Music Thank you. Motion by one at large, second by another at large. All those in favor? Okay. Otherwise like sign. Moved and approved. Thank you. First up, we have a couple of issues that we are bringing back from last month because we had a discussion that ran along last month. The issue of exaction fees. This is kind of an update issue that was originally placed in committee, I think, by Council Member Stinnett. And we had information in the packet last time, but unfortunately not time to hear it. So Director Chris King is here with Bill Sally and plenty of maps, it would seem. Welcome, sir. Well, the maps are actually in the bullpen for the next item. Understood. We'll just go with the PowerPoint on this one and your packet. Good afternoon, Council Members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here to do a little updating and a little education about the Expansion Area Exaction Program, which is a very unique program not only in Fayette County but also in the state of Kentucky and in many other places in terms of how infrastructure is financed for new development. This tagline really says what the high concept is. This program was started back in 1996 in order to help development pay for itself. As you well know as council members, most development doesn't pay for itself, particularly residential development. And this program was designed to help bridge that gap based on a unique opportunity that the urban county government had back in 1996 when you expanded the urban service area significantly. and having lived through that three-year community debate, discussion, it was quite a time when the community was trying to decide whether or not to expand the urban service area, whether we should, shouldn't, the pros and cons, if so, how. And it was. It was a three-year, very painful in many ways debate. But as often with things that involve pain, a lot of really good things came out of it. Directly from this, you have things like the Expansion Area Master Plan. You have the exaction program. You have the Rural Land Management Plan and the PDR program and the infill and redevelopment. All of those trace their origins to the community discussion about expansion of the urban service area that happened and culminated in the adoption of the Expansion Area Master Plan and the supporting ordinances in 1996. So, first of all, the thing I need to tell you, show you, is that this exaction program only applies to very specific and limited areas of Fayette County. And this map shows the three expansion areas, with one of them broken into three subgroups. Expansion Area 1, out in the southeastern portion of the county, involving Overbrook Farm, an area in that environment east of the Heartland area, none of that property has actually developed yet. It has not even come in for zoning since 1996. Most of the activity that occurred since 1996 occurred in what was designated as Expansion Area 2, which was broken into three subgroups, 2A, 2B, and 2C, as they all had distinct features and different drainage and other characteristics associated with those. And basically that runs from between Winchester Road east of the interstate all the way down and across the Richmond Road, 8th and Spoonsboro Road area. And expansion area three on the northern part of the community, that mostly was non-residential, designated in an ED, economic development category, which is located out basically between Newtown Pike and Russell Cave Road north of the interstate. So I hope that gives you an idea of the geography that this program covers. The expansion area master plan, and during this whole discussion debate, one thing that came up time and time again is if the community is going to expand, Should the necessary public infrastructure that go along with that, the key infrastructure, who would bear that cost? As you can imagine, many of the council members, particularly district council members involving all of the area of the community, weren't too interested in general revenue funds being designated for that expansion. and what came up was the concept that the exaction program created to make an equitable allocation of those costs under Kentucky law to the extent that we could based upon the reason that the new growth drove the need for those facilities and that how that cost is allocated had to be roughly proportional to the factors of that land use generating the need for that facility. Okay? If you think about it, a very simple example, single-family residential generates basically 10 auto trips per unit. So if you're talking about three units per acre, maybe 30 trips out of an acre of land designated for low-density residential. A shopping center, however, would generate many, many, many, many times that per acre in terms of traffic needs and trips. And therefore, for the road portion, the higher cost per acre can be ascribed to the commercial land as opposed to the residential land. Again, it didn't have to be exactly proportional, but roughly proportional. And these are the two tests that the Supreme Court of the Nation has set for programs like this, and our program was deemed to comply. So what facilities are covered? We've talked about the where and a little bit of the why. So now the what. What is covered? And I'm using Expansion Area 2A as an area where we focus in. A lot of people are generally familiar with that area, and we'll focus in on that and kind of highlight in that area which facilities we'll cover. First of all, the collector roads, the major roads, the one that really no one development generates the need for a road of that size, width, depth, and character, but the culmination of many developments do. So no one development actually kicks that knee, but a number do. And the examples that we have out there are Polo Club Boulevard, Blackford Parkway, and in Expansionary 2C, if you're familiar with Hayes Boulevard, where all the exacted collector roads. And this map shows the plan that was adopted in 2A. Just again, to orient you very quickly, This is the interchange of Winchester Road and I-64-75, pardon me, I-75 at that point. If you're familiar, the Hamburg area, the Walmart Lowe's are on this side, not in the expansion area. But basically from there on out to the area of Greenbrier Subdivision, on over to the east of what was at one time called Walnut Hill Childsburg Pike, down to the railroad line that has been abandoned and back to the interstate. All of this area in here was expansion area 2A. Now the collector roads, you can see them. They're shown a little bit darker, and these arrows highlight. These are the roads that the cost of which are covered under the exaction program. Chris? Yes. Can we go back through just for a second? Certainly. Is the area where the Costco is going, that green area up there? Right here. It's right there. Originally, the commercial was supposed to be on the other side of Polo Club Boulevard. This is constructed. But rezoning was changed to move that over to this area, and this is where Costco is currently going. Hamburg Pavilion is over here. Is it underway? Have you been out there? I have not. A permit has been issued, or it's in the process of being issued. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. Next, the sanitary sewer. And there were two categories of sanitary sewer exactions. One, the treatment capacity. The fact that we were expanding the urban service area meant that capacity at the plant needed to be allocated for that. The government had recently done expansions of plants and things like that. So a fee was assessed based upon the capacity of or having capacity for the development. Likewise, the sanitary sewer transmission knew trunk lines that were needed, and basically anything over 12 inches was deemed as being part of the exaction program. And, again, this master plan shows a plan was laid out on those and what the size should be and things like that back in 1996. Just use the pointer on both screens so everybody can see. So point there and then point here too, please. You can see the trunk lines as they were planned back in 1996. Thank you. Okay. They'll show up fairly readily with the blue arrows. So the costs associated with those trunk lines were included. Multi-neighborhood parks, given that there's a large residential component, there was determined that the multi-neighborhood parks would be part of the exaction program. The cost of the land, not the cost of developing them, was deemed to be eligible. And again, in this area, there were two areas designated for parks. Actually, the urban county government purchased very early on, at a very good price, property in this area, actually in a slightly different configuration, but basically this was acquired back in the early years, around 1997-98, and the urban county government has not developed that park but does own that land and got it at a much lower rate than today's land costs. Do you want to identify the placement one more time? Okay. This one is actually known as the King property, no relation. and it's located near the railroad track abandoned railroad track okay this is actually part of a system that will include trails back to the park that we have in andover here and going under the interstate very nice arrangement when it's all done and developed all right i think that was good is that okay very good very good generally where we are next neighborhood parks and non-flood Greenways. There's a greenway system. If you look at the locations of the park, part of the concept is that the greenways in this area centered on the floodplains and drainage areas would tie these facilities together, both the neighborhoods ultimately with walkways, open space, and includes both floodplain areas, which you really can't develop, and it also included some adjacent land outside of the floodplain, which would be anticipated to be developed for neighborhood park type services in those neighborhoods as well as things go on in the future. So to put it in perspective, the non-floodplain portions, there is a dollar amount based on current going per acre land set aside as part of the exaction program, but it was required that the post-development floodplain be given without charge as part of the program. Next, there was an assessment for rural open space set at $1,000 an acre by the council at that time, basically to put a value on the loss of green space generally in rural and in the community. So for every acre that's developed, there is a $1,000 assessment, which can be diverted for things like purchase of development rights and things like that nearby. And last, stormwater management facilities were added. Rather than the practice in the old urban service area of every development having its own, what we used to call little birdbath stormwater detention facilities, there was a master plan prepared by a consultant hired by the urban county government, as you can see, centered on the greenways and the floodplain areas. Stormwater management facilities, both for water quantity and water quality, were laid out and the cost for those included in the exaction program. So with all that said, the whole point of this program is that it's really a zero-sum game. These facilities were costed, and those costs are updated, and the cost of those were portioned back to the land so that at the end of the day, you as close as one can do these things, you will neither take in too much nor too little in order to pay for those facilities that I identify. So again, zero-sum game. It's very critical to understand. The money from this program has to be dedicated to this. It can't be diverted to other things. It must be used for these facilities. So what is the total cost? Basically, this is over a $100 million enterprise that we have here. This is the total costs of the system improvements, is what they are called in the ordinances that govern this. The roads, the sewer capacity, the sewer transmission, the parkland storm, and the