considering directly across the street there is no such ban. There's a more intense use, a larger patio, and it's closer to a residence. I'm happy to take questions. Well, I've got a question for you. Because you're obviously opposed to this, and what I guess I'm a little perplexed about is that if you're not planning on having any entertainment out there and people are going out there just to smoke, why do you have to have outdoor speakers? It's the option. It is the fact that this is a brand-new use. This is a use that has not been proven successful in this market. It has been proven successful in other markets, and we feel that it will very much work here. However, the more restrictions you put on a use, the harder it is to make sure that this is a success. I would simply argue that we are not in opposition to accepting the variance in the conditional use permit as written by the staff. We are here to request that that condition either be amended or deleted. We obviously throw ourselves at the mercy of the board, but that is our request, and we will accept any type of motion based on the staff's recommendations. I have a question of the staff. Do you know, he's compared it to Al's Bar on two occasions. Do you know anything about that? I mean, are there restrictions on Al's Bar across the street about outdoor speakers? No, I believe the applicant is correct that whenever the board approved the live entertainment for Owls Bar, they did not put an outdoor speaker ban on that property. Do you know when that was done for Owls Bar? 2008, December 2008. The conditions that are placed on there as live music and dancing may be provided between the hours of 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. on Thursday through Saturday, with other times reserved for dancing or jukebox only. But there are no, and does it indicate that? So do we know why the ALBAR didn't have the same conditions? I don't know that the staff was particularly thinking about the issues of outdoor speakers. You know, as we look at live entertainment, it's typically inside the building and the regulations. It's been in more recent history that as we look at these types of uses that we have taken into account the fact that the zoning ordinance is silent to outdoor speakers. And so therefore we look at them on a case-by-case basis and make our recommendation as we do with all conditional uses and variances that come before the board. We wouldn't want to create any unfair comparisons later by either granting or denying this based on this particular ban. So what are we to think about that? And I do agree that we don't want to be unfair. We want to be consistent as well. We do want to be consistent, but we do consistently look at each application on its own merits. And should the board agree with the applicant and want to delete that condition, that's acceptable. But as we were reviewing this, in particular, as you were talking about the dimensions, as you look at the 100-foot distance, as it's required in the ordinance, it's from the use to the zone line. In this particular case, and if I could show, these are just pictures of the site and the adjacent properties. They are a little bit dark because I went out this morning and took them to make sure that we had them for today. There's the subject property at the southeast corner of the 6th Street and North Limestone intersection. If we can go looking down North Limestone, you can see the trees and existing vegetation that is immediately adjacent to the lot next door. If we can show picture number three, I did not have time to stitch these into a panoramic view, so you can see the adjacent residential property. What's a bit confusing is that from a regulatory standpoint, we measure from use to zone line. In this particular instance, there is a vacant B1 zone property, which is a separate piece of property, but it actually acts as the side yard for that large residential structure that you see in the picture. So the use, it's zone B1, but the use is residential. And that factored into this, which would put if you measured from use to use, the distance was less because that is their side yard. The staff does not disagree with the applicant that there is a significant, you can see it right there, there's a fence with a lot of heavy vegetation on that. If I can show the fourth and fifth pictures, this is the rear of the subject property, and you can see recent addition and the fence that goes around the patio area in question. And then the last picture is standing essentially on the outside of the fence, standing where the patio is looking at the next residential property to the rear of the subject property. It's separated by an existing gravel parking lot, and there is not as heavy of a vegetative buffer, but there is a vegetative buffer back there. So as the staff was looking at this, we took into account that kind of difference between what the zoning ordinance requires on the distance from the use to the zone, but also took into account in our recommendation use to use whenever we recommended the no outdoor speaker. I believe that the applicant and the staff are 98% in agreement. The staff is recommending approval of this use. We do feel like that it would be an appropriate use at this corner to make sure that this use did not get transferred to another conditional use or another bar because the bar in Arcade is a special circumstance where the Arcade is a principal-permitted use, but the fact that they want to serve alcohol and have a bar there is a conditional use and subject to the Board's approval. As we looked at all of this, we felt that the last condition, that it would be null and void, essentially not transferable to any other use should the board approve it. Really, the only difference between the applicant and the staff on this one is whether to allow outdoor speakers or not. So do you still recommend the prohibiting of outdoor speakers? That is our recommendation for the reasons I've presented. Could I ask one more question? Yeah, go ahead. With Howell's Bar, when they were granted their approval for live entertainment and they were subjected, I assume, to this soundproofing techniques standard, how can you subject a bar to these soundproofing standards and then think that they might have outdoor speakers. I think that requiring them to soundproof their music means they can't have speakers outdoors. I don't think that it's something that owls would be allowed to have without permission because they've agreed not to have sound outside their building. I believe there has to be a specific ban on that. But when it comes to soundproofing, that is to the building of itself. I think there has to be a specific ban in order to disallow outdoor speakers. That's just my interpretation of how the zoning ordinance is written. Whether you think that's appropriate is another question altogether. Again, to staff, in your description of comparing the proposed use to the actual use of the neighbor, are you saying that this property and proposed use of this property for By the Barrel is different from Al's use? I do believe that they are different uses. Al's is a restaurant and a bar with live entertainment. This is simply a bar and an arcade. The staff does see that they do share in common the bar, but there are different types of bars. There are different types of uses on these two corners. Is the difference significant enough to require the prohibition of outdoor speakers for this particular use, even if it wasn't in the Al's Bar application? And our recommendation for the no outdoor speakers was really on its proximity to the residential side yard of the property on next door, not so much of a comparison to the use for Al's Bar. The staff did review those. Well, I understand. So I'm trying to, I guess, help clarify the record so that this doesn't come up in the future, that we've treated by the barrel unfairly because we've treated them differently than we have a similarly situated property. So if Al's Bar is a different use, is that what you're saying justifies the ban on outdoor speakers for this piece of property? I believe that the two uses are separate and that they are different, but it's not so much a comparison with Owls Bar, but how close this property is and the fact that they are requesting variances to the distance requirement from the residential area that the staff recommended to no outdoor speakers. Okay. Once again, I don't want to belabor the fact that we are very close on recommending this, and I don't believe that there will be any hard feelings on the applicant or the staff, whichever way the board chooses to go today. Just for clarification purposes, then, Al's Bar did not ask for a variance with respect to distance. They did ask for a variance with respect to their distance to residential, and that was granted, but there was no ban on the outdoor. speakers. So trying to compare these in a situation, is it the use actually, so in this particular location, the actual use is closer to the bar than in the case of residential use is actually closer to this than to Al's bar or not? Yes, if you measure use to use, it is slightly closer. If I can make two, I guess, short little points on that exact subject. As this is a commercial duplex, from the side that this use is not taking up. 572, we are not a part of it all, but you have to measure from the side of the building to the use is, in fact, closer. The patio where it is to the property line is approximately little over 50 feet. It is 85 feet from the actual residence. The lot in between is used as a residential side yard by Mr. Pickering. The Al's Bar is 45 feet away from an actual residence. So we feel that there is a much stronger argument that if there was going to be a ban, it should have been when you're 45 feet from a residence as opposed to us when we're 85 feet away from a residence. And the second point simply is by agreeing to this null and void condition, I think that this is really important because if this particular arcade and bar use does not work, you are setting no precedential value to this property having outdoor speakers in the future. This property cannot have a bar in the future, any type of outdoor music in the future, if this use doesn't automatically roll over to the next. So there is not a fear that suddenly this is going to become a tin roof-like situation. The fact that this is null and void if you all move out does not keep this action that we do today from setting a precedent. I guess precedence is wrong. The automatic rollover is, I guess, more of what I was saying. That if it becomes a issue and this use does not actually end up working out here, you are not bound to keep that for another bar in the future. We would submit that an arcade that plays music indoors is certainly less intense than a live music venue across the street. And none of this is meant as any type of criticism on Al's. There has been no issues at Al's. I did an open records request on any type of noise violations Al's had received, and I don't believe they had gotten any. This very much can be fit into this neighborhood. See, I'm sorry for belaboring the point, but I don't think comparing Al's Bar, which has live music and a soundproofed building and no sound escaping the building, with your request to have beer sales and outside music. They're just apples and oranges. Well, my main issue is the fact that, and again, I don't know if we've decided to actually have the outdoor music. That's why we are so close to agreeing. We don't need to belabor it. It is that you have a more intense use with a larger use that is not restricted, and you have a less intense use that is restricted when it is actually further away from a residential property. That is our only point that we really are trying to make here. I think ALS is completely restricted. I don't believe they can be held to a soundproof building and then run wires to speakers, amplified speakers outside, and be in compliance with this soundproofing technique. It might seem like a legal loophole to you that you can soundproof your building and then wire the music outside. But I think that if they put speakers out there, they would be in violation of this soundproofing requirement. I understand. And that's why we will – any type of approval is A-OK with us. We just wanted your consideration on changing commission board. I have a question, just a clarification on the use becoming null and void should the applicant cease. So that also means that the use cannot change. Is that correct? It can't become a live entertainment, dancing, brew pub, nightclub. You would have to approve that. The use cannot change. That is correct. They would need to come back to the board and ask for that approval. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments? Okay. I'm happy to entertain a motion. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion. I think we have taken this, Mr. Nicholson, under consideration and heard your argument. But I'd like to move that item C.B. 2012-42 by the barrel, appeal for a conditional use permit to establish an arcade and cocktail lounge and a variance to reduce the required 100-foot setback from residential zone to 60 feet and neighborhood business zone located on property at 574 North Limestone Street be approved with the five conditions, including the outdoor speaker, shall be prohibited and the other conditions as set forth by the staff. I'll second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Against? Thank you all. Okay, moving on to the next item on the agenda, C-2012-28. Brenda Tollette, BBC Holding, LLC. Would you please say your name for the record? Nicholas Hadley. And have you read the staff's report? Yes, ma'am. Do you have any questions about the report? No, ma'am. Are you willing to abide by the conditions in the report? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Staff, do you have any questions or comments? No, ma'am. Board? Madam Chairman, I move the application of C-2012-28 Brenda Tallett, BDC Holding, LLC, appeal for a conditional use permit for an indoor-outdoor recreational facility in a light industrial zone on a portion of 709 Miles Point Way be approved for the reasons recommended by staff and subject to the seven conditions listed. I'll second that. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Good luck. Okay, moving now to C2012-32, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Is the applicant here? Please state your name for the record. My name is Kim Hurley. Jonathan Isaacs. Have you read the staff's report? Yes, ma'am. Do you have any questions about the report? No, ma'am. Are you willing to abide by the conditions recommended by the staff? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Stephanie. Stephanie. Stephanie. Madam Chair, I move to approve C-2012-32 Good Shepherd Lutheran Church appeal for a conditional use permit to expand the church building 16 by 17 rear addition in a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 425 Patchen Drive, as recommended by the staff and subject to the conditions as recommended by staff. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, congratulations and good luck. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, the next item on the agenda, C-2012-33, Lexington Tabernacle. Please state your name for the record. Jimmy Toney. Chris Kavitsky. And have you read the staff's report? Yes, ma'am. Do you have any questions about the report? Are you willing to abide by the conditions in the report? Yes. Okay. Staff, any comments? Board? Are there any motions? Madam Chairman, I move on C-2012-33 Lexington Tabernacle that we approve the appeal for a conditional use permit to establish a church in a light industrial zone on property located at 707 Downs Avenue, Suite 150, as recommended by the staff and subject to the four conditions listed. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No, it passes. Congratulations. Good luck. Thanks. The next item on the agenda is C-2012-34, Anchor Baptist Church. Can you please state your name for the record? I'm Pastor Paul Sisk. Have you read the staff's report? I have. Do you have any questions about the report? Not one. Are you willing to abide by the conditions listed in the report? We will, and we have no outdoor speakers. Very good. Okay. Staff, do you have any additional comments? Board, any questions? Madam Chair, I'll move that item 2012-34, Anchor Baptist Church, appeal for a conditional use permit to increase enrollment in a school for academic instruction in a planned neighborhood residential zone on a property located at 3601. I want their drive to be approved with the conditions that are set forth by the staff. I'll second that. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. It passes. Congratulations and good luck. Thank you for your service. Okay. The next item to consider, I guess, is A2011-81, Craig Kuchowski. Aye. Enforcement staff have been monitoring this since mid-January, and on the average I think we've been by there about once per week to see if they're complying with, I think the main condition of concern was the number of taxis that are using the parking lot. The condition that you all approved was no more than three, and they've been in compliance with that every single time of the 26 times that we've been to the site. Good. Thank you. Is there anything else we need to do? I have a question. Was this hearing, was there a notification sent to the neighbors for this hearing? That's a question for Mr. Ammons or Ms. Rackers. What was the question? I'm sorry. I was wondering if the neighborhood was notified of this six-month hearing. no but the applicant was and generally if somebody is here at the meeting when the action was actually taken the first time then they would know that it was going to be reviewed in six months but no we didn't send any notice that's a good point too also the staff would like to point out that there have not been any complaints from the neighbor that originally brought this item to the board. And when the board did approve the Kowalski application, you didn't put this on as another full hearing. You wanted to get a report from our zoning enforcement staff and then go from there today, whether you felt like that they were abiding by the conditions or whether we needed to go further steps today. That would be the purpose today. Is the staff asking us to take any action on this, or is this just a report? I think it would be appropriate, since you did ask for this report, to just take action that you feel that whether you want us to report back again or if we feel that... Oh, thank you, Barb. She's helping me as I'm floundering. She thinks that if you agree, it would be appropriate to make a finding that they are in compliance with the conditions that you set at your January hearing, based on the report issued by our zoning enforcement staff. So would we need somebody to move in a second for that? It would probably be best. Okay. Would anyone like to make a motion? So moved. Yes, and I'll second that we've accepted their report and we agree they're in compliance. Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay, motion passes. All right, and the final non-contested item on our agenda is A2012-43, sensibly chic. Okay, please state your name for the record. My name is Mindy Keller. And have you read the staff's report? Yes, I have. And do you have any questions about the staff's report? No, ma'am. Are you willing to abide by the conditions? Yes. Okay. Madam Chair, I move to approve a 2012-43 sensibly chic appeals for an administrative review of a transfer of an unused sign, square footage, 15.5 square feet from the rear to the front of the building to allow a larger retail identification sign in a neighborhood business B1 zone on property located at 2121 Richmond Road, Suite 130, as recommended by staff and subject to the three conditions. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay. So fast. Thank you. Okay, so we can now move on to the contested items. Before we address the Stuart Lowenthal, I wanted to ask whether the applicant and Zeph Maloney had had a chance to talk. And are you still in opposition? No. No? Okay. All right, so applicant, would you like to come forward again? and you're no longer in opposition okay okay so once again have you read the staff report yes ma'am you still have no questions about it uh no and you're still willing to abide by the conditions yes ma'am okay and there's no one else with opposition. Okay. Madam Chair, I'll move that item 2012-41 is up. Maloney appeals for a variance to reduce the required use area, buffer feet from 3 to 0 feet along the eastern property line due to location of existing driveway on property recently rezoned from single-family residential zone, the neighborhood business zone, on property located at 763 Lane Allen Road, be approved with the conditions that's set forth by the staff. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay. Congratulations and good luck. Thank you. We'd like to take a brief recess before we can... Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Both of which have opposition, and I'd just like to do a quick poll of how many people here are in opposition to V2012-40 Stuart Lowenthal? Okay. And how many people here are in opposition to C2012-37, the Lexington Property Group, LLC? Okay. So I guess we'd like to go ahead and start with the C-2012-37 F-C-Town Property Group, LLC. Then after we hear that matter, we'll move on to the Stuart Lowenthal matter. So is the applicant here? Did you have a brief presentation? Do you have a presentation? Okay. All right. Why don't we go ahead and let the staff make the brief presentation? Let me turn to the right page. I apologize. This is on your agenda on page 8, and this is item C, 2012-37, the Lexington Property Group. This is a conditional use request for a fraternity on property at 320 Rose Street. The proposed fraternity will be Pi Kappa Phi for the subject property. I have a very brief presentation that will just essentially be pictures of the subject property. The staff has previously pressed out during the break two items at your desk. The first one is from, it's got UK at the top. It is a letter from the Assistant Director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs endorsing the proposed fraternity at this location. Also, it indicates that this fraternity will be subject to the University of Kentucky's Code of Conduct, which means that it would have to have an alcohol-free facility. Behind that, you will see a letter that the staff has received from the applicant that as the owners of the property, Pi Kappa Phi in this particular instance will not be owning this property. They will be leasing the property from the Lexington Property Group. That's the reason why the applicant is the Lexington Property Group. And you can see on this one that the Lexington Property Group is incorporating into their lease that the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity will have to incorporate the provisions of UK's alcohol policies as a part of their lease. And that's the applicant saying that not only has UK got these, but we are going to make the fraternity hold to UK's standards. If I can go through, oh, and then we also received a letter from the Bluegrass Trust. This letter, you'll see it twice because they were writing about both the Castle Road, which is the next item on your docket, and about this fraternity. And you can read through that letter as we go through the application. This is a straight-on picture of the property at 320 Rose Street, looking directly across Rose Street. I'm standing on the sidewalk in front of UK's property. This property is flanked both to the left and the right by student housing. This is just to the, if you were standing on the front porch, just to their right is an apartment building with a parking lot out front. and just to their left is a very large three-story apartment building with parking out front. The subject property is proposing to not make any physical changes to the property with the exception of adding green space and landscape areas in the existing parking lot. As you drive behind the subject property, the subject property is currently 90% paved. There is an area to the rear of the property. This property backs up to a single-family home. You can see there's an existing privacy fence and garage on the single-family home and two existing trees. This is looking in the parking lot at the back of the property, looking down the driveway towards Rhodes Street. Standing on the front porch, you can see the University of Kentucky Davis-Marksbury Building, which is a new building on campus. And just to the right, this morning I knew the name