We are ready to go. Thank you all very much for joining us tonight. Let me begin by welcoming all of you to this meeting of the Council, called for the purpose of hearing a request for rezoning. Let me also begin by sharing our rules of engagement and conduct. Our Council rules for such a hearing were crafted long before my time and many others on the Council. so they've been here for a long time. In terms of the conduct that's expected, let me start by introducing Mr. Mundy. Mr. Mundy, hold your hand up, and he smiles a lot. Now, you can see that Mr. Mundy is a significant, formidable fellow, one of our security guards, officers here. I don't ever challenge Mr. Mundy's authority. And what is that authority? Well, among other things, he has the authority to remove folks from the premises, including me. That means if I start demonstrating, clapping, for example, or otherwise inappropriately demonstrating, when I don't have the floor, when someone else does, well, Mr. Mundy can remove me from the chambers. And guess what? He can remove others from the chambers as well. So I don't say this. I'm trying to say this in a good humor and good spirit. And so please don't misinterpret me. I would want everyone to know, however, that this is a pleasant heads-up, a little warning if you will. These are the rules designed so we can have a civilized debate over what amounts often to contentious issues in these chambers, issues where tensions emerge, passions emerge, and that's quite understandable. This is our city, your city, your neighborhoods, streets, homes. So passion is understandable. It's a good thing. And it's democracy at work. often cumbersome and tedious and contentious and messy, with uncertain outcomes. But it is democracy, part of our DNA as citizens, to have a voice, to express it vigorously, often to debate, and to resolve issues with outcomes, sometimes but not always, to our liking. So as inefficient and inconvenient a system as it may appear at any moment in time, In any episode or chapter like tonight, many of you, many of us, have come to recognize, if we live long enough, that democracy is really quite efficient and sustainable. In fact, and I'm closing on this little opener, in fact, with democracy as our guidance system, our city, Lexington, has somehow managed. Managed along now for 238 years, since 1775, one year before the Declaration of Independence itself was signed. Our city has managed along. longer than any other business or institution or enterprise in our city. And that is something of a remarkable legacy, which despite our differences at times, it's a remarkable legacy we can all share with pride. So, again, welcome to all of you, and I will now go through the rules of the proceedings tonight, as well as the agenda. It will take me just a few minutes, so please stay with me, please. the counsel for the applicant that is in this case the Kroger company the counsel for the applicant and those representing the opponents to the applicant I have spoken to them and they have each agreed to targeting for their presentation a 45-minute window. That's Amy Clark on behalf of the opposition and Mr. Simpson on behalf of the petitioner. Now, let me tell you about the agenda or the order of the events tonight. Because I've been through this a bunch of times and I still get confused, I promise you. Mr. Farmer, you don't have to comment on that. I know you've done that before. I just admit confusion occasionally. All right. What occurs first is our planning staff will summarize the record of the hearing before the planning commission that has occurred before this meeting. This record will be marked and numbered as an exhibit and entered into the record by the council clerk. Meredith, hold up your hand. Our council clerk. The staff presentation will be subject to cross-examination by the petitioner and the opponent. In other words, who's Ms. Bill? All right, sir. So you are subject to cross-examination. Y'all take a good look. All right. And next, our presentation by the petitioner, that is the applicant. Mr. Simpson, that's you, right? Hold your hand up so everybody can see you. Okay. So next comes the presentation by the applicant. That's the Kroger Company. And then next is the presentation by the opponent. All right. That includes an opening statement by the opponent. This is the same procedure for the applicant or the petitioner. An opening statement by the petitioner and the opponent in their respective presentations, and then the presentation of direct evidence, including any witnesses on the witness list, by those who are then presenting, that is, the applicant and the opponent. So witnesses can be presented at that time. Then the staff will have the opportunity to make additional comments, if any. So that means Mr. Bill Salley, who I've already introduced, Bill will come back for any additional comments after the presentation by Mr. Simpson and by Ms. Clark. So then the petitioner or the applicant has a chance to present evidence to rebut, to challenge what has already been presented. So another chance. Then there is the closing summation by the opponent and the closing summation by the petitioner and then public comments. All right. And those public comments, those of you all who have signed up with Mr. Mundy, is that right? Okay. That's when you all have the chance. Three minutes each, and you'll need to give your name and your address and so forth. And you can have time yielded by someone else at that point in time. so then after that is when the council will ask questions of the staff and the petitioner and the opponent and the petitioner and the opponent will be entitled to rebut any new evidence that might be brought up by the council questioning then after that the hearing is closed and the council will vote to adopt findings of fact The council then votes on the ordinance by a roll call vote. All right, so that is the way, that is the proceedings. We will go into the findings of fact and decision when we get to that point because that always requires a little explanation, a little interpretation. All right. All right. All right. Now, now we'll... No, we don't need a roll call. Y'all keep saying that. All right, we are now. We do need a roll call? We do need a roll call. All right. All right, Madam Clerk, I'm being encouraged to take a roll call. We probably should, for the record. All right. Ms. Gordon? Here. Ms. Henson? Here. Mr. Kaye? Here. Mr. Lane? Ms. Lawless? Here. Ms. Mazzotti? Here. Mr. Myers? Ms. Scutchfield? Here. Mr. Stennett? Ms. Akers? Mr. Beard? Present. Mr. Clark? Here. Mr. Ellinger? Here. Mr. Farmer? Here. And Mr. Ford? Here. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Just to confirm, the petitioner has submitted a list of witnesses. Right. All right. I will need to swear in anyone who plans to present and testify tonight. So if anyone who plans to be a witness, I need for you to stand now. This is just everybody that's speaking. All right. Yeah. All right. If you intend to speak, yeah, please stand up. And I'll just ask you to say after I give the little oath that I do. All right. I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Please say I do. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Our first on the agenda, first up, is Mr. Salee. Actually, we'll need to give second reading to the ordinance first. Oh, okay. I've got to. An ordinance changing the zone from a neighborhood business, B1, professional office, P1, single-family residential, R1E, and high-density apartment, R4 zone, to a planned shopping center, B6P zone, for 3.1462 net, 3.6588 gross acres, for properties located at 704 Euclid Avenue and 408, 412, 416, and 420 Marquis Avenue, including dimensional variances, Kroger Limited Partnership 1, Council District 3. Thanks. All right. Okay. Thank you, Meredith. And now, Mr. Salee. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor and members of the Council, good evening. As is necessary at all of your public hearings, there are a number of items I need to enter into the record of your hearing this evening. The very first is the legal notice that was prepared by the Council Clerk advertising tonight's public hearing. I'm going to take my jacket off. The next is an affidavit signed by myself regarding the notices that were mailed to all of the property owners within 500 feet of the property that you'll be evaluating this evening, and also to the nearest neighborhood associations in proximity to this location. The next item is the recommendation from the Urban County Planning Commission to the Council about this rezoning. They held their public hearing in May of this year and have forwarded their recommendation to the Council, along with a number of additional items. For members of the audience interested in a copy of this, there are additional copies at the end of this counter, should they wish to review that. This time I need to enter copies of the land subdivision regulations and the zoning ordinance that's currently in effect for the urban county government. I'd like to enter into the record a copy of the 2007 comprehensive plan, and also a copy of the design guidelines that have been adopted for big box developments here locally. This is referenced in one of the chapters of the zoning ordinance for the B6P planned shopping center zone. Then finally, the staff has received a number of communications about this rezoning. We have received 27 letters. Three are in favor and 24 are opposed. I'd like to circulate this to the council at this time. And in addition, neighbors have asked us to circulate as well the communications that the planning commission received on this zone change at their public hearing in May. This contains 11 letters in opposition and three petitions as well. I'd like to begin by orienting the council to the location of the subject property and to the general area. I have a number of oblique aerials to try and accomplish that task. In the area of Chevy Chase, the main roadways in this area are Euclid Avenue, heading in this direction toward the University of Kentucky, East High Street, heading away from downtown in that direction, Clay Avenue, here, which forms one of the borders of Woodland Park along with East High Street. Other streets in the area include South Ashland Avenue here and Marquis Avenue here. We've identified the roof of the existing Kroger store at 704 Euclid Avenue just for reference. And in the next photo, we have a little bit closer view of that store. Clay Avenue currently terminates at Euclid Avenue almost directly in front of that store's entrance. This is looking from the south at 704 Euclid Avenue. You can see the existing store, which is approximately 38,000 or 39,000 square feet in size. It's associated off-street parking along the side and the front of the store. And in addition, a number of vacant properties here, four, along Marquis Avenue, which are also part of this proposed rezoning. Most of this property, that of the store and its parking lot, are currently in a B1 neighborhood business zone and is requested for a B6P zone along with the vacant properties along Marquee Avenue. Also in this area, we have a number of branch banks in close proximity, an apartment condominium building here, townhouses, office buildings along Euclid, and single-family homes along the rear of the property, along Ashland Terrace, and one also along Marquis. This is a view of the same property now looking from the east to the west. You can see the front of the store, this location, its off-street parking orientation, and a lot of the other uses I've already identified. This photo also shows some of the uses along South Ashland Avenue, most of which is zoned also in a B1 neighborhood business zone. Finally, a view looking north at the subject property. Again, we have the Clay Avenue intersection with Euclid Avenue. The South Ashland intersection with Euclid is signalized, but the Marquis Avenue intersection with Euclid is not a signalized intersection. This photo also gives you another angle of the vacant properties that are also part of this zone change request. One of the maps that I have on your display board to the left of my location, this is a blow-up of that map to show what the existing zoning is surrounding this subject property of just over three acres that's in front of you this evening. As I mentioned, the properties along South Ashland mostly have a B1 neighborhood business zoning category, as does the bulk of the subject property, including the 704 Euclid property. The other predominant zone in this area is R1E for properties along Ashland Terrace, Hollywood Drive, Marquis Avenue, and other portions of the Columbia Heights neighborhood. This R1E zoning goes back at least a decade or more to a down zoning that was accomplished many years ago. There's P1 zoning along Euclid Avenue and two parcels across Marquee, one which was recently zoned R5 and another R4 where there is townhouse development. The existing zoning of the subject property is quite complicated, except for the largest property. As I mentioned, most of the subject property is zone B1, as indicated in this drawing by the pink outline, for the store and its parking lot at the corner of Marquis and Euclid. There is a very small portion of that lot that is zoned R1E at its rear in that location. The properties along Marquis, although vacant, have three different zoning categories. 