open space, roughly $123 million worth of facilities that this program is designed to pay. Question. Yes, sir. When were those estimated? When were these estimates? This is based upon the most recent estimates, which were when it was last updated in 2010. The rates were last updated in 2010. And this is just for which sub-area? This is for the entire, all of them together. And all that, the storm is only $17 million. No. That just seems low to me. Well, again, in most cases, it's the cost of the land. And remember, the post-development floodplain land isn't charged in that anyway. I've got a couple of Council members with some questions. We'll just take a moment. I'm close to the finish. I'd be glad to finish. Go ahead. Thank you, sir. Please. Just a minute. I'm in the home stretch. Yes, sir. Just the highlights of how it works. The exactions are assessed on an acreage basis. So that has some inherent economies for developers that develop in the higher end of the density range. They get to spread those exactions costs over more units. They're due at the time of building permit. The amount varies depending on your land use, what zone you're in, and what expansion area you're in. Developers are allowed to become our contractors and construct the infrastructure subject to a formal agreement, and in turn they can be reimbursed with exaction credits, actual credits against what they build that they can use to satisfy their own exactions. We've had a lot of developers do that, as you will see in a minute. The rates can be updated up to quarterly based upon our real costs. The average has actually been about every three years, and they've been set six times in about the lower 15 years of the program. You set those rates, the Urban County Council, based upon recommendations made by staff. And there is a very rigorous tracking and accounting program for all of this, based upon every development and what its exaction fees are, down to how those exactions have been satisfied, down to the individual lot level for every lot that has been created within the expansion area. So where are we as of the close of the last fiscal year, the last report from finance? The total value of the system improvements that it constructed or were under construction at that time were $44 million-plus. That's out of that $125,000. And probably does not count the open space exaction, which is a little different type of creature as you saw. The urban county government had put bonds up to facilitate some of this construction, particularly when we were trying to get Hayes Boulevard in prior to the Hayes Middle School being built out there. and the government helped facilitate by providing money at that time, we were able to have the urban county government and three developers all join in on one project under one contract to get substantial portions of that road in, which was a tremendous thing. The total exactions that have been due and collected on recorded plats to date is $34 million. So you can see we are not even yet halfway to the collection of the exactions and the development. And so far, as of that time, almost 5,000 lots, 4,900-some lots have been created in the expansion area. This is a little chart, but again, as of last June, based upon the exaction program, where we are in terms of the percent of the land remaining. As you can see in expansion area 1, 100%. In 2A, there's still 64%. 2B, 67%. 2C has had the most development. There's only 8% of that remaining, and in three, 93%. When you take all that together, there's still 60% of the land yet to be developed and has actions accessed. So that's kind of an overall view. I know that's a lot to take in. In 15 minutes, I hope I was close to the time limit. But I'm now available for any questions you might have about this program. First on our list is Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chris, thank you so much. Exactions took me a while to understand. I think it's a somewhat complex item, and yet it makes sense once it's understood. A couple quick questions. So I believe I heard you say on page 12, and I'm not sure which slide number that would be, it's the one about it follows the proposed greenways map. Facilities covered under the exaction. Stormwater management facilities. Well, it was when you talked about rural open space. Okay. Sure. I think I heard you say that money can be set aside for things like PDR. Did I hear that correctly? You did. Okay. And how has that money been expended so far? Basically, I would say every penny gathered under that has been expended as credits against other exactions. The developers are allowed to pool their costs. In other words, if I'm a developer that has built a road for the urban county government and the urban county government owes me credits, I can pool the credits that I get for the road to satisfy my exactions for any of these except for the sewers. Sewers have to be tracked separately. So at this point, there's no actual real money. and if you look at this slide, it helps explain that. So how does that work for the open space again? Can you tell me? I mean, can that money, are you saying that money can be spent for roads? You're not, are you? No, but I'm saying when a developer, the developers made the point, if you think of these as all buckets, okay, They made the point that if we're paying and building the road and we get credit for doing that, actual dollar valued credits for that, instead of being paid back in cash by the urban county government and then them paying the exactions in cash, they satisfy the exactions with the credit. They are allowed to use exactions from, if they built the road, they can use that to satisfy the open space. They can use that to satisfy the park exaction. They can use that to satisfy basically anything except the two sewer exactions. So there's no real money there to be used for other open space projects. Right. And let me give you an example. I think that it helps explain this. If you look at this one, right now there are almost $45 million worth of those system improvements in the ground that people have received credit for. The total exactions that have been collected so far are $35 million. So there's $10 million more in the ground than we have actually collected. Now, over time, once all the work that can be accredited is done, everyone is paying dollars at the building permit counter, not in credits but in real money. And when that happens, then all the buckets fill up, and at the end of the day, all those buckets will have filled up provided that the land develops. The assumption is that 90 percent, the financial model is based on 90 percent development. Do I recall that the developer does half of the road and we do half of the road? That was only in 2C. Okay, only in 2C. That's because in expansion area 2C, and unfortunately I don't have a map, we had a road, Walnut Hill-Charlesburg Pike, that ran between Athens-Boonesboro Road and Todd's Road. and in an area of Todd's Road where there was tremendous development before the expansion. And the traffic models indicated that there was going to need to be a significant upgrade of that road, even if there was no expansion. In fact, so the new development did not count for anywhere close to 100% of the need for the road. It was decided it was about 50-50. So for the road, what we now call Hayes Boulevard, half of that was actually considered the urban county government's obligation, and the other half was the exaction program. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. That's a unique, neat part. But it explains that nexus test and the proportionality test both. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next is the Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Yes, sir. Chris, on those same lines of questioning that the Vice Mayor brought up, So Polo Club, for instance, how do you get credit for building Polo Club? Is there a 50-50 deal on that one, too? No, sir. In Polo Club, the way that worked, the developer approaches the urban county government to enter into an agreement, called an Expansionary Infrastructure Agreement. And as part of that, they agree that the process, the road is publicly bid. Specs were put out there, everything. all reviewed by the urban county government and an agreement executed based upon the assumption that the road would cost X and that they would receive that amount of credits upon completion. And all through that process, there is an accounting. In other words, the invoices, all of those things are all tracked through engineering. And in the end of the day, there's a reconciliation. In fact, we just went through that on the section of Polo Club, basically from Winchester Road on over to Manowar Boulevard, where all the invoices reviewed and the urban county government said, yes, this is what you paid. This is what it actually cost. These were fair costs. They were very close, very close. So it was zero sum. So they didn't get any credit for building the road. Yes, they did. It was equaled out because they're supposed to pay for the road, right? If I recall, in the end, it was $12 million, somewhere near $10 or $12 million, and they received that amount of credit, which then they can use to satisfy the exactions, which they did for the land which they sold to Central Baptist Hospital. Yeah, I'm not worried about the detail. I'm trying to understand this because you're saying the exactions are supposed to be used to build the infrastructure. So if they're just paying for the infrastructure, how do they generate an extra credit? It seems like it's something extra. It's not extra credit. They get credit for, they get exaction credit dollars. Right. So it's legal tender only for paying their own exactions, or they can sell that to another developer who can use that to satisfy their exactions. But you're saying they're using the credits to offset their costs to give us our park land, for instance, or open space? Yes, they're using it to, even a developer that puts in infrastructure for us pays exactions. But they have the advantage is instead of paying it from their wallet, they receive credits from the urban county government for the work that they have done that qualifies, and they can use that. You can call it whatever, script. Sure. You know, we've called it LFUCG bucks. I mean, you know, you can, anything like that. Right, so you said we're 66, or 60, approximately, averaged 60% developed out, but yet we've only collected a quarter of our total $123 million. So tell me how we collect the rest. I mean, that's a big gap to make up with just 40% of the land left. How is the government going to actually make this a zero sum? Two things to think about. One is that on there that, yeah, two things. Again, as I said earlier, once folks that don't have credit, they are paying regular money to satisfy their exactions. The other thing is that since not all land pays at the same rate, a lot of the land that is left to develop is land that's charged at a higher per acre rate. For instance, the ED land, because it generates greater sewer need. It generates greater traffic needs. The proportion is higher there. So, again, it's not only a function of the amount of land. It's a function of what land and what exaction rates it is to pay when it develops. So we have received no cash in our accounting, so we don't have a line in our budget where there's cash for exactions. It's all basically credit. We have. There have been certain developers that didn't have credit that did pay money. Do we know a total, just a ballpark of how much? I don't off the top of my head. We can get that figure. Most of that was in the sewer work, as I recall, and there were folks that did sewer work. Let me put it this way. If you put in more, we had some developers, particularly early on, that put in sewers that were more than their exactions for sewers. So how they got made whole, once they had used the credits to satisfy their