Thank you. This April meeting of the Board of Adjustment to Order, I'd like to ask for anybody to please turn off your cell phones, and if you need to take a call, please do it outside in the lobby. I'd also like for everyone who is going to testify today, would you please stand? Anyone that is going to come to the podium, please stand. Would you raise your right hand? Do you agree to speak the truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you very much. Before I read the agenda, are there any withdrawals, Mr. Emmons? The staff has not received any. I believe that there is a member of the audience who would like to address the board for that. Would you step forward, please, and state your name? Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Chad Dickin. I would like to voluntarily withdraw my appeal to establish a garden center at 3280 Clays Mill Road on the understanding that there's a six-month period before we can reapply again. We'd like to take that time to work with the board as well as the neighborhood associations to make revisions to the original and then file again in the fall. Very good. Mr. Dickens, thank you. That's item C-2013, 13 on page 3. I know we do not have to have a formal motion to accept the withdrawal. Does anybody on the board have any questions for Mr. Dickens? please note that we recognize the withdrawal from the agenda thank you sir well I'd like to go ahead and read the agenda I'm going to ask if the applicant is present if there's no opposition we're going to hear those that have been approved by staff first if there is opposition we always like for the applicant and any opposition to step out in the hall and try to resolve those cases before we begin we did get minutes of our march 29th meeting and those were sent to us by miss howard earlier this week because the board had an opportunity to look over the minutes there's only one change that i'd like to see and that is the action toward the end down into the first page right at the end of item one it says the motion was made by miss meyer seconded by Mr. Glover and carried unanimously to postpone C-2013 Chad Dickens until the March 29th meeting. That should actually say April 26th. We'll make sure that correction is noted. Ms. Howard, we read your minutes. Thank you all. Thank you all. The first case is Ball Homes V-2013-23. Do we want to approve the minutes? Oh, I'm sorry. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We'll go ahead and sound the agenda. Ball Homes V201323 appeals for a variance to reduce a required 25-foot setback from the floodplain in order to construct a duplex and expansion area residential zone at 501 Lorenzo Place. Is the applicant here? Ms. Wiseman, is there any opposition? Is there any opposition to this request? Okay. The second item we have is item 2013-24, Habitat for Humanity. Appeals for a variance to reduce a required setback along Willard Street from 30 feet to 10 feet in order to construct a single-family residence in the single-family residential zone at 969 Valley Avenue. Is the applicant present? All right. Is there any opposition? Very good. The third item, V201325, Christina Ravazzi. Thank you. Thank you for getting that. Correct. Appeals for variance to reduce a required side yard from 3 feet to 0 feet in order to install a privacy fence along the property line in a planned neighborhood at 316 Lob Lolly Court. I hope I got that right. Very good. Is there any opposition here today? Okay. The next item was Mr. Dickon, and he is withdrawal. Item 2013-19, Steve Millard, appeals for conditional use permit to establish a home occupation, leatherworking in a single-family residential at 4264 Foresight Drive. Is the applicant here? Yes. Is there any opposition? All right. The next item is item 2013-21, STH Enterprises, appeals for conditional use to establish an indoor recreation facility in a wholesale and warehouse business zone at 3025 Blake James Drive. Is the applicant here? Here. Is there any opposition? Very good. And then the next item is item C-2013-22, Holston Gases, appeals for conditional use permit for storage and sale of propane gas in a light industrial zone at 600 Blue Sky Parkway. Is that applicant here? Yes, sir. Is there any opposition to this request? Okay. We have an administrative review for the new republic. Item 2013-20, appeals for administrative review to change one legal nonconforming use, which is a major automobile and truck repair, to another, which is microbrewery in a neighborhood business zone at 266 Jefferson Street. Is the applicant here? Yes. Is there any opposition? There's no opposition, but staff has recommended disapproval, so Mr. Murphy will hear your case a little bit later on. I'd like to call the first case, item 2013-23, Ball Homes. Mr. Chairman, as they're coming to the podium, I'd just like to point out that all of the required notice for all the applications, including those plans that require to have a sign posted on the property, has been done for all of the applications. So noted. Thank you, Mr. Emmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the commission, I'm Rena Wiseman. I'm here for Ball Homes. We have reviewed the staff report and the two conditions, and we are in agreement with those and ask your approval. Very good. The staff has recommended approval. Ms. Wiseman, are there any questions from members of the board? If there are no questions, we'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move to approve the 2013-23 Ball Homes appeal for a variance to reduce the required 25-foot setback from the floodplain in order to construct a duplex in an expansion area residential zone at 501 Lorenzo Place as recommended by the staff and subject to the two conditions as recommended by staff. Thank you, Ms. White. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moore. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Ms. Moore. Thanks very much. The second item is item V2013-24, Habitat for Humanity. If the applicant would come forward again, staff has recommended approval subject to two conditions. Would you please identify yourself? Kevin Phillips with Interest Engineering here representing Habitat for Humanity. So you've seen the conditions of set board by the staff? And we are in agreement with those two conditions. Request your approval. Very good. Does anyone on the board have any questions? If none, we'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move to approve the 2013-24 Lexington Habitat for Humanities appeal for a variance to reduce the required setback along Willard Street from 30 feet to 10 feet in order to construct a single-family residence in a single-family residence R1D zone at 969 Valley Avenue as recommended by staff and subject to the two conditions. Second. Very good. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. Good luck. The third item, I'm on V2013-25, Christina Razavi. Razavi. Razavi. I got closer, though. That was pretty good. Staff has recommended approval subject to one condition. Have you reviewed that condition? Yes. Yes. That was the step before I did this. Very good. Okay. Does the board have any questions? If not, we'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move we approve V20-13-25 Christina Ravazi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi-Razavi- Good luck. Thank you. I believe the next case is C-2013-19. Steve Millard appeals for conditional use to establish a home occupation in single-family residence. If you would, come up and introduce yourself. And again, staff has recommended approval. Good afternoon. I'm Steve Millard. Sorry. Very good. The staff has recommended approval subject to five recommendations or conditions. Do you agree with those? I do. Very good. Is anybody on the board? Mr. Chairman, the staff did receive one letter from a neighboring property owner that is a glowing recommendation and request for approval for this application. Very good. Thank you. If not, we'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve seat 2013-19 Steve Millard's appeal for a conditional use permit to establish a home occupation leatherworking in a single-family residential zone at 4264 Forsyth Drive for the reasons recommended by staff and subject to the five conditions listed by staff. Thank you, Mr. Glover. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Myers. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I have a question, Mr. Miller. Yes. You're going to sell these on the internet? Yes. What's your internet address? I might want to buy a belt. Well, I don't have all that set up quite yet. I can get in touch with you, though. We'll look for it. Thanks. Make sure to charge him extra. Thank you very much, Mr. Millar. I believe the next case is STH Enterprises C-2013-21 Appeals for conditional use to establish an indoor recreation facility. would you state your name for the record please? Steve Hatton. Mr. Hatton the staff has recommended approval subject to five conditions. Do you agree with those conditions? We do agree to those. Very good. Does anybody from the board have any questions? If not we'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair I move that C-2013-21 STH to Enterprises LLC appeal for conditional use permit to establish a new into a recreational facility, go-karts, miniature golf games, concessions, et cetera, and a wholesale and warehouse business zone at 3025 Blake James Drive be approved for the reasons recommended by the staff and subject to the five conditions recommended by the staff. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Do we have a second? I'll second. Very good. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. All right, next slide. Our next item is item C201322, Holston Gases, Appeals for Conditional Use, permit for storage and sale of propane gas. And state your name for the record, sir. Joe Baxter. Mr. Baxter, the staff has recommended approval subject to three conditions. Do you agree to abide by those? We do. Very good. Does the board have any questions for Mr. Baxter? Security issues there. Is there a single fence around the property? The whole property is already fenced and gated and locked. Is there any motion sensors or any, I'm just wondering about. They're not right now. Mischief. Yeah, it was a concrete plant before, so it didn't really have any kind of flammable gases or anything like that. But we normally do motion sensing lights. You do have motion sensing lights on the place? We do not right now. And there's a security company hired to patrol Blue Sky Parkway, isn't there? Right. Do you have to subscribe to that service? No. So you are intending to put motion sensing lights on the property? Yeah, we'll probably have four lights in each corner. One light in each corner, so four lights. That's not one of the conditions that the staff is recommending. Would that be okay to add that? That's fine. We'll draft that and put it on the overhead for you. Thank you. Thank you. Give us a minute, Mr. Baxter. We'll put that up there. One other question. I know the cost of this is coming down each year, but what about security cameras? It is not currently equipped with any security cameras. We typically, with gates and alarms and lights, we haven't had to do that in the past. Did you say you do have an alarm on the gate? No, on buildings. We have another property across Blue Sky which has alarms on it and motion sensing lights and all that. but currently there's nothing there, no security cameras. Well, I've raised the issue. If any of the other members of the board think we ought to do more, I'd listen to it. All right. It seems like a reasonable request to me, you know, just for protection. As you said, the mischief factor, that, yes, you do have someone patrolling, but that person isn't there. 