408 Marquis is currently in an R4 zone. These two properties at 412 and 416 are mostly zoned P1, although the rear of 416 also has R1E, single family residential zoning for a very small portion of that lot. The final property that's part of the zone change, also vacant at 420 marquee, is also zoned R1E. All told, I mentioned these properties are over three acres in size, and the zone change request is to change these three different categories, pardon me, four different categories, B1, R4, R1E, and P1, into a B6P planned shopping center zone. I have a few ground-level photographs to show you. This is from very near the intersection of Clay Avenue and Euclid, looking at one of the main accesses into the Kroger store and at the current store entrance. This is taken also along Euclid Avenue, but closer to where South Ashland Avenue intersects Euclid. This is a view along Marquis, looking in a northeasterly direction back toward Euclid Avenue in the distance. sidewalk street here euclid in the distance the subject property is to the left at this location and obviously the store and its parking lot that fronts on marquee is visible in the photo the final photo is taken almost at the same exact location although looking along the rear of the proposed zone line this house is in an r1e zone as is the subject property here The proposed zoning boundary is roughly proposed right along this area that would separate this proposed development from the nearest residence. As we do with every zone change hearing, we review the recommendations of the comprehensive plan. Of course, I entered that in the record earlier. This is from the land use element of the comprehensive plan. and it has far fewer recommendations than the existing zoning configuration of the property. The existing store and its parking lot at 704 Euclid are recommended and identified in an area for retail, trade, and personal services use. That is a category typical of stores and uses that are conducted in a store-like environment. So it really is no surprise that the existing store and its parking lot have that designation. The four vacant properties along Marquis Avenue are shown in an area of medium density residential use by the comprehensive plan. Those five properties are indicated by the blue line on this particular exhibit. Medium density is defined as residential use of up to 10 units per net acre. So for the vast majority of this zone change, the request to rezone the property to a B6P zone, a planned shopping center zone, the staff found was in agreement with the comprehensive plan. B6P is one of the zones that can implement that land use recommendation by the plan. Of course, the portion that is not in agreement with the comprehensive plan is the portion that involves the vacant properties that are before you this evening. The planning staff recommended approval of this rezoning at the Planning Commission's hearing. We found, as I mentioned, that the vast majority of the zone change was in agreement with the comprehensive plan, and we found for the vacant parcels that are part of it that it would be more appropriate if they were rezoned to a B6P zone to allow the Kroger store to expand as it's proposed, and that we found the mixture of use and zoning that existed for those four vacant properties was inappropriate. Staff made that recommendation to the Planning Commission at their public hearing in late May of this year. The Commission heard not only from the staff but also from the applicant, from two persons in support and from nine individuals who are opposed to that rezoning. And at the conclusion of their public hearing, the Planning Commission voted 8-0 to recommend approval of this proposed rezoning to the Council. The reasons for that recommendation are shown on the first and second pages of the final report from the Commission that was distributed earlier. To briefly summarize those reasons, the first is that the B6P zone is in agreement with the 2007 comprehensive plan, recommended land use of retail trade and personal services use for 704 Euclid Avenue, which is the existing Kroger site. The B6P zone is one of several commercial zones that can implement that land use recommendation. In addition, the Planning Commission found that the R4, the P1, and the R1E zones collectively are inappropriate at this location, and there were four reasons for that finding. The first being that each of the lots is less than a quarter of an acre in size and are all currently vacant. Also, including those properties as part of the Kroger site would allow for a more efficient use of the entire property, which would be controlled by a development plan approved by the Planning Commission. Thirdly, except for the property at 420 Marquee Avenue, these would be difficult to develop collectively or independently due to the zoning ordinance requirements for off-street parking and for landscaping. And finally, the business-owned and proposed redevelopment of these lots with the rest of the Kroger site would result in a streetscape that would be more consistent with the existing commercial area along Euclid Avenue. There was one additional finding made by the Planning Commission at their hearing, and that is that the requested B6P zone is supported by the goals and objectives that were adopted by the Urban County Council in May of last year. Specifically, the proposed zone change will provide improved design features that are consistent with the rest of the Chevy Chase area. The Planning Commission at their hearing on the zone change also reviewed a preliminary development plan that was filed by the petitioner as part of that zone change. We have that also mounted to my left. It's not quite oriented to the north, but to orient you to the location of this plan, we have Euclid Avenue, the signalized intersection with South Ashland Avenue at this location. and this plan shows the properties on the remainder of the block of Ashland Terrace and Marquis Avenue. This plan proposes to remove the existing Kroger store and to replace it with a new store located much closer to the corner of Marquis Avenue and Euclid Avenue. This plan shows a total store size of over 96,000 square feet. which would be on three levels. There would be a basement level, a commercial store level, and then parking along the roof of this building. Parking is shown on this plan for that portion of the roof with a ramp that would be accessed at this location, which is on the south side of the building. On this plan are 128 parking spaces proposed on the roof and a total of 198 proposed on the entire site. There would also be a pedestrian plaza along this portion of the Euclid Avenue frontage here. The main entrance to the store would be proposed at that location. The customer area available on the first floor, I mentioned it is a 65,500 square foot building coverage. about 55,000 of that would be accessible to customers such as UNI should that store be built and occupied. The Planning Commission approved this development plan at their hearing, and they also approved dimensional variances under the zoning ordinance, which they can do at the time of their public hearing that involves a zone change. There were three variances that were approved. One is to the wall length of this wall here in terms of offsets that are required by the zoning ordinance, which that wall does not have. Building setbacks. The B6P zone requires 50-foot setbacks for buildings from the zone line. And this building is closer than the B6P zone along the center of marquee that is proposed. and also there is a slight variance to this portion of the building as well. And then finally, also to ground building coverage restrictions in the B6P zone. This proposed building, as approved by the Commission, would occupy more ground area than typical B6P buildings in other locations of the community. Mayor, that concludes my prepared remarks. I thank you very much, Council members. Of course, I'll be available for questions later in the evening. Thank you very much. Bill, one question. I may have missed it. Did you mention the outcomes of the Planning Commission? Yes, the Planning Commission voted 8 to 0 to recommend the zone change, and they also voted to approve this development plan, which has been certified. All right, thank you. Thank you very much. I know that Mr. Mundy tells me that some of our guests, some of you all have some, I see those nice yellow signs, and that there's a lot of interest in putting them up. Yes. All right. Now, the suggestion would be why don't you all do that right now. All right. Do it. All right. We see there's a lot of them. And so now after perhaps each presentation, let's see if we can do this. Be very energetic after each presentation with those sides. And then between those events, how about just keeping them tucked in? That might be helpful to everybody, actually. Okay. So Bill's finished. All right. There we go. Amy? Are you concerned about this? I had a question. You have a question for, well, wait just a minute. Yes. Just a second, Amy. That is part of the process. Yes, ma'am. So please, go right ahead. Mr. Salee, I just wanted to clarify. You mentioned that there were three variances granted. It was my understanding there were five. Could you let us know? Yes, there were five variances. I think I mentioned a couple of building setbacks. The total number of variances was five. They were three different types of variances. I apologize for any confusion there. All right. Thank you. Does the petitioner wish to cross-examine or have any questions of the staff? All right. All right. Next on our agenda, then, is a presentation by the petitioner. Thank you, Mayor and members of the Council. I'm Bruce Simpson. I'm here tonight on behalf of the Kroger Company. I do have a procedural matter. First, Mr. Mayor, that I would rather not obviously take into my case in chief on the merits. I'd file a motion to allow the introduction of renderings, architectural renderings. I served a copy upon each of the council members. The reason for that, and I'm just going to speak very briefly about it, you all adopted, or your predecessors adopted several years ago, a rule which precluded the introduction of architectural renderings in connection with zone map amendment requests, which is what we have tonight. The reason, is my understanding, that this was done by your predecessors was because there were a number of applicants who came forward with a lot of pretty pictures and renderings of what was going to be built if the zone change was approved. It was approved, but then the projects never got built as advertised. So because of the bait and switch, the council adopted the rule precluding introduction of architectural renderings. I'm asking for an exception in this instance, conditioned upon one very important condition, and that is the Kroger Company has spent a considerable amount of time and effort in working with neighborhoods, representatives of the neighborhoods and staff to come up with a design that would be compatible with the existing environment. And though people may disagree with it, this design concept has been fully shared with the neighbors, with the Channel 3 audience, with the newspaper, with the Planning Commission. And we're willing to commit to those representations and renderings and will be held accountable as a condition of approval should this body elect to approve the zone change request. Mayor, I know design is very important for you. It's been a long-missing tool in the planning toolbox for this community. And back in December of 2012, this body did incorporate a similar condition for a zone change involving a hotel by the Greer Company out on South and Drive and Nicholasville Road where the applicant voluntarily agreed to be bound by the renderings in terms of building his project in substantial conformity with that proposed rendering that was introduced to the Planning Commission. And we're doing the same thing tonight. And so based upon the fact of that history and also because in the letters which Bill has submitted to the council that came to you all from outside this hearing room, a number of people are raising questions and complaints about the look of the building. And so if it's already in the record, we need to be allowed to rebut that, and I propose to do it in my case in chief very briefly to show you what those renderings are and that we are pledged to make it a part of any ordinance that should approve this zone change request, and I ask the Council to consider that before I start my case in chief. All right. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. The Chair will accept or entertain a motion to that effect. Mr. Ellinger. Thank you, Mayor. I make a motion to incorporate architectural renderings and hold bound and accountable to the zone change. So moved. Second. Motion by Council Member Ellinger, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? Council Member Kay. Yes, I just want to get guidance from either or maybe both the Planning Commission and law as to how bound the petitioner will be to the rendering. That is, what recourse do we have should they want to deviate from what they've proposed? I ask this question. I'll provide a little background, as Mr. Simpson has. I sat on the Planning Commission and I was one of the people who looked at renderings and then was disappointed at what was built. And we had no legal recourse. Now maybe the rules have changed. I'd like to know. Can we hear from Law? Thank you. Thank you, Councilor McKay. I think he asked for a comment from planning and from law. If you all might remember back in December when we voted on the zone change that Mr. Simpson referenced, we did make the conditions that they agreed to, which included the renderings and the way the building might be built. And we also indicated that those things would be noted on the development plan when it came back to the Planning Commission. And so we would do a very similar thing here should you all want to vote to do that in the course of this evening. From the planning staff perspective, we would make every effort to incorporate any designs that were adopted this evening into the review of the final development plan that would ordinarily be the next step in the development process for this property, should it be rezoned tonight. So if I may follow up. So if we accept this proposal and we view this rendering, what we can expect is that if the zone change is approved and they go forward to build, that what we see physically will be an accurate representation, will have been accurately represented by what we see tonight. Is that fair to say? Yes. We, as planning staff, would not expect very many deviations. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Gorton. Well, just for our law, my question is, though, this motion to accept seeing the architectural renderings does not put a condition on the zone change, does it? The Council would, if ultimately the Council accepted it, the Council would have to make it a condition by motion, correct? That's correct. Okay. So this just merely allows us to see it. That's correct. Thank you. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. You referenced the zone change from back in December, whenever that was. Yeah. Have you all gone back to the Planning Commission with your development plan? For the Greer zone change? Not yet. and so we don't really know if in fact it's going to be what was proposed. Well, I take that back. We have gone back for approval of the preliminary development plan. It went back in July. The Planning Commission did approve that. To answer a couple of questions and perhaps to answer your concern, Councilmember Lawless. In addition to the other things I'm going to present in connection with this case, our proposed conditions of approval, one of which provides as follows. The building shall be built in substantial conformity with architectural renderings tender to the Planning Commission, except for complementary and necessary adjustments that might be needed should the final development plan be revised by the Planning Commission. The applicant has voluntarily agreed to this condition. This would be one of the express conditions, should you approve the rezoning, that we would be bound by, just as the Greers were bound by the condition which was incorporated in the ordinance which rezoned that property. I guess my concern is that I, too, have seen a lot of fancy drawings that don't end up being what they're, and that's really not our mission here tonight. So I would vote against this motion because anything can happen when you start drilling and building. That being said. They're not going to get a construction permit or an occupancy permit unless the zoning enforcement officer determines that we're in compliance with the very ordinance that authorized us to develop the property as we have requested in connection with our application. If we wanted to seek relief from that, we would have to come back before the Planning Commission and this body to do so. I understand that, but the council's role tonight is the zoning. It is zoning, and you can impose conditions, and one of which we're offering to you is the ability to include this condition of enforceability into the ordinance, should it be re-zoned. Okay, thank you. All right, thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. the list or what was the piece of paper you held up that was just now out of your binder the uh the proposed conditional zoning provisions yes are they in this binder they're not in the binder yet um because they were late in getting crafted to make sure that uh everybody was signed off on them but i can pass them out right now well since it goes to the heart of your argument that would be helpful, I would think. Because, I mean, this is a one-two punch. One, we're getting ready to vote on the opportunity for you to show us a picture or pictures. And then the second part of this, if we get down the road that far, bind you to those via conditional use, which I assume you would, this is what's in here. I gave a copy to the staff in the law department before the hearing started so that they were aware of what I was going to do. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Farmer. Council Member, actually, Council Member Massadi hadn't spoken yet, so Council Member Kay, if you'll yield for just a minute. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Simpson, good evening. In reference to the architectural renderings, if we as a body decide to change something that you have already determined we have the ability to do so, you would be willing to accept our changes? Obviously, that depends on what it is, but, you know, we came here committed to this. Because it's been a two-year work in progress, but, you know, there's always room for considering other improvements, and I would say yes to your question. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Sidi. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. At the risk of beating this into the ground, I would like to have perhaps both staff and legal explain to me what substantial compliance might look like, what kinds of deviations would qualify and still be substantially compliant. As far as I'm concerned, that's the key phrase. They would be in substantial compliance. What would that mean? It would mean from the planning staff perspective that in making our recommendations to the Planning Commission on future development plans and in issuing zoning compliance permits ahead of occupancy of this potentially larger store, that we would look for very close construction to what is being offered and that individual changes would be identified at the staff level, reported to the Planning Commission, and potentially debated at the Planning Commission meeting. This is not terribly unlike how we review big-box stores and have over the years. There have been a few discussions among different aspects of big-box stores, But from the staff perspective, that's what this really entails, is that we would recognize the decisions that have been made on this design issue. Anything to add, Leo? I don't really have anything to add because the planning staff is the one that is reviewing, so what he's told you is what they're going to look at to determine if it's substantial compliance or not. Okay. Just a comment, and then I'll yield. And that is, I will vote in favor of this proposal. I think the renderings are very important. I think design is very important. And I think it's important that we have in the record that there's been substantial concern that, in fact, what we see is what gets built, and that's why I've been asking these questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member K. All right, we have a motion. No one, we have a motion and we second. We're able to vote now on the motion. All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. I do have a sworn affidavit regarding the posting of the sign pursuant to Kentucky Revised Statute 100-212 that I'm introducing for the record. In addition to the mailings that went out, there's a requirement under the law that we post a sign on the property, which we've done, and Bob Cornett did that, took a photograph, and assigned an affidavit to that effect. In terms of the merits of our presentation, Mayor, as Bill Sally shared with you, this application does not come to this body for the first time in terms of you all or some public body looking at it, evaluating it, criticizing it, encouraging changes with it. In fact, to get here tonight, we have been at work for two years in meeting with the neighborhood, the neighborhood leaders, the business leaders in Chevy Chase, adjoining property owners, and individuals who have chosen to weigh in on this project, including Graham Pohl, an architect here in Lexington, well-known, of course, who has an office in close proximity to this store. and Kroger sought out Graham because they recognized the importance that design was going to have in this infill project. And as this body knows and this body has decided on two separate occasions as regards our comprehensive plan, which guides land use decision making, such as what you all are deciding tonight, We're not going to expand the urban services boundary like we used to, hundreds of acres at a time. We're going to focus on what can we do to revitalize what we have inside the existing boundary and to improve upon it and to make it better, not just from a service standpoint, but what it looks like. And as I mentioned in my preliminary remarks relative to asking your permission to share with you these renderings, oftentimes what a project looks like at the end of the day is just as important, and in some instances more important, than the actual substance of what's taking place on the property. And so Kroger recognized that we have gone through four or five different iterations of plans, designs, to get to where we finally went to the planning commission with a project and an application in terms of the design that met critical decision-making points by a number of people who weighed in on our proposal. And then, after we did that, at the filing of it, this project, before it got to you tonight, we go through a technical review committee where we meet all the engineering staff, and they weigh in on it, pros and cons of the development plan, back and forth, changes are made. And then we go to a subdivision of the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission has two different committees, a subdivision committee and a zoning committee. And this application was filtered through the subdivision committee to look at the development plan that Mr. Sally showed you. It's posted up here on the wall where you see Ashland Terrace. That went through review by half the Planning Commission that makes up that committee. Questions were asked. The people who will speak in opposition spoke at that meeting and voiced their concerns and objections at that time to the subdivision committee. And then later the same day, the other half of the planning commission heard the zoning issues of going to this B6P zone that we're asking for to allow this new innovative Kroger store to take place. And again, the people that were in disagreement with our proposal spoke. We spoke. And so it's had too many hearings in front of the Planning Commission before it ever had a full hearing in front of the Planning Commission, which was several months ago in May. And it also went through an evaluation for months by your staff. And as you know, in these cases where you have people for a project and against a project, the staff is always put in the middle. their job, their mandate under charter and under state law is to render their best professional assessment of what's in the best interest of the community, of whether or not the application complies with the requirements to get a zone change, whether or not the application complies with requirements to get a variance, and all of the other features that ultimately go in their recommendation to the planning commission first and to this body second when you get the application, which is where it is tonight. And so the professional planning staff, the solely neutral party in these proceedings, as you know, has recommended the application be approved because it is in compliance with the comprehensive plan and the four little lots that are zoned R1E, R4, and P1 comprising totally four-tenths of an acre are so small and right next to one another as to make it impractical for those lots to