exactions, we still owed them as cash came in. They were on a first-come, first-served basis, issued checks. So we've not put any money back into any improvements or any of the areas cash-wise. LFUCG hasn't. The LFUCG has not, other than the bonded projects that were done in the early years. Okay. My time is about up, but do we have the accounting on that? Who keeps the accounting? Finance. We have all the math and accounting, so there's no money in that bucket right now, cash, in our exaction program. No, there is. Please approach and be heard. Okay. There is. We have, there is some cash in the account now. We cover the liabilities, and then the cash that is available will potentially be distributed for the approved uses. None of that has happened in the past couple years because development has been so slow. We have a meeting scheduled tomorrow to review it, but to the extent that there are any liabilities associated with this program, there is cash that is retained in the account. Do we know how much is in there right now? I don't write off the top of my head. I haven't looked at it lately, but it's a very small percentage of the total amount. I mean, it's a very small percentage of the total amount. It depends on what we're talking about. Small. Lately, you know. So is it less than a million? Yeah. Or a hundred thousand? It's less than a million. I mean, I think we need to know that. I mean, I think we need some accounting to make sure that this program is doing it, because 60% of the land has been improved or developed. It's the other way around. It's the other way around. On your chart, flip your chart then up there. At 60% we may need it. Left. But we're still only a quarter into it of $123 million. I mean, it seems like there's going to be a big cash flow somewhere down the road. I'm trying to figure out when we recruit some of this money. Is it per individual house that's built in the residential areas? They're paying an exaction fee? Yes. Each house will pay it before whoever builds that home. Yeah. So it's going to take some time to collect this back. I mean, absolutely. The government knew it was a long-term deal. And the ED land, we don't know when that's a big chunk of this. That's correct. But again, ED land, the commercial land, the community center land, such as Costco, the residential land, all contribute to the needs of those facilities, and the program has to charge that on a proportional basis to the anticipated need that those uses generate towards the cost. Okay, I'll circle back to you. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Next up is Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Yes, sir. Thanks, Chris. Can you go back to the slide that has all the facilities covered under the exaction program? I want to follow up on a couple of comments that have already been made. There's the one with the cost, but then there's this one. I think that's it. So how are decisions being made now about what to spend or what to actually do in terms of the improvements at this point? Well, right now in the urban county government, let me think about it this, how do I explain? One of the things that were discussed by your predecessors those years ago were, would you go ahead and put these improvements in? Then you wouldn't even have the credits. The government could go in and put these improvements in because they are the large-scale improvements that basically the government is responsible for. The Council chose not to do that except for the bonding that was done in 2C. There is right now some parts of, say, the sanitary sewer system in 2A that are going in. If you're familiar with the project for the pump station and the trunk connecting over that Department of Water Quality is doing, that's part of an exaction program. Okay? Those costs. So, but there is, right now, for the most part, the infrastructure is being done, and up to this point, most of the infrastructure has been put in, has been put in by developers, basically under an agreement, formal agreement with the urban county government. Okay, so. I hope that answered that. Well, I think it goes in a direction. It seems to me, following up on Council Member Stinner's comments, that it's possible that we'll get to a point where enough of the land has not been developed, so the exaction fees have not been received, and yet there will be the need to develop more infrastructure. And so we'll be on the hook for either bonding it or something while we await that development, Whether it will generate enough money in the eventuality that is developed, it's going to be a little hard to tell, although I hope the plans are correct. But is that fair to say that we may be approaching a point where the government is going to have to invest in those? I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think for the most part that there is that kind of infrastructure in thinking about it unless you wanted to go in and have that infrastructure in advance. For example, if in expansion area three, where you're trying to have ED land, if the council thought, well, having all the roads and all the sewers in place now was in the public's interest, you could do that. And ultimately, that money would be recouped through the exaction program, but you have no way of knowing exactly when. In other words, you couldn't do a revenue bond probably based on that. It would be a junk bond type of thing. But you could do that. Okay. And then going back to Vice Mayor Gorton's comment on the rural open space, $1,000 per acre specifically that could be used for the PDI program. Yes. But right now there's no cash flow to do that. How would that decision be made between, let's say, spending it on neighborhood parks or rural open space? Well, again, I think you're thinking of it the wrong way. Again, every acre of land that is developed has been charged $1,000. Okay. But that has not been in the form of cash that can sit in a bucket then to be used to fund the PDR program. up to this point because, again, the credits situation, that money has been pledged by others to pay the exactions, which is entirely legitimate and makes complete sense once you get your arms wrapped around this. I know it's a little bit difficult in one goal. I understand that, but is it fair to say that in that case the availability of funds at all for PDI will come at the very end of this whole process? Yes, I think likely that's exactly right. Towards the end of the development cycle of this land is when those buckets will see real money other than credits. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next up is Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. Chris, other than writing a check, are there other techniques for a developer to use until such time as he can get land actually developed and ready to sell? Yes. Again, the only way they can do that is by building infrastructure under an agreement in receiving credits for dollar credits, dollar amount credits, for putting that infrastructure in based upon what that really cost. Otherwise they have to pay cash. That's correct. Not a performance bond? No. They can pay half of the time of building permit and then the second half within one year. I don't know that we've had anyone take that option. an escrow agreement where the cash is sitting somewhere where it might draw some interest? I'm not aware of any escrow agreements that we've had. Okay. That's all I need to know. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And the next step is Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chris, for the update. It's been a while since we've done this. Let me go in the opposite direction. What if I'm a developer and had development issues and I'm no longer in business, and I went ahead and paid for the road, put the infrastructure in. Did that developer have any recourse at all other than maybe just swap his credits, or what does he have? Does he have any recourse? Well, again, he can satisfy his exactions in advance by using those credits. We've had a number of developers do that. That way, once they have done that, they're pretty much locked in. if the rates go up, they've already satisfied their exaction, so it's fixed at that point. So there's some advantage to doing that. Again, the developer, you can sell them within restrictions. If I'm holding a bunch of credits, I could sell them to another developer in the same area to use those credits for their exaction. That transaction can occur. It has to be noted and actually formally submitted to finance and track so that we know who has what credits. But the agreements that we get into do allow the transfer and assignment of those credits. Has there been a lot of that? Not a great degree. Usually the developers that have gone in and put in the improvements were also builder developers. or if they were selling lots, the transaction that they had with their builders when they sold the lots were already exactions satisfied. Now, that wasn't true in every case. And in the early days, there was some, I think, some time between the buyers and sellers, a little bit of angst over who understood the program and who didn't. But typically, the developers, for the most part, that have credits, use them to satisfy the exactions as they put their plats to record and create those lots. I would just say, you know, I'm hoping that times are on the up and that we won't have this issue, but I know there was a time that they weren't that way. I was just curious how it affected the program. That's correct. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And then we'll circle back to Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Chair. Chris, thank you for the opportunity to have this discussion. I know you and I had a chance to sit down and go over some of this prior, and I really appreciate that because I do think it's an important program. I think moving forward, we're talking about 2,300 acres in our community that's available, but that's 60% remaining for some type of development, whether it be ED or residential, and that's a lot of acreage. We so far too often say we don't have any land left, but in reality, we have a lot of opportunity out there. I think the council really needs to go back and take a look at the ED land because this program has almost a doubling effect on the cost of some of our ED opportunities in the private sector and see how big a player we want to be in ED land. Because it's sitting out there, we're trying to attract, I know it's a more intense use and we may get better revenue from it, but we need to really figure out on Area 3, is that what we still want to do as a government. The other couple of issues on the sewer design, you said it was in 1996 when those designs, Are they still adequate today given everything we've been through with the clean water act? They have been adjusted. For instance, if I recall correctly, when these were done in 2A, when they were actually put in, new requirements were in place and those were actually upsized. Okay. Those costs accounted for. Again, that's part of what, when we adjust the rates, those kinds of cost adjustments. Inflation. I think I told you that when we started this, I think land values for undeveloped residential land were somewhere around $15,000 or $20,000 an acre, and now they're between $70,000 and $80,000 an acre because of the huge boom we had during the late 90s and early 2000s in residential. So all of those kinds of costs have been factored in. And again, we are right now in a situation where we are reviewing to see if we are going to recommend an update to you, and we think we are. When was our last update, 2010? 