# Urban County Council Work Session - May 28, 2013 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 28, 2013 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3008 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3008?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2013-05-28 - **Last revised**: July 16, 2026 - **Length**: 18,689 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Council met on May 28, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber, 2nd Floor Government Center in Lexington, Kentucky, with Mayor Jim Gray presiding. The council addressed eight agenda items during the session, including public comment periods, rezoning requests, budget amendments, and various business matters. The council took 25 motions and votes and heard 11 public comments from members of the community. Key outcomes included approval of a summary and new business items, while continuing business and presentations were deferred to a future meeting. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on May 28, 2013: - Jennifer Mossotti - Diane Lawless - Ed Lane - Steve Kay - Peggy Henson - Linda Gorton - Chris Ford - Bill Farmer Jr. - Chuck Ellinger - Harry Clarke - Julian Beard - Shevawn Akers - George Myers - Jennifer Scutchfield - Kevin Stinnett No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions All motions brought before the meeting passed unanimously with 15 votes in favor and no votes against or abstentions. **Summary Approval** [timestamp: 00:07:36] Motion 0574-13 to approve the Summary for May 21, 2013 passed unanimously. Harry Clarke moved and Bill Farmer Jr. seconded. **Committee Summaries and Reports** [timestamp: 00:20:35 - 00:24:48] Motion 0583-13 to approve Neighborhood Development Funds for May 30, 2013 passed unanimously, moved by Linda Gorton and seconded by Jennifer Scutchfield. Motion 0578-13 to approve the Planning and Public Works Committee Summary passed unanimously, moved by Bill Farmer Jr. and seconded by Julian Beard. Motion 0597-13 to approve the Environmental Quality Committee Summary and Draft SOP passed unanimously, moved by Kevin Stinnett and seconded by Bill Farmer Jr. Motion 0586-13 to approve the Recreational ZOTA Work Group Final Report passed unanimously, moved by Kevin Stinnett and seconded by Bill Farmer Jr. **Zoning and Planning** [timestamp: 00:24:48] Motion 0598-13 to refer the Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment (B1) to the Planning and Public Works Committee passed unanimously, moved by Steve Kay and seconded by Linda Gorton, with return scheduled by 6/11/2013. **Grants and Authorizations** [timestamp: 00:35:15] Multiple motions regarding grants and authorizations passed unanimously, all moved by Chuck Ellinger and seconded by Linda Gorton. These included: Motion 0532-13 for the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Program; Motion 0533-13 for bulletproof vests for Fayette County Sheriff; Motion 0535-13 for the Police Training Incentive Grant; Motion 0536-13 for firefighter training incentive; Motion 0547-13 for the Child Care Food Program; Motion 0555-13 for the Workforce Investment Act Youth Services project; and Motion 0560-13 for the ITS/CMS Traffic Improvements Project. **Property and Facility Agreements** [timestamp: 00:35:15] Motions 0540-13, 0542-13, and 0543-13 authorizing lease agreements with Metro Employees Credit Union and Employment Solutions, Inc. passed unanimously. Motion 0541-13 to execute an agreement with Vision Internet for website upgrades passed unanimously. **Additional Authorizations** [timestamp: 00:35:15] Motion 0545-13 to declare Whitney Avenue parcels as surplus passed unanimously. Motion 0548-13 to reduce the speed limit on Montavesta Road from 35 mph to 25 mph passed unanimously. Motion 0551-13 to execute Amendment No. 3 with HDR/Quest Engineers for Citation Boulevard Phase II design passed unanimously. Motion 0564-13 to execute Change Order No. 1 with Todd Johnson Construction Co. passed unanimously. **Procedural Motions** Motion to extend meeting time by 15 minutes passed unanimously [timestamp: 01:11:33]. Motion to move Recreational ZOTA work product to Planning Division for review passed unanimously [timestamp: 02:08:48], moved by Ed Lane and seconded by Chris Massadi. Motion to adjourn passed unanimously [timestamp: 02:14:12], moved by Kevin Stinnett and seconded by George Myers. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting approved the following financial actions and contracts: **Lease Agreements** * Metro Employees Credit Union lease for space at Versailles Road Campus: $18,977.16 (0540-13) * Metro Employees Credit Union lease for space in Phoenix Building: $5,650.97 (0542-13) * Employment Solutions, Inc. lease for Division of Police East Sector Roll Call facility: $33,744 (0543-13) **Technology and Infrastructure Contracts** * Vision Internet VisionCMS Upgrade to LFUCG Website: $26,100 (0541-13) **Construction and Design Amendments** * Todd Johnson Construction Co. Change Order No. 1 for Meadows/Northland/Arlington Public Improvements Project, Phase 5A: $9,659.41 (0564-13) * HDR/Quest Engineers Amendment No. 3 for Citation Boulevard Phase II design: $114,500 (0551-13) **Grant Funding** * Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Program for FY 2014: $16,183 (0532-13) * Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Police Training Incentive Grant for FY 2014: $2,246,560 (0535-13) * Commission on Fire Protection, Personnel, Standards, and Education Firefighter Training Incentive Grant: $2,270,840 (0536-13) * Kentucky Transportation Cabinet ITS/CMS Traffic Improvements Project for FY 2014: $460,000 (0560-13) ## Public Comment The meeting included public comment on several topics, with speakers addressing zoning definitions, infrastructure management, and natural area access. **Adult Daycare Center Zoning Definition** David Christensen [timestamp: 00:00:00] expressed concern that the proposed definition of adult daycare center is overly broad and would negatively impact legitimate nonprofit and proprietary programs serving adults with developmental disabilities, including his organization, Employment Solutions. Jenny Ramsey [timestamp: 00:03:55] voiced concern that the proposed zoning ordinance definition and amendment (ZODA) targets vulnerable populations and creates a climate of hostility, advocating for more collaborative and compassionate approaches to community issues. **Infrastructure Project Management** Kevin Stinnett [timestamp: 00:08:08] questioned the frequency of change orders in projects, suggesting a need for improved project planning and process review. Bill Farmer Jr. [timestamp: 00:17:13] supported reducing the speed limit on Montavesta Road from 35 mph to 25 mph, citing its residential character and safety concerns. Ed Lane [timestamp: 00:18:53] raised concerns about long-term cost creep in infrastructure projects, emphasizing the need for better project management and accountability. **Natural Area Access and Land Use** Burgess Carey [timestamp: 01:51:01], a small farmer, emphasized the need to preserve green space and support sustainable land use, urging the council to provide tools for farmers to manage their land productively. John Park [timestamp: 01:57:02], a local attorney, argued that natural areas should not be locked away and that responsible recreation can support conservation and public access. Chelsea Perrin [timestamp: 01:58:08], a recent UK graduate, advocated for opening natural areas to the public through responsible recreation, arguing that access fosters preservation. Sarah Steele [timestamp: 02:01:19], a zipline guide, explained that canopy tours educate the public about local ecology and promote conservation, and should be allowed in natural areas. Callie Ricketts [timestamp: 02:03:39], a local resident, shared her support for the canopy tour as a way to connect people with their environment after discovering nearby natural areas. Van Meter Pettit [timestamp: 02:05:13] supported preserving rural lands but urged the council to reconsider overly restrictive recreation rules, noting the need for outdoor activities for families. ## Contested Items The May 28, 2013 meeting included three significant areas of disagreement among council members: **Adult Daycare ZODA** The proposed Adult Daycare ZODA (Zoning Overlay District Amendment) generated substantial opposition. Council members expressed concerns that the definitions within the proposal were overly broad and could produce unintended consequences for nonprofit services. There was particular worry about the impact on vulnerable populations who depend on these services. Rather than voting the proposal up or down, the council amended the motion to return the ZODA to committee for additional work and refinement before bringing it back for consideration. **Recreational ZOTA Work Group Report** The Recreational ZOTA (Zoning Overlay Text Amendment) Work Group Report prompted heated discussion among council members. The core disagreement centered on balancing two competing interests: preserving rural land versus allowing recreational use and access. Several speakers advocated for public access and economic development opportunities, arguing these benefits should not be unnecessarily restricted. Conversely, other council members warned against over-regulation that could undermine the protections rural areas require. The discussion reflected fundamental differences in how members prioritized land conservation against economic and recreational considerations. **Change Orders and Project Costs** Council members raised procedural concerns about recurring change orders and cost overruns on projects. The discussion focused on systemic issues rather than a single project, with members questioning whether adequate project management and planning processes were in place. Council members sought to understand why change orders were becoming a recurring issue and discussed ways to improve planning and cost control procedures to prevent future overruns. ## Public Comment - Issues on Agenda [timestamp: 00:00:00] Two residents provided public comment on agenda items during this portion of the meeting. **Speakers and Concerns** David Christensen and Jenny Ramsey both spoke in opposition to the proposed Adult Daycare ZODA (Zoning Ordinance Development Amendment). Their primary concerns centered on: * Overly broad definitions within the proposed amendment * Negative impacts on vulnerable populations **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action taken during the public comment period. ## Requested Rezonings / Docket Approval [timestamp: 00:07:04] No rezoning requests were presented for approval during this session. ## Approval of Summary The council considered approval of the summary from the May 21, 2013 meeting. [timestamp: 00:07:36] Key speakers on this item included Harry Clarke and Bill Farmer Jr. The summary was approved unanimously by the council. ## Budget Amendments No budget amendments were presented for discussion or approval during this session [timestamp: 00:07:36]. ## New Business [timestamp: 00:20:35] The council addressed several new business items during this portion of the meeting. Key speakers Chuck Ellinger and Linda Gorton presented and discussed the matters under consideration. The council approved a series of new business items by unanimous vote. These included federal grant applications, lease agreements, and infrastructure projects. All items presented were approved without opposition. ## Continuing Business / Presentations [timestamp: 00:21:09] The council received reports from three committees during this agenda item. **Committee Reports** The Environmental Quality Committee, Planning and Public Works Committee, and the Recreational ZOTA Work Group each presented reports to the council. **Key Speakers** The presentations were delivered by Kevin Stinnett, Bill Farmer Jr., and Don Robinson. **Outcome** The ZOTA report was referred back to the Planning Committee for further work, indicating that additional review and development of the proposal is needed before final council action. ## Council Reports [timestamp: 02:10:25] Council members provided updates on various community and municipal matters during this informational segment. **Topics Discussed:** - An upcoming roller derby bout - A community meeting - A resolution opposing a water rate increase **Key Speakers:** The following council members contributed to the reports: - Shevawn Akers - Linda Gorton - Bill Farmer Jr. - Diane Lawless **Outcome:** This agenda item was informational in nature, with council members sharing updates rather than taking formal action on the matters presented. ## Public Comment - Issues Not on Agenda [timestamp: 02:14:12] No public comments were submitted for issues not on the agenda. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the new business items - **Motion** — passed (0-0): approve the Neighborhood Development Funds (NDF) - **Motion** — passed (0-0): accept the draft of the Division of Water Quality Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) - **Motion** — passed (0-0): refer to the docket an Ordinance amending Article 1 and Article 8 of the Zoning Ordinance to define Adult Day Care Centers and to regulate such facilities as a conditional use in the P-1, B-1, B-2, B-2A, and P-2 zones - **Motion** — passed (0-0): amend the motion to move the item back to the Planning and Public Works Committee to be heard at the next meeting - **Motion** — passed (0-0): extend presentation time for the ZOTA Work Group Final Report by 15 minutes - **Motion** — passed (0-0): move the work product from the ZOTA Work Group to the Division of Planning for further review and recommendations - **Motion** — passed (0-0): amend the motion to then send the document to the Planning Commission afterwards - **Motion** — passed (0-0): adjourn --- ## Full transcript Okay, that'll be later then. Right. And I think David and... Oh, it is? All right, fine. Then it would be appropriate now, Rick. And I know you've been here many times and you know the protocol. Thank you, Mayor. My name is Rick Christman. I live at 2400 The Woods Lane in Lexington. I appreciate being here for all the council. I'm also the Executive Director of Employment Solutions. I'm here to talk about the proposed text for the adult daycare center. My understanding is that I think the impetus behind this was perhaps the development of some daycare centers or some operations for the homeless that may not have been that well thought through. But my comment today is with regard to the definition of adult daycare center. It is, as I'm reading here, a facility providing care protection and or guidance for adults in a protective setting during only part of a 24-hour day. That is a very broad definition. That would include much of the operations of Employment Solutions. As you know, we have daycare programs, work programs for adults with developmental disabilities. You've been there, Mayor, so out there on Whipple Court. There's many other programs like ours in the city operated by, I would assume, Bluegrass Mental Health Mental Retardation Board has several such programs. NAMI, the National Association for Persons with Mental Illness of the Bluegrass. I think they have socialization groups. There are numerous other nonprofit and proprietary programs serving people with developmental disabilities. I'm not sure if that was intended to be included in this definition, but as I read it, they are. This would create quite a hardship, I think, for any of us who want to expand programs, develop new programs, move programs, in that there's not a single zone in the city in which we are a primary use. And this is a big change, because up until this point, we could go into a professional zone or a business zone, and that would be a primary use. So this is catching us all up in this definition. I was there at the initial hearing with the Planning Commission. I thought that the staff had a reasonable compromise in which there was a 500-foot boundary for residential areas and then anything within the P1 zone or B1. As long as we're not within that 500-foot boundary, then we would be considered a primary use. Somehow during the course of that discussion with the Planning Commission, that all kind of fell apart, I think, with concerns over notices to schools. But again, I just want to say that this is a very broad definition. It's going to be a hardship for many legitimate organizations, which may not be licensed, but we certainly are regulated by the state. And I think it would be very difficult for many of us to continue to provide services to people with any kind of disabling condition. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Christensen. David Christensen. David. Jenny, you're going to speak too, right? Oh, you're going to yield? Okay. Hello, hello. David Christensen. I live at 4844 Brennan Drive here in Lexington, and I am the executive director of the Center for Kentucky Housing and Homeless Initiative. I agree that this is too broad. I agree that it's going to have a lot of unintended consequences. I think you could also look at the parking restrictions. They're clearly going to make it difficult. for programs that are serving folks that do not have cars. That is too restrictive. But I have, I guess, more of a global concern. It's my understanding that this ordinance resulted from concerns about the New Life Day Center and to try to find a way to go through a public hearing process, essentially to prevent anything like that from occurring again, although the New Life Day Center is grandfathered in. The Center of Kentucky Housing and Homeless Initiative exists to work in the community to try to find ways to collaboratively and cooperatively work on issues about housing and homelessness. I'm increasingly concerned that our city, our city council, is targeting really vulnerable people or at least trying to, you know, with this and the partial hijacking of the nuisance ordinance, the previous activities involved with the Board of Adjustment and the Community Inn. We are absorbing a climate of negativity and hostility towards some of our most vulnerable citizens, And I personally would like to see us move more towards collaborative, compassionate, and cooperative ways of trying to deal with issues that are legitimate concerns that people might have. the Kentucky the Central Kentucky Housing and Homeless Initiative always stands ready to sit down across the table from anybody who wants to have a discussion about whatever issues they're concerned about and I again and that has been suggested to several folks excuse me in council legislative visits and I would like to reiterate that commitment so So I think we need to do better as a community. I think government, one of the roles ought to be to provide the best that we can provide for all our citizens, including those most vulnerable. So thank you very much. David. Thank you, Mr. Christensen. So, Jenny, you yielded. All right. Jenny Ramsey. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. All right. So that allows us then. and that's all that's signed up for public comment for issues on the agenda, allows us to move to any rezoning motions and the docket approval. Actually, there's no docket for this week, so we don't need it. I was just about there. That's all right. That was a movement for approval of all things. There we go. All right. It allows us to move on to the approval of a summary. Is there a motion to approve a summary? No. Motion by Councilman Clark, second by Councilman Farmer. Is there any discussion on the motion? No discussion. Then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. And the next on our agenda is budget amendments. There are no budget amendments today, so we don't need a motion there. Do you approve new business? Second. Motion to approve new business by Council Member Ellinger, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Stenney. Thank you, Mayor. I had a question on item I. Who is the purchaser of the property? It was not listed in this quick claim deed, nor was it listed in the background information. I'm just curious of who is obtaining these two partials. It looks like here comes Mr. Chamsheed Faradharan. Thank you. This is primarily done for making the adjustments. It was an oversight when the original property was sold. They were supposed to have been all three considered as one parcel. So the parcel had been sold. This is just to make the adjustment as the original intention of the whole title transfer was. But who's the new owner? I'll be glad to find the name for you. Because they own 950, who we did back in 2010. I remember this clearly. Yeah, yeah. But now they're getting two additional properties. No, no, no. The whole original intention of the surplus in those parcels were all of them together. At a time when they did the title search indeed, it showed to us it was under one title. So after the transfer, the detransfer was committed, he came back to us, and he said that it was brought up to their attention that it was actually three parcels, not one. So all we're doing is trying to make that right, because that was the original intention of selling all those parcels as one. So it took almost three years for him to figure out that there were two more? Yes, it's taken us that long to get it going. If you could let us know who the purchaser was on this, that would be great. And then on item L, Mayor, this is a change order for the Citation Boulevard Phase 2. I know I see Commissioner Poulsen here. I know you have some engineers here, too, that could probably answer just as well. I'm going to turn this over to Andrew so he can speak about it. This is his project. But while you're there, this goes back to a theme that a lot of us keep repeating itself. We keep alluding to why the change orders on design contracts for roadways. Are we shortchanging ourselves going into the project, or are these all cases of we've uncovered new things that we just can't, we have to redesign it and design around? I think it puts the cost of some of these projects on down the road. Are we really going into the project and knowing how much it's going to cost? And that's what we're all thinking up here trying to figure out. Where are we making that error? Or are all these just a simple case of we get into the project, uncover all these new needs, and we just didn't know about them? I'd say some of it is a – sometimes it is a new need. There's another change order here that's a new need, the MNA 5A that's going to be – if that gets brought up, we can talk about that as well. And sometimes it is maybe the process, and that's the things that we're working on right now. We were having a discussion today. what is it that we can look at with the process in terms of the bidding, in terms of design that we can look at to see can we improve that so we can avoid these change order issues that keep coming up. So, again, they're not all cut and dry. I wish they were. I wish there was a simple solution or a simple answer, but I think what we're doing is trying to take a good hard look at all the projects we have and as the bid process goes out and how we can improve the bid process. But then there are going to be those times where it's just going to be, there are things that pop up during construction, during design, that are just going to be problems. And I think this is one of those that Andrew can give a little bit more detail to. Yeah, what are the seven modifications to this project quickly? If Andrew can answer that, that's all I'm concerned. What are some of the things that we missed? There are seven differences, Andrew. This is the third design change order for Citation Bullard. When it was originally led, it was originally led approximately over ten years ago. That entire area of Lexington is constantly changing. Throughout the life of the project, we had to keep, I guess the best way to describe it, you had to keep the plans current. For instance, Citation Boulevard connects up to Leestown Road. The state was redesigning, widening Leestown Road. They altered their design at that intersection three separate times. Our consultant had to go back and redesign it three separate times. It was not necessarily a fault of us, but it was a modification that the Transportation Cabinet did. Each time that happens, we have to go back, and I hate to say it, we have to pay our consultant again to keep the plans to a current level. The funding for this job was also a little bit part of the reason for some of these design contract change orders. As the project, when it was originally put out for design, the original cost of the right-of-way, most of the land was agricultural. As that area redeveloped, the land was rezoned. The cost of the project grew exponentially. The amount of time that it took us to get federal money to build it extended the life of the project. because of those reasons we had to keep on paying the designer to make all the modifications as neighborhoods as ball homes changed two or three different roads in the area where they connected those all had to be redesigned I think cutter homes changed how we looked at Greendale Road that had to be redesigned at one point we looked at splitting the plans into two separate projects because we thought we were only going to have half of the money. As fate would have it after the last general session, they gave us all of the money, so we put the plans back together. So I think the length of time that it took from where we started to today is the reason why you see the change orders for a citation. Well, you know, the original project was 700 and change, and now it's over a million. Yes, sir. So, I mean, we approved this in 2001, so that's 12 years of work. So I understand the time, value, and that changes. So I appreciate the explanation, but it also gives us further examples, Mayor. When we program and we have a capital needs and a capital plan for roads and different infrastructure, the longer we put some of these off, the more expensive they're going to be, and it will just continue to keep rising. And when you have zone changes, you know, that plays into exactly what you're talking about here. It affects the price. And we're having that discussion in our planning committee next month, hopefully, Council Member Farmer. And it'll be a good discussion to start looking at our major corridors and see all we need to do budget wisely. So thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank Council Member Stendent for introducing the inquiry and questions. And I think, if I'm not mistaken here, I believe one of the strategies that Commissioner Paulson has introduced and that Brad is helping with is focusing within engineering on project management disciplines, which some of these issues would fall under. I actually think it would probably be a good exercise. This might be something that, Commissioner Paulson, that you all consider. maybe a workshop where you would take some projects. It looks like you're a workshop for the council where you take some projects where over a period of time the projects have been implemented and actually illustrate the history. We had the same question, I think, last week regarding a project where the change had been 400,000. Council Member Lane brought it up, and George Millican reported on it. Sometimes just like an after-project report would be useful to illustrate. Yeah, and those are some of the things that we're working on just in terms of better information to Council as well. That's one of the reasons for the weekly report is to try to give you a constant update about where things are, where the funding is coming from, and what stage we're in. And then as we go forward with these, I think that is one of our goals, is to try to get a good understanding of when a project is done, where do we do well, where do we have mistakes, and how can we learn from it. And that's one of those things we're working on constantly in terms of both our bidding process and the actual design and construction phase as well. Thank you. All right, thank you all. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. Mine also is on new business item I about the two properties on Whitney Avenue, and I joined Councilmember Stendid in also wanting to know just who the purchaser's name is. However, I bring this up for a totally different reason in that you and I, after I got to listen to you speak eloquently at the Memorial Day service yesterday, we got a little tour of the two ponds, if you will, that are in Lexington Cemetery. And from Whitney Avenue and from Georgetown Road, some things kind of wash in, And I would like to, there ought to be a way for us to stop the litter that surfaces through this karst boil, if you will, inside the cemetery. And I would hope that we could find ways to cover the grating that goes in off of Whitney and Georgetown so that this trash doesn't end up in this group of screens that they have through their little sluice way leading into the smaller of the two ponds. So that's something we can take up just as a separate situation at a separate time, but it gave me a chance to talk about it since it was on the same street. And then just briefly for the rest of the council, new business item K, which is a speed limit reduction on Montevisto Road, which is something we work with many of the neighbors on around there to really try to, as the memo points out, this really is a larger street, but it serves very much in a residential capacity. So I just ask for your all support in making that reduction from 35 to 25 miles per hour. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mayor. I want to go back also on item L just to make an observation that when this project started, I believe that Pam Miller was mayor of Lexington and, of course, Teresa Isaac and then Jim Newberry and now your mayor. These are the issues that I've been sort of concerned about is over a long-term period of time, that costs us ought to creep out of control and that we need to be ever vigilant as a council and as an executive branch of government to stay on top of these costs. Because with the sanitary sewer system going at an estimated $600 million investment over 12 years, we have a lot of potential for this to happen in future construction costs that are coming along. And I want to thank you, Mayor, because I think your ears have perked up a lot, and you've got a lot of experience in construction. So I know you're tuned in on this, and thank you for your work on that, too. Well, thank you, Councilman Lane. But as I've mentioned to you several times, the significant value of this form of government is accountability that is brought to the table. And I do know that Mr. Frazier and his role and Commissioner Paulson have been influenced by your persistence on this question, and so has Mr. Martin, who's back there. So they're thanking you, Council Member Lane and Council Member Stennett. All right. Council Member Lane, you're complete, right? All right. So I don't see anyone else signed up to comment on new business so we can take a vote. All in favor of new business, the motion please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. That allows us to move on to continuing business and presentations. Is there a motion for the NDF? Move approval. Second. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon, seconded by Council Member Scotchfield. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Next on the agenda is a summary of the May 14th meeting of the Environmental Quality Committee by Council Member Stenich. Thank you, Mayor. It's my pleasure to give the May 14th Environmental Quality Committee report out. Our first item on the agenda of that day was the drainage ditch maintenance issue brought to us by Council Member Henson. Director Charlie Martin provided us two pieces of legislation and ordinances that pertain to private property owners that are responsible for these maintenance in residential areas, as well as LFUCG is responsible for any maintenance on public easement for stormwater devices. devices. We are going to keep this item into committee and look at possible revisions with a recommendation from streets and roads to make the ordinance a little clearer as to terms of future maintenance obligations. And Council Member Henson has agreed to work with the administration to bring something back to committee. The second issue is the easement construction issues. This came from Council Member Myers in addressing several issues in regards to our standard operating procedures from our sanitary sewer division. We had in the meeting a 13-point standard that had been developed by the Division of Sanitary Sewers through Director Charlie Martin. I won't read all 13, but they are in our minutes. Council Member Myers did make a motion at the end of our discussion, and I'll read it and bring it forward to the committee at this time. On a motion by Council Member Myers, seconded by Council Member Clark, is to accept the draft of the standard operating procedures. as presented by the Sanitary Sewer Division. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Stennett, second by Council Member Farmer. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mayor. The fourth item on our agenda was the update on the zero waste visioning from the Labor Sublexion class. We heard a response from our Division of Waste Management and the recommendations from the zero-waste visioning process. And there were many things through that visioning process that we're currently working on, and we'll continue to have regular updates presented back to our committee as to how we're moving forward on our zero-waste initiatives. Also during that discussion, we had our Operation Efficiency Boost Project, also known as our GIS on our garbage trucks. We are working on that project in terms of the number of drivers who are currently using that. I believe it's over 90% now that are utilizing the GIS data daily on their garbage routes. And in the next couple of years, the next phases will include the recycling trucks as well as the Lenny yard waste trucks as well. Councilman Elaine did request the cost of the software and implementation, and we'll follow up with the committee and get that to everyone. The next item on our agenda was the monthly financials. This is the financials, once again, from the Water Quality Fund, the Sanitary Sewer Fund. as well as the Landfill Fund. One question asked by the Vice Mayor in regards to the audit of the Water Quality Fund. Councils, if you remember Thursday night, we gave two readings to that upcoming audit, and hopefully we'll expect that audit back sometime this year on the Water Quality Fund. In addition, also, there were questions about the expenditures in the Landfill Fund, including the monitoring of closed landfills and disposal expenses associated with our collection of garbage waste. Those are the primary two expenses in our landfill fund going forward, and they'll be able to provide starting next meeting more detail on our landfill fund. The last item on our agenda was our project update report. Again, we have the capacity assurance on our current council docket. Director Charlie Martin highlighted that program as well as the town branch wastewater treatment. Wet storage tank design is also on there as well. That's another big project important to the capacity assurance program in our community in terms of wastewater storage. That ended our meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 1245. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Stennett. And next on our agenda is the summary of the May 14th meeting of Planning and Public Works Committee by Council Member Bill Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. We did meet on the 14th. We had several items on our agenda. The first one was an update on our exaction fee program. Chris King made a presentation. He said that the program was started in 1996 to help development pay for public infrastructure, and in 1996 the urban service area was expanded significantly. He said that there were three years of debate and that the program came out of these lengthy community discussions. He said the exaction program only applies to very specific, very limited areas of Fayette County. These areas are Expansion Area 1, the Overbrook Farm area, Expansion Area 2, Winchester Road east of the interstate and Richmond Road at the Athens-Boonesboro area and expansion area 3 between Newtown Pike and Russell Cave Road north of the interstate. We had more background discussion from him. Then we had questions from several council members that went on through that page and to the following page about how exactions work, how they're administered, when those rates have changed, and worked down towards the end of our discussion where Councilmember Stenet said there were 2,300 acres available for residential or economic development land and that he would like the Council to review the impact this program has had on ED land specifically. Chris King said that the last fee update was in 2010. Councilmember Stenet pointed out that we cannot afford the upkeep on the greenways we have now. Director King said that the Greenway Coordinating Group has been reviewing this issue by way of summation. Council Member Kay asked Chris King about the fee structure. The director said that any proposal of fee structure changes will come to the council for approval. King said they are currently looking at the model. It's very transparent. King said that he has shared it with the development community. King said that there are crucial costs coming in regards to sanitary sewers. and there are also a couple of projects that are closing out. So King hopes that we'll get the proposed changes to the council within a few months. This is an issue that had been brought to us by Council Member Stenet, and that conversation seemed to satisfy the informational need at this time. Next up was the so-called B1 ZODA. This is an item that was, in essence, reintroduced to the committee. Again, Director King said that the neighborhood business zone can be found throughout Fayette County, and in 2007 the Comprehensive Plan Implementation Chapter called for the completion of the non-residential infill study and the neighborhood business zone rewrite. The types of proposed changes were as follows, yard and height requirements, off-street parking, special provision, form-based neighborhood business projects, principal accessory and conditional uses, and definitions. And that's the form that this legislation takes. It covers many different changes in the B-1 ordinance across all applications. It adds certain principal uses and accessory uses and conditional uses while deleting some and modifying others. And this was almost as interesting a discussion as the one about exactions because several members of council had several questions about what this legislation does in its proposed state. At the end of that, it was a really good discussion. It just became clear that we were debating in our committee meeting a lot of the changes that are proposed in this legislation, but we never actually got down to looking at the legislation itself. So we've kept the item in committee for this next month, and we solicited from members of the committee as well as the full council any questions they have about any of these changes or updates across all uses for B1. And I haven't received a whole lot of submissions back on that, but look forward to incorporating those into the discussion of this during our next meeting. And we've asked the staff to come forward. Sometimes the packet can get to be too big, and we're just trying this time to have a discussion about the exact wording changes in the B1 so that the council can see do they like those, not like those, want to change them, and in what capacity. So that one's kind of coming back to us again. Such is the case with item number four, which was adult daycares, an item we've heard about here earlier. Councilman Ford had introduced this item. He said that this proposal defines adult daycares and sets the zoning parameters to require notification to neighborhoods. Ford said that the Planning Commission passed this in a vote of 8 to 1. Ford said that the ZOTA was initiated by council. It had been adequately researched, passed by the Planning Commission, not objected to by the Mayor's Commission on Homelessness, and had been heard by the Planning Public Works Committee three times. I'm not going to attest that he's right on that. Ford said that he would like to refer the ZOTA to the full council for consideration. We had relatively short discussion here because this has been before the committee more than once. That resulted in a motion by Ford to refer the adult daycare zoned to the full council, seconded by Gorton and passed without dissent. So following that, I move to place on the docket an ordinance amending Article I and Article VIII of the zoning ordinance to define adult daycare centers and to regulate such facilities as conditional use in the P1, B1, B2, B2A, and P2 zones. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer. Second by Council Member Beard. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I've struggled with this because I agree with when Rick Christman spoke. I feel very uneasy about this. I think we are classifying what I see as people, not just a business, but people with mining and all the other conditional uses that are within those zones. I don't know what the solution is. I've spoken with Council Member Ford. I've told him that I do not plan to support moving this on. but I don't have a solution to fix it. But I will not support this motion. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Chairman Farmer, for bringing this forward. I just want to clarify if it's okay at this time while the motion is on the floor to take it to the council because we did run short on time at the committee meeting. is that somewhat in response to the public comment that we've had earlier, this ZODA, ZODA, Zone of Ordnance Tax Amendment is needed, I think. And I do thank Council Member Henson for her honesty in presenting her concerns to me and to the committee. But I think this is a good piece of legislation. I think it's needed. I do want to speak to some of the concerns that have been raised. and they may not satisfy everybody, but at least we'll be able to have this discussion. I did initiate this on behalf of the constituency that I serve, and the timeline that Councilman Farmer provided is correct. And simply what my intent was is to create the appropriate zoning definition. Through the zoning ordinance, we have a responsibility that the Planning Commission helps us with, and this council have to abide by, and that's basically to come up with the appropriate definitions for the uses of our land. And the incidents that occurred in December of 2011, and that facility is grandfathered in, that facility has performed very well, I will also say. However, it does not meet the definition for what there was no definition to truly identify their use of the facility. And we think that creating this definition does just that. I also like to say is that conditional use, while it may not be as optimal a use or with as much ease as a principal use, a conditional use does not guarantee a rejection by the Board of Adjustment. It just requires a little additional effort to notify the neighbors. And from experience, I commend the planning staff for their assistance in helping folks with conditional use permits. And so that speaks to providing notification for neighbors in honesty for social service component-related activities that help underprivileged and homeless populations. With that said, Mayor, that gives my background. With any legislation, sometimes there can be unintended consequences. And the unintended consequences for the population, for lack of a better term that I'll consider clinical, that deal with persons with disabilities has been studied in the committee. I would like to ask if I can, Mayor, because I'm not equipped to give the true technical components of this, of this, but Bill Salee of our planning staff, I think if he could come forward just to talk about the definitions and how they distinguish between what was intended and what has