develop with those three different zones right behind an existing shopping center that's been like this since the 60s. And so I would suggest to you this, and you know this. Your planning staff is not going to make a recommendation in a case where there is controversy if they don't truly believe in their professional judgment that the legal tests have been met, the justification has been met, and that at the end of the day, this project will be a good thing for the citizens not only of Lexington, but for the neighborhood. That's where the case comes to you tonight after months of evaluation, months of scrutiny, months of change, until we finally have the product that's ripe for decision. And so that's where we're here tonight. There is a history. And we're pleased to be here tonight with not only the staff's recommendation of approval for every single thing we have requested, But after a full-blown hearing in front of the Planning Commission in May that lasted several hours with people speaking for and against, many of the same arguments will be heard tonight, both by me and those that don't like the project. They were made in May before the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission heard all of that. They asked questions about it from me, from my witnesses, and from the people who didn't like it. and after a lengthy hearing at the end of the day, the Planning Commission decided, based on all the evidence, that it ought to be approved, not just barely approved, but approved unanimously. And so the project comes to you tonight with a history of unanimous approval from the Planning Commission and approval from the neutral planning staff. And that's an important factor, I submit to you, that you need to consider that others whose particular occupation and profession is to weigh in on these very issues. Your all's zoning is a minutia of what you consider in all your council work. Planning and zoning gets intense scrutiny from the professional planners and those who serve on the Planning Commission. And you have a recommendation of approval in every single phase of our request. Now, I'm going to move quickly to share with you. Bill showed some photographs of what the development would look like. I want to share with you what the development looks like right now and how we propose to improve upon it to be supplemented by the conditions of zoning approval that I have previously passed out. I want to go through these pretty quickly because I have Ted Hardwick, who's a landscape architect, who helped design the illustrations of these renderings, the actual components and features, again, were a work product of Kroger architects working with Graham Pohl, suggestions, changes, back and forth, until we believe we have something that's really special. It is special, too, in Kroger's part for this reason. This is the first Kroger store to ever build a store like this. The Kroger Company has been around since the 1800s. It is one of the largest companies in the world, of course. It has taken this project on with a special emphasis, which is why it took so long to get here, two years, because it is one of a kind. This particular project is going to have rooftop parking, as Bill mentioned. What he didn't mention, I don't think, is that to service the people that choose to park on the roof, there's going to be elevators to help people take their groceries up, and there's going to be an escalator for people who don't buy enough groceries to have a cart, let's say, that they need an escalator. There's an actual escalator in the store that takes you up and takes you down inside the store. It is truly one of a kind. It encompasses, I suggest to you, all of the important principles of infill that you all have given a signal to the development community need to be modeled. We're using the same property. We are using it more intensely within the same space with good architectural design. And for the most part, the building we're proposing is the same height as the existing building within a few feet. and even as part of my conditional zoning provisions, I put a cap on the ceiling at 28 feet. It will actually be built somewhat less than that, but you want to give a little bit of flexibility to the construction process so it won't turn into some monstrous, hideous project years down the road. It's capped at that 28 feet. Kroger has chosen to put that obligation upon itself. It's part of the conditional zoning provisions that were previously passed out to you. Very briefly, here's a snapshot of what is in the neighborhood now. If we could dim those lights a little. We need to have a better situation. We can see it. That's good. Again, this is the existing Kroger store. These are the four little vacant lots that have been vacant at the time Kroger purchased them several years ago. We'll just run through these pretty quickly. This is an office building directly opposite the Kroger store on Marquis. This is an office also right across from Marquee. Quote restore on Marquee. This is the Chevy Chase Plaza. This was a specially created zone that allowed this tallest structure in the area to be built in Chevy Chase 30 years ago. It's about 600 feet away. the PNC bank is right next door to the Kroger store on Euclid banks across the street just keep going through these are all in the handout material too in your booklet office building across the street retail store this is what the Kroger frontage looks like you see the walls and you see the little design element here this is really a suburban design The truth of the matter is that this particular Kroger store never actually fit design-wise. It was a suburban model put in an urban area, so it's never fit. You have all the parking around it, as you see in Beaumont and Heartland, out off of Boston Road. That's a design that's been modeled when land was appropriated to expand the urban services boundary. This is looking at the existing side of the building as you'd be looking at it from Ashland Avenue, North Ashland Avenue, or excuse me, South Ashland. This is some of the existing screening for the homes on Ashland Terrace, the existing wooden fencing. It's about six feet tall. So you can see there's some gaps in here, some old brush trees and the wooden fence. This is the current loading dock for Kroger Store. You can see it's right up next to the property line. The proposed Kroger Store will be moved back about 60 feet, whereas right here, the trash compactor is about four feet away from the property line. So the building is going to be pushed back further from these houses. This is the current where the trucks come in and unload all the time. This is the trash compactor. You can see how close it is to the existing property line. Current conditions. This is the four-tenths of an acre vacant lots. The construction that you see in this photograph, which has existed for the last several months, is from KU. They're doing some power line work in the area. This is the view that is currently of the Kroger store as you look at it from the marquee side. There's another loading dock right here. This building was last refurbished back in the early 80s. This is the house next door. This is the vacant land, part of the vacant tract. It's small parcels, three different zones. This is part of the fence that we're proposing to build. I've got that in my conditional zoning requirements. It would be an 8-foot tall. It's faux stone. It's actually made of polyethylene material, and it has a soundproof rating equal to 98% of what a 6-inch concrete wall would be. Yep. No, that's okay. Just another shot of the feature of the wall. You can just keep going through those. This was actually modeled after a high-end residential subdivision in Jefferson County where that same wall was put up to help screen a railroad that was next to this residential subdivision that's being built in Jefferson County. Additional screening we're proposing to deal with the proximity of the houses. The details of this screening will be worked out at the Planning Commission. We represented that to them in terms of the landscaping. The fence we're committed to, but we wanted to fine-tune the evergreen screening. This is walking up Marquis toward Euclid. This is the view toward the existing Kroger store. The cars are what you see now. This is the access point from South Ashland easement. You'll hear some testimony about from the people that own this property in this property that are objecting to our proposed use of this for the first time. That's the Kroger store right there. One of the complaints that we heard at the time was that we're not close enough to marquee. Under the existing connection from marquee to the store, it's 480 linear feet to get up the sidewalk, cross the pedestrian access to the front of the store. Under the development plan, which is the next slide, even though we moved it up closer, we moved it closer to Marquis, and it's actually two feet closer. Now, since this plan was filed, we have shared with the planning staff yesterday, you probably saw some of the information in the newspaper, and I'll talk about that in a bit, but now it's actually 390 feet so that the design that we're going to go to the planning commission with, should you rezone the property, will actually be much closer to get to than the current store. And as was pointed out where X marks the spot, there will be a pedestrian access directly on to marquee as one of the changes. These are a series of shots showing the design. I'm going to, let's go all the way through those, and then I'm going to have Ted Hardwick go into a little bit more detail. A radical difference from what the current store looks like. This is actually the front. We also had a landscaping plan that was part of our proposal again. We represented to the Planning Commission, we were going to fine-tune this in concert with the neighbors and Graham Pohl to come up with something that really enhanced and made the architectural features which we have come up with be even more of a significant contribution architecturally to the area. Is that the last one? Good. Okay. I've got Ted Hardwick who should be ready to go. Okay. Mr. Simpson, just so we calibrate on time. Yep. 21 minutes. I'm sorry. You've got 21 minutes left. I'll finish long before then. Okay. That's including your witnesses, right? Again, this is just a shot of the existing Kroger store. We'll go through these, Ted. We've seen those a couple of times. Existing conditions, this is what you see right now in terms of this is Marquis. This is Euclid. South Ashland is over this way. The homes on Ashland Terrace are back there. This is just showing, this is architectural, this is a rendering based upon the renderings that we came up with to illustrate the principles. You can see the covered area. In particular, there will be 12 bike racks. Kroger is committed to putting whatever number of bike racks are necessary to service those who ride their bikes to this area. Keep in mind that this particular Crowder store is located in closer proximity to the University of Kentucky students. Of course, a number of students live on Marquee, Sunset, Columbia, all the streets back and through here, the dorms that are being built at the University of Kentucky, in addition to all of the homes across the street on Clay Avenue, Park Avenue, up that way, Aylesford, Transylvania, all up and down Euclid Avenue. So lots of people living there, students and non-students, that have historically walked to this Kroger store. The next design is, again, this is the front of the store. This is kind of the Euclid store, one of the features that a number of changes to most urban architecture is up closer to the street. The staff wanted, as well as Graham, wanted us to back off of Marquis to allow for landscaping. In addition to what was approved at the Planning Commission, which was about 6 1⁄2 feet, we've added almost another 2 feet on the latest plan that we've shared with the staff that are going to be filed with the Planning Commission should the property be rezoned. And you have landscaping features to, again, break up the appearance of the long wall although you'll hear a lot of testimony about from people that don't like our project. Again, this is a shot of kind of looking above toward Marquis. Also from Marquis, again, showing some of the design. There's some artwork in here along this side of the building. Again, a shot of the fence. This is what you see now. This is currently in place. Obviously no vegetation, no architectural features to any extent. This is the existing Kroger store. Of course, there is a hedge up front. This is in its place what we're proposing. The different details to break up the long extended wall to make it blend in better, and we believe this is a much better, more appropriate look. this a little bit more closer the pedestrian access now will be right there on marquee cars parked on top of the headlights will be screened so you won't have any lights and