2010. We changed the fees then? Yes, sir. That was the last time? Okay. And then on the parkland, in the cost to acquire the parkland, what the developers paying is just the cost to acquire the land. Right. Not the ongoing maintenance or future programming or development? Not maintenance, not development of ballparks and things like that. All of that was deemed as being a governmental option. and decided either it wouldn't be legal or it would be challenging to build those costs into the exaction. But the cost of actually getting that land, yes, at fair market value is what is built into the program. Right, and my suggestion is to developers actually pay for them on ongoing maintenance or anything like that, but I do think we need to have a discussion that we had in a committee meeting last month about who is going to maintain that land and the added cost and burden on LFUCG because it's not free land. Someone has to mow it. Someone has to maintain the liability insurance on it. So are we communicating that across departmental divisions and saying, hey, we're taking this land on, do you have an extra $10,000 in your budget? It's something the Greenway Coordinating Group has been talking about now since back in the Miller administration. I mean, we're going back that far in every one, and a lot of times there's a new education curve because the ordinance does say that those greenways are to be dedicated. Right. Yes. We can't afford what we have now, so we're in the process of taking on more, and that creates a stress on the inner parks in our city. So we really need to keep that in mind and have that discussion. So thank you for giving us that update and insight. And my last question is, when Chris King is not here anymore, or we don't have the accounting folks in the audience today, what happens to this program? Who else knows about this program and can fully operate it once the people who have been around a long time are doing so now? How can we be reassured that this stays operational going forward? You know, as in any institution like ours, that's a challenge because we have had, as you know, turnovers in administration. And when that comes, there's a turnover in political, the appointed positions in the government, which are leadership positions. I have said that Commissioner Donna Counts was the person who knew more than any human being alive about this program, but she was not retained. And that's not saying anything's bad. That always happens. It's part of what happens. It is difficult for any organization to establish its institutional memory. I will tell you, I'm trying to do my part by doing sessions like this every time a new administration comes in when there's new council. We used to do workshops on things like this at lunchtime up on the fifth floor with council. And, again, meeting with our finance folks. We have excellent folks in finance that are taking on, learning all the aspects of this program. I tell you, the learning curve would be much quicker once the development kicks up again, because the best way and the only way you really learn this is what I call the osmosis process of working with it. We used to be doing every month four, three or four agreements, and our committee that I chair, the Exaction Credit Advisory Committee that was created by the ordinance, was doing this constantly. But again, since 2008, things have slowed down. It's hurt that process, but I guarantee you and assure you that I'm trying to do everything I can to share what I know with those that will be here after I leave. Well, thank you, and keep backing up your computer database so we don't want to lose all those plat recordings and everything either. But thank you for your work and all the new finance people who have jumped in to pick up the stock when Donalov. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. And then back to Councilmember Kay. Thank you, Chair. I just want to say first that I met Chris when he was a staffer back in the Miller administration a few years ago. He hasn't aged a day since then, so I know he's going to be around forever. I can't help it. But then I do have a question about the fee structure. I gather before I was on council in 2010 that the fee structure, there's a proposal for adjustments, and that comes to council for approval. Is that what happens? That's correct. What do we get to see at that time? What we do, there is a tremendous spreadsheet-based model where we have inputs, such as the costs primarily, that then when we do that and it also adjusts for land that has had its exactions assessed, we make those adjustments and it produces the proposed new rates to affect the rest of the land yet to be assessed in exaction, again, to hit that zero-sum game. We are right now opening up that model, looking at it. It was a consultant-based model. Early on, Commissioner Counts and I identified a couple of things we didn't think were correct and her office made some adjustments in that model. But it's a very transparent thing. We have shared it with the development community and others to review and help us make sure that it's doing just what it's supposed to do. And we continue to do that, and we can do that for council. It's a little tough to do in this kind of environment, but no problem. We can do that. We can show you every cell. We can show you every bit of data and what assumptions underlie what sets those rates. Typically, Council has not been interested in seeing all those nuts and bolts, but certainly you can. Is there any thought about when you might want to adjust those rates? We are working now. There are some critical costs coming in as part of the sanitary sewer, particularly right now that once those are updated from Charlie Martin, we'll be very helpful in setting the model at the right rate. There are a couple of projects that are closing out where we'll know the actual final costs, and we will put those in. So my hope is certainly within the next few months, if not before you go on break, certainly very soon after you come back on break, depending. Great. I look forward to getting that. And thank you for all your good work. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Any other questions from Councilmembers? When we come to the end of our meeting, if Council Member Sten is back, we'll see if he has any other interest in this issue, and we may remove it from committee unless there's other background or foreground we need to work on. With that being said, we'll move on to the next item on our agenda, which is the so-called B1 Zota, which, after having read the notes, this was kind of a Christmas tree Zota. It had a little bit of something for everybody on it. A little something for everybody in this one, yeah. And I think it was originally cycled back to committee by Council Member Henson. and it was in last month's packet also. Anything you want to say or let him talk first? Give us a presentation about what's been ongoing, please, sir. You're going to get a three-headed presentation on this one. I can't promise you we'll get this one in 50 minutes, but we're going to try. We're going to be covering a lot of ground very quickly. And I'm going to lead off and kind of set the stage a little bit and give you a little bit of a larger view of why we're here and what's affected. and Bill Sally and Tracy Wade from our staff are going to go through the nuts and bolts of these with you. First thing I wonder, why are we here? Well, the B-1 zone has been of interest in a long time. It's the neighborhood business zone. It is usually close by our residential areas. We have it in our rural areas. And as such, it was really kind of the early business zone in terms of as the city was moving out and evolved and had not been significantly adjusted since the late 60s with some tweakage done in the early 1980s. And even back in the 2001 plan, based upon a lot of comments and just the need to look at it, we identified this as something that in our comp plan of 2001 to update to do. Another thing happened, if you recall those of you here, between 2000 and 2003, the infill and redevelopment bandwagon really picked up and took steam. And you had the residential infill and redevelopment program, all of those kinds of things. And when we looked at everything that was going on, and we made a conscious decision not to move the project forward at that time, but in the 2007 plan, we identified we wanted to do two things. We wanted to do it, but we also wanted to see if we could get funding for a non-residential infill and redevelopment study to deal with lands that weren't residential and give us some ideas of where to go, what kind of direction to take. So the 2007 plan set out a two-step. First of all, do the non-residential infill redevelopment study, which was funded by the Irving County government and did occur, and then to rewrite the neighborhood business zone. And we did that over a long time, and you will see a little later in the program all the different inputs that we took to contribute to that. So that's why. So in the end, what areas of the business B1 zone did we really impact? And we have basically five groups, and these are the things that Bill and Tracy are going to go over with you. The yard and height requirements, the physical restrictions of the zone relating to the buildings that you can put in the neighborhood business zone. Relationships to lot lines, rights of ways, things of that nature. Heights, the off-street parking. What are the requirements that drive the need for surface parking off-street in the neighborhood business zone? Special provisions, creative ideas, one that we put in there was called a form-based neighborhood business project. You'll hear more about that coming down the road. The principal accessory and conditional uses, as you know, every zone, you have these categories of uses, what you can do, what you can do if you're doing this, and what you can do if the Board of Adjustment allows you to do it. So we reviewed all those uses to see what made sense now versus when these zones were created. And then also definitions and definitions of uses. So within these five groups lie all the changes that you'll be hearing about. So where are we talking about? Primarily, again, we are talking about all of these affecting the B1 zones. And this map shows you where those are scattered throughout the community. There are some rural ones. We couldn't quite fit on the map and show you, but the vice mayor is smiling because she had a task force where we reviewed those exhaustively. There will be more information coming on those in another venue. But we do have these as being the areas of B-1. So you go from very small, the corner grocery store and residential areas that you see in some older neighborhoods, to things like the entire Southland Drive and portions of Nicholasville Road, which we think of as highway commercial, were zone B1 by decision makers in the past for one reason or another. Again, this map shows the area. There are some other zones that because the uses carry over from B1 that are also impacted, we didn't try to map all those, although we have B6P, some of the downtown zones that are also covered, and we'll kind of cover that. But that's only the uses. That isn't all this other stuff that we're changing. So with that said, I'm going to turn the podium over to Bill Sally, who will walk you through the yard-night restrictions that are involved in this tax change. Welcome, sir. Thank you, Council Members. It's very good to be with you this afternoon. Chris showed the earlier slide about the types of things that have been reviewed on this text amendment. And briefly, I think this is a very complex text amendment because it deals with so many different aspects of our zoning ordinance. One of the first things in the slide was that this proposal will affect the yard and height requirements of B-1. In the 1980s, the B-1 zone was made the most restrictive in our entire zoning ordinance for height. the current ordinance only allows a business or a B-1 use to have a 25-foot height limit unless the third floor is used only for residential purposes. In that case, it can have a 35-foot height limit. In this particular text amendment also, there