24-7. Right. So just like a security camera system just to record, but not to broadcast like close circle or anything like that. No, I hadn't really thought this completely through, but I was impressed with the way they were able to find the perpetrators in Boston and just wondered if we want to have even the sight of a camera above those tanks might be a deterrent. Yeah, we actually have dummy cameras on our current site right now where we store other, you know, gas that can be dangerous. One of the things that we might do that might satisfy both the concerns of the board is to strike the word lights and just have that fourth condition be that applicant shall install motion-sensitive security on the property, and that would give you the leeway to install both lighting and cameras if you so choose. I'd agree to that. We might suggest replacing the word lights with equipment. That'd be fine. Is that okay with you, Mr. Griggs? I think, well, I think Jim has raised a very valid point, and it seems to me that the cameras would be more effective than the lights or having both of them? Probably have to have both, I guess, really. It would be hard to have cameras at night. Have cameras without lights, right? Yeah. Are there any other? I'm sorry. I was just going to say, Mr. Glover, would you suggest that we add lights and camera, add camera to that fourth condition? I wasn't going to suggest that, But I'm sensitive to the applicant's willingness to abide by our request to provide security. I would leave it up to the applicant to decide how he wants to protect his property. Yeah, you can buy, like, a camera at Walmart for $70 that just records X amount of hours. It's all digital. You can just save that tape. as long as the board would be okay with deleting that, as long as there were no incidents deleting it to where you just didn't have endless data to be collected. You know, for example, if you had it for, if that camera could capture 30 days worth of footage at night, could you delete it after that and just restart with the same chip? Sure, you're talking about basically black box technology with a single loop. Right, and it's infrared too. It's motion sensing. A lot of people use them for hunting. Yeah, I would, I mean, I'm comfortable, I mean, I don't know what you all feel, but I'm comfortable leaving it up to you to determine what kind of equipment you want to use to protect your property. I also agree that there ought to be, because of the nature of the storage materials that are being stored, that there ought to be some kind of security out there that may not necessarily apply to storing mulch or something like that. So you understand what we're talking about? Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's the concern of the board. I'd agree to the camera. I'm fine with it as long as you're okay with not storing that data endlessly. Well, then why don't we put lights and camera as a requirement so that some other manager would know what the rules are and it wouldn't just be up to them. Right. That's fine with me. Yeah, that'd be fine. I appreciate your concern, but that's fine. That's not a huge expense. Well, now it says the applicant shall install motion sensitive security lights and equipment and cameras on the property. I think we've given you three options there. So maybe whoever makes the motion can just pick one of those three. their lights and camera equipment any of those i think will work mr glover mr griggs you want to make a motion i'll make a motion and that is to approve c 2013-22 holston's gas inc appeals for a conditional use permit for the store and sale of propane gas in light industrial zone at 600 blue sky parkway based on the staff's recommendation and subject to the four conditions, the fourth one being that the applicant agrees to install security lighting and recording cameras on site. Thank you. Thank you. Well, hold on just a second. We've got a motion. We don't have a second, and we haven't approved it yet. Could we get a second? Second, Ms. White. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Mr. Baxter. Good luck. I believe the last case on the agenda we've got is the Administrative Review 2013 New Republic appeal for an administrative review to change one legal non-conforming use to another in a neighborhood business zone at 266 Jefferson Street. And I would first, obviously the staff has recommended disapproval. And as we, as is our nature, we'd like to hear from the staff first and then we will hear from the applicant. Mr. Chairman, the staff has received several letters, both with opposition and concern for the proposal and in support of the proposal. I've tried to put them out in two stacks for the ones that are in favor and the ones that are opposed. I can pass those out to the board now. Thank you, sir. I'll start that at the other end and bring it back this way. I'm sorry if I missed, but did you want a staff presentation? Yes, we wanted to hear from staff first, and then we'll hear from the applicant. The case is A. 2013-20 for New Republic LLC. This is an administrative appeal to change one nonconforming use to another. The existing nonconforming use on the subject property is a major automobile repair in a B1 zone. Our B1 zone is our neighborhood business zone. The applicant is proposing a microbrewery that would be in addition to a restaurant that is being proposed. The staff would like to point out, we pointed out in our staff report, and just make it clear here that the restaurant portion is an allowable use in the B1. It's not technically a part of the board's decision today. If I can, I would like to start off by running through several photographs of the subject property and the surrounding uses. the first photograph is an aerial photo generally looking from the north looking south down jefferson street toward main street the property is an l-shaped property at the corner of jefferson street and third street the the property also technically has frontage in the back of the property along Miller Street, which is the alley that you see running at the back of the property, and Hugh Alley, which runs beside the subject property. And I apologize, but I do not have a laser pointer. I have one now. Thank you, Bill. To recap, the property is an L-shaped property that comes along through this area. There is one residential property that is immediately adjacent to the subject property that it wraps around. that even though it's a residential use it is in a b1 zone miller street it's kind of hard to see on this but it is an alley that comes between second street and third street and hugh alley for those to help orient you this is the fire station along jefferson street that's next to hugh alley The applicant's request, at the time whenever this request was initially made, there was some question as to whether there was actually a legal nonconforming use on this site or not. To explain where some of that confusion came in is that there's a difference in our zoning ordinance between minor auto repair and major automobile repair. And without giving, the definitions are listed in there, but basically a minor auto repair is if you're checking fluids, changing out tires, the types of things that you can do at a quick oil change type of facility. Whereas a major automobile repair is where you're doing major body work, you're dropping engines, changing out transmissions, those types of things. For this subject property, on that L-shaped property, there's actually two portions to the same building. If we can go through the individual pictures now. These are some pictures from on the ground. This is looking directly at the subject property from that same corner. We'll try and clear it up a little bit. But what you see in the foreground is the main portion where the applicants are going to put in the restaurant. We believe that was originally the convenience store portion of this property used to be a service station. And that was where the pumps were out in the parking lot, essentially where I'm standing taking the picture. The blue building that is attached to it is the portion of the building where the microbrewery is requested, and that's where the automobile service station was. The staff has researched this in great detail. We traced this use back to July 1940 when the Board of Adjustment approved a variance to allow the opening of the service station to be within 10 feet of a residential zone. Looking at the 1930 zoning ordinance, there was no difference. That zoning ordinance at that time did not distinguish between major and minor auto repair. Automobile repair was just a part of a service station, and that's what they were asking for. So it's, and our staff report and the applicant filled in many of the blanks. The staff independently did a lot of research also. So the staff report has a combined effort between the research that the staff has done and the research that the applicant has done. And what we found was that there has been a very plausible major automobile repair use at this location, located in that blue portion of the building, since 1940 until present. But once the staff was satisfied with that question that it's plausible enough that there was a legal nonconforming use for which the applicant can ask to change one nonconforming use to the other, that's when the staff report moves on to that next level. If we can finish kind of going through the pictures, this is standing on the subject property looking down 3rd Street toward Newtown Pike, just to kind of give you a feel for the intersection. And we can flip through these fairly quickly. This is looking directly across 3rd Street at the building on the corner, known now as the Green Lantern Bar. And then there are other residential uses along 3rd Street. This is really the only picture I have. I don't have a front-on picture of the residential property that this property bounds on two sides. this is their driveway and their garden area back to their garage. The