of that building, but I don't remember it. That's a fairly new building that is at the corner of Rose Street and Maxwell Street, also the University of Kentucky. For the residential properties that this property backs up to, their backyards, the staff went over and got some pictures of the three, or presenting three pictures of the properties immediately adjacent to this. The two-story brick house that you see is the one that has the fence and the garage. That's the one that is directly adjacent to the use. And you can see the properties on either side. and looking down their driveway from the sidewalk, you can see the garage that you saw, the backside of that garage from the subject property. Just to end up my presentation with the straight-on picture of the proposed, of the existing building, the staff has reviewed this request and recommending approval. We feel that the property with its current use as an apartment building and existing parking is well suited for the fraternity. The staff would like to make one correction to our staff report. It does not make a material difference in either our recommendations for approval or any of our reasoning or conditioning, but we did report that this is an existing building with eight bedrooms and that the fraternity would have eight beds. In reality, it is an existing 10-bedroom apartment building with and the fraternity will utilize all 10 beds. This does not change the required parking for the proposed use. It does not have a material difference, but the staff would just like to let the board know about the correction in that number of bedrooms from 8 to 10 in the staff report. We do feel that the proposed fraternity house will not adversely impact the subject property or the surrounding properties as a fraternity. They will be subject to the alcohol policies in the U.K. Code of Conduct that the residents in this building are not subject to those authorities looking over the conduct of the property if it were just an apartment building as it exists today. And, of course, all existing utilities, roads, sanitary sewers, all of those are available and adequate for the request. The staff does feel that this approval recommendation should be subject to a number of conditions. The first three conditions are fairly standard conditions. one of those being that the item number two, that the applicant shall submit documents regarding standards and policies towards alcohol. They have done that to the staff, and the staff is satisfied that that condition is met. And finally, we feel that this particular Pi Kappa Phi application, that this should be conditioned upon null and void, much like the last application, so that if this property ceases for use for this fraternity, that it would not be able to be transferred to another fraternity. Any other conditional use would have to come back to the Board of Adjustment if it's not operating according to this application as it is put forward today. That concludes the staff presentation. Thank you for giving me the time to make those points. When this was an apartment building, who were the tenants? Were they college students? Do you know? Honestly, I do not know, but based off of where it is, I would highly suspect that they were college students. The applicant might be able to answer that, or they should be able to answer that. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you so much. The applicant would like to come forward. Please state your name for the record. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. My name is Bruce Simpson. I'm an attorney, and I represent the applicant in connection with the matter before you this afternoon. Joe Marshall is here. He is one of the principals. He and his dad and another gentleman own the property and have owned it for five years. They purchased it from the previous owner who maintains student housing on this site. As best as we can tell, for 30 or 40 years, students have been living in this particular structure. As Jimmy pointed out, the use of the property will not change. It's been student housing for years, as I mentioned. It will continue to be. The difference will be in connection now is that it would be a fraternity. It would be ten students living here. The fraternity currently exists on campus. They meet at the student center in terms of their meetings. They will continue to meet at the student center. This is basically just residential only. As Jimmy mentioned, it is in the middle of a residential block. I have a few photographs that are a little bit different than Jimmy's, some similar. I won't dwell on those. I'll cover those in just a moment. Just to briefly point out the significance of this application, being mindful that there's a perception of fraternities, probably more so than sororities, of being not good matches for neighborhoods. The difference between what exists now, where there is absolutely no control, except for if you should call the police on a nuisance matter or call building inspection or code enforcement about something, those kinds of problems, which certainly can be responded to. The difference now would be, number one, it would be regulated by this board if there are any problems in terms of misbehavior, misconduct, nuisances and the like. You all have the power, as you know, of reviewing these applications periodically, imposing additional conditions, or even revocation of the conditional use permit. Secondly, as a fraternity recognized by the University of Kentucky, and we have a representative from the University's fraternity and sorority section here today to address you about the obligations that that body will have in terms of its relationship with this fraternity and this particular property. this fraternity and its residents will be subject to review by the University of Kentucky. Additional restrictions about student conduct that aren't applicable to the existing students that have been living on this property. And the University of Kentucky, in cases where there has been misbehavior, misconduct, or has suspended the university, has suspended the fraternity or sorority, and in some cases has revoked their ability to do business. So that's a second element of supervision, if you will. And then thirdly, Joe Marshall and his family have included in the lease with the fraternity the same provisions of compliance that the University of Kentucky will impose upon the fraternity in terms of my contract. So you have regulation by this board, regulation by the University of Kentucky, and regulation by the landlord in terms of any potential disruption. Now there is no control other than calling the police, calling code enforcement, or calling building inspections. So I'm not suggesting we need that level of supervision, but to try to abate the concerns of people that think this is going to be a problem to the extent that it ever should be a problem, there are plenty of mechanisms in place, bodies, accountable folks who can address that question very seriously. So, again, we're not changing the use. I don't believe there will be any difference in the use of this property in terms of impacts to neighbors and what it's been for many, many years. I have passed out a little booklet. I want to cover very briefly, of course, the staff report, which recommends approval. We're in agreement with that as well as the conditions imposed. I will go through the slides now that help to illustrate just the context of this property. If we could put those up. The subject property is highlighted in red right here on Rose Street, 320 Rose Street, right across from the University of Kentucky's Memorial Coliseum. Since this photograph was taken, the Wildcat Co-Lodge has been built in here. the Davis-Marksbury Building, the Hardiman Building, all of this is UK directly across the street. The section between Euclid here and Maxwell Street here, this whole section here, except for the UK Police Department, which is located right here on the corner, all of the uses all the way up through here have been for many, many years student houses. In addition, 82 yards away from the proposed fraternity right here at 320 Rose Street, 82 yards away is a sorority that's been here for a number of years. 128 yards away is Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority on Maxwell Street, 127 yards away. And then 179 yards away is the Kappa Alpha fraternity. Those other three existing fraternity and two sororities have been present for a lengthy period of time. The next slide will just move past that one. Barbara is pretty much the same as what I indicated before. Mr. Simpson, in the interest of letting everyone know that we will lose a quorum at 5 o'clock, we have two lengthy matters. If you could do whatever you can to expedite this matter, we would appreciate it. I will. Let's go through the slides again, Barb, and I'll just tell you when to stop. That's the House, of course. You can just keep moving. Just keep moving until I tell you to stop. You've seen these slides before in terms of context. This is the apartment building right next door, student houses. This is to the rear of our building right now. It's a three-story apartment building for students. This is to the right, three-story, a significant number of student houses. This is right to the right of our property. I guess part of the student housing to the right that faces our parking lot. This is to the right rear driveway off of Linden Walk, which appears that at least this section may be student housing. These are units, three and four units down from our property, again student housing all the way down to Euclid. This is a property that Mr. Marshall owns up on East Maxwell Street. I put that there simply because it reflects the care and quality of he and his dad in terms of taking care of their property over the years. and this is the K.A. fraternity on East Maxwell Street. This is the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and this is another sorority 82 yards away from our site. Barbara, could you go back to the second slide that Mr. Simpson skipped over? I just wanted to see. It looked like it had some context from that property to others. Yeah. That helps orient it for me. Thank you. Yeah. This is our property right here. This is student housing here and student housing here, student housing all the way through here and down there as well. Thank you. Tab number three, Madam Chairman and members of the Board, is a decision this body made back in March of 2007 when it approved the Cap Alpha House. This was a little over five years ago. It approved it as a conditional use permit and also granted variances. This house is 179 yards away from where we are now. The Board did approve it, subject to an alcohol policy being filed, which it was, and Kappa Alpha is certainly operating now. The next tab, under 4, I wanted to see if any of the existing fraternities, sororities, or Mr. Marshall's property had received prior complaints about their violation of the zoning ordinance or anything associated with the use of their property. And as those documents reflect, in tab number 4, there are no violations that have been reported, nothing on record with the Urban County Government. Under tab number five is a letter from Vinnie Sandy endorsing the application, setting forth. There is a no alcohol, no substance abuse requirement as part of being a part of the university fraternity family. And I'm going to ask Mr. Sandy to come up and share very briefly in terms of what his office does, the relationship which this fraternity will have with UK, the monitoring and accountability measures that are instituted as regards fraternities with the University of Kentucky. Hello, everyone. I'm Vinny Sandy. I'm the Assistant Director for Fraternity and Sorority Affairs at the University of Kentucky. Our office is part of the Dean of Students office, and under the Dean of Students office is the Student Code of Conduct. So my position is to advise all the fraternities and to advise the fraternity council, which governs the individual chapters. What we do, if there is ever a case where our students are not obeying the student code of conduct, we have a judicial process outlined that students, along with the staff, like myself and our deans, will adjudicate those processes, find out what was the misconduct, and then apply sanctions for them in case that's ever necessary. So that is more of the reactive role. Our proactive role is more with my position, and what I do is hazing education, alcohol and substance use education as part of our dean of students' office. We try to do it out there and try to educate our students to make responsible decisions. That is the role of my position within our staff. So I'm open to any further questions. I have a question, Mr. Sandy. some fraternities and sororities are there's a theme maybe it's academic maybe they're social there's an engineering fraternity there's maybe there's one for math and I guess some of them are animal houses but is this a social fraternity or is this academic all of the social fraternities are are based on a number of values all of them regardless of what they call it it's some principle of scholarship, leadership, and service. So any of the social fraternities that you may be familiar with, all the values of those organizations are based around those three subjects. So this is not an academic fraternity, this is a social fraternity? That is correct. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Under the last tab, members of the Board, is a letter from Joe Marshall, who is one of the owners of the property, pledging a commitment to the conditions that we have submitted to today in terms of university regulation, both by contract with them as an affiliated fraternity, certainly as a condition of this Board, and also in the lease he has with the fraternity. But I wanted you to hear from Joe in terms of the seriousness with which he and his family have undertaken to take care of their property and their commitment as to supervision of this property should you all approve it as a fraternity in terms of its conditional use permit request. Joe. Hello, everyone. You know, I wanted to take a step back and, first of all, just reveal that, you know, I was in the fraternity myself, not at U.K., but at Georgetown College. And I am a strong proponent of fraternities, and I know that the University of Kentucky is. And from what I read in the paper and talking with Vinny, the student life experience at UK, student housing, is on the forefront of minds for UK. And I think this falls in line with it because, you know, I look back when I went to Georgetown College several years ago, So even though it's not anywhere compared in size to UK, I mean, you can get lost. But the statistics show people that are in fraternities or sororities have higher GPAs. They are more involved in the university. And subsequently, when they graduate, give back more to the community and especially to the university and are more involved. And I had such a positive experience in that. And I'm bringing this up because the house that I lived in, Georgetown College, Georgetown College was strictly a dry campus. And at the time, Scott County was dry as well. But that didn't inhibit anything that we did, you know, inside those walls. We had our individual rooms. And there's just so much more to a fraternity as far as leadership and, you know, gaining just, you know, becoming a better person and, you know, type of brotherhood among friends and the same thing with a sorority that you get. And alcohol is not needed. And in this house, it's going to be way more strictly monitored with UK on there. The first slip-up, first hazing incidents, they're gone. Right now, there's only UK residents in there, you know, obviously because it's right there. and they can theoretically have a cake party if they want to. They can have whatever. And we can just regulate based upon the police and whatever complaints there may be. So I just look at this as a win-win for the fraternity as well as UK. And this group of individuals, I know they're highly regarded on campus, and Benny could speak to that. I don't know if he had a chance to go into there. Their reputation is very good on campus. They've been there for several, several years. They just don't have any type of sort of community house. And when they do meet, they have to meet at the Patterson Office Tower. They will continue to meet at the Patterson Office Tower in a room because the way this building is structured, it's for individual units with individual bedrooms. There's no way to access any of the units from the inside. You have to just go around the side. So it's just a living arrangement for the next five years for the core leadership group of this fraternity. And that's all I guess I have to say. Any further questions? Any questions? I might have misunderstood your point at the beginning. Were you testifying that you didn't have any alcohol in your fraternity house when you were in school? It was a strict policy. I know that in some refrigerators there may have been beer, alcohol, but so good question. I mean, good question, but I think that that policy, I mean, it was a strict policy, but absolutely, yes, they're in people's, you know, behind their locked doors, behind that. But that policy was in place when I went to school and, you know, I was president of fraternity and before that risk management coordinator. So you couldn't have parties. If you all of a sudden invite five people over and you're hanging out in the hall and it turns into a hall party, you're busted just like that. But, no, I'm not naive to say enough. And I did have alcohol in my refrigerator or whatever. You have that one-off. But those regulations are more in place where it's strictly prohibited for parties. Thank you. Okay, yeah. Any further questions? I'm sorry, before I, yeah. Other questions? Okay. That's our case, and we'll look forward to any rebuttal that may be necessary by what any other people may have to share with you. Okay. Thank you. I understand there are some applicants or some people in the audience in opposition. Would you like to come forward? Please state your name for the record. I'm Alice Christ. And I live in this Aylesford neighborhood, and I think the issue from my point of view, and probably the point of view of many of our neighbors, isn't really this particular, the merits of this particular frat or even this particular building. But from my point of view, what Mr. Simpson's photos demonstrate is that we are being besieged by these nibbles around the edges of our neighborhood where city bodies who should be empowered to defend. Could I have the picture? the streets behind the edges of the Aylesford neighborhood is where there are still some holdout residents who are resident owners. And every time a conditional use is approved for a frat, the pool of people who might be willing to rehabilitate a single-family house or to move in with their small children, it gets smaller and smaller. It has been noted by some of the witnesses already that there's a perception that frats chase out regular neighborhoods. And I think the statistics that have come out about even proportions of rental and owner-occupied houses in our particular area, it shows that that pressure is real. I think that there is a difference between an R3 apartment residence, which is the accepted zoning, and we are happy to see that continue. There's a difference between that R3 apartment residence and a frat, and I hope you do pay attention to the Bluegrass Trust letter that remarks upon what happens if you go around the back or down the side of these buildings, because although everything across Rose Street is U.K. property and UK is being built on by UK, Lindenwalk still has single-family houses, and I live two blocks from there on Transylvania Park, and there are single-family houses also on the street in between on Aylesford. We did oppose granting that conditional use for that Kappa Alpha house, And we do periodically have to write letters about parking and garbage and all the kind of enforcement issues that we don't find, in spite of all the offices responsible at UK, we don't find that they're effective at continuous general enforcement of neighborhood hygiene. so I would ask you not to grant this conditional use. Thank you. I have a question before you sit down. I was trying to pay attention. Could you concisely tell us why you think this would be worse than the 10 student housing apartments that are in there now? Well, at the moment, I understand that there are four rental units, in an R3. And I just think that granting conditional uses, exceptions, this is the way that those zoning categories are being eroded around the whole Aylesford neighborhood. So to me, it's not that this one building would change its use so remarkably one way or the other, but I am tired of seeing Lexington Fayette County government roll over for every exception because it doesn't look like there's a lot of single families there right now in those four or five houses in those apartment buildings. They were all called student housing for the whole case for making the change. They're not student housing. They are private apartment R3 rental units, which are legitimately used according to that zoning, and they happen to be rented by students. To me, that is a significant distinction in terms of if you turn a thing into a frat, it will only be a frat. whereas residential apartments, R3, anyone can rent there if they're crazy enough to move into my neighborhood. Thank you. And could I ask the staff a question about the R3 zoning? Is she correct in that these 10 apartments are maybe grandfathered in, but that if it's legal nonconforming, it should have no more than four apartments? Is that? I believe we're talking semantics. Ten is the number of beds that are in the property. According to PVA, this is a four-dwelling unit apartment building, but there can be ten beds in those four units. So are there four kitchens? Are there four kitchens? Is that what we're talking about? I have not been inside the building. I was relying on the PVA's information of what they had had on that. The applicant could possibly tell you on that. It is clear that there are 10 beds, and being near the University of Kentucky, as is usually the standard, most rentals are by the bed or by the bedroom for those types of uses. What is allowed on that piece of property? I didn't understand your question. A four-unit apartment building is definitely allowed in the R3 zone. So is this a one-unit apartment building with ten bedrooms? What is this that we have there now? Once again, according to PVA, it is a four-unit apartment building. The applicant might be able to specify how many kitchens there are in this. Well, then I'm wondering if they're going to do a major rehab on this thing. Is that expansion of a legal nonconforming use, or are they maybe making it more conforming? Their application is actually quite clear that they don't propose any physical changes to the property or to the building, no expansion of the building. I do not know what their plans are for the interior of the building, other than their application states that they plan to keep it as is. Mr. Griggs, just to follow up on that, There are four separate units, four kitchens and four baths in there right now, have been for a number of years, and that will not change. Are there any other questions? Okay, thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to testify in opposition? Hello, I'm Diane Lawless, 3rd District Council person, and my address is 200 East Main because I spend a lot of time here. And it's in my district, so I can live in here. First of all, I would like to applaud the Lexington Property Group for their stellar use and upkeep of their rental apartments. What I heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Simpson, was that there are currently eight beds. There will be ten. No. There's, as our application indicated, there are ten, have been ten. The staff report is in error, and Jimmy corrected that at the beginning of the meeting. Okay. Nothing's changed. These issues come up, and what we have done and what the city has done is in the third district, which is the city in the city. When people come to Lexington, they see our rural landscape and they see the 3rd District. They're either going to UK, downtown, and these neighborhoods surrounding them. It's an economic development issue as far as I'm concerned. And the 3rd District is as much the brand of Lexington as our rural community. I regret, and I have tried very hard, and I have spoken to Dr. Capilouto about changing the student code of conduct. That if it's not okay to do it on UK's property, then