is a 20-foot setback required in the front, and there are no limitations for side and rear yards unless that particular B-1 location abuts what's called a more restrictive zone, meaning the property line is also a zoning boundary. However, height was addressed in the non-residential IR study, and there was a proposal through that that greater allowance for height in B-1 areas should be considered. We've kind of highlighted those sections. I think, though, at the end of the day, after the staff did their work on this, there is not a huge change proposed to the height restrictions in the B-1 zone. Also, in terms of yard restrictions, that study also proposed that those should be relaxed as well. And I think the same is true. At the end of the day, the staff did not make the number of changes that might have been anticipated in 2009, although some certainly are proposed. This amendment would set a minimum and a maximum building set back in the B1 zone, a minimum of 10 feet and a maximum of 20 feet. And, of course, that is a relaxation from the current standard, so it is in keeping with the non-residential study. And the height would be a flat 35 feet, regardless of the use of a third floor of a structure. That 35 feet number is more consistent with almost all of our other residential zones that we have in the ordinance. And thinking of where the B1 zones are, they are most often located very near and close proximity to our other residential zones, such as R1, R2, and R3. No changes are proposed to the rear and side yards, and that same restriction about abutting a more restrictive zone is still in place under this text amendment. The non-residential study also asked that parking be reviewed. Tracy Wade will take you through our review of the parking and of a special provision change in the B-1 zone. Tracy Wade, welcome. Good afternoon. Thank you. As Bill mentioned, the INFIL study also asked that the staff look further at off-street parking requirements. And in doing that, we reviewed an American Planning Association document that specifically compares parking in communities all over the United States. And when we looked at our zoning ordinance compared to the restrictions from that document, we found that two parking requirements needed to be tweaked. That one for arcades with or without billiard or pool tables. And then the last one on this slide for shoe repair, clothing, tailoring services, and tattoo parlors. And then with the definitions proposed, the staff also brought forward two new parking requirements for new uses. And that would be for the animal grooming facilities and the male service facilities. So all in all, the B1 zone and the rest of our parking requirements are quite comparable to other communities, and that was something that the staff was happy to see. We are also aware that the council passed a proposal or an ordinance to make some relaxation of parking in other B1 zones, so I think those can work together to relax parking where needed. The infill and redevelopment study also suggested the option of a form-based code to be added to the zoning ordinance, and it goes on to talk a little bit about how that form-based district can be created or integrated into the existing zoning ordinance for our community within a sub-area, and in this case, the sub-area might be B1 areas. One of the proposals to allow for more of a form-based development in our B1 zones would be to create a maximum for the structure size in our B1s. Currently, a grocery store cannot exceed 60, or a general merchandise store cannot exceed 60,000 square feet. But other large stores could still be built in a B1 zone. For instance, a big box furniture store, and that was a use that the infill study also suggested. Some of these larger uses aren't appropriate in a B1 zone. They should be in our shopping center areas or along the highways. So without tweaking the retail sale and pulling out things like, oh, no furniture store or oh, no liquor store, the staff found that having a form-based code or form-based option would be more appropriate as developers came in. They might be able to exceed a square footage size if they could develop in a way that is compatible with the neighboring business zone. So the next slide here goes into a form-based neighborhood business project would be a permitted use in the B1 zone. and in the special provisions section, it would be something that only the planning commission could approve with the use of a final development plan. The area would have to be at least one acre in size and the lot, yard, and height requirements could all be set by the planning commission. So that provides a much greater flexibility for the developer coming in to build something that's compatible with the surrounding environment. In doing that, the staff felt it was important for the developer to do a character and context study and that that be performed by an architect or an urban design professional to show what is the surrounding neighborhood and how is the proposed development going to be integrated into that neighborhood. They would need to provide renderings and elevations to the Planning Commission and then those would need to be adhered to when building permits were issued. The staff felt an example of a form-based neighborhood business project, although not built under those restrictions. It's something, the Chevy Chase Plaza that exists today in Lexington, because it does respect the character of the neighborhood where the buildings are pushed towards the street. It's been integrated into the neighborhood, and it doesn't meet all of the typical B1 parameters in that case. Bill's also going to cover the proposed changes in terms of uses next. Thank you for your time. Thank you. The use changes were reviewed after the staff discussed this text amendment in general with different folks here at the urban county government, primarily the building inspection staff, the infill and redevelopment steering committee a number of years ago, downtown development authority staff, and of course, as we've shown, we've already reviewed parts of the non-residential infill study to provide direction for the staff. text amendment. There are a number of use changes that are proposed to this text amendment, some of which would be new uses that would appear in the listing of uses allowable in the B-1 zone. Animal grooming facilities, this is a use that went to the Board of Adjustment a number of years ago, I believe along North Limestone for that particular location. Assisted living facilities would become a principal use in B-1. They are currently a conditional use, meaning the Board of Adjustment has to review them on a case-by-case basis. Brew pubs, which have the same current regulation. A new use mail service facility, something like a UPS store or mail service. Tattoo parlors would be listed under this amendment. They are currently permitted and have been by interpretation in the same locations where beauty shops are located. And finally, the form-based neighborhood project that Tracy mentioned just a moment ago. In addition, accessory uses would be added to include a sidewalk cafe, accessory to a restaurant, and also the retail sale of liquid propane, which is another use that has been allowed by interpretation in neighborhood business zones throughout the community. Back up there. This type of use, which is in front of a lot of stores. This particular use also cascades into a number of other zones in this ordinance, which I'll cover in just a moment. Conditional use additions. Extended stay hotels would be a new allowable conditional use in B1. They're currently allowable in the P1 zone, either as a permitted or conditional use, depending on whether it's a professional office project or an independent P1 property. independent parking lots, which I'll cover in just a moment, and also drive-through facilities that are not part of the development plan that the Planning Commission has approved. Currently, those are accessory uses in the V1 zone. Additional conditional uses. There. A number of deletions. Let's see if I can back that up. Some uses in P1 carry into the B1 zone, and these are some that have been removed from the B1 zone in the future, not from the professional office zone, but they would no longer be allowable in B1. That would include hospitals, cable TV distribution centers and studios, and also the conditional use that Tracy mentioned a moment ago, the combination business office and residential project, which the Chevy Chase Plaza is the only example we have on the ground here locally. I mentioned parking lots and structures. Those are currently permitted in the B1 zone. After this text amendment, if it were to pass, there would be a requirement that 25% of a first-floor parking structure would have to be devoted to another B-1 use. So, for instance, in this example, you can see there are offices or shops that have been incorporated into the parking structure. A surface parking lot would no longer be permitted as well. It would become a conditional use under this particular text amendment. Drive-through facilities, as I mentioned, are currently accessory uses. They would remain accessory uses under this text amendment only if they were approved by the Planning Commission on the development plan. Otherwise, they would become a conditional use. That was one of our favorite photos from the Planning Commission presentation. Other use modifications are proposed, and that would include that a multiplex movie theater would no longer be allowable in a neighborhood business owned, but they would be limited to a maximum of three screens. This would be similar to how many of them developed in some of our shopping centers, probably in the 70s and 80s. And in addition, another use that has proven to be problematic from neighborhood types of issues had been truck rentals that can be done as an accessory use. They would be made a conditional use under this text amendment, meaning, again, a site-by-site review for every location rather than just being, say, accessory to a gas station or convenience store. As I mentioned earlier, there are other related changes to the zoning ordinance. The P1 zone, for instance, leading a couple of adding, actually, a drive-through facility use as being accessory rather than conditional. when approved by the Planning Commission on a development plan, just like the B-1 proposal. Some changes to the downtown business zones, again, to identify which uses are being changed in B-1 that would go with the downtown zones and which ones would not. In addition, changes to B-4 and I-1 primarily to refer to the propane gas use being added to the ordinance, since they already exist in those zones as well. We have several new definitions that are proposed as part of this text amendment. I believe all of those are listed on page 33 of your packet, and they would all go into the definition section of the zoning ordinance, which is Article 1-11. Those would be the new uses for animal grooming facility, cocktail lounges, mail service facility, primary entrance, tattoo parlor, those uses. In addition, the two uses that are already in the ordinance that are not defined, that being cocktail lounge and nightclub. Then finally, a cleanup definition change just to incorporate our expansionary zones into what's generally thought of as a business zone, a residential zone, and an industrial zone. I believe we've covered the text amendment in the allotted time. Thank you very much. And, of course, we'll be glad to answer any questions you have, either about our work or about the recommendation that has been forwarded to you from the Planning Commission on that. In the allotted time. Well said. All right. We have several signed up. First up is Council Member Mazzotti. Thank you, Bill. Bill, can you go back to the slide and I'm not sure which one it is about surface parking? Uh-huh. That's a nice slide, yeah. So surface lots is