subject property is just on the other side of those trees, and you can see a little bit of the blue of the building over top of their garage. You can see that roof line. Continuing around the property, this is coming up Miller Street, looking at the back of the blue building where the microbrewery is proposed. You can see in this photo that the outdoor areas currently has a wooden privacy fence. You can also see a brick wall that separates the residential property from this property. And Hugh Alley is on the left side of this picture. And that shows it a little bit better as Hugh Alley. And you're looking back toward Jefferson Street. This is standing in the same location looking down Miller Street and you can see towards 2nd Street you can see some of the residential properties and the business properties, essentially the business properties that front on Jefferson Street back up to Miller Street and there is some residential properties that front on Miller Street itself. this is looking holding my camera up as best I could as short as I am over that fence looking at the back of the subject property where you can see it has an overhead door that goes into the outdoor area and that's what I saw on the day that I was there if I can keep on looking around. That's another essentially looking back towards Miller Street. This is looking at the side of the building down Hugh Alley. And this is back out on Jefferson Street, just a front end shot of the portion of the building that the microberry is in. As the staff reviewed this request to change one non-conforming use to another, there were several things that we looked at. The regulations essentially allow the Board to approve such a change in use as long as the intensity of the requested use is equal to or less than the intensity of the existing use. And as the staff was looking at this, the first and foremost thing that we look at is where are those uses first allowed? The major automobile repair is first allowed in our B4 zone, which is our wholesale and warehouse zone. A microbrewery that is requested as a principal permitted use and also the auto repair as a principal permitted use is first allowed in the B4 zone. As a principal permitted use, a microbrewery is first allowed in an I1 zone, which is our light industrial zone. The light industrial zone is considered a more intense zone than the B4 zone. The applicant, and we did recognize this, the applicant, there is a zone in which the B2 zone, in which both the major automobile repair and a microbrewery are first allowed as accessory uses. However, in looking at this complicated matter, the staff felt that it was a stronger position to look at where those uses are first allowed as principal permitted uses in the zone. In addition to that, there were two other factors that went into the application that led the staff to the recommendation of disapproval. And those are the operation that was being proposed. first of all the microbrewery was proposed to have a canning operation that went along with the microbrewery so that they would be able to brew the beer and have the equipment to put it in cans and then distribute it out for sale the the second one was that the applicants were proposing to use the rear portion of the lot for outdoor storage of the materials, meaning the grains and stuff like that, have storage bins in the rear of the property outside of the property. That would mean that something that was integral to the use of manufacturing the beer was exceeding outside the building, and so that it was something that was, you could not do the manufacturing process of the beer without the raw materials that were being stored outside. The staff felt that those were also indications that this proposed non-conforming use was more intense than the previous use of major automobile repair. For those reasons, the staff did recommend disapproval of this request because we did feel that it was an expansion of the use and that it would be more intense. That is this. Both of our findings are listed both on your agenda and at the end of the staff report. And we are recommending disapproval because the requested microbrewery would result in a more intense use, first allowed as a principal use in the I-1 zone versus the existing nonconforming use, which is first allowed in the B-4 zone. And then the second item that the requested microbrewery will be expanding in scope beyond the current operation of a major automobile repair by adding the outdoor storage and the canning processes. If you have any questions for the staff, I will be happy to answer them and, of course, will be available throughout the hearing. Very good. Before we hear the applicant, does any member of the board have any questions for Mr. Emmons? I do. Mr. Emmons, I'm not sure I understand the objection of the staff, whether it's a substantive or procedural objection. because as I read your report, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I understood that had the applicant, instead of requesting a change of uses, if it had requested simply a conditional use in a B1 zone, it might have received a more favorable review. Thank you for bringing that up. I glossed over that in my presentation. In the B1 zone, an allowable conditional use is what is called a brew pub. A brew pub, by definition, is half restaurant, half microbrewery. But there are two important distinctions that, by definition, a brew pub is not allowed any bottling equipment, and the staff has interpreted that canning equipment is the same as the bottling equipment. and that's permanently installed equipment, and it's not allowed to have any outdoor storage. It has to be all indoor. Because the applicant, whenever they had applied for this application, because their business plan involved the canning process and because their business plan involved the outdoor storage, they did not ask for the conditional use of the brew pub. Instead, they ask for changing one non-conforming use to another. Is the reason for the distinction being made between a microbrewery and a brew pub because of noise or odor or light pollution? Is that the distinction? I understand the mechanical distinction, but is the reason for distinguishing in the zoning regulations the difference between a brew pub and a microbrewery because of any of those three things I've mentioned? In reading the Planning Commission minutes for when these text amendments were going through in 1995 to allow the microbrewery, you can tell that they saw that adding the canning and bottling equipment was a distinction that this was more of an industrial manufacturing use. Plus also there was some concern of some of the planning commission members at that time about having essentially being able to go to the restaurant and then walk away with a bottled beer in hand. There was concern at that time in that mind. At any rate, that is where those regulations were put into place. Is there anyone else? Mr. Greggs? Did the applicant, why are they, maybe we need to ask them, but why were they opposed to storing the grain inside the building? I believe that early on Mr. Murphy will address those concerns. To the board. Before we let you go, Jimmy, as I am trying to interpret from the application and the location of the property. This piece of property is at the corner of three different zones. Is that correct? I mean, it itself is B1, but to the north is an R2, and to the east is an R4? Yes. I believe Bill is pulling out the zoning map. The notification area map does have the zoning on it. It's not exactly north, south, east, and west because it's kind of conced. No, it's not. But in general, there is a combination of residential and business zoning in this corridor. I believe everybody is well aware that Jefferson Street Corridor itself would be considered a mixed-use corridor, having several commercial and residential uses. right and that and that corridor is sort of has been in transition for several years absolutely in the i would say in the last five years that there has been a a rebirth of that corridor and with several new uses both residential and commercial going in the subject property is in the center of the circle at 266 jefferson street the b1 zone extends past hue alley and This lot at 246 is the fire station, and 478 is the residential property. There is directly across the street are the R4 zones. There are three residential properties, and I believe residential uses, and then the Green Lantern Bar on the corner, which is also zone B1. And once you cross Jefferson Street intersection onto 3rd Street, this area, I believe, is zoned R2 for those residential. And that portion is definitely residential in character. You need a new light on your phone. I apologize. I apologize. I have new contacts. Oh, the colored map helps. Let's see. The subject property is right here in red in B1, and you can see the red B1 zone. The R2 is in orange on 3rd Street and further down on 3rd Street. These three properties are the R4 and then the Green Lantern is also B1. So there are a multitude of zones in the area. Does anybody have any other questions? Thank you, Mr. Evans. Thank you. I think we're ready, Mr. Murphy, to hear from the applicant. Thank you very much. I'm Dick Murphy. I'm representing the applicant on this, Chaz Hyde, who's a professional planner with me. He's getting some handouts for you, and I've got a couple more copies for the staff over here. One of those is a handout with some history, the ones labeled applicants exhibit, and then we've assembled a number of the, I used to call them letters of support, but they're emails of support now that staff has received from neighboring property owners. As I said, I'm pleased today to be representing New Republic LLC, which is the entity that wants to place the microbrewery in this property. With me today is Robert Garrison and Christopher Heflin. They are two of the principals involved in New Republic LLC. Their partner is Tony Mancuso, so the three of them are the company. Robert and Christopher are the two main people involved in the day-to-day operation of the business. Also with me today is Tony Barrett and Joey Zvek from Barrett Partners, our designers. Rebecca Burnworth, who's the architect, who's doing the interior design and redo of the interior of this building. I've introduced Chas Height to you already, a professional planner. Christopher and Robert and Tony operate right now the Chase Tap Room in Victorian Square, which has been there for over five years. They've operated other establishments over there, the Blue Agave Cantina and a couple other businesses, restaurants, entertainment places in Victorian Square. And they've been successful. As I said, they've operated over five years. They've developed an upscale clientele of young professionals in their 30s and 40s over that five years. Unfortunately, you probably read