that's it we believe those renderings are important as I said considerable amount of time and effort was was put in place to come up with those renderings. And they marry up to the development plan, which, of course, is the exclusive province of the Planning Commission. This is the development plan that was approved by the Planning Commission. In addition to what we have filed and what was approved by the Planning Commission, Yesterday we tendered to the staff for its review a revised development plan that reduced the square footage by close to 10,000 square feet. Instead of the 96,546, what we're now showing is 86,552. Approximately close to 9,000 square feet is in the basement. The actual surface area is about 64,000 square feet that you'll actually see on the ground. The rest of it is underground. That's where the food preparation will be and storage will be. That's important because we believe that the existing Kroger store, because of its inadequate size to meet the demands that are upon it from the people that shop there, the number of trucks that have to service that store because of a lack of service area, storage space, increases the number of truck trips to that store by at least 10 to 20 a week. We believe with the storage capacity increased, we can keep goods on site, reduce the number of trips, and reduce the number of certainly trucks in the area from what historically has been there. and you saw how close it was to the existing neighborhood. The other benefit of having a larger store on the same space is that grocery stores, this was designed in 1984, of course, they've changed. This was a suburban store in an urban area. And back in the day, 36,000, 37,000 square feet was an adequate size grocery store. Since then, food service and demand for food service has changed. The types of products that are offered now weren't offered back in 1984. And so in an effort to be competitive, to meet the demands of the consumer, which now, if they go to the current Kroger store, they can get some things, but for other ones they've got to get in a car and travel out to Richmond Road or some other location to get what they can't get at this store and what is available at the other Kroger stores in our community. And so we believe it actually will reduce the amount of automobile trips by people buying more goods and services than they otherwise would or otherwise can now because of limited supply to meet the market demand. So it's very important, obviously, for any business to be successful. Kroger has been renovating all of its properties in central Kentucky for the last five to seven years. It's now the turn of Euclid Store to also be upgraded. and to be upgraded in a manner that meets the infill goals of this community. And you heard as part of the justification by the Planning Commission that one of the important findings of fact of approval was that this application not only met the requirements of the 2007 Comprehensive Plan, but it also met the goals and objectives of the 2012 Comprehensive Plan, which are the goals and objectives only this body can approve which you did approve. In the comprehensive plan, the only actual contribution you can make is goals and objectives. You approve goals and objectives that the Planning Commission found our project, our application, because of the innovative way we've gone about incorporating utilization of space and the design is exactly what you all wanted when you adopted those goals and objectives in 2012. and the Planning Commission unanimously found as a finding of fact that we're in compliance with that. That's a history we come to you that I suggest is very important for your consideration and you weigh in on your decision in this case. So in addition to coming with a history of approval, we're mindful that not everybody likes it. And we have heard from those folks along the way, and this is the forum for those objections to be heard and to be considered. Without question, the Kroger Company wants to be a good neighbor. They've been recognized by Forbes magazine as the most philanthropic organization in the United States, giving away $64 million in pre-tax money. They don't like talking about that. I talk about it simply because they're a good corporate citizen. They've demonstrated that not only nationally but in Lexington in terms of the contributions they've made to a number of nonprofit organizations, $250,000 in the last five years to God's Pantry, $1.2 million to other charities in the bluegrass. They recognize the importance of being a good corporate citizen, which is why they've spent two years to get this project before you. first of its kind in their company's over 150-year history. 150-year history, and Lexington is the first one to get a very innovative in-field development that will meet the needs for not only the immediate residents, but those at the University of Kentucky that walk there. This will be a very walkable place, a lot of pedestrian connections. Clearly, there's going to be work done on the development plan. We told the Planning Commission we're going to have to focus specifically on different screening provisions for houses that are still close to the property. We're going to have to focus in on traffic management internally and access out onto Euclid to deal with those matters. But that's the Planning Commission. This is a multi-hearing process. I shared with you already how many hearings we've had up to tonight. Even if it's zoned, we go back to the Planning Commission for approval of the final development plan, and we begin another round of hearings. So we're constantly under review, and we know that, and we expect people to not always disagree. But I can tell you that we want to be good neighbors because we want people to shop in our store. Mr. Simpson. Yes. Excuse me a minute. just so people don't get anxious. You've got ten minutes left on the clock there, and I'm showing four more people that are going to be speaking. You're still okay with the? Okay. Those are available to testify. Okay. They're not in your presentation specifically. No, no, no. They're there to back up what I'm representing. All right. Proceed. We felt like it moved. As I said, I just didn't want people to be anxious. No, no. Thank you. Moved quicker that way. Trying to be informative. Obviously, we have Dian Zimmerman here as our traffic engineer. We have Bob Cornett, our site planner. We have David Pruder, who's the overall manager for Kroger Kentucky. Joe Hamilton is Kroger's engineer. They're all here to be responsive to any questions that you may have about anything concerning their proposal. The point of it all is we're in compliance with the comprehensive plan. We've got full agreement by the staff, full agreement by the planning commission. we're asking for the same consideration. In addition to what we've already committed to, we have increased with our latest filing an additional almost two feet off of Marquee for more landscaping. We've backed further away from the houses on Ashland Terrace. We have reduced the square footage by 10,000 square feet. And we believe with all of those features, including additionally things that we don't have to do, Generally, when an applicant comes before you with a recommendation of approval from the Planning Commission and the staff of such degree of unanimity as what we have, they don't say, members of the Council, impose additional obligations upon us because we've gotten approval. Why should we subject ourselves to additional requirements that we don't have to do? Well, because it is Kroger and because they have been mindful of people's skepticism of our representations, they want to put their promises on paper to be held accountable for what they have shared with the neighbors, what they have represented to two subcommittees of the Planning Commission, its staff, and the full commission, and to this body. And so with the conditional zoning provisions that are passed out for you, we believe that not only are the design features going to be complied with, we're capping the height at 28 feet except for those special design features that you saw in the illustrations where it was necessary to kind of break up a long, continuous wall to take away any notion that some in the future this building would go up to 80 feet because there's not any cap on a ceiling in a B6P zone. We have a cap of 28 feet except for those special design features along the roof. We're putting in a mandatory six-foot buffer along marquee for the landscaping provisions we talked about. We are committing to no commercial outlots on the property. I can't put an Arby's or a McDonald's or anything like that in there. We're committing to the eight-foot privacy fence, which is an additional soundproofing feature that we represented at the Planning Commission. No loudspeakers on the property except for what a low amplification system is needed for the pharmacy drive-thru with a provision that no sound from that drive-thru window shall be audible at the property line of Kroger before it crosses over to the rear property lines. It can't go to that extent in terms of what can be heard. Additionally, we've heard that people are concerned about the trucks coming and parking and lead gas coming out of the trucks, which, of course, existed much closer to those properties for over 40 years than what we're doing now since we're backing it away substantially. But we're instructing all of the truck deliveries, once they come and get ready to deliver their goods, They turn the engines off. Again, we can't obviously go out and turn it off for them, but we can certainly make it a policy of doing business with Kroger when you come up, you park, and you're ready to unload, you turn your engines off. That would be a requirement of doing business with Kroger, and that's part of the conditional zoning provisions. The trash compactor, which now is like four feet away, is back much further away. We've put in the limited hours of operation. I would suggest to you, because of the extra distance and the soundproofing wall, that it will be much quieter than what the existing store is. It will be much prettier than what the existing store is. It will serve more goods and services than what the existing store does. And more importantly, for this community, and I submit to you this council, with the design features that we've incorporated voluntarily with these conditions, it sets an important benchmark for you to look to for other applicants and infill projects to also be held up to in terms of compliance when you have these kinds of tests. They're not easy. The notion that infill is going to be easy, if anybody thought that, they were terribly misperceiving reality because people don't like change, and we understand that, which is why we felt like we've been patient for two years to get to you tonight to try to match up and try to meet and extinguish as many objections that you're going to hear about following our presentation. I'm going to be available for any rebuttal. The entire Kroger team is here for any questions that you may have in connection with the presentation I've just made to you. Obviously, if people want to say something in favor of the zone change, typically not too many people are in favor of any kind of development in my experience in appearing before this body, but there may be a few. I have submitted in terms of my application all of the findings of the Planning Commission, even articles from the Herald-Leader talking about what a wonderful infill project this is with nothing other than just the facts of the history that I've revealed, and I rely upon all of those of meeting the legal test for this zone change that the staff has addressed full well. We submit to you. It's a very worthy application. It's a worthy model for us to go forward on, and I appreciate your attention. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. This is the time when you all, there you go, there you go. In fact, we had a photographer here earlier who wanted to get you all's picture. Is Matt still here? Has he already left Mr. Mundy? All shucks. Okay. All right. All right. I believe next is Ms. Amy Clark. Amy? You want to? Actually, I had some questions for the applicant, if I may. Is this where they go? I think that would be all right. Yes, ma'am. And then you'll give yours. I don't know. It may be both of you. What was that, Bruce? Okay. I want to thank you for going into a great many details of things that are of concern to us, and I wanted to clarify a few of those details. You mentioned that this is the first ever Kroger store to be built in this way. Is there not a rooftop parking store in Vinings, Georgia, that has about 40,000 square feet? And didn't Kroger mention a Columbus, Ohio store that's a real fine urban infill project in a student neighborhood of about 55,000 square feet? And those projects were not built by Kroger. They were purchased by Kroger. They were already that way. That's a surprise to learn. I thought that the Columbus one was designed and built by Kroger. Yeah, right. Dave? Joe? Let me have Joe Kimmel. Joe knows more about Kroger in the history than I do. I'm getting clarification. Why don't you answer a question, Joe? The particular project in Georgia doesn't have both the basement and rooftop parking and the unique features of this project. So it's not in an urban setting. Put the microphone. Okay. Did everybody hear? Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. You mentioned a ceiling cap of 28 feet, and, of course, the height of it is a concern to neighbors. You mean the ceiling or the wall and the structure? What about the 42 inches or so to protect people from falling off the roof ramp and everything? Are you talking about the ceiling and then there's wall in addition? Talking about the wall and any fencing that would be needed to screen the parking structure, except now for the special design features that I mentioned. Okay. You mentioned an eight-foot privacy fence along the back to buffer with the adjoining property. I wonder how near that can come the street edge. how near it can come. I mean, that's something. Because of site distances. And also, you know, that's, as you know, Amy, that would have to be approved by the Planning Commission in terms of its location. Okay. And as I mentioned, we have another hearing on those kinds of details that we would submit at that time. Okay. Okay. Question about the evergreen screening along the fence. And you did say this is something the Planning Commission would have to address. But is there a sewer easement, and can you have substantial screening atop the sewer easement, or is it an obstruction? We can have plannings on top of the easement. We can't put any footers or anything like that in there. You can have screening on top of the easement. If they had to come in and tear it out, we'd have to put the screening back because that would be part of our requirement under the development plan note that incorporates our screening obligation. So you're talking six, eight-foot trees and higher? Not necessarily. No. We're probably talking, in some instances, 12-foot trees or taller to address the specific screening concerns of individual properties. Okay. Thank you. You mentioned that it's currently 480 linear feet to the store if you walk all the way around very carefully, as one should on the sidewalk, and it will be reduced to 390. And you mentioned a corner access, which is very interesting to hear about. Are you thinking of maintaining the food court entrance that was earlier on Euclid, or is this a new development that would translate that to a different place? Development plan, Bob? I'm going to let Bob Cornett explain about the location of the new pedestrian access and any changes that were necessary. Bob? All right. I doubt that will fit under the light overhead projector, but show Amy anyway. Well, the new proposed entrance. What have you got? There's a new entrance on the corner at Marquis, and then there will still be the cafe area. The cafe area was shifted over towards Marquis slightly, and it will still be accessible through this way. And the other question is whether there's checkout at that entrance. If someone has three sacks of groceries, can they exit there, or is it really sort of to get in? Is there full checkout? I hadn't been determined yet. Not determined. Thank you. That's almost it. Oh, the goals and objectives that the Council approved to guide the shaping of the comprehensive plan, Has that comprehensive plan that the 2012 goals and objectives were for been approved yet? Yes, they got approved over two years ago. The goals and objectives? No, the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan itself has not. The goals and objectives have, and they have been followed in terms of guidance and every zone change since they were adopted. So they're cited in findings of fact, as you said. They are. Yes, ma'am. Let's see. I think that's almost it. Oh, so to clarify the reduction in size, it's about 9,000 in the basement and, what, 1,100 in the footprint, the above grade? Correct. That's about right. Okay. Thank you. All right, Amy. Now you are offering the presentation, is that right? That's right. All right. I have two witnesses, Robert Kelly and Virginia Daly, and exhibits. Do I go to you? All right. And I'll ask your indulgence. First of all, I want to thank you for being here, giving us a hearing. It wasn't easy. It's a tough date. It's a lousy kind of tough wrangle all the way through, and you're giving us a hearing, and we really appreciate that. What I'd like to do, just to get the highlights out, I'm going to talk about the zone change as such. We feel it's not permissible and not warranted, for the backlots especially. I'll go into the variances and how they seem to have supersized it, really set out of bounds something that was much more acceptable to us without those variances. It comes to you as a package. You can't shave at it. It is what it is. You vote it or vote it down. I'll then talk about the locational standards, the idea being it really can't fit here in this location because of the standards in the particular B6P zone. I will touch briefly on how it seems to be poised to violate some five or six of the 15 big box guidelines that were put in place so you could rehab buildings if they ever actually proved not to be too big to fail. We've seen a number of stores that weren't too big to fail and stand empty now. I will ask you to deny the zone change on behalf of the Euclid League and the Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association. In particular, certain elements of that zone change. It's really five zone changes, five different lots consolidated. And finally, since absolutely everyone has told us this is not going to be a zone change denied, I will invite you to consider attaching reasonable conditions to the zone change in the event that you choose not to deny it. There was a lot of talk at Planning Commission and among staff and other committees about how this is good infill and we've really got to make it happen, help it happen. It's saving our bluegrass. It's building up, not out. It's compact, contiguous infill. It's context-sensitive. and this one really has to happen. There was a sense that the rules for this creative, visionary kind of planning hadn't been written yet. So the present zoning is kind of standing in the way. We need the zoning of the future to make this building really fit, to allow this building. So the change was made to a shopping center zoning category from the B1 that is the larger lot already. these other lots were incorporated into it. And then that zone was greatly adjusted in turn, enlarged in its setbacks and especially its footprint, to accommodate what really we regard as a big box, a single structure, not a center as such for shopping. We, too, want to see creative, context-sensitive infill. That's really what we're here about. And we welcome Kroger's initiative in trying to go there, and we appreciate the patience of all in trying to make this happen. We believe the zone change as such is unwarranted, warranted, chiefly because the backlots are not in accord with the comp plan. They don't leave any transitional zoning between a highly intensive B6P commercial use, some two and a half times the volume of goods and services offered and cars, as the traffic engineers are telling us, coming in and out, right next to not just residential but single-family home residential R1E, the smallest lot size in the city. The present B1 impacts only about half those lots along the back lot line on Ashland Terrace and at a much lower intensity, not two and a half times the trade here. The B6P cuts through what will be sort of a service road or a drive all the way from Marquis to South Ashland in an area where just a few years ago there were single-family homes. They're vacant lots now, but they were torn down to become vacant lots not long ago. There's a roof ramp back there, an accessory drive-thru. There's a lot of the building. The building setback is one thing, but outside of that you have a roof ramp and dumpsters and trucks and so on. And so the 60 feet Mr. Simpson was talking about, the building is 60 feet back from the Ashland Terrace backlots. Actually, once you add in three tractor-trailer bays plus a dumpster and a roof ramp farther forward, you're losing about half that distance. There's a 24-foot street, a road, a service road, a driveway, and five feet of buffering. Now there are some changes that we just learned about this morning. We believe the zone change is not in accord with the comprehensive plan for these four marquee lots, especially the zone R1E for 420 marquee is appropriate as it stands. It's immediately adjacent to another R1E. and if you do nothing else tonight, we would ask that you deny the zone change for the single R1E property 420 marquee that's farthest from the existing Kroger and nearest the house of the lifelong resident on marquee there. There remains three full acres to make the minimum lot size to get a B6P. if you leave that slice, that last R1E slice off. If you left that last slice off, it renders the Kroger rear lot line more nearly parallel to the front lot line. You have a lot of more regular shape. Surely it's a buildable lot. We saw two lots at the corner of Hollywood and Ashland Terrace built up from the ground last year, and they're about $185,000 apiece now in PVA assessments. The proposed B6P sets a highly intensive commercial use next to this lifelong residence home with no step-down or transitional zoning. The storm sewer easement along the property boundary line will make it hard to do the sort of buffering and trees that you would wish to see. There's no real undue hardship on this applicant here. I don't see any real compelling need for rezoning this lot. Let's just make this structure a little smaller and live with the neighborhood. The pair of P1 lots adjoining that last slice of R1E next to the ladies' home are also appropriately zoned as they stand. they preserve a step-down or transition between a highly intensive B6P zone or a B1 zone, any commercial zone, and the R1E, and it's customary in zoning to have kind of something in between, so you don't have a woman's house right next to the loading and freight area. If we're thinking creative and flexible infill, we might take a note from the Columbus, Ohio Kroger. They have a separate, adjacent, in fact, a budding liquor store in their urban infill project of grocery store. And, in fact, these P1 lots could perfectly well be the clinic, which Kroger's has planned for the interior of this store, and the pharmacy as an accessory use. You could actually just have an abutting pharmacy clinic in those P1 lots and have good creative urban infill but preserve some kind of a step-down in uses. I'm not going to fight for that last slender little R4 lot, the one nearest, the B1 Kroger, except to say that there is comparable apartment and condo residential immediately across the street, brand new, seems to be a thriving way to go. The whole context in that area is a mosaic of small lots of differing uses. It serves well this walkable residential neighborhood. with compact contiguous development. I have a friend who walks her dog to the vets a block away. You can walk your dog to the vet. This one is sustainable. I don't think, I believe we've seen that some of the big boxes are really not sustainable. There's a house right next door to the Kroger's on the opposite side of Marquis, across the street on Marquis, fronting on Euclid. It's kind of an Eastlake cottage with gingerbread trim. It's a CPA's office, Jenny Talbot. She's worried about the wall and the looming quality of it. That house is much older than this large big box Kroger is likely to ever become. These large stores go in and out of fashion. There was a sense at Planning Commission, and I know a lot has been made of the unanimous vote of the Planning Commission. It was unanimous on the zone change. It wasn't unanimous in every other aspect, the variances in the plan. There was a sense that, well, there's no perfect fit here. We have trouble. We want to help this development happen. But B-1 is too small, and B-6P might give us an avenue if we got creative with it. An error was made at the Planning Commission. The staff report, the written staff report, said that the cap, the total floor space cap for B-1 zoning was $40,000 for this Kroger, and in fact it's 50,000 square feet. So Kroger had within B1 zoning, it could add some 12,000 square feet, about a third again the 37,500 square feet it is. It was thought, the Planning Commission was advised, that 40 was the cap, not 50. They moved toward considering then the B6P that was requested. Actually, the footprint for the B6P, the above-ground building, before any variances, is limited to a third of the lot. It's a three-acre lot. That would be a one-acre building. It comes out to be just