now a conditional use. So you're saying in a B-1, well, right there, you've got it. Yes. The change is that it's going to have to be a conditional use. So if it's not in an enclosed facility, it's not going to be a principal use. That's what you're telling me? Right. Under this text amendment, currently in the B-1 zone, you could have nothing but pavement on a property. It could be a pay lot or a standalone parking lot. Under this Texas Amendment proposal, that particular use would become a conditional use. Parking would still stay accessory to, say, a restaurant, a business of other types, and a parking structure that was proposed that had at least 25% of its bottom floor devoted to a use other than parking would remain a principal use. so a stand-alone parking structure. I understand what you're saying. I'm just not sure how that's going to be able to be utilized because I know it's in a B1 zone, and you've got a lot of these, like you said, mom-and-pop type businesses, and so you're going to expect them to have some kind of an enclosed structure next to their business, which is no? No, not the structure. accessory parking will still be allowable for the business use on the same lot. I think what this would prevent without review by the Board of Adjustment would be if that business owner wanted to level the building and pave the area where the building is and have only a parking lot on the property. In that circumstance, the Board of Adjustment would have to review it, notify neighbors, and approve it as a conditional use. I understand. Okay, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Next is Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. First, kind of a process question. The status of this is that it is now being reviewed by the Planning Commission? It has been reviewed by the Planning Commission. It has been reviewed. And it will, so then it will be coming to Council? It already has. It has come to the Council, and the Council has placed it in this committee. The Planning Commission held the hearing in January of this year and voted to recommend this text amendment 5 to 3 to the Council. That's some of the questions. Let's vote. Okay. And so the prerogatives that this committee would have and then the Council would have would be to amend any one or more provisions in this proposed tax amendment and then approve it as either submitted or amended. Is that correct? Yes. And that's the end of that trail. If we amend, that's how it stands. Right. Okay. Then I have one specific, I guess it's a question or a concern. on the provision to make the drive-through a permitted rather than an accessory, I guess a condition, I wasn't clear what's an accessory or conditional use. Is it a, which one? It would depend entirely on whether or not there was a development plan for the particular use. In the instance where the Planning Commission has approved a development plan for that particular property and the development plan is approved showing a drive-through facility on the property, it would not require a conditional use permit from the Board of Adjustment. Some of our B-1 areas do not have a development plan associated with the properties. And in that instance, it would be a conditional use that would have to go to the Board of Adjustment for approval. Today, a drive-through facility is an accessory use, so there is no extra review either by the Board of Adjustment or the Planning Commission. It's just a matter of having enough stacking room. the traffic engineer approves it at the building permit type of review. I see. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next is Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. A simple question, Bill. How do you come to the conclusion that 35 feet is the top limit? Is that three floors normally? Generally, it's three floors in almost every instance. A very sloping property might have a different height, actual height than that, but most of the time it's about three floors. Okay, why is that limit? Do you have some reason? Is there some standard that we are addressing because of that? There was a 35-foot standard basically placed in the zoning ordinance probably in the 1960s that generally set 35 feet as the limit in almost all of our lower-density residential zones, are single-family and two-family zones. In the early to mid-1980s, the B1 zone was made lower at 25 feet by design, consciously done. And then it was relaxed in the late 90s with a separate text amendment that allowed that third-floor residential option. Okay. So it's a matter of tradition more than a standard? I think it's to match what's allowable in the residential zones that are nearby, which we assume are close. Right. Yeah. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next is Council Member Lawless. Welcome. Thank you. This is a lot to digest. Given the third district, and I'm sure areas in other districts, but we've got B1 and B2 and B2A and B2B stuck in all kinds of places. So I'm trying to imagine the unintended impact of these changes. and several of them, and then I'm also having a little bit of trouble understanding how it then flows into the B2A and B2, B2A and B2B. but the extended stay well I mean it doesn't matter if we have the slide but adding extended stay places I have visions, but I'm not hearing things, so it's okay. Given what we know has happened in many of the infill redevelopment and downtown areas. So a conditional use would be an extended stay hotel that could be up to four stories high, depending on the lot. Right. So I can see right now structures being raised and an extended stay hotel being put in right in the middle of a high-density neighborhood, which is already hemorrhaging. The same with independent pay parking lots. You know, for those of you that haven't had experiences with those in our downtown area and what can happen, you know. And as a result of the changes in the infill redevelopment and residential, we've really shot ourselves in the foot in so many ways. One being the overpaving of backyards and then it runs into the stormwater sewer. Or in many streets such as mine, there is no stormwater system, so it goes into the sanitary sewer and flooding and trash. So all those things that go on in these old areas and many of these B1 business zones. Some of them were built before we had cars. So that really concerns me. Also, just looking through from rehab to centers, And then I don't understand why you would limit a theater to three screens or stages when we also have in these areas some abandoned buildings that are huge that could have more than three stages performing arts or theater. So they're completely limited there, and there could be a reuse of that property without being an adaptive reuse project. So... Yeah, I think the limit on movie screens being limited to three is a use that will only impact the B1. It will not carry to the downtown zones or to the B6P zone, the shopping center zone, under this text amendment. And I don't have a lot of heartburn about that. I have more heartburn about the things that now will be allowed or will be conditional use, such as extended stay hotels, rehab centers, independent parking lots. not that they can't be a good thing, but I can also see where they could be a really problematic thing if not done well, and we know that those things aren't always done well. Yeah, I think the rehabilitation homes are already in allowable use because they're in P1. Well, they're assisted living or they're called something else, but that's a completely... Yeah, an assisted living facility has a separate definition from a rehabilitation home. And those are currently permitted in P1 and then carried to B1 with spacing requirements. The reason I think that the Texas member proposes extended stay hotels and only surface parking lots as conditional use are some of the near neighborhood issues. Currently, the extended stay hotel is conditional in a P1 zone, which is a lesser zone. And it did seem to address some of the non-residential IR issues, but that's why it's being proposed as a conditional use over permitted use. It would not be an automatic by right type of thing. Right, but that is very, I'm very concerned about that in these already very dense areas and development that isn't friendly to an older neighborhood with stressed infrastructure already. so I have a lot of questions and I really need you know I've looked at it and looked at it and I start getting you know dizzy because it's so it is an awful lot and what carries into the B there's so many of these in the third district and I'm sure there are a lot in other districts but it's when you look at an older sometimes 150-year-old neighborhood area, 200 years old, versus a B1 zone in another area, it really complicates things. So thank you. Thank you very much. Next is Vice Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Bill. There for a second I thought we were in a zone change hearing. You're so good. You sound a little familiar from last year, didn't you? Actually, Council Member Lawless, at the end of her remarks, got to a point that I was going to make, and that is that I noted that this was controversial with the Planning Commission. And I also noted that the vote from the Planning Commission, I believe, was 5 to 3 with 3 absent members. And that always concerns me when I know that because of the absences at the Planning Commission, this could have been a reversed vote easily. and it seemed to me as I read through all of the comments that those same concerns were expressed by the Planning Commission, the appropriateness of a few of these things in the neighborhoods in close. So I just want to ask if you or Chris or Tracy have any comment regarding what occurred at the Planning Commission. And, I mean, we have the information and the comments and have read them, but do you have anything to add to their commentary? I think the thing that after setting this aside for several months, if you will, was January when the Planning Commission had their hearing, and then, of course, the last month we've been preparing to present this to you today. The thing that struck me in setting it aside and then rereading the Planning Commission minutes and getting back up to speed with it, the three Commission members that dissented each had somewhat separate reasons for doing so. There wasn't, I didn't sense from the minutes or my recollection of the hearing a kind of a unified opposition to the package of text amendments that you're seeing. That doesn't diminish the fact that they felt strongly enough about those issues to vote against the proposal. The record speaks to that. Oh, I appreciate that. And I think it's always helpful on the Planning Commission we get the exact record, which is very helpful with the exact comments. And this isn't a simple, clean issue, and so I appreciate your comments there. I just, that was really my only comment and my only concern that it did come from the Planning Commission, which had three members absent and was not an 8-0 vote. So I don't know if Chris is right behind you, if he wanted to add anything. I will gladly turn the microphone over to him after I tell you that we did take this to the Planning Commission at least two of their work sessions, so we did work with them through their review. It was thrashed about. Yes, it was very long, and I just really wanted to echo what Bill said. So you can imagine it's a very dangerous thing for me to stand up here and try to say why a Planning Commission member chose to vote the way they did. But my sense is very much is Bill's in that, you know, in the end, they weren't necessarily concerned about the entire package, but, you know, those three members, I think one had some concern about the rural V1s and the work of your committee and whether that should wait until that time, just again from that conversation. Another, I think, had concern about tattoo parlors, to be honest, and I think