of the recent change in ownership of Victorian Square, and when their lease came up, their space was rented out to the Saul Good restaurant, which is going to be moving in and remodeling the space for the restaurant purposes over in Victorian Square. So Chris and Anthony and Robert were faced with finding a new location. Now, they were aware of this property at 266 Jefferson Street because they'd been renting out the back part of that property. You saw from the photographs the concrete block property in the rear. And that's because they are sports car enthusiasts, and they race their sports car. And they had rented out and still have rented out the back part of that building for major automobile repair on their sports cars. They do it for themselves and for others as well. They've rented it from Abe Martha, who is the owner of that property, and who previously operated Abe's foreign auto at this location. So they obviously had their eye on this property and have been using it for major automobile repair up until today. And when they found out that they had to move, they took a better look at this property at 266 Jefferson Street. They had not been renting the front part. The front part had been a convenience store. Tony, do you have the – we've got a photograph off the PVA, and this is on Tony's iPad. I trust we can give you a paper print of this so you won't have to take Tony's iPad into exhibit on this thing. But we just wanted to show you what this was looking like during a previous tenancy on the front of the property. That's a corner mark deli. Chris and Robert and Tony rented the back part of the property, the concrete block property, for their major automobile repair. But if you could show the second picture, which just shows the way it is now, the major improvement they've done without even moving in. This is just sort of cosmetic work on the front of this business. They've put their logo up there at Chase, and they've cleaned off the brickwork on the front. All this they've been doing, they do rent it. It's not obviously being used as a microbrewery or restaurant or anything at this point. They're just using the back for the major automobile repair, but in anticipation, hopefully, of being able to use this property. When they came in here, they'd been participating with the neighborhood. There were some activities going on at the store. that were possibly deleterious to the neighborhood, bath salts and synthetic marijuana and that kind of thing. They participated with the neighborhoods to try to get the situation rectified in the corner building, which they have done. They've been very pleased about the success they've had, we think, in upgrading this piece of property. I wanted to tell you a little bit about what we're going to be doing and what has been done in the rear building because of the non-conforming use. I think Mr. Emmons mentioned that the staff pretty much agreed that there had been established here a long-standing non-conforming use for use as major automobile repair in the rear. What we've discovered in doing research on that is that right now, of course, the back part is built for major automobile repair. It has four automobile hydraulic lifts in it. It has an expensive auto exhaust ventilation system in it. It has a compressed air system for operating the compressed air tools that they use. It has four engine hoists in it, or it has engine hoists in it as well to hoist engines out of cars. And in our research on this, we discovered that going back to the 1930s, there has been a service station in this location. If you look at my exhibits, the very first page in the exhibit is a memo we found in the building inspection file in 1940, in which there was a permit granted through the Board of Adjustment for a gasoline service station on the southeastern corner. It was actually to Dixie Bell Dairy, which operates the service station. and the second page is a photograph out of the 1950 Sanborn map here in Lexington down at the lower left-hand corner I've got an arrow pointing to this property where you can see the outline of both the corner building and the back concrete block building there existing in 1950 and I asked Mr. Height the professional planner to do some research on past use of the property we traced this back through the city directory to a number of automobile service and repair businesses through there. Up until the mid-1950s or later, there was not a distinction between major and minor automobile repair. So a service station could do anything. It could take your transmission out. They could paint your car as well as put air in your tires. There was a distinction made in the 1950s, but since that time, this has continued to be used for major automobile repair. I have a letter in the file from Mr. Martha, who is the current owner of the property, who states that he moved in about 1990. He operated Abe's Foreign Auto there for 15 years. He did major automobile repair, he says, and tuning, including engine work, transmission work, body work, glass work, and the like. And he said when he moved in, it was equipped with the four lifts, the ventilation system, exhaust system, compressed air system, and the engine hoist, which I mentioned to you. He bought the property after he moved in. He bought it in 1995. He moved out in the mid-2000s. Since he moved out, he said he's leased it to CarTech Auto Repair, Lewis Automobile Technologies, Salvador Automotive, and Foreign Affair Automotive. and then after Foreign Affairs moved out about a year and a half ago, he leased it to Chris and Robert, and they've been continuing to do major automobile repair on here. And he said before he occupied the property, it was used by Wheels Auto Repair and Pennington's Auto Repair. Pennington's was there for about 20 or 30 years. And he said, I know that both of these establishments also engaged in major automobile repair. So I'm not going to spend a lot more time on that issue because basically the staff, I think in their presentation, said they were agreed that we had established a nonconforming use of major automobile repair. The question is, can we change it? Mr. Hite has more information on the history and can come up and talk to you about that if you want to talk about the history. So it brings us back to the issue of can we have a microbrewery in this building? And as you know, I pay attention to staff reports, and my clients pay attention to staff reports too, and we pay attention to neighborhood concerns on this. In reading over the staff report, we obviously saw that there was concern over outdoor storage on this property. So I talked to Robert and Chris to see if they can make this work without outdoor storage. Some of those photographs you saw, even now there's an old transmission sitting in the yard. In the past, they used it for storage of auto parts. They occasionally work on cars outside. They park cars that they were working on outside. So we think that was part of the nonconforming area. But in talking to Chris and Robert, they said that they could move all the storage inside so we would have no outdoor storage on this property at all. We'd be able to use that area for regular parking on there, but we would have no outdoor storage at all on this property. The other thing that the staff was concerned about was the canning and bottling of beer on the premises. And as Mr. Emmons mentioned, that seems to be the item that makes this more like an industrial operation. And so after much thought about this and deliberation, I talked to Robert and Chris, and they are agreeable to not doing bottling or canning on the premises on this. Now, microbrewery, you can still make the beer. You can put it in the keg. You can sell it there. I mean, draw drafts from the keg and sell drafts. So that's part of what's allowed anyway. But they're agreeable to not having canning or bottling on the premises. The third thing that we detected people were concerned about, I don't think the staff mentioned this so much, but from neighborhood concerns, was the use of Miller Street, which is an alley, somewhat narrow alley, for deliveries and that sort of thing. And they're agreeable to not having any deliveries on Miller Street. Thus, the deliveries would have to come from the front or side of the property. We'd keep the traffic off of Miller Street here. We wanted to do that because we're mindful of concerns. the staff has, we're mindful of concerns the neighbors have. What essentially, in doing that, what essentially we've done here is to have no greater impact from this use than a restaurant would be. And that is because restaurants are a principal permitted use in the B1 zone. And in a restaurant, you can have, you can serve alcoholic beverages, you can have up to 20% of the floor area devoted exclusively to alcoholic privileges. In other words, a bar area where there's no food. You can serve the drinks in the rest of your restaurant. That's allowed in any restaurant in the B1 zone. We would have essentially the same thing. We have those same percentages here as a restaurant would. We'd be serving alcoholic beverages along with what they call gastropub fair, which is sort of high-end pub fair and meals that would be served here because they have sort of a high-end clientele here. But with doing that, the only difference between us, essentially, and a principal-permitted restaurant, which is allowed to go in here tomorrow without coming before you, is the fact that they would be making beer on the premises rather than delivering it off the truck every day on that. That's the only difference in impact that we will have is that they'll be able to make the beer here on the premises rather than deliver it down. So I think you see we've seriously and sincerely tried to address the concerns that the staff has, some of the things we've heard voiced by the neighborhood. I know there's general concern in the neighborhood from some people about service of alcohol and issues about having establishments that serve alcohol on Jefferson Street and on the corner. Of course, we're across the street from the Green Lantern Bar. We're up the street from a number of establishments that have been cited as part of the rebirth of Jefferson Street. Nick Ryan Saloon, the Gray Goose, the Blue Heron, a number of other uses that are cited as the rebirth of Jefferson Street and are promoted by this community in general as well as the proprietors of those establishments. But what I do want to point out to you, and I think is important, is alcohol really isn't the issue here. It's because a restaurant, which is a principal use, requires no approval from you all, can sell more alcohol here than they can. They can serve less or more or the same amount of alcohol that this establishment would have. The only difference is that the beer here, as I said again, would be made on the premises rather