under 50,000 square feet. What I'm saying is that the B6P without the variances that are part and parcel of what you vote on tonight, the B6P without the variances added, is actually smaller in footprint than what's permitted in B1, just by a couple thousand. Think of them as about the same. The advantage of a B6P can certainly be that you get to stack, and the thought was this is great urban infill. We're building up, not out. But in fact, in attaching the variances, in adding the variances, reducing the setback, enlarging the footprint, Kroger was asking to build up and out. There's nothing wrong with a roof deck in B1. You can have rooftop parking in B1. You can have two stories in B1. I would like to say that the zone change to our thinking does not meet the four standards for locating it, locating the B6P on the proposed site. It can't fit here. And first I'd like to call Robert Kelly to have something to say about that. The locational standards are within the B6P zone. Do you want the site plan or anything? I can't. So you don't? Okay. Okay. All right. We'll just carry on monolithically here. The four locational standards are that it has to front, on, abut, and have its principal access both to and from, entrance and exit, to an arterial, which in this case is Euclid. there's a real sense that the real front of this store with all the shopping carts and the groceries and so on the checkout fronts on South Ashland not on Euclid and actually from two years ago when Kroger first met with the neighbors they said rotate the store, put the front on Euclid, put it on the main street part of the problem here is then it sends a great deal of the traffic. It seems that the exiting traffic is likely to head down the roof ramp and straight out the alley. It's going to be hard for that traffic to get back to Euclid. There's a particular problem with that point of access. The second locational standard is that the shopping center, the zone, shall not be located where there is congestion at a point of access to the right-of-way. Now, the traffic study and the review by staff following that both said that congestion was at acceptable levels. We all know that everywhere in town is congested, and it's awfully bad on Euclid at high at nighttime. So we're not saying we don't have to live with this. But the traffic study said congestion was not great, but at acceptable levels for the access point to Euclid and for the access point from the back end on Marquee out to Euclid as well. But the traffic study did not review the access onto South Ashland as a significant point. And yet, if you look at the plan, I think you'll see that the roof ramp faces directly out the South Ashland Alley. And if you count spaces, it looks like about two-thirds of the spaces have their most direct route out that South Ashland alley. It's a problem because, let's see, could you advance? Do I advance? Okay, great. Keep going. There's a plan in here. Okay, great. Is that as good as it gets? That would be fine if it is. Okay, if you see the roof ramp, you see it's cocked straight out that easement out to the South Ashland Alley. I think there's a pointer on this there. Can you see that? I need to do this. Oh, okay. The roof ramp going out the alley. And then some of the nearest car spaces. It comes out to be about two-thirds of the cars have their most direct route out the alley, or they can make about three turns in the lot to fight their way out the front here. Or they can do a hairpin turn off the roof ramp and come out to marquee. So it looks as though, in terms of placing this shopping center on streets that can handle it and streets that won't be overburdened by it, there's some trouble. The other pair of locational standards have to do with having a demonstrated need for the goods and services. Of course we need a grocery store. We have a grocery store. We also have Romney Road Grocery. There's been a lot of concern about whether they'll close it. I don't see how they could because I think a bunch of people want to go there instead of to a large one. Some people prefer a small one. but there are places in this town where there are food deserts and if I could have Ginny Daly and and could you advance to the desert map my name is Ginny Daly and I live at 136 Burley Avenue on the opposite side of UK's campus near Virginia and Broadway. You can get that perspective. I'm not in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, but this zone change affects me and my neighborhood. The Euclid Kroger is the closest grocery store to my neighborhood, yet I live in what planning staff calls a food desert. And if you can look, how do you point? Whoops. Hi. Can you point out where the Kroger is and then where my neighborhood is? This is Euclid and that's Romany. Okay. Euclid, Romany. And you're over. Right there. You can see the Red Mile, the loop of Red Mile Road. For those of you who are not familiar with this term, food desert, it's kind of a formula of a combination of low household income, limited access to transportation, and proximity to groceries or fresh food. In my neighborhood, not only is there a low percentage of car owners, but it's too far for anyone to walk to the Euclid Kroger, even though it's the closest one. And in fact, there are no buses. Buses come down Broadway and go up Broadway, but they don't take you to any grocery store, much less the Euclid Kroger. And I should point out that the buses that go by Euclid Kroger go out the other side of town and actually go to several other grocery stores along the way. So I just wanted you to get this perspective. In addition to this food access map, three professional studies done with substantial LFUCG involvement include the 2009 non-residential infill study, the 2009 Red Mile development plan, and certain elements of the 2013 comprehensive plan all point to the need for a grocery in the vicinity of Broadway, Virginia, Red Mile, Waller Avenues. And there are several parcels there already zoned B6P. Yet none of the studies indicate any need to expand existing grocery offerings in the Euclid-Chevy Chase area. Even the 2006 Downtown Master Plan reports the need for a major downtown grocery while, quote-unquote, little needs to be done in the Euclid-Chevy Chase area. So why does this matter? If this neighborhood grocery at Euclid is permitted this huge expansion, excessive to the documented needs of the population, my fear is that there will remain little incentive or enough market shares to locate a grocery store in the Broadway, Virginia, Red Mile, Waller area. And we are desperate for food there. Look, the city spends considerable time and resources authoring all these planning documents, comprehensive plans, land use maps, infill guidelines, big box guidelines, zoning ordinances, and numerous studies. These are vetted by the citizens in a way that crafts a shared vision between the city and the staff on how Lexington can best grow. That's what planning is. Yet when anyone is allowed to override these guiding documents and build whatever, wherever, whenever, it chips away at the shared vision, this covenant between the city and the citizens. It devalues the work that has gone into these planning tools, and citizens lose faith in the process. And that's pretty what my neighborhood is feeling very faithless in this process. I urge you to abide by the existing planning documents and consider your responsibility to the whole infill area on deciding whether a zone change for this Euclid-Kroger is appropriate or not. Thank you. And I would say I'm very glad that Ms. Henson is here and Mr. Ford because these are your areas that have food deserts. And along Broadway, there's a bus up north on Broadway. There's a bus at Virginia and Broadway that goes out for sales. So this can help. Yes, the 3rd District as well, but we're in the 3rd District. We don't want to be selfish here. There's lots of food here in the 3rd District, but there are other areas in the 3rd District where there is a need. So the four locational standards about putting food in this instance where it's needed, not putting a store of excessive size and shape, a shopping center of excessive services. When an adequate one already exists, we have really great walkable areas. I said that the variances felt like what set it out of bounds for us. Actually, many of us supported the B6P zone change before Planning Commission, but asked that they deny the variances. You have the package. You just have to say yes or no on that. And I said quite a lot about which variances and why, so I think in the interests of speeding, I'll keep speeding. the concern with the size and shape of the store and where it's located basically part of what we're looking at is are we going to have a white elephant here if you site a store where cars can't get in and out if you have more store than people can use you're looking at a big box problem down the road I talked to one traffic engineer. He said, as far as traffic goes, it cures itself. If it's too congested, people just don't go there. But then you've got a white elephant. Okay. I want to then turn to the big box guidelines because they're where we ask you, regardless of whether you are thinking in terms of voting the zone change up or down, if you should be thinking I want to vote the zone change in or I want to vote four of the five lots in, there are conditions that could be imposed that would make it a lot more livable, reasonable conditions. At this point, if you look at your big box guidelines handout that's part of the exhibits I furnished to you, are they? Yeah, they need to go around. There's actually a big box guideline for stores over 80,000 square feet, which this is, that says loading docks and trash collection areas should not be located on the sides of a building adjacent to a residential use. I think you're going to hear a lot more about the South Ashland properties and how troublesome the great many things there are for the residential use. How do I work this to advance it? Keep going. Okay. Yeah, back those two. Yeah, this is the face that Ashland Terrace shows its neighbors, its front face. And then if you go forward and keep going, the roof ramp will come out South Ashland. Keep going. This is a shot of actually a different Kroger's. It only has a two-bay truck thing, and then the tiny little, oh, I need to do this. Okay. That's the dumpster. That's one truck. There would be another one there, and there would be a third one. This drive is about 50 feet. The Kroger Drive proposed is about 24 feet. None of the, except for the actual bump out here, none of this is called building. So the setback, yeah, is here, and the roof ramp would be down here. Okay. But actually, there's all this material in there, and it's pretty well constant, even though it's not called building, so it's in the setback area. They are poised to violate this big box guideline. Since they're completely doing a teardown of the store, it's not asking them to destroy value to observe that big box guideline, which says don't site trash and freight adjacent to a residential use. It says customer entrances, number five, are required on all exterior walls facing a public street. It looks like they're beginning to address that. Adjoining residential uses should be buffered by this berm and wall and evergreen trees, a masonry wall. They're siting the wall on atop a sewer easement, so it can't be masonry. We wonder about the trees. If they would back off that back wall, that would help. Parking areas should be designed to link the structures to street sidewalks. We're having real issues with the access easement, people walking, and two-way traffic in an 18-foot-wide area. breaking up the mass of a big box especially if you need to recycle it down the road if it does become a white elephant there's a Kroger's next door to a Kroger's in Beaumont and you're probably familiar with it because you're looking at it for senior center well that would be a great adaptive reuse Okay. I think what I want to do then is conclude by going through proposed conditions that could be imposed. Let me summarize. We think that the zone change, we wish it would be denied. We would like it to be denied because it doesn't have the transitional zoning. It's far too close to the R1E lot. but it doesn't seem to meet the criteria for a zone change. It's not in accord with a comprehensive plan in that back area. Failing the denial of the whole zone change, we would ask at least that you leave that last slice of R1E off to give some kind of a transitional area, it's a buildable lot. Failing that, we would ask that you consider adopting the following conditions. And these conditions, I would say we're asking conditions of two kinds. First, don't let it get any worse. Put conditions in, attach conditions that bind them to do what they promise to do, and I'm very pleased to see that certain of those conditions have been proposed by the applicant tonight. Second is damage control changed some things