another person had a concern about the form-based aspect. Again, that's not to diminish, and Bill said it exactly correctly, they felt strong enough to vote the way they did on the package, and that's recognized and acknowledged. But again, my sense was, again, it was more concern about one aspect rather than the entire package. Well, I think this process has been really good, and I appreciate that Council Member Henson did pull it off of our docket and put it into committee because it's given us an opportunity, which we don't take real often with things that come from the Planning Commission, to have a further kind of comprehensive discussion of it. So thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, ma'am. I'm going to go to Council Member Henson because she has not spoken, and then come back to Council Member Kay. So Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Yes, ma'am. I guess Bill or Chris, I still don't feel real comfortable with this because, as you know, in some of the neighborhoods, the shopping centers that are surrounded by neighborhoods, that I've had issues with things in those areas that we're grandfathered in that we can't. So, you know, I do think a lot of care went into this because for the most part I think it's good. And there's conditional uses so you could look at things individually and it would be across the board. But I keep trying to think if there's something I'm missing, something that could possibly happen that we, you know, just wouldn't think about until it was too late. So I guess I would just like to have an understanding of exactly why these were proposed. You know, if you could give examples of the changes. You know, anything we could do to make me feel more comfortable with going ahead? I'm backing up to a slide that I think answers part of your question. As Chris mentioned early on in our presentation to you, the non-residential infill study was the first review of these types of issues that had really occurred since the Planning Commission adopted the comprehensive plan that suggested that the B-1 zones be looked at. That document gave us additional direction and much more detailed recommendations as to the types of changes that should be made to the B-1 zone. That wasn't the only thing we reviewed, though. We wanted to discuss with the Building Inspection Office their history in having to deal with problems in B1 zones and permitting things of that nature. We as planners knew some of the issues that had gone to the Board of Adjustment, for instance, the animal grooming facility. There were a few of those in the mix as well. And in addition, we talked to the two groups that were closest in the downtown area or the near downtown B1 areas. So we tried to solicit those thoughts before venturing on this two-year project to try and make these changes. And as I hope we've been able to communicate, some of them are tightening by making some uses maybe today that are principal or accessory conditional uses from now on. And then there are some that are relaxed, like the extended stay hotels and some of the others. So it really was a global review of the ordinance after all this input. So I hope that helps. I guess it helps. But, you know, I was just, I think, I don't know how much time-consuming it would be for you, but if you could give us some examples, what came before the BOA that, you know. I have one that comes to mind directly. Let me refer you to page 39 in your packet under the B1 zone. That's a real list there. That is a list. Most of those are uses in the P1 zone that carry automatically into the B1 zone. The one that I'm looking for is actually on page 40. I knew I couldn't find it on page 39. Number 37, animal grooming facilities. A board of adjustment case that we had three or four years ago, again, I believe it was on North Limestone Street, was from a local citizen who wanted to locate in a B-1 zone and operate that service. And the closest thing that was addressed there in the zoning ordinance was something called a professional service. So the Board of Adjustment had to interpret whether or not an animal grooming facility would meet that definition and so forth. So some of these types of uses are those clarifying types of changes to B-1. And that also explains why we have six new definitions proposed as part of this as well. And assisted living facility, for instance, where I didn't look at the definition because we've got the other issue coming up. Potentially. Yeah. Yeah, we have time. But assisted living facility, my time's up, I guess. I can give you an example of one. If you're familiar with the Eastland Church of God property on Liberty Road, across the street from the new elementary school, they have a portion of their property next to the subdivision to the west that is devoted as an assisted living facility. And they have a central building that has apartments in it, it has a cafeteria, a meeting place, a gathering place, and then they have little satellite duplexes around that building that serves as an assisted living facility where you can then rent a space and then a package of services that are provided there as well with staff assistance. My time's up, so I'll let the others that want to ask questions, but I still need to digest this a little more. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you for the example. I appreciate that. Thank you, Chair. Bill and or Chris and or Tracy. You've talked a little bit about the detail. If you had to summarize in a few sentences or a short paragraph, what's the intention? Why was this undertaken? What does it hope to accomplish in broad scope so that people who aren't oriented towards the detail as much can understand why this was undertaken? and what we're trying to accomplish here. I think Chris has the best answer for you. In my mind, it's to implement a portion of the comprehensive plan. That's the simple answer. But we got there for so many reasons. First of all, we had a zone that, you know, a number of times people said, gosh, we just need to look at that. Neighborhoods felt that way. There were sometimes some uses that were of concern. There are the business areas that are near our neighborhoods. So I think even going back, just now and again, you just need to take a look at your restrictions and your regulations through the eyes of the time you're in. And I think even back in the late 1990s, we were thinking about that because it came up in the 2000 Comprehensive Plan, 2001, that we needed to do this. Then again, when again, infill and redevelopment got such a boost in the early 2000s with the residential infill and redevelopment study and much more commitment from the Urban County Council and others to more than just the idea of infill. We had a facilitator on staff. We were doing all these things. And we recognized that the residential infill and redevelopment study led to one of the largest rewrites of the zoning ordinance we ever had in order to facilitate residential wind film redevelopment. So successful, in our opinion, that we wanted to replicate that with a non-residential because you can't separate the two. The quality of our infirm redevelopment and residential and the quality that we have in the non-residential and the services that are near residential and support our residential are two sides of the same coin, in our opinion. So, again, with all of that, and we had a very good firm, KKG, who's our consultant for the non-residential infill and redevelopment study out of Covington. And they did a lot of work, talked to a lot of folks. They had a lot of expertise in other communities and what they had done, and they pointed us in a lot of directions. Not all of them, I don't think, necessarily took, but we took a lot of what was recommended in that study into this text amendment as well. So, again, it's refreshing, updating, and trying to make it more relevant to today's world, I think, would be the big-picture reason why we're doing this. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. And, Chair, I know that there may still be some additional comments, questions, reservations, but I'd like to make a motion that we approve the proposal, the zone text, put it back on the council agenda. That's a motion to move this from committee to full council. Second. We have a motion and a second. We're in discussion on that motion. Nobody's specifically signed up for that yet. I would, however, go to Councilman Rolales first just because you already signed up. If you'd like to speak to the motion, that would be fantastic. Well, I guess this, in a way, is speaking to the motion. I guess I'd like to say that when Vice Mayor Gorton said, this is like a zone change hearing, it really is a zone change hearing in a really big way. In other words, we're changing our zoning ordinances to add or delete a lot of different things. And you can't unring the bell. So, and there were many great things in our residential infill and redevelopment, and then a lot of things that were unintended impacts that have really been very detrimental to the community and the neighborhood in many ways. That being said, the things that I would like to see at least it amended to put in conditional use for the Board of Adjustments, when I look at research development and testing laboratories or centers, now, that's very broad. And that can go anywhere from somebody testing, you know, a new dog food to human testing of new drugs. And that's a pretty broad range in a neighborhood. But given, you know, another thing is rehabilitation homes, but only within more than 500 feet from a residential zone. And 500 feet really isn't that far. But most of the B-1 zones, I think, in the 3rd District are not. There's only a couple maybe that aren't 500 feet. But for other people, that's a broad term, rehabilitation home. You're talking about homes for sex offenders. I mean, again, that's a really broad range how you define rehabilitation home. And, again, that wouldn't probably impact the third district, but it might impact some of the other districts. and then community centers and private clubs, churches, and Sunday schools. Well, obviously I'm not going to sit up here and fuss about churches and Sunday schools and expect to see tomorrow, but community centers and private clubs, that also is a very broad range when you're looking at within 100 feet of a residential. So if at least those could be amended to at least make those conditional uses, I would be more comfortable that have to be approved by the Board of Adjustments or a better definition of those because they are so broad. I mean, there are many instances where these would be no issue at all, and some instances where they would be extreme issues. And I think a lot of it is really great, and I appreciate all the work everybody put into this. So that's my... No. Do you want to then wait on a motion to amend until we've had further discussion? Yes. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Next would be Vice Mayor Gorton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just, since this has been moved to move it forward, I just wanted to be sure I understand either Mr. King or Mr. Salee or Ms. Wade. and going back to when I read through this, there were three items that I had concern about. The one that's been mentioned, research development and testing labs, the telephone exchanges, radio and TV studios, which it looks like, let's see, was that taken out? Only for cable television studios. Only cable. broadcast station would still be permitted. And then the business colleges, trade schools, and institutions. So I wanted to know, okay, on the height restriction, there would be no height restriction or there would be the 35-foot? Under this text amendment, there would be a 35-foot height restriction. Okay. Today it's 25 unless there's president. It would move up, but it wouldn't be the full no height restriction. I mean, I work in my other job, my nursing job, I work in a three-story medical building, which is right in the heart of Southland Drive, and it works fine. So I just wanted to be sure I was understanding every piece of this, and I appreciate that. Thank you. the only additional height that would be possible would be under the form-based code option. Thank you, ma'am. Then Council Member Beard. While I have you up there, Bill, something you said that kind of didn't click with me very well, so let's do it again. A broadcast station, does that include its 1,200-foot tower? Towers generally are exempt from the zoning. However, radio and television towers are regulated under the ordinance. there are conditional uses in the ag area. I believe that there is a limitation under the building code as to how high they could be, say, on top of a building. And those probably would not fall under the height restrictions. But they would not, if you think of the towers that are, say, out Winchester Road, that would not be an option in a B1 zone. It would be something much shorter, like you would see perhaps on some of the downtown buildings. Which wouldn't work. the facility wouldn't work for... Right, with a short tower. Yeah, with a short tower. Yeah, what you would likely more see is the round dish antenna that would take the signal somewhere. Switching over to cable, if the facility was not their main office in the way they do business from their switches and that end of it. But let's say you make your cable payment in a building. Is that still considered to be a cable facility? No, a place where you would pay your cable television bill. Like Tombo Drive, for instance. Yeah, I think this would be more the studio space rather than the administrative and the bill paying. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to speak to the motion and say that I just don't feel comfortable at this time supporting the motion. I would like to take a real closer look at the principal and accessory uses and their definitions, and if they're questionable before I would support a motion, and I would prefer that it stay in committee. Yes, ma'am. I understand on both counts. Thank you. Vice Mayor. I was going to say a similar thing. I think we can maybe do a little more vetting of some of the pieces of this. I did have a question about the process, given that there's a motion on the floor, and this is like all of the things that we get from the Planning Commission, I'm presuming that at some point if and when the Council passes this through committee and it goes on the docket, the Council is fully able to schedule a public hearing if they want the public to weigh in, correct? I believe so. I know the Council has had public hearings on tax amendments previously. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, if it is, and we're at the moment of decision, if it is the pleasure of the council to keep this in committee, next month we would need to have a discussion about the actual verbiage itself. What we got today was a really good history lesson, what brought us here. What we really didn't discuss, in my opinion, and I personally have questions about some of the definitions and some of the words that are used here and some of the words that are X'd out here. But if the motion is not successful and this does come back, I would ask for folks to give us input well in advance so that we could have substantive conversation about specifics here with the idea that we could come to some fruition. If the vote is to move it on, we may have other conversations about it when it gets to Council. So that's just a committee basis for you there. You're done, right, speaking? Yes. All right. Then we have no one. Council Member K. Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair. I guess I'm inclined to withdraw my motion. Since a couple people have expressed the need for further time to look at this, I am, however, I'd like to echo the Chair's comment, And that is my concern is that we not have another general discussion. If people have specific proposals for amending or if they have overall objections, we would need to hear that. I have not heard anybody with overall objections to the whole effort, but there may be some specifics. So hopefully if we come back, we would have a very limited conversation to specific amendments to propose change and then move it forward to council. So having said that, I will withdraw my motion. Does the seconder agree to withdraw? It wouldn't be though. I think it was Harry. But Chuck was listening. Yes, I believe him. The potential and the actual seconder both agree, so that motion is removed. I will make a list of my questions and potential changes and circulate them to the council and ask others to add into that so that we can have a companion document for staff to work with before we come back next month. Having said that, what a fine discussion. Last on our agenda is adult daycares. This issue was not short in any other form. It has come to us, and we have 10 minutes for it. And, Bill, you're up to speak to it. I want to go, however, to Council Member Ford for a let him tee it up, and we'll go from there and see how far we get in 10 minutes' time, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Committee. This is an issue for the new members of the Committee, Council Member Masati and Council Member Clark, just to give a background. The timeline is adequately listed on page 111 of the packet, and it dates back to December 2011. The definition of what this ZODA presents is on page 99, and it basically will allow for a clear definition of adult daycares in the social services sense of the definition. One does not exist, so it's basically a cleanup and an addition to the zoning ordinance via definition. It goes further to also set the zoning parameters and allowing for this definition, this used to be conditional use in certain zones. And primarily that is for the purpose to provide adequate notification to residential neighbors, particularly in some of my downtown business zones. The definition of the adult daycare is on page 102 of the packet, which defines it. This has been a long process, and I think what with planning staff's help, with the planning commission's deliberation, which it did pass in August of 2012 by a vote of 8 to 1. So it was overwhelming support of planning, and it was not an easy task. They had a lot of discussion and study of that to bring this policy forward. It was tabled in September 2012, and I think in summary, and I'll ask Bill to come up, I can summarize it really in this sense of definition. This ZODA was initiated by council because of response from my constituents in the 1st District. It has been adequately researched and studied by planning staff. It's been debated and approved by the Planning Commission 8-1. it has not been objected by members in the body of the Mayor's Commission on Homelessness. That was a concern of how it would impact that population. And furthermore, it's been introduced and discussed in this committee three times in addition to today. So I would quickly turn it over to Bill, and I think it's appropriate, committee members, if not today, very soon, that we refer this ZODA to Council for approval. In the interest of time, I would only cover with the committee what is new that you haven't seen previously, and that's the information on pages 112, 113, and 114. And what the planning staff has provided to the committee are state definitions of the two types of uses that we discussed with you in September, one of which requires the certificate of need from frankfurt and the other use that does not no one else has signed up and there's no motion been tendered i just a lot of the notes pertain to the the proximity to schools was that how was that finally addressed or not in this i'm sorry sir proximity to to schools seem to be a lot of questions about the proximity of these at the planning commission hearing there was a lot of discussion about that the original impetus of this was to provide notice for these uses ahead of their locating that seemed to be the precipitating event that prompted this text amendment and the only way through the zoning ordinance to do that to provide notice is with a conditional use permit you can set spacing requirements and you can do other things with with regulating land use but that note the fact that they wanted notice in advance. The only mechanism to do that is through the conditional use process. All right. Very good. Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Bill, thank you. And Council Member Farmer asked one of the questions I was going to ask because of all the discussion about schools and notification of schools. And I did want to just mention that the LAPC, the local emergency planning committee, does have a comprehensive list of schools and daycares because they have to do the hazardous spill notification. So it might be helpful for if planning doesn't have that list for you all to get that list. And then the other thing that I just was interested in is that this was fairly well accepted by the Planning Commission. One of the issues that came up in our discussion was the potential confusion of the name with the state. and I know you included the KRS's here. So can you comment on any potential perception or misperception with facilities that are licensed by the state? The facilities licensed by the state, that's the one that appears on page 112. And the text amendment that was sent to you last year provided a new definition that was neither one of the two that appear on 112 or 114. They were kind of a hybrid that would allow both. So, yes, this has separated out the one definition you reviewed last year with two that matched the state requirements. So it separated the name so that that confusion would be at least mitigated a little bit because that was one of the problems with this. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Ford. Council Member, I would, for the sake of time, I would make a motion to refer this to the full council. This action basically is taking this off the table as the committee requested in September. So I tender that so moved. Second. We have a motion by Council Member Ford, seconded by the Vice Mayor. We're in discussion. Council Member Henson, would you like to speak to the motion? or not okay anyone else speak to the motion then hearing none all those in favor signify I'm saying aye opposed like sign motion passes now Council Member Henson I just I wanted to make a statement because this is something that's very near and close to my heart So I certainly understand Council Member Ford wanting to protect his neighborhoods and schools, and I do exactly the same thing. Getting the two definitions certainly helped. from separated out adult day and adult health care program or whatever. But I just want to make sure that as a city we are not segregating a certain population and that if they have to come before the Board of Adjustment for conditional use, that, and these are citizens of Lexington, and they have to have a place in our city. So I just wanted to caution about singling out a certain population. Do you think this legislation is too stringent, too restrictive in its proposed form? I'll make that decision when it comes up for a vote. Very good. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Then I was going to say to the planning committee that I spoke with Councilmember Stennett. He feels like we have completed our work with the exaction fees. I was going to ask for a motion to remove that from the committee's. Move to a second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Those like sign. And then let's go ahead and do the one that we just passed here, which was adult daycares. I ask for a motion to remove that also. Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Very good. That completes our rather full agenda for today. We look forward to doing it again next month. We are adjourned. Thank you.