than having many truck deliveries coming up from the various beer distributors here in Lexington. I got a little off track on that. I want to make sure that I didn't forget to present you part of what I was planning on telling you about here. And, well, it's about the nonconforming use. And we've heard some. We have established that there has been really no gap of the nonconforming use. I put the Kentucky case in the back just because there was an important case back a few decades ago about the ordinances that say if you stop using a property for 12 consecutive months, you lose your nonconforming use. The Kentucky Court of Appeals, which is the highest court in Kentucky at that time, and this case is still law, ruled back in 1966 that no, 12 months is not a hard and fast deadline. The issue is whether the owner has abandoned all efforts to use the property as a nonconforming use. And in that case, out of Versailles, the court said, well, just because something was vacant for 12 months doesn't mean you lose your nonconforming use because in that case the person was continuing to try to lease the property. We understand that there have been some statements made that the use was lost a year and a half ago when Foreign Affair Automotive moved out of this property. but as I pointed out to you, Chris and Robert themselves have been leasing and using this property for major automobile repair. Since that time, I was in there two months ago and saw cars in there on the lifts, and so there actually has been no gap in usage, but I just put that case in there to establish that there's no gap in usage. I did want to put something on the board here, and this is the state statute about nonconforming uses. This is KRS 100.253, subsection 2, and this is the established, this is the case about nonconforming uses, or the statute about them. It said, Board does not allow enlargement or extension of a nonconforming use beyond the scope and area of its operation at the time the regulation which makes its use nonconforming was adopted. And here's the key part. nor shall the board permit a change from one nonconforming use to another unless the new nonconforming use is in the same or a more restrictive classification. And the courts have interpreted that not just in the same or more restrictive classification, but equal or less intensity of use. Ms. Moore, I know you're a professor, and actually the statute has a comma at the end there. And then there's a five-line exception for Churchill Downs that can expand wherever it wants to, even though it's a nonconforming use, they let that expand. So I did delete that part of it. I wanted to – that should be a common three dots at the end of the statute there. But that's the statute about saying you can change a nonconforming use to another unless the new nonconforming use is the same or more restrictive classification or the courts have interpreted that less equal or less intensity. We have a chart from Tony Barrett prepared a chart for us. Before you take that down, I want to point out that that doesn't say unless the new nonconforming use is first allowed in the same or more restrictive classification. It just says is in the same or more restrictive classification. If you could put the next chart up there, the one about where these uses are allowed. It doesn't come up real well, but if you could get the top on there, too. You can zoom in. You can miss the bottom I1, I2 stuff and everything. But up here we have major automobile repair. Tony has X10, the zone where that is allowed. Here is the microbrewery. Now, in reading this, and I'm sorry it's not showing up real well, in the I-1 zone, you have major automobile repair. Brewpubs allowed there. Here, there were same allowed major automobile, or microbrewery, excuse me, that's microbrewery, major automobile repair allowed in the same zone, I-1, right there and there. In the next zone, we have B4, where we have major automobile repair and brew pub. Going down, we have, this is B3, major automobile repair, microbrewery, accessory uses. Again, B2 zones, major automobile repair, microbrewery. coming down to the B zones down here. But what the point I'm making on that is that these are allowed in the same zones through our zoning ordinance, major automobile repair, and the microbrewery on that. Mr. Murphy? Yes. Right here. I don't want to interrupt your chain of thought, but maybe could you interrupt this presentation for a few questions in the middle? Anything you want. Yes, sir. I'm wondering, since they've eliminated the outside storage and they're not looking to can or bottle there, then what's the difference between their needs and a brew pub? It's very similar. It's about the same thing. And they could ask for a brew pub as a conditional use in this zone? Brew pub is listed as a conditional use in this zone. And why did you choose not to just go for conditional use instead of all this rigmarole about more intense or less intense? Well, when we applied, we wanted the outdoor storage and the canning and all that. And we have to do that through the change in nonconforming use. That was the only way we could do that. Now, if you consider us a brew pub, the issue is there's conditional use and there's spacing requirements between us and residential zone. The house next door to us isn't actually in the B1 zone. It's not in a residential zone, but there's spacing issues. And so we're still allowed to change from the major automobile repair to even a brew pub as a nonconforming use as opposed to a conditional use on that. Part of it was because of what we originally applied for, but part of it also is because of the fact of having to apply for conditional use and variance on spacing, we could still consider the brew pub that we're asking for as a non-conforming use here. Good answer. Thank you. Can I ask for one more clarification? So are you then saying that your client is willing to give up the production, or are they just planning to bottle elsewhere? No, we're still going to produce it here. Right, but I mean, is it going to be produced solely for use at that location, or do they want to produce more that's going to be used at that location and bottle it elsewhere? My understanding, and I had a good conversation with Mr. Emmons on this, who has a good understanding of the alcoholic beverage control regulations on this, is that we would be allowed to take, for instance, our kegs off-site for excess production, and it would be allowed to be bottled off-site so the excess production could be sold at other locations. So then it's not really a brew pub. Well, I think brew pubs are actually allowed to do that. They are or not? Yeah, they are. They are. Okay. So the, excuse me, let me just see where I was here on that, make sure I'm about done. I'm going to be sitting down here in a second. And as I said, we also agreed not to use Miller Street for deliveries and traffic and that sort of thing as well. So that's about where we had. I did want to point out to you that we've had a number of e-mails from persons who support us. And some of these people are surprising because they are who would be competitors of the Chase facility in the Jefferson Street corridor. I'm not going to read all these, but I did want to point out a couple things to you. The first one's from Seth Brewer, and he said he lived diagonally across from this building for three years. He's the former president of Northside Neighborhood Association, although he's not writing this in capacity for the Northside. I understand the association has not taken a position on this one way or the other. But he said the neighborhood around West 6th is better for having that facility there, the West 6th Street Brewery. He said the building here we're talking about now has housed a half dozen burger joints and little groceries. That's the front part since he lived across from it. Those businesses served a purpose, but they all failed. and he feels this use will make the residential area a more attractive place for young families, which is what we need. The second letter is from Mr. Chris Kelly, and he says in here he doesn't know the owners, has no financial stake in it, but he says the success of other areas of Jefferson Street and parts of downtown have greatly depended upon the planning commissions allowing non-conforming use adjustments and hope this property will be afforded the same consideration. He feels this is an excellent example of adaptive reuse. The next one is from the top. It says Barbara Wathen, but it's actually from her husband, Don Wathen. And this is Mr. Wathen is the owner of Nick Ryan's Saloon, which is on Jefferson Street. And he welcomes this into the area. and he said this has a positive effect on the area and on the safety of both residential and commercial tenants. He compares this to Bardstown Road over in Louisville. Next one's from Hank Jones. He says he's familiar with their operation of the Chase facility in Victorian Square. He knows from personal experience they run a class operation and would be a welcome addition to the current upsurge of restaurant and bar openings on Jefferson Street. What a great addition to our area. He said he's owned and operated hospitality businesses for over seven years. Last one is from Bill Rambicure, who's an attorney here in Lexington, who's familiar with my clients, the applicants. He said, I know they will be good neighbors and will add significant value to the area. He said it will enhance the ambiance, safety, and viability of this entire area. They've proven that they will. They've proven that in the past they've worked with others to try to take out a bad element here. They're already remodeling this and make this look better. They've hired an excellent team. Rebecca Burnworth, Tony Barrett do an excellent job on everything they do, and this will be an outstanding remodel. So we're very, very pleased to present this to you. We do think it will be a positive addition to this area, and we think with the changes that we have proposed to you that it is certainly eligible and we think should be approved as a change in nonconforming use. I have lots of people here who can talk to you about what's going on. As I said, the architects, landscape architects, planter with history, let alone Robert and Chris, and we'd be happy to answer any questions or respond to any concerns that come up with you on this. Thank you very much for taking the time to hear us. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Murphy before he steps down? Very good. There are some folks that have been sitting in the audience very patiently, too. I wanted to see if anybody that's not part of this team wanted to get up and speak, and if you'd come up and state your name and whether you're in support or opposition, please. I'm Steve Bale. I'm resident of 466 West 3rd Street and have been a resident for 33 years. And I'm in attendance today in support of the staff's report and conclusions. But with the concessions that Robert and Chris have made, then it's much more conducive as another business in the neighborhood. However, the planning staff's report did make reference to a grain silo, and that was not addressed in these issues. So I'd like to know if – is that still a part of the plan? No, that's what the outside story – Okay. Excuse me. So that is not going to be part of the plan, so that addresses that. but I think that should be included in the conditions. And that's the only question that I had. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bale. Anyone else back there? My name is Barbara Hausman-Smith. I'm a resident at 455 West 3rd Street, which is fairly closer than Mr. Kelly or Seth Brewer to the proposed brew pub in 266 West Jefferson. My only issue, it is an improvement, but it still sounds like they're intending to have it be a brewery, produce beer, microbrewery rather than a brew pub, and I wonder why they are so steadfastly concerned and interested in that. And I would also, because there are issues, they'd be manufacturing beer in a B1 zone. And there are EPA, there are air quality, there's effects that that might have on the neighborhood that I don't think have been addressed. And then the issue, going back to the procedural, it seems that something has been glossed over about the major auto repair business that has been at this site. It has definitely been historically proven that this was major auto repair from the 1940s, but a year and a half after the last auto repair site left this building, it was rented by the owners, the proposed owners of Chase's, and it was there to store their cars, their cars. They are not in the business of a major automobile repair. And if there is any major automobile repair done there, it is being done by them with their own people. They're not going to this site, bringing their cars to this site, and having major automobile repair at this site. So it's equivalent of storing your vehicles in your yard, in a garage, or in some kind of a building that would be conforming. This is a private property that they are working on. working on. It is not a business. So I would like that that issue would be addressed that a year and a half ago, it was no longer being used for major automobile repair other than the fact that there are cars being stored there, but it is not a major automobile repair business. So that might be a fly in the ointment. I don't know. It's a procedural issue. But I am concerned, and I would oppose the allowance of a change of use to a microbrewery. Thank you very much. There's a couple other people that want to speak. Come on up, sir. I'm Hank Jones. I did my license. I'm Henry. Everybody here knows me by Hank. Everybody in Lexington knows me, so I'll go by Hank here. But I live at the I have an email there. I live at the corner of West Main and Jefferson. My wife and I have been there about seven years. We lease out the bottom to a hair salon. We live on top. And since we've been here, like I say, about seven years, Jefferson Street's exploding. All these restaurants, the drinking establishments, it's been great. The value, I've had my home, our building, re-evaluated, and prices are going up on it. It's great. I love it. I've known these guys. I've walked downtown a lot, talked with them. and again they run a class operation we have the trial we have a trolley line just for jefferson street now it's uh we need some place for them to take people thank you very much and one other thing yes uh my past experience with brew pubs has been uh my wife worked with the company that owned the hops restaurants and brew pub and they had the giant beer vats and then i might be wrong here Robert invited me in the other day when I was walking up by 3rd Street the microbrewery thing is a little you can fit it within just a couple of these panels on your on the wall here it says nothing huge I was surprised at that the house model it was thank you very much Good afternoon. My name is Sam Matheny, and I live at 474 West 3rd Street. So my property abuts to the rear of the proposed property change that you're discussing. My real concern is that, just to reiterate the comments of the former speakers, is that the issue about I think a number of us in the neighborhood are opposed to this continuation of a nonconforming use of this property, and particularly the outdoor space, because the outdoor space is directly opposite my backyard space. And so this is not on a commercial street. This is abutting into the historic region with a number of houses that, because they're so close together, that there is a considerable amount of carriage of any kind of noise or of any kind of activity that would occur, particularly if it's going to be used for something that would be a change from what currently is simply a place that cars are stored at this point. so I just would like that also because this is a up until just two weeks or a couple of months ago this was a two-way alley it's now a one-way alley thankfully but this is a very narrow alley with a lot of children going up and down that alley and it would be a very great concern for us for the safety issue of any kind of traffic so I'm pleased to hear that that is a consideration but that would be a real safety issue for the children going to the school who use this alley for their transportation for their for their and they walk through that alley so just like to add that comment thank you thank you very much mr murphy do you have anything to respond to those comments just a couple things we appreciate the neighborhood comments very much and like i said we've heard the concerns and and i think you can see my folks have made concessions in response to some of those just couple things though in as far as continuation of a non-conforming use as to whether they've been operating doing major automobile repair but not as a business they have been repairing their cars and others and I learned a long time ago that it doesn't matter whether you're a business or not it matters what you're doing because I when I was younger tried to defend a couple people who were working on cars and their houses and residential zones and defending on the basis, it wasn't a business, it was just their cars or just their cars and their friends and they weren't getting paid for it. Well I didn't get very far with that defense because the courts told me well no it doesn't say as a business, it says what you're doing there. And so the same thing goes here, they were have continued major automobile repair work. I think it qualifies totally because it's not just theirs but it's others, but even if it was it's whether it's a business or not is not the issue when you get down to what land use regulations are. And they will be producing new beer here. There are limits on a microbrewery as to how much you can produce. I just hadn't mentioned that. There's strict limits that the ABC enforces on how much you can produce and everything like that. And we do appreciate, again, your time. And we feel that Chris and Robert and their partner will do an outstanding job. And we truly feel this will be in addition to the revitalization of this area. And as again, I'll reiterate, we're not going to be using outdoor storage on this, as was raised by one of the neighbors. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Mr. Glover? Mr. Murphy, I've got a question or two, if you don't mind. On our docket, because of the staff's recommendation for disapproval, there are no counterproposals. And so if the board were inclined to entertain your application, we don't have anything in writing about the concessions that you've made about it. Do you have any proposed written conditions addressing not using Miller Street for deliveries, no outdoor storage, no bottling or canning on the premises, or anything like that? Do you have any written? I do not have those in writing. I think you just very succinctly expressed the conditions which we agreed to. My findings, I did have findings in our application, which hopefully is in your notebook. I had three or four numbered reasons on the second page, which I would submit as the findings in favor of granting this. And then we would agree to the three conditions that we've told you about, and which you just mentioned, which are no deliveries on Miller Street, no outdoor storage, no bottling or canning. I've got a question for Mr. Emmons and the staff. These three conditions that Mr. Murphy and his clients have agreed to, would that change your decision to disapprove by no canning and bottling or no outside storage or no deliveries on military? Mr. Chairman, that addresses one of the two reasons that the staff had recommended disapproval. On our staff recommendation, we had that A and B. The concessions that the applicant had made primarily address the concerns that were brought up with our finding B. However, the staff and the applicant still have different interpretations on the issue of the intensity of the use. So that's the issue of the staff as a more intense? Yes. In essence, the staff felt that it was a stronger position to look at where the uses were first allowed as principal permitted uses. And the applicant has presented today that they are uses that are both allowed in the I-1 zone, and they had pointed out in their application that both of those are allowed at the same standing as accessory uses in the B-2 zone, which the staff also did point out in our staff report. We felt that the stronger position for the interpretation of that section of the ordinance was where those uses were first allowed as principal permitted uses. You'll have multiple findings in front of you today, but the issues have definitely narrowed for the board today based off of the concessions in their operational plan that the applicants have proposed. Thank you, Mr. Emmons. Does anyone? I have a question. Does it sound like their proposal is now a brew pub or still a microbrewery? I think their application is still for a microbrewery, primarily because a brew pub is permitted only when it's more than 100 feet from a residential zone, and they cannot meet that standard. Mr. Selma. So they would actually be asking for a variance from the, if they wanted the brew pub, they'd have to ask for a variance from the 100 feet from the residence. That's right. I'll ask the board if they have any other additional comments. Ask legal staff. Legal staff. Do you have any comments? Well, I guess we can, we have a couple issues here. Obviously, we have the item before us as proposed by, as determined by staff. We also have Mr. Murphy's comments and some of the things that they've agreed to take off the table. And so I'd like to ask the board how they would like to proceed. We might need to take a couple minutes