they should be held to the same standards in the neighborhoods. As you all know, we had nothing short of, nothing less than a complete riot over the NCAA over on state and university. I really appreciated your question, Mr. Griggs, about the alcohol. Some of the fraternities, and I am not anti-fraternity or sorority. They do a lot of great things. We have wonderful students at UK. But the fact is, as Ms. Chris said, when you start creeping into the neighborhoods with more and more spot zoning, the Planning Commission and our planning staff recommended that two R1, R2 buildings in a neighborhood be torn down. and made up-zone to be a fraternity on the corner of Rose and, I'm really bad with the directions, Woodland and Columbia not too long ago. So fraternities, if they have a space on campus, that's what I understand, but they don't have a meeting space. They do not have space on campus for housing right now. Okay. That it does erode these neighborhoods, and it does discourage people from coming in and rehabbing these houses and returning them to single-family or duplex where staff, faculty, graduate students are willing to invest and live there because of what goes on in these neighborhoods. And this is just one more. I mean, we do it one property at a time, and then we have what we have now. And, you know, inch by inch, every property we lose, every property that's given a conditional use or re-zoned for a fraternity is one more property lost, one more neighborhood that's invaded, and one more neighborhood that's given the name of Fraternity Row. I would like to see the, and I've worked very closely on both sides of issues with Mr. Simpson. I don't understand why the planning staff goes to the panel board in UK to ask whether or not it's okay. I think that we should be coming to our city and to our neighborhoods. We had on the docket for our last council meeting that in the future, when something was coming to the Board of Adjustments, it wouldn't be just the near neighbors that would be notified, but also neighborhood associations. For some reason, we're on break, and that may be why, but I think it might have been an error. I didn't receive this information about the fraternity until very late. Again, I have nothing against fraternities. Some of them came out over a couple weekends ago and planted trees in the Ellsworth Neighborhood Association. I work with a lot of student groups, but I think that the university needs to look at their student code of conduct. And I think we also, as a city, need to draw the line somewhere where we quit parceling these out one at a time. It's just like every time you throw a rock in the pond, sooner or later you have a hole full of rocks and no pond. really what has happened in much of the 3rd District, including this area. And there are families living here and on Maxwell and Ellsford and Linden Walk and Transfaneal Park that are greatly impacted by some of the less responsible landlords. I would hope that this landlord will continue to be one of those landlords that says, If you do these kinds of behaviors, you can't rent here anymore if you're in a fraternity or not. So I would like you to consider the issues that we're facing one block, one house at a time. It's eroding the 3rd District, and the 3rd District is the economic engine of Lexington, no doubt about it. So that's what I have to say. Thank you. Ms. Lawless, I have a question for you. Where would you have this fraternity go if not here? I think that we need to look at places that aren't in residential areas. Like what? Nicholasville. Sorry. I understand. Could I address that? I actually work at UK and have been present for generations of UK campus planning episodes. And this plan does not appear to have gone through any campus planning process. People just go to the person in charge of advising for this semester and you get a letter. But there are campus plans, in theory, to have frats and sororities on Rose Lane and the other side of Rose Lane. So this does not conform to UK's official position, the one that they have conveyed to organizations like the Aylesford Neighborhood Association. and nor does the university endorsement of the proposal go through their Office of Community Affairs. They had a vice president in charge of community affairs who may not be there anymore, but there should be a replacement. We never heard anything from them. So I think there were some steps missed in asserting that this does conform to some kind of university plan. I think that's wrong, and I think that it also doesn't comply with the planning ideas of what to do with the UK to downtown corridor, because that is supposed to be not student housing but housing for UK employees and new families and low-income, income-supported housing for UK low-income employees. I guess my point is we don't have a plan, and the city is working on an overall plan, but that is the issue. is we have not had an overall plan for the urban service and infill redevelopment and work with UK in conjunction with that plan. So in the absence of a plan, you're not suggesting that the board doesn't have jurisdiction to hear this or that they fail to comply with some process that they should have complied with? Well, there obviously are conditions or they wouldn't be asking for a variance. They're not asking for a variance. They're asking for conditional use. Or conditional use. Okay. So I would like to see this possibly postponed, if they would be willing, so that there could be more input and look at that. If they're not, whatever your pleasure. But I am very concerned that the lack of planning over the years has created a situation that really has caused a great deal of problems for sustainability, economic development of what really is the city and the city, the economic driver of Lexington. So thank you very much for your time and appreciate it. Thank you. I'll now turn it over to Mr. Stumbo for asking any additional position. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. She's got to go. Somebody else wanted to speak in opposition? Yes, ma'am. My name is Martha Birchfield. I live at 320 Linden Walk. If you look at this image, my house is the large house with the circular drive in the lower right corner of this photo. It was the K.A. house in the 1920s and 30s, and I'll guarantee you that we still have scars from the K.A. days. The proposed fraternity will back up to single-family, owner-occupied residents. We live right across the street from that. our experience with fraternities or groups that may or may not call themselves a fraternity in the neighborhood have not been very pleasant. There is a fraternity in the 300 block of Aylesford that has been in lots of trouble. It got shut down because it was so filthy. Certainly we know about the fraternity on Rose Lane where the boys set fire to one of the other members. a fraternity ask for a conditional use at 320 Maxwell. That was denied by this board. They moved in anyway, and they operate a fraternity there. And as a result of that house on Maxwell, we really do have increased traffic. We have lots more garbage. the boys park on London Walk, cut through owner-occupied property to get to their back door. It's not a good fit for us, and so we ask, my husband and I ask, that you not permit this. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Burns. Anybody have any questions for her? Anybody else in opposition would like to speak? Mr. Simpson, would you have any response? Thank you, Mr. Stumbo. Certainly as citizens of Lexington, we're mindful of the longstanding tension that's existed with folks that live in single-family houses around the University of Kentucky and the students that are on the edges. That was a problem when I went to the University of Kentucky and I lived in this particular area. And that's why approving this application gives more protection to any adverse behavior than what currently exists. With the University of Kentucky's monitoring, my client's monitoring by way of contract in terms of obligations, and this board, any aberrant behavior can be dealt with appropriately. And you've heard in those instances when fraternities have not acted appropriately, you've shut them down, the university shut them down, you can shut us down if we act out. Now, as Council Member Lawless indicated, Mr. Marshall has been a very good steward of his properties around the University of Kentucky. I think he deserves the opportunity to demonstrate to this board that he will be in compliance with the regulations by the University of Kentucky in his contract and by this board. I think he is entitled to have that opportunity, the same opportunity that previous boards have given the three other, two other sororities and fraternities within 180 yards of this particular site. and as indicated by the evidence that we've introduced, in none of those fraternities and sororities has there been any complaint made by any citizen, none of these folks, about any of the conduct, any of the use of their property whatsoever. I ask for a complete documentation of any complaints, and there are none, as to those operating facilities right now, those fraternities and those sororities. I think what we're proposing is protective of the neighborhood more so than it exists now. It will never convert back. You can look at the picture and see those three-story apartment buildings. You're not going to convert this property that's been student housing for 40 years into a single-family home. What you can do is give some additional oversight that does not currently exist. I think we're entitled to the opportunity to prove ourselves to you, prove ourselves to a neighbor, and prove ourselves to the University of Kentucky. And that's why approval of this request with the conditions is justified. And on that basis, I ask for your approval. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question of staff, if I can. Is our fraternities a permitted use in any zone? I believe that they're permitted conditional uses in the R3, R4. I would have to check the zoning ordinance. I can't think of anywhere where there are principal permitted uses. Does that mean that fraternities always have to come before this board in order to be established? I assume that they do. As a conditional use, yes. We're going to try and look up right now and make sure. I do know that in the R3 and R4 zones that they are conditional uses, and I cannot think of a zone where they would be a principal permitted use. So every fraternity that would seek to be established in a new location would have to come before this board, is that right? Yes. I think that the most recent one was handled by the Planning Commission with that. With a zone change, the Planning Commission, it was still a conditional use. the planning commission at the time of a zone change can also approve conditional uses and variances. In those cases, they take on the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Adjustment. But in those cases where the planning commission did approve them, they approved the zoning and the conditional use. Thank you. Any other questions? Ms. Lawless, would you step back up here, please? I apologize. When the last one at the Planning Zone approved, they upzoned it and they called it a study lodge. So rather than a fraternity house, it was a study lodge with four people, I think, living there and six parking spaces. However, they also admitted that it would also be used for parent night, etc., and ball game gatherings. So if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, generally it's a duck. So a lot of these have come under different, you know, this is a place where they'll sleep and they'll still have to go somewhere else to meet, et cetera. But where would I put them? Honestly, there's a whole row of where the fraternities used to be there on UK's campus and the one that was approved by the zoning commission was offered one of those properties. They even owned their own property on Maxwellton Court, I believe, and the university didn't want them to build their structure there because they thought they would expand in that direction at some point, And that's why they asked to up zone and put that one on the corner of Columbia and Woodland or whatever street that is. Woodland, I think. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Liles. Does anybody else have any other comment? Any of the board members? I have a question for Mr. Simpson. There was the point made about going through the university and trying to find a location on campus for this fraternity. Can you speak to that for your client about why this process, they didn't go through this process? Well, they did go through the process, and I can have the representative of the university talk about the lack of availability of land for fraternities and sororities on U.K. property. Yeah, right now the university is trying to complete a master plan in terms of housing, as you might be aware of their partnership with Education Realty Trust. Now, our staff is working to try to incorporate Greek housing into that. It is at the very preliminary stages of that right now. Any housing that could end up coming wouldn't be available for any students to live in until about three to four years from now at the best case scenario. So any of the students that are currently members of fraternities would not have the opportunity to live with their friends and brothers. Now, and those houses would be on campus, but as it currently stands now, if you want to build on campus, you either have to have a lot of money or there's really no available spot. So all of the fraternities that have been building is, for instance, the sorority house on Columbia Lane, which is Alpha Phi sorority, their national organization has that type of financial resource to build a house. In Pi Capital Phi situations, they don't have that kind of opportunity to build a house themselves or to buy property. That could be multi-million dollar projects and most of the fraternities and sororities on campus don't have that kind of financial resources. So this is for the students, in this case at 320 Rose Lane, is the students who are there now who want to live with their friends, we're hoping that we can give them the opportunity to do that within the next two to three years while they're still here on campus. But so with this process or this planning that you're going through, the university isn't making any plans for fraternities like this who don't have the money but they don't want to provide housing for them for fraternity? Is that what I understand? I'm sorry, could you? If the fraternity doesn't have the money to buy the property, then they can't locate on the campus. Is that correct? That's correct, as it stands right now. Now, hopefully in this future plan is that the Education Realty Trust would front the money and then lease it to the fraternity students. And that's how we would be able to provide housing. But, again, if that works, which is a big if at this point, that wouldn't be until two, three, four years on the line. Does that make sense? It does, but it just seems to me that that should be the first place that the fraternities should be. And the universities should be able to work with the fraternities to come up with a plan that works for everybody within the confines of their campus. Right, and for this particular purpose, this particular fraternity, that was not an option because they didn't have the kind of financial resources to buy a property on campus. So leasing it through Joe was their best option. At present? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Sandy. Anybody else have any other comment? I can clarify this. Yes, Jimmy. Mr. Glover's question, we did check the ordinance. A fraternity and sorority house are allowable conditional uses in the R3, R4, and R5 zones, and they are not principal permitted use in any zone. So all fraternities and sororities will have to come before the board. They have been conditional uses for many years, but in the last two to three years, when this community redid our definition of family, setting a dwelling unit family is where a housekeeping unit is no more than four unrelated persons, which was primarily targeted at near-campus areas. That's when we also added a definition for fraternities and sororities in our zoning ordinance so that it would be clear as to what we considered a fraternity and sorority. Very good. Thank you. Anybody else? Well, we've heard both sides, and it's come to the point. Would anyone like to make a motion? Sure. Sure. You want to recess for five minutes? We're going to have a five-minute recess. Thank you. 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Take a seat, please. We'd appreciate that. We've discussed adding a couple conditions, and so, Jimmy, can you put those on a board for us? Yes, sir. Okay, and then how do you look at the boarding for the landscaping? I believe the board is considering two possible conditions, the first one being landscaping. I believe that the staff conditions for approval actually already, and the requirements of the zoning ordinance already incorporate the landscaping for the subject property. In order to comply with the requirements of the zoning ordinance, The applicant, along the back of their property, where I showed you the picture with the existing privacy fence and the two trees, there is a requirement that they would also plant a three-foot high hedge on their property so that you would have the fence, the hedge, and the trees to create a buffer between them and the single-family home. This is the applicant's proposal laid over top on a transparency over the existing aerial photography. And as we mentioned, the applicant is proposing to take out some of the asphalt that is in the parking lot today and plant more green areas. The staff has attributed that in number one, condition number one, that it be submitted in accordance with the submitted site plan. However, we are allowing the flexibility in case that going from the large parking area down to these seven parking spaces, If there is a need to change that functionally, traffic engineering could approve slightly less green space than what is shown on the plan if it's needed for functionality. Other than that, the applicant will be required to remove the asphalt and add the green areas and add the landscaping. And that is all inclusive in the first condition recommended by the staff. I believe that the board might also be considering a requirement for a six-month review. The staff would recommend, much like the Greg Kowalski one that was on your agenda earlier today, that in six months that our zoning enforcement staff will make a report to the board indicating whether we have received any complaints or if we have received any violations, anything of that nature. From that meeting, the board can decide on whether to just continue monitoring this conditional use as we do all conditional uses, or at that point you could choose to call them back and notify more people for a more intense hearing to be sure whether they are or are not following their conditions as approved today. The wording for that would be condition number five, that there shall be a six-month review, which would be January of 2013, and this will be a staff review only from our zoning enforcement. and from there the board can make a further decision on where to go with this application if they feel that there is a need to go further. Thank you, sir. Do we have any questions? If I could mention one more thing. Up in your first condition, you talked about seven parking spaces. I don't think there's actually room for seven parking spaces. so if there could be some leeway or if that could be reduced to possibly six parking spaces because right now the handicap unloading area is not ADA compliant and so by the time you widen that I don't see how you're going to maintain those seven spaces. The staff's concern on this one is that the zoning ordinance would require seven spaces for the fraternity with ten beds as it's being proposed today. We were trying to give flexibility to traffic engineering and the applicant to work out a functional parking lot for those seven spaces. If seven spaces cannot physically exist in that lot, will the applicant have to reduce the number of beds to match what's allowed by the legal parking spaces that can be obtained? It would be such a reduction because the requirement is five spaces plus one additional space for every five beds. So they would have to essentially go from ten beds down to five for this to meet that. I believe that could be an option for them, but I don't believe that it's a very realistic option. Why is it not realistic to have them adhere to the rules? Thank you. I was trying to say that I didn't think that it was a very realistic thing that the applicant would take it from 10 bedrooms down to five to meet with that. They could also find a parking space within 300 feet and make a lease agreement for the additional parking space if they needed to. and finally they would have the option they're not going to be in zoning compliance unless they are able to provide the seven parking spaces they would have the option to if they could not do it to make a new request come back to the board for a parking variance for this use too all of those are options that they could go go forward with that just my only concern with going down to six spaces right now that as this application is submitted it requires a minimum of seven parking spaces there's one of them have to be a handicap mr gallimore uh as far as the guidelines go that any type of parking parking lot requires handicap parking so i don't i don't know i don't see any way around it and you know the lot is only so big So that's what I'm saying. And the first handicapped space has to have an eight-foot wide unloading area. They're showing a five-foot wide unloading area. And I don't see where to get that extra three feet from. Mr. Simpson, would you like to respond? Yeah, we believe we have seven spaces. We had Mark McCain, who's a landscape architect, that did our site plan. In addition, Mr. Marshall also owns property within 300 feet that would have available parking in the event that we can't satisfy Division of Engineering's decision about the 7. Obviously, this board's decision and the additional recommendations is still subject to engineering sign-off on the parking. If we don't have it, we're not going to be able to do business unless we can demonstrate that we're going to be in compliance with the law. So that's what the law is. We have to comply. We're satisfied with these conditions of giving us six months. If it turns out that we can't provide the parking under the law, we're not going to be doing business. We believe we can do that, and we believe we should have the opportunity to demonstrate that we can to staff satisfactions as well as this board's in six months. Thank you, Ms. Simpson. Does the board have anything? As far as the condition number, the review, I personally would like for there to be notification and have people be able to come back in six months and express any concerns that they might have with if this petition is approved. So, Jimmy, would that be then that we would request a hearing or just be able to notify folks? Okay, very good. Do you want us to provide the notification of the applicant? I think if we could probably provide that. Yeah, I think the city. If we could provide that, I think that would be more efficient. Well, if there's no other issues to discuss, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve the appeal of seat 2012-37, the Lexington Property Group LLCs, for appeal for a conditional use permit to occupy an existing building as a fraternity house in a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 320 Rose Street for the reasons given by the staff and subject to the five conditions, as we see amended on the screen, from five or six, six conditions. How many are there? Five. Five conditions. Five conditions on the amended conditions from staff. Thank you, Mr. Glover. Do I have a second? I'm sorry, Tommy. I'll second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. We have three votes for. I vote for. So we've got three, four, and two against. Mr. Simpson, your application is approved. Thank you all. Thank you all very much. And for those here for the Stuart Lowenthal case, case number V201240, you all have been very very patient sitting here through the last two and a half hours but we will go ahead and get started but I do want to caution everybody in here and that we are going to lose a quorum at five o'clock so we will hear no further testimony after five o'clock we won't be able to take action on this after