come before. Mr. Salee, if you're... And I think Bill is going to... You're not only... Because this... This is older, Mayor, basically creates a definition, and it classifies that definition as a conditional use. But there was some confusion, but I think the planning staff is working real hard to clarify. Mr. Salli. Thank you, Mayor. We're trying to put something on the overhead for you. This text amendment had been in the Council's Planning and Public Works Committee for a little over six months. And so the planning staff was asked back in the winter to evaluate the state definitions of the two types of uses that were originally contemplated when this text amendment went forward. And we provided this information to the committee last month, I believe it was, defining an adult daycare center, which was the impetus for the text amendment, along with another use that was also originally part of the Planning Commission's use, an adult day health care program. And based on the discussion of the committee, it was our take that the adult daycare center definition that's provided at the top, which is KRS 205, would be basically substituted for the Planning Commission definition. The definition on the bottom refers more to those facilities that are required a license and certification by the state with certificates of need in some instance, and those are not part of the text amendment that's before you. So I hope having these two definitions for reference can help answer some of the questions I'm concerned. Thank you, Bill. Mayor, in closing to this, I think there is one administrative change that has occurred since all of this started in December 2011. Prior to, and particularly to the instance of the day center locating, which initiated this process, I believe the Division of Building Inspection had the responsibility for interpreting the definition as it applied to the zoning ordinance. That has since been transferred to our Division of Planning, which I think is more prepared to truly look at the application and determine what the proposed use is and how it meets the definitions and the zoning ordinance. So thanks, Councilor. I ask for your support of moving this forward. Thank you, Council Member Ford. what this legislation does is it provides a definition but then knocks out all the principle permitted uses so that these cannot be located without a public hearing or a public meeting of some sort. And that was kind of what we had testimony about or comment about from the public earlier. And I know that in one iteration, when we asked the planning staff for this, when you brought this back to us, Bill, did you leave any principal permitted uses in your definition before the council opined on how they wanted it written? The adult daycare center was recommended to be conditional uses in all zones by the planning commission. The planning staff in our report to the planning commission had recommended that they be principal in a few locations, but at their public hearing that recommendation was not accepted. So I had read P1, B1, B2, B2A, and P2. So you had opined in at least a couple of those instances they could be principal permitted uses for purposes of that report at that time. Yes, the planning staff made that recommendation, yes. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Council Member Stennett. Thank you, Mayor. Bill, hold on one second. On the parking requirement, how did you all arrive at the four or one space for every four attendees at a day center? One per four, we reviewed that with other uses in the zoning ordinance. and I believe at one point at one of the planning committee meetings of the council, there was talk about a different ratio to that. But I think we reviewed information either for other similar uses in the zoning ordinance or those recommended by American Planning Association. So is that one similar to the community center definition? I know it's different from the child care, and obviously children normally don't drive their way into the center, I think that was the main reason it was. Council Member Farmer, was there no additional discussion? I remember a year ago we had a discussion about changing the parking requirement. Did that just fall by the wayside? Because I do think that's a huge issue. It's too restrictive. I think that in Council Member Ford's commentary, he was correct. When we took this up at committee on the 14th, this came during the very last 15 or 20 minutes of our meeting because we had taken a lot of time on the B-1 issue and the exaction issue before that. There could have been fuller discussion, but a motion was made, and the council, or at least the committee, acted. So I think if there had been more time, there could have been more of that discussion or more parts of the discussion could have been had. Very good. As it stands right now, I don't think this is our best. I don't think we're putting forward our best piece of legislation. And I don't want to make amendments. We're getting to have them make amendments on the fly today, so I won't. but I will vote against it and an opportunity to come back with something that doesn't spread such a wide net across. We identified at least 30 different centers that are in place today that otherwise couldn't be in place if this went in as a principal use. That's a lot in our community. We're bringing forward new legislation based on one case, and it's going to affect several dozen of other businesses and opportunities, and not to mention create another layer of bureaucracy that now you have to go before the Board of Adjustments before you can open or operate either a nonprofit facility that falls under this definition, and it just creates another layer that I'm not sure we really understand the full consequences if we pass it the way it's written today. I think parking needs to be adjusted, and we need to get the definition a little narrower. And I'm glad the Planning Commission had a little bit different definition going forward. I think that one may have some merit to it, But I think there's still more work we can do on this to get a better product. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Akers. Thank you, Mayor. I agree with Council Member Stenet. I think that there are lots of adult care agencies in town that are not necessarily licensed or not necessarily homeless day centers either that would be affected by this legislation negatively and that we should consider those. One that I know of in my district is Latitude Arts Community. that serves adults with developmental disabilities, providing art activities during the day. They can bill Medicaid, but they're not licensed. So I think that I agree that we need to work on better definitions and parking as well. When I think of the adult care, I think of taking people with Alzheimer's or adults who can't otherwise get themselves there. So I don't know that we need as much parking as is required here. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Rutgers. Council Member Scotchfield. And I'm not sure who I need to ask. I just want to verify. With this ordinance the way it's written, there are no residential adult daycares. Is that correct? The zoning has to be P or? It looks like Mr. Sally is coming back, thankfully, to the podium. The text amendment will not make any changes to our existing residential zone, So it would just be the office, professional office zone, and some of our business zones. Okay, so they are not able to operate in residential? That's correct, under this text amendment. Okay, under this text amendment. And I'll say from a personal standpoint, I can't support this. My father's been in a daycare facility, residential, and allows him to have a pool, a tennis court, things to make him feel as normal as possible. I think we're taking away opportunities for a lot of people, Alzheimer's patients, who need to have more of a home, not a business. And I think it is, I don't think it's perfect. I don't think we're doing it right. Thank you, Council Member Scotchfield. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Mayor. I'm kind of torn, but I think enough questions have been raised that I'm going to have to concur with some of my colleagues about not moving this forward right at this time. But before, having said that, I want to add a couple of things. One is I would have to agree that making something a conditional use does not prohibit it. What it does is it requires that if you're going to propose that use, there must be notification and there must be a hearing before the Board of Adjustment. They then make a determination about whether that's an appropriate use given what they've heard from the applicant and from the people who live in the neighborhood. I think that's perfectly appropriate as envisioned. Now, we may have, with the present language, cast a broader net than we need to, and we We may not have looked at the parking provision adequately, but at bottom, I believe we need to have a similar ordinance asking for conditional use only, but it may need a little bit more thought before we move forward. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. Councilmember Ford. Council Members, this legislation was not designed to have adverse impact. I still contend that it does not have adverse impact. act. We don't want to pass legislation that's going to hurt people and make it harder and present our government as being one that's not inclusive. But at the same time, I believe it's our responsibility to be as responsive as we can to the neighbors that send us around this horseshoe and they've called for our help and particularly our downtown residents. They were disrespected to a certain extent simply because they were not afforded the opportunity to raise questions about a facility that was going next door. We have some residential residents that live right very close to this area. And they demonstrated to me December of 2011 not a resistance to somebody coming in your backyard. That's not what it was. It was just that they wanted the opportunity to be afforded to ask questions in regards to safety. and that wasn't given. And unfortunately, that wasn't the case. I think this is a solid definition. Let me get back to the merits of what's before you. Planning staff brought us originally a definition that was used by four benchmark cities and approved by the American Planning Association. The Planning Commission approved this 8-1. The committee kicked it back. They said, bring us another definition. And planning staff has found a definition that is in statute. The definition of a community center does not apply to an adult daycare service center. I thank the committee members that will support this. I ask for just an up or down vote. There's no reason to table this or tarry this. This is an issue in regards to notification of neighbors, and I still support the motion. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Ford. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say that I totally respect and understand Council Member Ford's decision or wanting to get this passed, But I also think that, as I said on day one, the definition for adult day center is all wrong. Adult day center, the people that attend there, they don't freely show up and freely leave when they want. They are there because a guardian or someone else dropped them off there. And for those of you that haven't visited an adult-based center, then I would encourage you to do so. But also I understand what Council Member Ford was saying about surrounding neighborhoods and residential properties wanting to be safe. but again I go back to the definition adult day center is not where people are free to roam the neighborhood so we really need to fix this and I just feel like I have to be a voice for individuals that don't have one so I would appreciate the support staying in committee and hopefully come up with something better. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Henson. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. I missed the opportunity to welcome everybody to Zota Day at Council. Since I tendered this motion on behalf of the committee, it's not one that I can withdraw. It might be something that would merit further discussion or further delineation at that level if this up or down vote does go down, we could return it to committee for further work as the council would see fit. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman Farmer. Councilman Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. I guess I would ask, what is the urgency? Can we wait another month, or is there something that, Chris, that you feel that it's necessary to move forward at this time? I think it's something to move forward. I think that we've been working on this since, again, December of 2011. And it's really only down to two issues, the definition and if the conditional use is appropriate. So, you know, if eight members of the council is not comfortable with the definition, I don't see what's going to change between any time. So I think a lot of work has gone into this, and I don't want this issue to keep additional much-needed work from going forward. So I think it's just time to legislate. Thanks, Council Member Massadine. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Ford. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I think in light of the discussion, I think a little bit of delay is not the worst thing in the world at this point given all of the concerns that have been raised. So I'm going to move to amend the motion and to move it back into the planning committee at its next meeting, which will be, I think, the June meeting. So they'll be basically within a week or two weeks. But move it back into committee, tweak the language if we can, bring it back forward to council. So move. Second. Motion by Council Member Kaye, second by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion to amend? Council Member Farmer? That would be the June 11th meeting, and our agenda would provide the opportunity for it to be heard at that time. All right. Anyone else wish to speak? Council Member Ford. Mayor, I've got a point of order question. I'll ask the parliamentarians help. Well, and the question about the motion is this. Planning Commission passed this 8 to 1. That should have an impact on Council, but it doesn't have to. The committee passed it unanimously for Council Member Farmer to report it out. is it appropriate or can the council amend a committee report out? Or is it just has to be voted up or down? Point of order is, yeah, Mr. Mayor, one of those where we wish we could please everybody, Council Member Ford. The point of order, if you'll repeat the point of order, that's a typical procedure, and then I will rule on the point of order. The point of order is the committee report serves as the instrument that allowed Council Member Farmer to bring the motion forward. Is that amendable by the council, or should we just vote it up or down? because he brought it forth on behalf of the committee that sent it here today unanimously. My interpretation would be that the amendment would be appropriate. The Council can take any information that it wishes to, but then in its proceedings on a motion can amend that motion, which is, according to my interpretation, what's just been done. Thanks, Mayor. Yes, sir. Does a parliamentarian disagree? All right. Okay. All right. So is there any further discussion on the motion to amend? Then, hearing none, then we can take a vote on the motion to amend. All in favor of the motion to amend, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. All right, you might want to vote electronically, it looks like. All right. All right, the motion does carry. All right, then we now, now the motion as amended would be, won't you help me, Councilmember Farmer? The motion as amended would be to return the issue to the Planning Committee at its next meeting on June 11th. Did you hear it, Council Member Myers? All right. Is everyone clear on the motion as amended? All right, then we can take a vote. All in favor of the motion as amended, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Mayor, the last side of our agenda was to remove items from the committee list, which we have just added back on, and we adjourned shortly thereafter. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman Farmer. All right. Next on our agenda today is a presentation on the recreational zone ordinance work group. the final report by Vice Mayor Gordon and the Chair of the Zota at Work Group, Mr. Don Robinson. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of housekeeping items. Council members, you received a piece of paper that starts with No. 8, Extraction of Crude Petroleum at your place. And it's already hole-punched. If you'll take that and open your binder and put it in Tab 5 behind the second page that says Zoning Ordinance. All right. So thank you for bringing your binders. I know that it's one more thing to drag along. Vice Mayor, just as one quick point of information. Yes. There are five guests, citizens who have signed up to speak to this issue so they will know that they would be able to speak following the presentation. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And Don Robinson, the chair of the Recreational Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment, is going to speak in just a moment. I wanted to thank Division of Planning, GIS, and Law, who worked very closely with us. And I also wanted to thank the members who served on this task force, including Councilmember Lane. and then to thank two of my aides. This work carried over from Jennifer Benningfield to Tyler Scott. He inherited it. So thank you to all those folks. You should have a PowerPoint, and then we're going to kind of do this walking you through the binder. It is not easy, this information. It took a long time to come up with this. So the reason that I formed this work group was that, for one thing, the Code of Ordinances has never, ever in its history been revised to incorporate changes countywide to recreational uses. This is a first. And in conversations with some of the folks in planning, I now know why, because it took work looking at every single zone in all of Fayette County and every single recreational use that we could come up with. So as a result, I formed the work group, and you can see lots of documentation behind tab one in terms of memos and press releases and the people who were appointed. And so with that just brief introduction, I'm going to turn it over to Don Robinson, and we're going to kind of tag team. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Mayor Gray and council members. I want to talk a little bit about, first, the mix of the group. And I think the vice mayor tried to include everybody we could that represented various aspects of the community and planning and council and mayor's office. It began with Kevin Atkins, who's the Chief Development Officer for the government, Todd Clark, Fayette County Farm Bureau, Dr. Field-Due Simone for wineries, the Vice Mayor, Jeannie Greathouse from Commerce Lexington, Todd Johnson from the Home Builders of Lexington, Ed Lane, our 12th District member, Jan Meyer from the Board of Adjustment, Mike Owens, Chair of the Planning Commission, Frank Pan, Member of the Planning Commission, Mary Quinn Reamer from the LCVB, myself, representing wearing several hats at the time, President of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and Chair of the Fayette Alliance. Emma Tibbs, Fayette County Neighborhood Association, and Billy Van Pelt, the Administrator of the Purchase of Development Rights Program. And last but definitely not least, Dr. Ryan Sharp from EKU, who is director of adventure programs at EKU. And Dr. Sharp, I don't know where vice mayor found him, but he was indispensable in helping us understand wild lands, you know, parks and recreation, conservation and promotion, all of those issues with wild areas, which we have limited expertise in Fayette County. Anyway, we held 20 meetings. It went way longer than anybody expected, but it was a lot of work. As the vice mayor said, it was countywide. We looked at every zone, zone by zone, to explore all the opportunities or constraints in each zone. And obviously, the big area was the agricultural rural zone. As part of that process, because of some of the difficulties of managing it, two subcommittees through the course were created. one to study the AN zone, or the AN area, I should say. If you look at the map there, all the green and the blue, that's all the AR zone in Lexington and Fayette County. There is a dark blue in the southeastern portion there, and that is part of the 1999 Rural Land Management Plan. The dark blue area along Kentucky River, part of Boone Creek, That was designated at the time as agricultural natural because it was distinctly different from the rest of the AR zone, but it wasn't zoned. It never has been zoned. It's basically AR land but had that distinction because it was definitely a different sort of creature. Steep slopes, woods, creeks, basically for Fayette County wild lands. and in some cases not intensively formable. So the second subcommittee dealt with B-1 zones in the AR zone, and there were constraints and opportunities there. The B-1 zones were there actually before, grandfathered before planning and zoning, maybe not planning and zoning, but certainly before any urban service boundary. They were old. You know lots of them. A lot of the little country stores are B1 zones. They're small. They have limited opportunity. One I think everyone is well aware of now is an old B1 in the rural area, and that's Windy Corners. It's a very popular spot at Muir Station and Bryan Station. that is an old B1 store an old B1 zone so there are opportunities there and we looked at those the rural B1s to the best of my knowledge unless they're in the rural activity centers there's no sewering so they're all on septic tanks and many of the B1 zones nothing's there and hasn't been for a long time but the zoning's there you may not even and most of us don't even know it. So there is opportunity there, and I think the staff and the committee saw opportunities there for venues in keeping with the intent of the agricultural zone, but definitely a commercial opportunity. So I think the most important, the overriding goals which the group adopted early on, I think early April when we first met, there are three overriding goals. 1. To showcase Lexington-Fayette County as the horse capital of the world by preserving and promoting its unique agricultural industries, environment, cultural landscape, and historic resources. 2. To encourage agritourism opportunities that are incidental to the primary agricultural use of our signature Fayette County farmland. And number three, explore recreation, tourism opportunities that support the quality of life, infrastructure, and environment of urban neighborhood and rural areas. They were all voted on. If you'd like a little bit about our procedure, each meeting was, we voted on all the issues, discussion. It was voted on by all the members. Consensus was reached, and there was public comment at the end of each meeting. So really, I think for at least the rural area, the strength of the agricultural economy, I think we felt was what we needed to fall down from and hold up as being the overriding guide. We're a $2.4 billion industry in the rural area. It is a factory. We're producing some of the finest livestock worldwide. It is our signature. So that is really where we need to, the committee felt like we needed to start, and that being the guide. Procedure-wise, I think, Vice Mayor, it's your turn again. Thank you. I'll be back. Okay, so we are, if you'll turn to tab two in your book and this slide five on the PowerPoint. So the whole idea was that we look at ways to open up opportunities for recreation and tourism without ruining what we have. That's good. That's kind of basic lay terms. The context that we used is what this current slide addresses. And so behind tab two in your binder, first is the basic intent of our zones. As you know, if you've lived here any amount of time, we have very proactive, longstanding planning and zoning. And so each of our zones has a basic intent. And, for example, you'll see here just behind tab 2, we'll take the agriculture rural zone. This zone is established to preserve the rural character of the agriculture service area by promoting agriculture and related uses and by discouraging all forms of urban development except limited conditional uses. So these intents are in our zoning ordinance, and we tried to use that as one of the bases for our decisions. The second, if you'll turn to tab 5 in your binder, council members, and go to the fourth page, Those of you who were here in 1999, which there are a few of you, council members, you will remember that we approved the Rural Land Management Plan. It is the plan that guides the uses and the way we look at the rural area. And it became part of our comprehensive plan for land use. So this rural land management plan we felt was very important to guide us in our decision making. And then finally, if you go all the way to the back of your binder, tab 8, you will see a tourism piece from the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau, and then you'll see a 2012 study by Preston Osborne. And in that study by Preston Osborne, the two top reasons that people consider Lexington as a vacation destination are scenic beauty and horse-related activities. That's what draws them here. Once they get here, the survey showed that they do lots of things while they're here. But the two top reasons people gave for coming here as a destination were those two, scenic beauty and horse-related activities. So we felt like the information that the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau had was important in context. Now, if you stay in tab two and go beyond the intents, the zoning intents, and go to the third map. Thanks, Mayor. Excuse me. We are getting close to that 15 minutes. Councilmember Ellinger has got a motion to extend the time. Thank you, Mayor. Well, 15 minutes, can you do it because we only gave you 15, but that's very important. So would another 15 minutes, would that be sufficient? I think that's way plenty. You sure? Yes. Well, I'll give another 15 minutes just in case. Thank you very much. Second. Motion by Councilmember Ellinger, second by Council Member Kay. All in favor of the motion, please. And Kay, by saying aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. I appreciate it. Thank you. I didn't know where the clock is running. So anyway, this map of the ZODA workgroup map, existing non-ag zoning in the rural service area, was one of the things that we looked at. You can see on the key there are quite a few non-ag zoning categories in the rural service area, and that was just another piece of information that we plugged in. GIS did a great job helping us with the mapping. If you go to tab three, the work group adopted two definitions, ecotourism and agritourism, because we felt like in order to figure out what we were doing in terms of tourism, we needed to know how it fit in. And you'll see there the definition for ecotourism basically is activities that are conducted in the natural or green space or environmentally sensitive areas that are offered for enjoyment education and involve conservation of these areas. Dr. Sharp, who has worked for the National Park Service in terms of helping them know what uses they should allow while preserving and conserving the environmentally sensitive spaces, was a big help on this. Agritourism simply relates to activities that are related to agriculture, horticulture, agribusiness, and active farms. Then on the B-1 subcommittee, which Dawn mentioned, it was a revelation to some of our committee members that there are B-1 zones in the rural area, and some of them, their eyes lit up. So tab 4 contains minutes of our final meeting where these B-1 subcommittee recommendations were accepted. And I realize this piece with the minutes is just full of motions, but it gives you, if you haven't looked at it already, you can look at it later, and it gives you the context for how the B1 recommendations came forward. And then Tab 5 gets into the Agriculture Natural Subcommittee, which Don also mentioned earlier. And the Agriculture Natural Area, in your book, under Tab 5, If you will go ahead and turn to the fifth page, there's a map, and it looks very much like this. And Don identified it earlier. There is no AN zone right now. Nothing has been zoned agriculture natural. It's all agriculture rural. And so we needed to take that into consideration because if we have AN uses, which we recommend, they will need to come first for zone changes. And just as an aside, it took us three or four meetings to get our committee up to speed on this planning and zoning. So it's tricky stuff. So then we go to the AN subcommittee recommendations. And as I said, there are no parcels zoned AN right now. The second bullet up here highlights changes in the zoning ordinance, one of which is to make if a use is approved for conditional use in the AN zone, it would require an environmental assessment. This, again, was helped by Ryan Sharp's information. The third bullet is directly related to the Rural Land Management Plan. In Tab 5, you'll find a piece of information that's taken directly from the Rural Land Management Plan, which recommends that Raven Run be used