and discuss this. If you'd give us some time and consult about it, and we'll get back to you. Can you give us a minute or two? Thank you. Yes, ma'am. We have the word that there will be no truck deliveries on Miller Street, but I live in a neighborhood where, and I think we all experience trucks deliver where they find most expedient, and I would like to know if you decide to allow their noncompliant use and accepting their three conditions, what are we supposed to do if trucks deliver on Miller Street in variance with their word? Mr. Marks, can you weigh in on that? It's kind of an unusual situation since this is not a conditional use. I think the conditions that you're thinking about, considering probably need to get woven into the findings one way or another, We would just have to work with the property owner or the operator to try to resolve that. It would be a little more complicated than usual. Okay. Thank you. Just one quick point. I'm sorry. Chris Heflin. Come to the mic. I'm sorry. It has already been indicated the road has been changed. Your name for the record, please? Chris Heflin. Middle Street has been changed. It's now a one-way street. There's no possible way to get any of the trucks. We'll be delivering anything to us. onto that road. It would never happen at all. As we've said, we don't have a problem putting that into writing or whatever they need because there's never going to be a need to have a truck drive down Miller Street that would be delivering anything to us. Not to mention the fact that we don't have any access from the rear since we're not using the back end for any functioning of the brewery. The only spot to deliver to would be that front door which has access on Jefferson Street, which is where all the current deliveries for all the other businesses on Jefferson Street come down anyway okay thank you gentlemen back here wanted to say one more thing uh sam metheny again i take exception with that there is access to miller street it's one way you can get to it from second and then go by the other but you can also go all the way through and their fence and their access to the property does abut on miller street so that is an issue thank you mr murphy one one one last comment one one thing they they can instruct vendors not to deliver there i mean they're the ones paying for these things that are coming in there and they will instruct all vendors that the trucks are not supposed to make deliveries there i mean that's something that is within their power and as people pay on the bill the people making these deliveries will pay attention to that thank you mr murphy let's take a couple minutes no no yes no we're mr. Glover I have with legal's help some language to propose if we if we're inclined to try to craft a proposal to grant the appeal we can take a stab at it if you if you're interested. I mean... I have to say I'm uncomfortable with the idea of giving this as a non-conforming use when, I mean, I appreciate the changes, but it sounds like it's really now a brew pub that they could ask for a conditional use permit for and ask for a variance. I don't think it is. I mean, I don't think with the description of what they intend. I mean, they're going to make beer, and so So they're going to have to have permanent equipment. But I thought they weren't going to. It's Robert Garrison. We are going to make beer. The distinction between a brew pub and a microbrewery is really just at the city level. The whole reason that we have gone forward requesting a microbrewery is because we're trying to reconcile this with state law, which is there is only a microbrewery license. There's no such thing as a brew pub license. So the whole reason we went this route with microbrewery is to be in line with what the state ABC requires of us. It is very important that we be able to sell kegs off-site to other restaurants and to neighboring businesses because that, as our business model, will allow us to focus on the production of the beer as a source of revenue instead of having to stay open later and relying solely on bar and restaurant business. So the distinction, again, with BrewPub is just sort of a zoning thing that's been done for the city. But when it comes to us, we have a very good relationship with the ABC, both local and state, and we always just try to go in line with their recommendations and what they will issue us as a license, which is a microbrewery. So you will have bottling? No, no bottling or canning. As a matter of fact, in addressing the differences, kegs are the big sort of metal barrels. But the canning equipment, the reason we made that concession is because even though the technology has progressed to where canning equipment really isn't that obtrusive anymore like it used to be, there's very small systems we understood that that was a major concern of the residents is that they were concerned that that might be a noisy process and it's not essential to our business model selling the beer in kegs to the distributors and being able to get that off the property is very important so so so in other words though this difference between a brew pub and a microbrewery you're saying is purely on in the zoning ordinance correct the two differently and you could consider yourself a brew pub because there's nothing in a brew pub that prohibits you from putting it in kegs and selling it outside of your place of business. Well, again, I think that the problem comes with trying to reconcile that with the ABC law. And as far as canning goes, you know, we had thought about partnering with West 6, which is a very large operation on the end of, you know, West 6 and Jefferson. And, you know, we've thought about possibly contracting with them to do canning at a future date, which would be better for the overall business. But I think it is an important distinction on the state level that we be issued the microbrewery. Wait a minute. You can get a license for a microbrewery or a brew pub at the state level? No, that's what I'm saying. There's no such thing as a brew pub license. But it might help. My point is that whether you call us a brew pub or microbrewery, we're still nonconforming. If we call us a brew pub, we're nonconforming because of the 100-foot spacing to residential, even though the house right next door to us is in the B1 zone, by the way. We're nonconforming as a brew pub. We're nonconforming as a microbrewery. Either way, we're asking for a change to a nonconforming use. It may be helpful that he's put the definition up as well. I think, Mr. Glover, some of the members would probably like to see legal counsel drop some conditions. With some of the concessions that have been made today, we can certainly vote them up or vote them down. And I think that there's some members here, including myself, that would like to see this language drafted. And then we'll bring it to the board for a vote. You're talking about drafting, putting in writing what we've proposed and bringing it up at the next meeting? I was talking about today. I thought you were. Oh, today. Okay. Is that something, Tracy, that we can do? Do you want to take a short break? Can we break for 10 minutes? Will that give you enough time? Okay. You're going to break for 10 minutes. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next video. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm out. Thank you. for your patience. Does the board have any other questions of the applicant or staff before we proceed? I have a question for staff. Jimmy, I don't think that this is going to go the conditional use way, but if it was a conditional use and they were required to have a hundred foot setback from the residential zone, is that from the operation inside the building or I can't remember how that 100 foot is defined. Is it from the restaurant section? Is it from live music? Is it from the brewery? It's usually been measured from, I was going to say Mr. Marks could certainly correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is it's always been from the building to the zone line. And that's in my one year of experience in front of you, that's been the measure that we have used. And how far is the building from the residential zone line? It's got that parking area in between, doesn't it? We can try and measure that for you. I do not have that number off the top of my head. Well, at least it's not abutting. It's 30 feet or 50 feet. I don't know what it is. And also the staff really had not looked at any, with this request, we had not really looked at any justification for variances. None was provided. And it's not, before I was standing right here right now, that's not a question that we have evaluated. Well, and this might be the wrong way to phrase it, but it seems like if what they're really asking for is a brew pub, but they're getting a brew pub through this roundabout way, it's sort of circumventing the 100-foot requirement for a brew pub from a residential zone. And I'm just wondering how much of a circumvention that is. If it's 50 feet or 30 feet, I was just curious. I believe I see Bill with this. We're trying to find an at-scale map where we can estimate that for you. I can try and look at the maps and see if I can find out an answer for you. That is not an answer that I have at my fingertips. The applicant might. But you also said earlier that it wouldn't be a conditional use anyway because it's not accessory. What they're planning to do is in your mind. Part of the difference, the definition of a brew pub is a restaurant with an accessory microbrewery. So without permanently installed bottling equipment and everything being indoors. So I think part of the issue here, and honestly only the applicant can really say whether this is true or not, and it's a distinction of whether the microbrewery that they're asking for would need to be considered accessory to the restaurant or the way that they have structured their request, they're allowed the restaurant by right and they are asking for the microbrewery. microbrewery side by side. They would no longer, the microbrewery in the way that they have asked for it, the microbrewery would not necessarily have to be accessory to and clearly subordinate to the restaurant. Does that, it is a fine line distinction, but it is one that is important when trying to decide these particular uses. Whether that distinction is ultimately a bright red line for the applicant or not, that's a question for the applicant. And then the second question I have is this first appearing. I remember talking about this, I think it was years ago, and no court has ever said first appearing, correct? I do not know the court case history on that. I would have to look. And my recollection is that a majority of the board rejected that a number of years ago in interpreting a non-conforming use case. Do you remember, Mr. Silley? I'm not familiar with that case law, but I have not. A case that this board heard. We spent a long time with the first appearing. I can't remember that ever being an issue. It was the eighth. Ah, yes, the schoolhouse. I was in the division, but I was not paying. I knew that case, but I was not intimately involved with it. I can't answer that one. Thank you, Mr. Ramon. Mr. Murphy, did you have something? We did have some measurements. You had asked about the measurements. The staff, as Tony was doing some quick ones to that measurement, Part of it is the zone line goes to the center line of streets. So it's the edge of our building, center line of streets. That distance you can see is about 60-plus feet. The closest one Tony had was where we crossed Jefferson. We measured to the center line of Jefferson Street, even though there's more of a buffer there, 48 feet. And on the side up near 3rd Street, it's about 62. And again, those are to center line of street where the zone is to the edge of our building, just for whatever that's worth you all were asking about. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Mr. Glover, I know that legal counsel has put together some information to share, and I'd like for you to proceed at this time. Mr. Chairman, I have a motion. I move that we approve A2013-20 New Republic LLC's appeal to change one nonconforming use, major automobile and truck repair, to another microbrewery in a neighborhood B1 zone at 266 Jefferson Street. for the reasons stated in Mr. Murphy's application. I can read them if you like, or you can get them from the application itself. There are four reasons stated, plus a fifth reason. That reason is number five, the fact that the applicant has indicated that there will be A, no outdoor storage, B, no bottling and canning of beer on site, and C, no Miller Street deliveries to this business, which means there will be no opportunity for an expansion of this nonconforming use. can i make a friendly amendment to reason number three eliminating with bottling and canning equipment from the second sentence thank you miss moore i'll accept that friendly amendment thank you mr glover mr glover has made a motion to approve with the conditions as set forth by Mr. Murphy and with the friendly amendment and with the three additional conditions. Is there a second? A second. Is there any other discussion? I guess I need to ask our applicant if this is acceptable. Yes, sir. Thank you. We've got a motion. We've got a second. All in favor, raise your right hand. Any opposed? Please note Ms. Meyer's opposition. Your application has been approved. Good luck, Mr. Murphy. Are there any other board members wish to present or be heard at this time. I certainly would like to mention a couple things. Today is Wanda Howard's last Board of Adjustment meeting before she retires. And she had thought that she was going to have some mixed emotions about it, but I don't think she's got any mixed emotions about it. I think she's pretty much ready to go. So, Wanda, I'll tell you, you've just been a pleasure to work with and my seven years on this board. And I think I speak for all the board when I say that we just appreciate your dedication and your commitment to this city and this urban county government and to all of us and to planning and zoning. And we wish you nothing but the best. Thank you. I do have one other item. I see Chris King is here. And I received a letter from Mr. King a week or so ago regarding an upcoming issue at our, I think it's going to be on our May 31st meeting. Mr. King, could you just give the board an update? I know it's not an agenda item today, but the status of Boone Creek. I know that I received a letter from you that Mr. Carey is going to be appealing to the Board of Adjustment at our May 31st meeting. Does notice a violation? Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity. All the board members did receive a copy of the same communication that we did forward to you. And we did want to note, as you know, we have had an enforcement situation involving that property. and in March we issued an NOV with a deadline for response to either comply or take other action. A subject of the NOV did decide to question our ruling that the violation was in fact a violation of the zoning ordinance and you will be hearing that at your May meeting. Familiar with the zoning ordinance requirements as it relates to conditional uses, we as the staff are charged to let you know when there are violations in our opinion of conditions related to conditional uses. We have a little bit of a unique situation here. I can't recall any quite like it, but we did want to pass this information along to you. As you know, in case there are any questions, there are two distinct, at least potential, issues in place. certainly the one, their appeal of our ruling that they are in violation, we'll get a full hearing and reading, and you will be the determining body, short of other courts, whether or not to uphold our notice of violation. So that is one item of business. You've also received communication, and we have as well, regarding potential of revocation of the existing conditional use permit under which this property operates. That is a separate matter, and as I read the law, and in consultation with law, whether or not you proceed to do that requires a positive action by the board, and it has to be based upon a finding that they are in violation of one or more of the conditions of the original conditional use permit. So in case there are any questions, we are here. I am here to answer any questions about that. Certainly, if you're asking our thoughts, we do see them as separate and think probably the correct thing is to proceed one item at a time before you decide to proceed to the other. But in case there were others here with other opinions, we're here to just answer any questions you may have to that point. Well, I think they're two very distinct items, and I understand that if whatever the board determines on May 31st, if, in fact, to uphold the violation and the board does collectively decide to go with the revocation hearing, that would be at our June meeting. And that's been my understanding, and I don't know if anybody on the board would like to ask a question or if there's anything that you'd like to share. We're just talking about these procedural issues, correct? Correct. We are not talking about any issue in substance today. I'm only mentioning the procedure. Well, you can cut me off if you'd like, but last time you came before us in that closed session, you mentioned some extensive research you'd done and determined that the structures that were built did not need a building permit. And I think you'll surely you'll be able to convince us of that at the hearing. I will ask the if you wish to subpoena officials from the Division of Building Inspection or others, we can have that done. But our information came from them and from the state folks who also responded. Well, I think that would be an important part of this hearing. so we've never subpoenaed anyone during my tenure on this board, but I'd like to have the proper people here to respond to that. What I will do, Mr. Griggs, I think that's a good point. I will undertake to contact them if there appears to be any reason why it appears they will not. We will confer with Council and to the Chair to see if there needs to be any further steps taken to ensure that someone is here to answer that question. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. King. All right, if there's nothing else for Mr. King, staff, do you have anything? Mr. Chairman, just the one item listed on your agenda. We wanted to make sure the board was aware that two weeks from this coming Wednesday, there's another training opportunity for you. It will be hosted in the Division of Planning Office, as most of them are. There's an APA audio conference entitled Rethinking the Role of the Urban Freeway. and that session would count for one and a half hours of acceptable training under the KRS 100 requirements. Thank you. Very good. Sounds exciting. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I have a motion under, I guess, item four, board items. That got overlooked just a little bit or I didn't speak up and I should have. With the Chair's permission, I'd like to make a motion. Please, Mr. Garner. The scheduling of our monthly meetings was, I think, done in January of this year, as it is every year, and it's called the meeting and filing schedule, and we approve that sort of without looking at it too deeply at the January meeting. The 1 o'clock meetings are a hardship on me, and my proposal is to move the start date from 1 o'clock to 1.30 simply to accommodate me. So I'll be glad to put that in the form of a motion if that's what it needs to be for the minutes. In fact, let me do that, and then you can ask questions or we can discuss it and the staff can tell me if I'm doing it right. I move that we amend the 2013 meeting and filing schedule to begin our meetings this year at 1.30 instead of 1 o'clock. Very good. Do we have a motion? Do we have a second? Should we have some comment from the staff in case? Well, I would like to ask for some discussion after a second, if there is a second. Well, I'll second it. All right. Discussion from the staff, and then I'd like to hear from the board. Mr. Chairman, we have no issue with starting your meetings at 1.30. I think the only question the staff would have would be whether this would take effect at your May meeting, for which we've already received a few applications that have advertised a 1 o'clock start, or whether this would begin, say, for your June meeting, the receipt of any applications for that meeting. Friday afternoons for the rest of the year, and I don't think that change of a half an hour will affect anything on that regard. So that would be our only question is whether your exact next meeting would also be included in this or not. In light of that, Mr. Glover, would you be opposed to this beginning at our June meeting? I have no options. That won't bother me, and if that's in the form of a friendly amendment, I'd be glad to specify that it takes place beginning at the June meeting. Mr. Glover, I greatly appreciate that, but I am not in a position to make motions. I do appreciate that sentiment. Does anybody from the board, do they have any comments? I have no problem with the time change. I don't think any of us do, Mr. Glover. And so 1.30 sounds good. I'll make a friendly amendment that it be moved to June, starting June. We've got a motion and a second, a friendly amendment to make this effective at our June meeting. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you. If there's no other business to come before the Board of Adjustment, I'll declare it adjourned. Thank you all very much and again Ms. Howard, we wish you the best. Thank you.