five o'clock and so I would suggest that if you all want to postpone this for another month, that is an option. Or if you think that we can get through this in 30 minutes, because one of our members has got to leave in 30 minutes, we will have to go ahead and dispense the proceedings at that time. I don't know if the applicant... Would you completely start over if you can't make a decision? We will not start again from scratch. What we would do is that we would take up testimony from where it was previously. And so, well, let me ask the applicant. Would you come up? Are you the applicant? Would you come up, please? State your name for us. Stuart Lowenthal. Mr. Lowenthal, do you want to proceed with this? Do you want to try to postpone it? And we'll have to ask the opposition as well, because it looks like we have several speakers that are going to be here, but we can certainly start this proceeding, but knowing that it would be suspended at 5 o'clock. Well, I'm overwhelmed by the number of dissenters, and so I don't want to go to take 30 more minutes of the time unless they want to postpone it. And I'm okay with that. Thank you, sir. It's up to you all. Are you all opposed to coming back at the next meeting? How long does he think his presentation would be? Mine's not going to be that long. Well, if yours is not that long and they have two or three spokespeople, maybe we could hear the case. Let me ask by a raise of hands to the opposition, how many of you plan to speak? One, two, three, four, five, six. If we can, of course anybody who wants to speak can speak, But I think that if you want to have this decision made by 5 o'clock or we'll be suspending it by then, we can certainly start with the proceedings and Jimmy. And I think we'll do it again. August 24th is your next regularly scheduled Board of Adjustment meeting. What's the pleasure of the board? The staff presentation is about three to four minutes. Okay. This property is located on page 2 of your agenda, V2012-40. This is a setback variance from 20 feet to 0 feet in order to allow a parking lot. I will go through these slides very quickly. They are very visual slides. Starting off first with the neighborhood character, the subject property is highlighted in yellow. This area is primarily dominated by single-family dwellings that were designed with parking to the rear of the houses. And as you go in, we can zoom in a little bit closer. You can see the subject property at 626 Castle Road. It is currently a duplex, one of the few duplexes in this area. This area is currently zoned R1E. It was down-zoned from an R2 zone to an R1E zone by the government, I believe, in 1998. This is, once again, looking at the neighborhood area. This is standing in the driveway of the subject property, looking up to the left, and you can see that there are a fairly standard row of houses set back with driveways. Looking to the right, you see the same thing. You can see the one car that is parked in their driveway, but that's not a parking spot adjacent to the driveway as being requested today. This is across the street looking down there, and I don't have one looking the other way because the sun was too much in the picture. I want to spend a little bit of time looking at this picture right here. This is looking directly across Castle Road at the subject property. It is a, this picture says a lot about this. I've highlighted there the proposed parking space. It would be, as it's requested, it would be between the front porch and the sidewalk. And also, according to their site plan, there would be a little bit of a taper that would come out to there for maneuvering room. This house is set back 30 feet. It has an eight-foot front porch that comes into it. Therefore, there's actually only 22 feet between the sidewalk and the front porch on the subject property. You can see that the applicant has begun construction of the requested parking space, but once our zoning enforcement staff informed them that they could not do it, there has not been any continued construction of this that we are aware of. The staff does have concerns not only that this parking space would not be in character with the surrounding neighborhood, but as proposed, it's a very awkward geometry. Once again, we would like to point out that there's a very large, significant tree there. I believe it's an oak tree. And in order to get the taper from the sidewalk along there, not only would that be a very out-of-the-ordinary apron for the property, it would also impact the critical root zone of that mature tree. Without that taper, you can see this is a very awkward geometry to get into and out of the proposed parking space. and so the staff has concerns about that. We believe that, as proposed, that the parking space could present itself with a nuisance where cars are regularly hanging over the sidewalk and causing a nuisance and safety problem for pedestrians. We do believe that there is an ability to provide an appropriate parking space on the subject property and the rear of the subject property. Looking down the driveway, you can see there's an existing one-car garage, and then there's a fence, and you can see the deck in that area. The staff believes that it is much more appropriate to provide an independently accessible parking space in the rear of this property rather than in the front of this property as it's proposed. In order to try and look at this, the staff took the applicant's site plan and did a two-scale 3D rendering of the subject property in order to evaluate whether our proposal for a rear parking space was feasible or not. And in doing so, the staff found that it is feasible to get a parking space to the rear of the subject property. It would be very tight. There's only about nine feet between the house and the existing single-car garage, and there's just about just under eight feet in between the deck and the garage. But that is still enough room, albeit tight, to get a 9x18 parking space immediately adjacent to the single-car garage. The staff also notes that if the applicant wished to redo the single-car detached garage and put in a two-car detached garage, then a lot of that tightness would go away and that there is adequate room. And so the staff's analysis is that it is more appropriate to put an additional parking space to the rear of the subject property. There is adequate room to do so without the requested variance or any variance to the zoning ordinance. In summary, our complete recommendation is in your staff report and on the agenda, but the staff is recommending disapproval of this request primarily because we feel that it will negatively alter the character of this existing neighborhood. it would be the only property in this entire neighborhood that the staff can find that would have a front parking space in between the building and the sidewalk. As proposed, there are poor geometrics with the proposed parking space, and that may cause a safety issue and nuisance to the neighborhood with cars hanging over the sidewalk, and that we do believe that there is adequate room in the rear of the lot in order to provide the requested parking space. Therefore, it could be considered a circumvention of the zoning ordinance since there is an opportunity to provide what he's asking for in compliance with the zoning ordinance. That concludes the staff presentation. I promised it would be quick. If you have any questions for me, I'll be available now or throughout the hearing. Very good. Anybody have any questions for Mr. Emmons? Thank you. Mr. Lowenthal, would you like to come back on? Mr. Lundtall, before you begin, obviously there's tremendous opposition to your plan here and also overwhelming opposition from planning and zoning. And I'd like to ask you if you would consider withdrawing your request and taking the staff recommendations or if you would like to proceed with your case. I don't mind coming back, but each dwelling is permitted by Article 16, Section 4, to have one parking space per dwelling off the street. And I'm sorry I understand them, but none of them are in the same situation because they all have off-street parking. And 30 years ago when I bought this duplex, this was not an issue because I could park in front of my house or on either side of my house. But they painted those lines yellow. And they further restricted parking in the 700 block of Tremont and Melrose. I've lost tenants. I had a senior couple that was retired. And they wouldn't rent it because I didn't have any off-street parking. I had an ophthalmologist, third-year resident. Same thing. They didn't rent it. I keep good care of my property. I compare it with any of those privately owned properties. I don't want to withdraw it, but I don't have to do it now either. But I would like to get my yard cleaned up, and it's been like that now for at least six weeks because you all did not meet, I think, in June when we could have met. So whatever your pleasure is and their pleasure so that they won't be rushed, and I'll put it off another two months. I think we're going to go ahead and proceed. We have a little bit of time. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Longthal? No, I'd like to hear his arguments, but I did think that the staff's report was convincing and that there are spaces in the rear that could satisfy the two spaces. Well, he took pictures of it, Mr. Emmons, but 7 1⁄2 feet is not a lot of room for a 5 1⁄2-foot car, and I would not want to do that and I think I'm a pretty good driver. Also, if I were to remove the garage and push back and put a double car garage in, that's a $25,000 expense with the paving and all and I think that's unfair to ask of me to do that. It also, that side of the duplex, belongs to the tenant that rents the one-bedroom side of the duplex. So now I have invaded his parking area, and I'm trying not to do that. I don't think it's fair. My tenants are only going to be as good as the amenities that I can offer them. The undergraduates don't really seem to make that much difference. But the issue didn't occur until we had some yellow lines. I've owned that property 30 years. Only the last two years have we had a problem. Are you saying that there are yellow lines on the street and then you can't park at the curb? Is that what you're saying? That's correct. And let me show you these things. And if you want to put those pictures up. Thank you. So that's the way the property looked before we did anything. You can see the yellow line in front. It's on the right side at 624 and 628. hate. There's no parking. I think it's unfair and I think it's dangerous to have people crossing the street with groceries and trying to get a spot. There are only three that are really convenient. The other pictures that you have there is the number two. The number two, I have it numbered on the side, is looking south. And people do park out front, but not in their yard. And there's a truck down there that's parked across the sidewalk. I've got plenty of room that nobody would be in a regular car, A standard-sized car would be parked across the sidewalk. The side that I don't have parking for is the three-bedroom, two-bath. And I had to try for a month, which is very unusual. I had a lot of calls, but a lot of folks said wouldn't take it because I couldn't provide them a parking place off the street. So when you think it's easy to park on the street, considering yourself that you would park on the street and carry your groceries across or at any time if you can find a parking place. Now, the university is not in session, and there's parking today. But you wait until the university is in session, and if there's any places, the students will take those places. Number three, I have just to show you that there is some shrub up there. there is that big tree in front, and it does partially hide the parking area. And I don't have to remove any of the landscaping that I have. Number four, I just wanted you to see that at the end of Castle, at the corner of Castle and Sunset, there is a house that has a parking pad out front. and I think there's one at 604 Castle which has some either side or... I'm not positive what it has, but it's not a conventional parking place. And then finally, when Mr. Emmons says you can do it in the back, there's really not a lot of room back there. There's a closet or an overhang that juts out of there and I don't