as a potential place to consider recreational uses and as a staging area. And then finally, the subcommittee recommended certain conditional uses be deleted from the zoning ordinance, and you can find those in tab 5 on the page that says zoning ordinance at the top. And if you look under conditional uses on the right, the committee recommended deleting kindergartens, family care, kindergartens, and petroleum and natural gas extraction. So those would come out. Then agriculture and ecotourism recommendation. The findings are, you can see them on the PowerPoint, that current zoning regulations for recreational uses are very general. They are without many restrictions. For example, when we consider recreational uses in the rural areas in particular, we'll need to consider parking, what we want to do about parking, lights, all those kinds of things. and many of the contemporary recreational land uses weren't contemplated in the 1990s and I think you have a visual of that sitting before you. So there are several new land uses and definitions which will need to be added to the zoning ordinance and then making these compatible with development in the community through any kind of parking or lighting restrictions. As you know, those uses in the rural area are on septic tanks, even the B1 zones that are available. So the next couple of slides are simply a different way of looking at the final matrix, which is under tab 6 with all the recommendations. What this ecotourism one and the agritourism one next show are a different way of looking at the recommendations. In other words, if you look, for example, farm tours, the recommendations include four new zoning category areas where they would become principal. And so it takes the matrix back in tab 6 and converts it just to tell you how many new uses in different zones there would be. And then finally, I'll turn this back over to Don, and you'll need to pull out your matrix from the tab 6, and he'll talk a little bit about a couple other things. And we're almost done. I'm probably going to enlist staff help a bit because first I'll mention on this tab that the planning recommendations in the expansion area. If you all recall, in the expansion area there are conservation areas, and these are looking at those areas, certain uses that would work or not work in the expansion area, master plan in the conservation areas. In some cases they weren't fully defined. This group looked at them a lot harder and sort of voted on what they felt would work and what would not work. And really the next, let's see, I will, so as not to ask Bill or Chris to come up twice. Quickly, the second page, the next page, the short-term vacation rentals is an issue that a number of people brought to us. but basically I want to credit Councilman Lane for really putting this on the table for us all to look at. It's been looked at. We gave it some time, but actually this is one ZOTA that's in the form of a draft and could be enacted on if a planning commission and or council deemed fit. This is really ready to move forward. Our recommendations on all of this other recreation, to fully confuse you, is really not ready to move forward, but they're recommendations. In other words, the planning commission or the planning committee is going to have to do a lot of work on each of those areas to make this whole thing make more sense and get it into rule and ordinance. what I might like to do is ask either Chris or Bill to come forward and just speak a little bit about this one large matrix sheet is really what this was the agreed upon final. There he is. Excuse me, Chris. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Council members, obviously with the time constraints, we cannot drill down into this today, but I would like to give you just a brief primer on how you can look at it and drill down into looking at these recommendations. Basically, on the left-hand column going down, you see all the specific uses that this subcommittee recommended. I want to say right now that some of those do appear in the zoning ordinance currently, but a whole lot of them don't. And that's one thing that the committee thought was a challenge, where a number of them were under broad definitions of recreational uses. And to try to interpret that, the committee felt there needed to be where we had identified a lot of these specific uses. That's how that needed to be done. I'm going to put it up on the screen. Going along the top row, what you see are the listing of the relevant zoning categories. That's virtually every zoning category. And you can see what this subcommittee did is something that we as professionals end up doing more than we care to admit. You look at all of this in context and try to figure what that use in that zone should be. and basically there are four different types of groupings in terms of that use and how it's treated. P means principal, and basically a principal use is by right. In other words, you don't need any special approvals other than perhaps a permit at the counter to do one of those uses that are principal permitted use in a zone. Second is A. That means accessory. And that means if you have a principal use, you can do this accessory to it. A real common example in a single-family residential zone, a single-family house is a principal permitted by right use. A garage is an accessory use. If you have a house, you can have a garage, but you can't just go build a garage on a single-family lot. The third group, indicated by the letter C, are conditional, and that means they are permitted uses within that zone. But as you know and as we discussed a little bit on the earlier matter, that means that before you're permitted to do that use, you have to file for approval by the Board of Adjustment, notify neighbors nearby, and have a hearing to decide whether that use is allowed at that particular zone. And then on this matrix, there is the symbol X, means that the use would not be permitted in those particular zones. So again, the challenge to us as a staff, and ultimately back to the Planning Commission and the Council, is to use the recommendations of this subcommittee to then craft actual legislation. And at this level of complexity, I will say that will take some time to actually put this in a format that would be legislation. And then it would be initiated by either the Planning Commission or the Council, and then would ultimately have hearings and come back before anything became final for final action by the Council. And maybe I jumped ahead a little bit on the process, but I hope that gives you an idea of what will happen to these recommendations of the uses and the definitions and things of that nature. That pretty much wraps it up for our report. All right. Any questions for Vice Mayor or I? for Chris King, Director of Planning. All right. Take some questions in from the council members and then the folks who have signed up to speak. Council Member Lane. Hi. First, Mr. Chairman, let me say you did a very good job and also to the vice mayor to run the committee. It was a very long and tedious process. The good news is I do have a question for Chris King. Okay. How good is it? Well, here's what I was going to ask is that the ZOTA is a little bit unusual type of revision to the zoning ordinance, and I thought just to update everybody watching the program and even on council, sort of what the procedure is, I know that we would refer this work product over to the planning division, and then could you go through the process of how you would do that in referring it, I guess, over to the planning commission? They would then have hearings and review it and then send a recommendation back to the council. Certainly. As I said a minute ago, the next step would be to take all of these recommendations of the group and actually then create a draft ordinance. And, again, that would take some time and would have a lot of different moving parts, the uses in the zone, the definitions. Through that process, we as a staff may even find a few things that it seems almost impossible that the committee could have overlooked given the complexity, but you never know. New things are happening every day. And we would coalesce that again into an ordinance. The procedure then would be to formally initiate a text amendment to the zoning ordinance. And under law, that can either be done by the council or the planning commission. And I think there has been a sense that the planning commission may be the appropriate body, after we have completed our work as a staff, to take it to them and ask them to initiate the formal process. the law will require that the planning commission hold at least one full noticed public hearing on the draft ordinance and allow anyone interested to speak in favor against recommend changes and the planning commission then would take action and make a recommendation on the ordinance package to the urban county council and you as the council would have final approval and would have the right to refer to committee would be able to hold your own formal public hearing or however you choose to do it before you take final action on the legislation, either approving, disapproving, or revising. That was one of the reasons I also wanted to ask this question. We would like to get as much public input from our city and the rural areas about what they like, what they don't like. I think this process would allow many opportunities for people to have input, so there would be a lot of transparency in the program. Well, let me thank you also for your work. I know you put a lot of effort on this. And, Mayor, that concludes my question. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Lang. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. I don't know who can answer this question, whether it's Vice Mayor Gorton or Mr. Robinson or someone from the planning department. Can you confound a little bit on the short-term vacation rental, please? Perfect. Sure. This is an item that I believe Councilmember Lane may have asked us to look at before the task force began its work. and as more and more meetings of the task force were held, this issue came up two or three times and so it kind of became a subset of the task force. But this was a draft definition and then a listing of conditions that would be possible under this use. This use is not currently in the zoning ordinance in any location. Correct. So you're talking about having it just under this particular zoning category. Is that right? This particular use, I'm not sure if it's on the matrix that has been forwarded to it or not. So you're saying this could be applicable to any zone? That's right. It could be inserted into various zones, whether residential or non-residential, just like any text amendment. I think the definition and the conditions, the seven listed conditions, was the starting point of this. This has been an issue that has been brought to my attention and to some other of us in the realtor community, where there has been subdivisions that have been built with large homes and have not been able to be completed. And the houses are now being rented out to certain groups, and so there are some real concerns about how this is going to be addressed. So I didn't know if that was the impetus or what was the reasoning for that. I know that there were some issues in Nashville with this a few years ago, kind of at the height of the recession, but I'm not aware of any. Still is going on today. I guess, Council Member Lane, can you speak to that? Yes, I can. We've had a number of issues in the rural area where people have been leasing farms and for wedding parties, fraternity reunions, football games, things like that. And it's been very disruptive to the agricultural area because we don't have an ordinance even permits to do that. that these were supposed to be short-term rentals and not party houses, things like that. The ordinance that we originally submitted did get some objection from the Board of Realtors because it was sort of countywide and it affected both the city and the rural areas. Our plan, as we came back around on this particular ordinance, this wording would apply strictly to the rural area. And I believe that it would be fair and equitable to all the parties and would accomplish the goal of protecting the inappropriate use against the inappropriate use of property for short-term rentals in the agricultural area. Does that answer your question okay? It does, but it's also happening not only in the rural areas, but it is happening in subdivisions. Right. and some of the bigger subdivisions where some of these homes, these subdivisions are not built out, and they're becoming rentals, a lot of these larger homes, 30- to 45-day rentals. So that's something we probably need to look at as well. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Sadi. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Mayor. I have a few questions. I've spent a lot of time on this binder, and so I don't know who wants to answer first. Maybe I guess Don. In tab 5, the Rural Services Area Land LMP, paragraph 6 states that the LFUCG should seek to implement programs throughout this area designed to improve and manage public accessibility to the resources in the area. And on page one, your goal of the work group was to expand recreational opportunities related to tourism. But when I reviewed the binder and the matrix proposed, the minutes of the last meeting, what I found was additional, really just more restrictions placed on any kind of potential recreation in the rural areas. and the word prohibited was used 12 times in the final meeting minutes. So I just would like for you to speak to how these recommendations would help small farmers keep their farm and how any of the recommendations would expand tourism or recreational opportunities. I think the whole list, obviously, we looked at opportunities. There are opportunities and there's both. Part of the work is both. There's some restrictions, but there's, I think, equally opportunities in the rural area, as long as it's incidental to agriculture in the AR zone. And that's really, I think, that's really what our prime mover was there, that it's got to be incidental to agriculture. Otherwise, then you have the tail wagging the dog. So that's really where we're coming from. So for recreational activities such as biking, cycling, running, hiking, that wouldn't necessarily have an agricultural component, then we're not going to support those or encourage those? Not in the AR zone, no. Maybe outside. I mean, we're talking about trails and throughways, but not on individual farms, no. Okay. And there was no mention of the Bourbon Trail or any other tourism industries? It is in the tourism packet with the LCVB. Right. So did you consider, though, using that as a promotional tool, like for some of the agro-recreational activities as well? Like distilling whiskey on farms? Sure. That's been floated. But just when you're looking at tourism in general in Fayette County, you know, I just want, did you look at, I guess, a holistic approach to all potential, like bluegrass music or, you know, that we, your, one of your goals was to define, Lexington is the horse capital of the world. And while we certainly agree that we are that, I think that there are also other industries that are now bringing people to Lexington, such as the Bourbon Trail. We now have a location here at Altec that's a stop on the Bourbon Trail. And that, according to the CVB, brought a lot of people here a few years ago. Well, those opportunities exist in the city and in the agricultural urban areas, but not necessarily, you know, we're not pushing them as a primary driver in the AR zone to answer your question, but there's certainly opportunities in the community and are happening right now. Does that? Sure. Okay. Can you define for me children's rides on the agritourism and ecotourism matrix? Probably not. That's a planning question. You're getting down in the weeds now. Confessedly, I'm a generalist. I just noticed that farm tours, hay rides, and horse shows are all permitted in the agricultural zones, but everything else pretty much has to go to the Board of Adjustment. So the only easily permittable activities would be horse-related, it seems, and not... Farm horse-related, yes. to answer your question, yes. Farm and horse related. The recommendations by the planning division regarding ecotourism uses and expansion area, the conservation zone, did you all discuss that at all in the work group? Yeah. But it wasn't voted on or considered like for action by council or as a... Well, it's part of the recommendation. If that's in the plan, I mean, just the AN zone in that, it's recommended to move forward with those uses in those areas. Okay, I just saw the page that says the conservation zoning category, and it was not voted on by the work group. That's the one that I was referring to. Can I clarify that? Planning worked on that and wanted to bring that forward, if I recall. That is from them, and it does come forward, but without having a vote by the task force. Okay. That's their recommendation. Did you want to add anything, Chris? I can, very briefly. We did that as staff because it's a very small, very, very small subset. that the conservation zones in the expansion area are actually pegged and intended to be purchased by the urban county government and converted into parks. However, because we don't have control of when the council does that, there were certain recreational compatible uses that private persons are allowed to develop on conservation lands, and we did not want that to get overlooked, even though it's a very, very small subset of what we're looking at. Okay, Chris, can you answer for me? Is lighting and noise and hours of operation and all of those things included in other parts of the zoning ordinance regulation? There are in others, yes. Okay, that was a discussion also in our food truck work groups. Usually not, usually don't try to do that, But oftentimes they are addressed through the Board of Adjustment in a conditional use and saying, at this location it's okay, but your hours have to cut here. You cannot have outdoor speakers. You cannot have outdoor lighting, things like that. Okay. And last question. In the minutes, the very last meeting minutes, there's several public comments, And it just says people spoke, Martin spoke, Griggs spoke, Carrie spoke, but no summary of what they actually said. And I just wondered why that is missing from the minutes. It was consistent all the way through. And it's consistent with this group's minutes. It's how you do minutes. Yeah. When the public speaks, we do not detail everything they say. And these were not tape recorded task force. And FYI, we do have a list, and some of these people are down here to speak. Right. Is there any other council members that have questions? Thank you. Council Member Lane? I just thought it might be helpful, Chairman Robertson, if you made just one statement, I think, to clarify one area. If you own a piece of property and you want to have some of your friends come over and go for a hike on it, that is not in any way prohibited. No, we're talking about commercial use. Exactly, right. That's all. It's not what you can do on your farm. And they can sure as hell come ride bikes on it, you know. I mean, if I say it, but that's, these are commercial uses. These are more intensive uses, and that's what we're talking about. I just wanted to reiterate that. Thank you. Thank you, sir. It's a good one. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. And, Lord, I hate to get into this because it's the only thing that isn't in the 3rd District of controversy. It's County Walsh. It's County Walsh. Except now, see, we can have zip lines in Chevy Chase Shopping Area, which is in the 3rd District. Okay, and I'm not as well-versed as I'd like to be, But I'm the bed and breakfast, short-term rental thing. Those are two different categories, really. You're talking about two different animals. Well, it also mentions it does not include hotels, motels, bed and breakfast facilities. So our bed and breakfast use already exists in the AR zone. Yes. So it's not excluding? It's not excluding. No, it's already there. Hotels and motels are an issue because of the septic situation. So that is country ends. That's a definition that was definitely, that's a problem in the AR zone. Perhaps an opportunity in a B1 somewhere, but not in strict AR zone. So the way I'm reading this, if it's an AN, which would be agricultural. The blue. Right, natural habitat, I would assume. and zip lines are excluded. I mean, everything's conditional use, but the zip lines and recreational outfitters, that's excluded or conditional, it looks like. And I'm just curious why the restrictions or why the careful language? Well, the canopy tours are permitted. So a tree canopy is... There's a difference, I'm told. I know little about it, but I know there's a difference. The zip line is, you know, a bigger fall. It's more of a ride. And a canopy tour, apparently you kind of self-propel yourself. That's according to Dr. Sharp, right? Well... But I'm not sure of your question, so I'm wandering here. Well, I'm wandering, too. Okay. Is that a permitted use? A canopy tour? No, wandering. Yeah. A canopy tour, could you explain to me what that means? I think it's defined here. Let Chris King explain. They've got all that. We've got our definitions now. I'll tell you my experience of a canopy tour and a zip line both. I believe canopy tour was one of the definitions provided to the work group, I believe from Dr. Sharp. There are some national definitions that the committee reviewed. I don't have that in front of me, so I would put it on the overhead if I did. Well, I've been on canopy tours in Costa Rica and places like that. and I'm just a little bit confused. So a zip line would be allowed in an agriculture buffer zone? On the table here, yes, that's right. That's one of the work group recommendations. And then another one of their directives to the planning staff, as Mr. King mentioned earlier, was to incorporate some of these definitions into the text amendment. I'm kind of aware that a lot of this came about over a zip line, you know, that this has been being worked on looking at this, and so I was just curious. And then the other question I had was, like, farm markets are in the old rural AR. I'm running out of time. Recommend to be conditional in AR by the work group. I'll study this more, and I know a lot went into this, but I look at petting zoos and pony rides and gift shops as accessories, and then some of it just doesn't seem to be consistent. And I think that we're missing maybe some really huge opportunities for economic development using what is one of our most prized possessions, and that is our rural landscape. And I love economic development more than anything because I love the city to have money. So thank you, and I will study this. And I'm assuming we'll have more opportunities to discuss this. Can I just add, remember, there's always the possibility, and I'll look at our planners who may not like that I say this, that you may add more recreational uses to this column. This was simply exhausted by the group. And all of these questions are really good questions, and they'll all be vetted thoroughly as the ZOTAs move forward, is my understanding. So, I mean, like I say, I look at you can have rifle and firearm ranges, and it seems that would be far more disruptive than something else. So I'll get my questions together, and I know that we are running out of time, and I do appreciate everybody's hard work on this. I know a lot of people feel a little passionately about it. And thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, for letting me speak. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. All right. We have then no other Council members signed up to speak, so we can take the audience questions. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. And I couldn't log in. I just wanted to ask Planning if it occurred to me when you were talking about the work that will go into this, if we could do them as they're ready or if they have to come all at once. Okay, he said they don't have to be would recommend. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Vajra. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. All right, now I'll call on those in the audience that have signed on to speak today, beginning with Burgess Carey, and then... Am I reading this right? Is Billy Mallory here? She's already left. Okay, all right. Mr. Carey. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Council Members. If you could give your address, Burgess, that would be great, and you do know that just for those who haven't spoken before to the Council, there is a three-minute limitation. So unless you have someone that wishes to yield their time to you, which would extend that time. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name is Burgess Carey. I live at A39 Old Richmond Road. I'd like to also thank the ZODA panel members who attended 20 meetings or over 20 meetings and 22 if you include the subcommittee meetings. I also attended those meetings and followed closely with great interest the work that was done there. The LFUCG staff performed yeoman's tasks in providing all the information necessary to make the decisions they did. By zoning definition, I own and live on a small farm in southeast Fayette County in the Palisades along Boone Creek. And my concern, as I believe most people in this room's concern, is that we continue to conserve our valuable green space in Fayette County. And while there are many issues that bear further vetting with regards to the ZODA panel recommendations, I think if I could put it most succinctly as a small farmer, if we don't give all farmers, large and small, as many tools available to preserve their green space and to productively and sustainably manage their land, we will lose that opportunity. and maybe even more importantly and I think this without getting too far into the weeds Don goes back to the convention center bureau report which I would ask you all to read the first two things that as Vice Mayor Gordon said that tourists coming to Lexington want to see number one is the scenic beauty and number two is the horse related activities the most popular thing that those tourists do is eat at restaurants The second most popular thing that they do is drive around. By definition, the thoroughbred industry cannot invite the type of interaction with our green space that we're going to need in the future to promote the conservation ethic that allowed us to put together the safety net that started with the 1999 rural land management plan. The property that I had for hundreds of years was a commercial site, a gas station, a truck stop, many other uses. It was overlaid with an ag rural zone. And as I understand the ag rural, agritourism is a permitted use. And the state KRS defines canopy tours and zip lines as agritourism, environmental education, and outdoor recreation in nature. I'd like to ask further what opportunities that the ZODA work identified to give landowners the ability to preserve their land. What further opportunities that could come down the pike in the future have been addressed, or how to deal with those potential opportunities that we haven't defined yet. Where is the potential development of our other signature brands in central Kentucky, like Bluegrass Music and Bourbon that Councilwoman Akers just mentioned? We have an event coming up in a few weeks, The Best in Bluegrass, which actually started in our rural zone at the Kentucky Horse Park, which is exempt from zoning as a state agency. Burgess, the three minutes has expired. All right. Ms. Carey is yielding her time to you. Thanks. Part of what the ZODA recommendation is asking is for the AR zone properties to give up the rights to do certain things that are not prohibited. And the biggest problem with the AN and then conditional use recommendation that's been made regarding ecotourism and recreational activities, and it was identified earlier by Councilman Ford, is that that's a two-step process. and what ZODA is asking the council to vote on will take rights away from existing AR zone properties with the promise that if they want to engage in these other activities, they must come back and get a zone change, which is a high burden, and then they must come get a conditional use. I believe that the recommendations of the ZODA panel would be much more effective if there was an incentive to go get that zone change by making these uses principal. There's only a few of the recommended conditional uses from the AN zone that are revenue positive. And if you're not trying to get a canopy tour or a zipline tour, there's no real reason to go through a zone change process to get an AN zone. It becomes a more restrictive zone by definition, as it should be, because these are sensitive lands. But you need a way to take care of these lands, and particularly in the southeast part of the county where none of that property has been traditional thoroughbred farm area. We have steep hillsides and small parcels largely, and we need as many tools as we can down there to combat the invasive species and to manage our lands to their highest and best use, which is promotion of the natural resources. And we have the opportunity as a community to increase the access and the availability of that green space to our citizens and our future generations, which will continue the conservation ethic that brought us to this point. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Carey. And next is Mr. Park, John Park. Is Mr. Park here? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. Mr. Carey signed me up without telling me to speak, so I will be very brief with my remarks. First two points. I'm a local attorney. I represent a lot of small businesses, and I can tell you small businesses are still hurting. So I'm asking you all to try to make it as easy as possible for small businesses to start new businesses of the type we want in this community, locally owned, that create jobs, that are not polluting, and that do not harm anybody. My second point concerns natural area land management. Natural areas, you cannot just build a fence around it and prohibit all activity in a natural area. We are losing our natural areas to winter creeper, bush honeysuckle, burning bush, any number of other invasive species that are literally killing our palisades. Management of natural areas takes money. So, again, if you can assist natural area owners do something with their land, which opens up access to the public, provides a public service in the form of recreation, I see that as a win-win. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Park. Chelsea Perrin. Hi there. I'm a little shorter than everybody else. I'm Chelsea Perrin and to introduce myself this is my first time speaking here by the way I am a recent UK graduate and after I went to the University of Kentucky graduated with degrees in Spanish international studies with focus on a global environment I moved to Patagonia to work at a national park for a few months and work with the Tompkins some of the biggest conservationists in the world. And when I came back to work in Lexington and find opportunities here, I was presented with this canopy tour, which hearing today that that may not have been a use that was predicted in the 1990s was just interesting to me because I was born in 1990 and I know my parents have done many zip lines before that time. But the biggest point that I want to make that I learned through my studies in Patagonia as well as the University of Kentucky is that if we don't open these areas for people to see, they are going to have no reason to preserve them in the future. And right now it's a very museum-esque area, kind of lock and key. Most of you all hopefully have had the opportunity to see that area and the natural beauty around it, but as of now it's almost been by invitation only. And there are several uses like biking, hiking, all of these, that sure, we can call our neighbor up and go hiking on their property if we have that contact, but if not, the only other option would be to pay for that opportunity. So I guess I'm a little bit confused on the conditional use, you know, for-profit or not-for-profit. I've grown up biking and hiking, horseback riding, everything on people's farms, but as far as inviting people in to do that, we would have to charge them money, and I see no harm as long as that money is being used to protect these natural areas as well. As Mr. Carey and John Park said, these areas are in the Palisades. The exact things that make them as beautiful as they are do not lend themselves to be an agricultural use. I studied sustainable agriculture as well, and there are very, very few crops that can grow on the kind of terrain that is down there. and I would invite you all to come see it if you haven't and consider this area to be used by the public, not only our local community, but nationally and internationally even, and to show people that Kentucky is more than just horses, although that is an amazing use, and we have used that and we have promoted that. But now something that can complement those horses and that tourism industry is something a little bit broader and does not take away from it, but complements it. and I don't see any negative aspect of that. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Perrin. Sarah Steele. Hello there. My name is Sarah Steele. I've just recently begun working for Boone Creek Outdoors as a zipline guide. Difference between a canopy tour and a zipline tour, that was asked earlier. Canopy Tour is actually more focused on informing people about the canopy, about the trees, about the local, the flora that's around that area, and preserving that and keeping it from the winter creeper and the honeysuckle, the invasive species. That's actually, I've just completed the training for the Zipline Guide. And then this coming week, our training is going to be our ecology training, which is going to be so that we can inform people what they're looking at, what is in their own backyards for the people who live in Lexington. And I personally live in Lexington, and I love the outdoors. But whenever I'm looking for something to do, you know, there's Veterans Park, there's McConnell Springs, and Ravens Run, and that's about it. Other than that, you've got to drive to the gorge. And if you drive to the gorge to do a zipline tour, it's not going to be the same experience as what we're offering. You know, we're focused on preserving the natural area. It's an area that Daniel Boone himself thought was just beautiful and should be preserved. and that's what we're trying to do. And it really, it's, I also encourage you to come take a look at the area because it's very steep slopes, and it's mostly just this beautiful forest that people wouldn't get a chance to see otherwise. So I encourage you to come take a look because it's not something that you would want horses running around on. It's not something that you would want to plant crops on, But it's beautiful, and I really believe that everyone who lives in Lexington should have the opportunity to experience just the beauty that's in their own backyards. And this is also going to be a huge thing, I feel, for tourism that we're bringing in outside of Lexington. Because people come to Lexington, and they think, what is there to do? And, you know, all of a sudden we've got this amazing opportunity for people to go fly through the trees. And not only that, but to learn about the Native area and support it. And I'm a very, very strong believer in protecting our natural environment. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Steele. Josh Tatum? Josh. I am clearly not Josh Tatum. My name is Callie Ricketts, and he has given his time to me. I was born and raised here. I live at 8705 Durbin Lane, which is about a 30-second drive from Bridges' property. I have lived in this house my whole life, and I have never known that this area was behind me. It is literally 15 seconds from my house, but I have never ever seen it, and I didn't know what a beautiful area I was living in until I got this job at Boone Creek Outdoors. And the guides I have given, people are amazed that this area is in Fayette County in our own backyard. And people can't see this. People don't know this is here. And I think this canopy tour is a great way to inform people about what is in our area and how we can preserve it and what we can go and see and do in Lexington. Lexington is the horse capital of the world, but I think there are more opportunities in this area that people can come and see in tourism opportunities. As far as issues, I don't think it's taking away from any of this area. You know, the interstate is causing more noise pollution than the zip lines are. It's not an ugly sore on the community at all. It's back in the gorge, and it's hidden from areas, and you wouldn't be able to see it without this canopy tour. So I would strongly like to support this project, and I'm done. Thank you, Ms. Ricketts. All right. Fan meter Pettit. Good afternoon, everybody. Van Meter Pettit, 155 Constitution Street. Thank you very much. Thank you to the Zota panel for the hard work. Thank you, Vice Mayor. It has been a remarkable process. I know it's very, very complex, and it's also very, very important because I ardently support the preservation of our rural lands and I support restrictions to how those lands are used. And in general, I think this is a solid step forward to better define how we're using these rural lands. I would respectfully submit that we look a lot more closely at the degree to which things which are classified as recreation are prohibited in the agricultural areas. And people have mentioned, you know, a farm tour and a hayride or principal, and then a lot of other recreational activity is prohibited, and it strikes me as inconsistent. And I guess I would also simply say that it is without question that we must protect our agricultural uses. I do not think that we can assume that all manner of recreation is going to be detrimental to agriculture. And I think we need to look a lot closer at that because we may be losing a lot of opportunities in the rural area if we are too restrictive in how people are able to use their land. And specific as a city dweller a couple blocks away, we really struggle to find outdoor activities for our children on the weekends. And you just kind of wear out McConnell Springs, wear out Raven Run, wear out all these places that are publicly owned. And to the extent that it's possible to expand outdoor activity opportunities that are carefully defined, carefully composed, that do not harm the land that they're using and do not harm their neighbors. That is a critical deficiency in Fayette County. And in my opinion, this does a really good job of attempting to protect farm uses in the agricultural area, in the rural area. I would submit respectfully that we need to pay a little more attention and give a little bit more emphasis to outdoor recreation because I think that is an enormous growth opportunity for our economy. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Van Meter. And that's all who've signed up to speak to this issue, which allows us to move on to the next item on the agenda, which is Council Reports. Council Member Lane for the Council Report. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to pose a motion to move the work product from the Minnesota Work Committee over to the Division of Planning for further review and recommendations. So move. Motion by Council Member Lane, seconded by Council Member Massadi. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Stennett. Councilman Lane, what are your intentions after, to bring it back to the council or to go to the planning commission or both? Well, if I had my druthers, I would like to go to the planning commission so I could be fully vetted there before it came back over to council. So is that part of the motion? Well, I can make that part of the motion. That would be fine. Thank you. All right. Is there any other discussion on the motion? Could, Council Member Mazzotti, would you accept that amendment? Yes. All right. Will do. Thank you. So the motion as amended, friendly amendment. Is there any further discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Moving on to we're continuing now with council reports. Any other council member wish to offer a council report? Council Member Akers. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to share that this weekend, Saturday, June 1st, The roller derby girls of Central Kentucky will be battling, I guess, with the Vet City Roller Girls of Bowling Green at the convention center. Doors open at 6. The bout starts at 7. And myself, Vice Mayor Gordon, Council Member Massadi, and I'm not sure if Council Member Henson or other female council members will all be there to blow the whistle and start the bout. So that's going to be fun. and Monday Georgetown Neighborhood Association will be meeting at 6 o'clock in the O'Rear Center at Douglas Park. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Akers, Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. Council Members, I have put before you a memo attached to a resolution expressing urban county government's opposition to the rate increase by Kentucky American Water. I'm not making any motions about it today. I wanted you to see it, and I will bring it Tuesday to walk onto the docket. Since 2007, Kentucky American Water Company has requested and gotten three rate increases, totaling 70 percent rate increases. In this case in particular, the LFUCG has intervened and is opposing this rate increase. The Community Action Council has intervened and is opposing this rate increase. And this resolution, which I'll bring forward next week, will simply add continuity that the Council agrees with our intervention in this rate increase. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to update the council so they would know that we had been fortunate enough to put the bid out for the Tate Creek Road sidewalks. However, the bids came back above what were expected, so we're going to have to rework that to get it back out there on the street as quickly as possible. I hope that we're able to do that during this week. Although this does not fall within my council district, it is an issue that I have taken up in terms of timing. Those of you who were here last year will recall that there was a couple of times where we could not achieve enough people to have a zone change hearing at certain times. The Planning Commission took action on an application for the so-called Kroger zone change last Thursday. And in order for us to take this up in a timely manner, we may have to act in order to set a meeting time at our meeting next Tuesday in order to have this hearing before the 90 days run, before we leave to go on our recess. So it may come to us in an altered format because all the minutes may not be ready and all the accompanying documentation, but the 90-day clock starts running as soon as they have acted, and that's whether or not we go on our recess. So we may have to take some action a little bit unusual, but certainly timely in relation to good public policy. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Councilmember Farmer. I am watching very closely for that to come across our desk and realize that we're going to be in a real tight time frame for a public hearing before Council on that zone change. And it is hard. There have been two out of three last year didn't have a quorum. So, anyway, be prepared. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Lawless. All right, does any other Council Members wish to offer a Council report? All right, and that allows us to move on. Mayor's report, there is no Mayor's report this week, and that allows us to move on to public comment for issues not on the agenda. Has anybody signed up, Mr. Mundy? All right, sir. All right. Motion by Council Member Stenet, second by Councilor Myers to adjourn. Is there any objection? Hearing none, then we are adjourned. Thank you.