know if you measured from that corner or not, but it's very tight. I'd have to take down the garage, and believe me, I did think about that. But it's just not doable by just putting a parking pad in there. Also, that garage is raised up at least a couple of feet, so it would be a dip. Did you go to the backyard beyond the fence? no sir i i just walked down the driveway and then used the zoom so that backyard drops down the other thing is you said that it's very awkward to park in the front did you ever try to park in the front on that gravel no sir i'm just using my site plan review experience well i have and without the widening of the apron. And it's doable. I did it in a full-size sedan. And it's not a problem. It's a whole lot easier than trying to back in and out on the street and park on that busy street than I could back and maneuver the car into that place. So I disagree with your finding on it being very awkward. Could I ask you a question about the current garage? Sure. Or it doesn't look like the tenants are parking inside it. You might have lawnmowers and tenant storage in there. That is a parking place, and in the winter, my tenant on that side does use the garage, and it is insulated. It's not a very pretty picture. Well, you'd have to get out and open those doors individually, I'm sure, that you could, especially if snow was coming. And if you did that, then you couldn't get the car out. What I was really getting around to is I wouldn't want you to lose the storage, because I know having a residence, there's outside storage that's necessary. But it looks like, I don't know where your side property line is there, but would it be illegal to have two spaces side by side in front of the garage? It would not be illegal, but I don't know that there is room to actually park in there. I think we only have about three feet. I went on the site and looked at the site plan. Well, it looked like the garage is hanging over into the grass. I didn't know if you had two or three or four feet over there that you could expand on the property edge side and still not crowd that stoop. I understand what you're saying. I believe that the driveways are supposed to be 18 inches off of the neighbor's property line. We'll look at the site plan and see what we have. Could you go all the way to the property line with a variance? I believe you could. You could request it. Just an idea. Anything else, Mr. Longthorn? Yeah, I do. I'd like to just go to the last three summaries. The summary that Mr. Emmons made, the staff recommendations for disapproval. The first one is that it would alter the character of the neighborhood. There are 136 properties in that neighborhood. My property is .7% of the entire area. if I'd reduced it down to just this 9 by 18 parking, 18 foot parking area, it's a .16, it's 1,600 of the whole area. I don't see how that would alter the character of the entire area, 1,600 of the whole area. Now, the reason my situation is unique is that I don't have a parking place off the street for my dwelling unit. I have one for one dwelling unit, but none for the large dwelling unit. I don't think that it is out of order. and it fits with the regulations of Article 16, Section 4, that each dwelling unit is permitted one parking place. And so that's what I'm asking for, what I'm entitled. And the reason I'm asking is because I've got yellow curves there and no place to park in front of the house. and I'm lucky if the other places on the street will be available when school's in session. As the owner, I hope that I'm entitled to make the property function economically for me as a duplex. That's what I bought 30 years ago. and the better the upgrades I have, the better the tenants and the neighbors will be. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lenton. Anybody have any other questions for him? Mr. Chairman, if I may during the break, I forgot to pass out the letters of opposition that the staff had received. There were 23 of them in my rush to do my presentation. I forgot to hand these to the board. I'll do that now. Okay, please do. May I make a suggestion that perhaps the opposition consolidate their opposition to one speaker so we can get done today? Otherwise, if we don't do that, this application may have to be postponed until the next regularly scheduled hearing, which means that gravel and such that's been sitting there since June will likely sit there until August. Yes, you can have two speakers, but Mr. Glover actually has to leave. at 5 o'clock. So you can have two speakers, and they're going to have to make their points very succinct. And let's get started. Please leave us a couple of minutes to make a motion. Pardon? Yes. Please leave us two minutes to make a motion by that clock. My name is Wayne Waddell. I live at 617 Castle. I'm diagonally across from the subject property. My wife and I have lived there for 30 years. We're in opposition to this primarily because it's just really inconsistent with the neighborhood. All the houses are on an even setback. And in this two-block stretch of castle, there are 20 homes. They have front porches that people use. The yards are landscaped. There is no front yard parking in this two-block area. As it came out in the discussion from the applicant, there are other options available. He does have on-street parking. The curb directly in front of his house is yellow-lined, as it is in front of mine, but there are six on-street parking spaces in the short second block of Castle where he lives. There are six on the block where I live. There's on-street parking on the north side of Melrose just to the east of Castle, which is like 40 feet away from his property. and he's got other options on his own property as well. And I think one thing we didn't emphasize here that we need to, that we're in the infill and redevelopment area, and 16.4B of the zoning ordinance says you cannot have a parking space in the front yard if it's in the infill and redevelopment area. So it's clearly prohibited in the ordinance, and I don't think this will adversely impact the whole neighborhood. That's why all the people are down here, I think, because we're in one of these close-in neighborhoods in the U.K., and we have to be ever vigilant that these changes in the character of our neighborhood can cause us to get on a slippery slope, and that's what people are down here for. That's why you've got 25 letters and 15 people appearing here today. So in the 30 years that I've lived across the street from this property, It's never stayed unrented for any significant period of time. It's always rented. It's popular. It's close in. There's an architecture student and a young couple on one side. There's been almost a permanent resident on the other. So he's not suffering any hardship here. He's got plenty of other options. And this is clearly a circumvention of the zoning ordinance in the infill and redevelopment area. Why are there yellow curbs? The city came in because of the parking on the street, not so much the overall volume, but the street's narrow. And if a car was parked on this side of the street and one directly across, there was a narrow trough and there was difficulty for the emergency vehicles to get through. So they've used a yellow line pattern so that the parking is sort of staggered. So you can have sort of a slalom-like ability to get through there. So there were some slight reductions, but as I said in this block, there are six on-street spaces, and the tenants can walk across the front of one yard and be to Melrose, and there's parking all the way down one side of Melrose that's available. Is that what this graphic behind us or in front of us is showing? Is that the yellow lines on the street? That's the existing yellow lines, yes. Okay, thanks. On Castle? Yes. Thank you. Mr. Longcote, you'll have a chance for rebuttal, but we said that we would hear two speakers from opposition. Would the second speaker like to speak? State your name, please, sir. I would. My name is Clyde Simmons, and I live with my wife as an owner-occupant in the 600 block of Castle, diagonally across the street from this particular property. I have lived there with my wife and family for 31 years. Mr. Lowenthal has not been a good neighbor. We are a neighborly neighborhood. And his absentee ownership or management of that property has not been a pleasant experience for us. I've had to call him at 3 o'clock in the morning because of drunken parties at that house that he rented to undergraduates, as he called them. The neighbors that we have there now appear to be very fine people. He has no problem renting it. I have to tell you that what he has done, by his own admission, by the pictures that he has posed, is absolutely in opposition to what he has said here today. He has gone ahead while his next-door neighbor was away on vacation and attempted to build a fence between their house and his house, attempted to build a fence that he knew because of his ownership of other properties and his management of other properties was strictly out of code. That was stopped only because they came home from vacation. In addition, he has not concreted the pad yet, but he has built the pad. The pad is already there. We haven't had the hearing yet. The man will do anything under the radar that he feels is necessary to enhance his position in the neighborhood, the heck with the rest of us. This is a neighborly neighborhood. My next-door neighbor has been there 50 years. Several of us have been there over 30 years. It is a very stable neighborhood, and Mr. Lowenthal is out of bounds. And I would ask you to take that into consideration, because he will continue, as long as he is allowed, to run under the radar. And he will continue to do things that he knows, without question, are out of code. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Simmons. Mr. Longthal, you have a minute. Would you like anything else to add? Mr. Singleton, I'm very sorry. I thought I was a good neighbor. I keep up my property. I've got seven pieces of property. Mr. Longthal, you need to be addressing this board, not the gentleman. I'm sorry that he feels I'm a bad neighbor. I don't think that's the issue. But as far as a fence, that's really not the issue. But I had a building permit for that fence. I just asked what I was going to say, is if the property, could somebody exchange that yellow line and take that yellow line out of the front of my house where people could park, and you put a yellow line in front of your house across the street, that never was a problem before, but it is a problem now. Thank you. Does the board have any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Longthal. We've heard from the opposition. We've heard from staff. We've heard from the applicant. I'd entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move we disapprove V-2012-40 Stuart Logan Falls' appeal for a variance to reduce the required front yard from 20 feet to 0 feet to allow construction of an additional parking space in a single-family residential zone within the defined infill and redevelopment area on property located at 626 Castle, based on the three reasons provided by the staff. Thank you, Mr. Griggs. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Mr. Lomthal, Island V-2012, appeal for a variance to reduce the required front yard from 20 feet to zero feet to allow construction of an additional parking space and single-family resident with the defined infill and redevelopment area and property located at 626 Castle Road is denied. This case is over. I'd like to ask the staff if they have anything that they would like to add. Just real quick, let the board know that on July 10, 2012, new regulations were passed increasing the required notice for conditional uses and administrative appeals. Instead of a 400-foot notice radius, it's now a 500-foot notice radius. Neighborhood notice of duly registered neighborhood associations is also a requirement. and for conditional uses, they will also have a sign posted in the front of their property. So there are new requirements for those types of uses that have gone into effect. That's all the staff has to say. Thank you. Thank you all for being so patient. Motion to adjourn. So moved, Mr. Glover. Can I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. this meeting is adjourned thank you all you I'm going to go to the next episode.