for the better. If you look at the proposed conditions down at 4A, the height level, limit it to one story above grade plus the roof deck parking, and say that a minimum, say, 30 percent area shall be below grade. The whole idea is with stacking, we're doing compact infill, sustainable. We're not having a high impact on the neighborhood because we're hiding a lot in the basement. You saw in this morning's paper that they've reduced the basement space by 9,000 or 10,000 square feet. We don't even know if there will be a basement at all. If there isn't, what they've gotten is an enlarged footprint without the stacking that they promised, because you can put a roof deck on in B1, so some way of putting the basement in. No vehicular access to South Ashland. The traffic study did not regard it as a point of access. It's really threatening a lot of cut-through traffic through our area. There's a terrific skewed intersection there. Can you picture it? Where you go south on South Ashland, and the retirement home is up on the hill, and you can turn left toward the Chevy Chase Center, right toward Ashland Terrace, and it's very wide and dangerous for pedestrians. Perhaps easier to implement would be service vehicles only. on the South Ashland access. Require a customer entrance with full checkout. This is critical because otherwise you're checking out your groceries at the main front on the South Ashland side. If you're headed to Marquis or somewhere, you've got three sacks of groceries, you're on your bike, you're going to cut through that trash area in the back. I had one more slide of the trash area. This is kind of like putting it all together, all that's going to be back there, the roof ramp behind it, the loading dock area. These are close-ups of trucks and dumpsters. And then the next slide. This is what it feels like to us. Okay, can we get this tennis ball in too? If you just open a little bit wider, could we squeeze in a roof ramp with a pharmacy drive-thru and a U-turn pattern that goes underneath it? And so the next set of conditions that we would ask that you attach, no accessory drive-thru. It's one too many in this crowded, dangerous lot. It's just cramming it in. There's no room for it. certainly they should have a pharmacy. They need to make their money. But this is a walking neighborhood. We need that space for bicycles and pedestrians. We need one condition here is H here. Require a pedestrian walkway and bike path along the rear lot line. That was in the initial plan and then it was removed because it was thought that it would be too hazardous. If it's too hazardous for people to be back there, we need some kind of a redesign because people will walk there. And I return to I here. That is simply putting into a condition exactly what the big box guideline already says because we can't see how they could accomplish that if they weren't told that the council requires that in order to change the map of Lexington in this case. We're concerned about lights on the roof deck. We know there are safety issues there. That may be something better addressed by planning. We think they're short on parking. That may be something we need to consider. But the biggest things, I would say, are the height in the basement. that's to say one story and it looks like we're headed there the vehicular access to South Ashland limited to delivery only or limited altogether and the full checkout for the customer entrance the three uses we would like not to see are the accessory drive through no gas pumps, you've sat through quite a lot of or did Shinaway's gas pumps come to you ultimately? They did not. Excuse me. Okay. A fast food restaurant is another traffic magnet. That might be another one to consider omitting. These conditions were drawn up by someone who knows a lot more about the law than I do. I don't want you to think they're just a wish list. they're focused on things that council is empowered to do. They're not variances. Planning Commission does variances. Council is empowered to do conditions of use, like access in and out, like entrances, stories. But you can't change the footprint. We're not asking that. We're not the design police. We're not asking you to micromanage. We know you're not the planning commission. Planning commission has competency and certain powers to address small details. What we're asking you to do is deny what is too large a zone change, too intensive, too close to what's a very walkable neighborhood, failing the denial of the whole to take the slice off that's nearest that lady's house and to attach conditions of use to make it a safe, sustainable design. I've had, I can't tell you how many conversations with people lately. There was a bearded gentleman. He goes by my house every third day with a grocery cart. So I ran out and I said, what do you think of the new Kroger? The big, I didn't say big, I said the new Kroger. And he said, it's going to have nothing I want. Everything I want is in the Kroger there now. That's a pretty strong statement. So I said, oh, would you think of signing our petition? And he looked at me and he said, I'm kind of cynical and I have found that my efforts don't do anything. I'm sorry. And then he said, I'm sorry. I would like to think that the efforts of citizens really do do something. I know you're facing a tough decision tonight. We all know that. But what we think is that we can have a good Kroger. We've had a Kroger that's been a good neighbor with some issues in the back for, what is it, 40 years. We think we need to give Kroger another chance. We don't want to send Kroger all the way back to the drawing board. We have been with this process every step of the way. Mr. Simpson mentioned the technical committee meeting. He mentioned meetings with neighborhood associations. He mentioned the subcommittee meetings of the Planning Commission, the subdivision and the zoning. He mentioned the Planning Commission meeting. We were at all those meetings. We've pestered the staff continually. We have been involved in this project, and we are asking you to heed our involvement and our concerns and make it a better project. if after all this labor it needs to go back because we haven't got it right yet, then that's the way it should be. In a sense, we're trying to do the zoning of the future before it's been written. You had that issue with the zip lines. And what you did was made a committee and did about a year's hard work detail. And now you have text amendments to govern recreational uses. And now the Planning Commission doesn't have to look at that and say, there is no perfect fit. There isn't any fit at all. We've got to take a suburban shopping center zone and allow it to be a single big box, single structure big box in an urban center, cheeked by Joel with professional uses and residential uses. You don't have to do it that way. It takes more time and trouble. But I can't begin to tell you how discouraged and disappointed citizens are who feel they're not being heard. Not every citizen understands how complex this process is and how difficult your decisions are. but there's a prevailing sense among a great many people I talk to that they've stopped talking because they're not being heard. I hope that you will listen to the citizens and I hope that they will see that you're heeding the concerns that we have. Have I left anything else? Okay. I think this is the first time this has ever happened in my life. I seem to be finished early, so I welcome any questions. Well, and it's good timing because we need to get our quorum back together, Amy. Okay. I've submitted proposed findings of fact. They're in the exhibits with you. and I've kind of gone over most of what they are. So in the event of denying the zone change, as we request you to do, we have offered findings of fact that are pertinent. They need a vote as well. Okay. oh there we go they caught on there we go yes yes thank you amy and thank you all right Is there any cross-examination by the petitioner? No. All right. All right. There's a, yes, Council Member Lawless. Thank you. We can't log in. Would it be possible for us to take a few-minute break right now before we go into this next phase so we don't lose our quorum in and out in like ten minutes? All right. Let's do five minutes. We're going to do five minutes, all right? A little bit more than five minutes. We need one more. One more. There's Jennifer. Okay. All right. Before we... We're on the order of the proof of the hearing. We're on number four. But it's with the applicant's permission. I think this will be all right, Mr. Simpson. One of our citizens, Linda Kelly, who wishes to speak for the three-minute time period, Linda is experiencing a little back pain, and she said it was okay for me to say that. And I thought it would be appropriate so she doesn't have to stay too much longer. Linda, where are you? All right. So we'll take your three minutes now. All right? Yes, ma'am. I don't know if I've got three minutes worth of speaking. Well, that's all right. But anyway, thanks for having me. My name is Linda Kelly, and I live at 424 Markey Avenue. I live right next door to these lots that are up for the zone change. And, you know, I'm not real happy with it. Of course, you know, it sets three feet. My house directly sets three feet from their property line where they're going to have this drive-through where the trucks, the tractor trailers go in and out. The trash compactor will be sitting there. And we've owned this house since 1956. My dad bought it back in 1956. I've lived there all my life. And there I am right there. And as you can see from the corner, I sit three feet directly away from the property line where they plan on putting the drive-through to the loading docks. And I just can't imagine. I mean, my house is almost, well, it is. It's over 100 years old. So I'm concerned with all this destruction and construction and then all the traffic going in and out, that somehow it might affect my foundation somehow. And I still have the original windows. So here recently, with the work that's going on with the gas lines over here, one of the dump trucks let their tailgate fly down, you know, like they do. well the whole house just trembles it sounds like a bomb going off so I can't imagine what it's going to feel like when they start this process and with all the years of living here you know there's been times I'm sure that my parents have spent their last time on groceries to feed the family. And it's just a shame that the only thing that's bought us is a front row seat to a trash compactor and the diesel fumes. Can you imagine having a barbecue? I mean, I'd invite all of you. Come over to the house. We'll have a barbecue and see what you think. But everything that I've heard and what I've seen in the newspaper and everything. You know, we live in a big blue nation neighborhood. Well, they have just about unleashed a wildcat in me. It just seems like they've just been so rude and inconsiderate of not only my feelings, but of the neighborhood. They seem to say that they've been to the meetings and they've listened to all of the neighbors. Well, they haven't heard me yet. and I would just hope think that you all could please vote this down let them go back, revise this downsize it so it can fit in with the neighborhood and not try to take it over thanks thank you Linda, thanks very much applause applause applause applause Mr. Mundy's smiling, y'all. Remember that clapping now? Remember that clapping? Yeah. All right. All right. We are now ready to next on our agenda is for the staff. If the staff wishes to make any additional comments, Mr. Sully. Thank you, Mayor. I do have two rebuttal points, and I appreciate the opportunity, one for Mr. Simpson's comments and one for Ms. Clark's comments. The subdivision and zoning committees of the Planning Commission are important public meetings, but they're not technically hearings. There is no advertisement and invitation for citizens to come. That said, they're primarily to introduce new applications to the two subsets of the Planning Commission to allow them to consider those applications and ask initial questions ahead of their meetings or their public hearings, and also to hear citizen comment, in this case for citizens who did come to those two committees and comment. So I just wanted to clarify that also. The other item that I wish to rebut is about the B6P zone and the locational criteria for shopping centers. And what I have for the overhead are a couple of staff exhibits that we presented to the Planning Commission that addresses this. A section of the zoning ordinance establishes those criteria. And for a neighborhood shopping center, which this is because it is between 3 and 10 acres in size, there are four criteria. And we've highlighted those criteria here, and again, we shared this in the Planning Commission's public hearing and also mentioned them in our staff report to them. On the next slide, we did an assessment of those criteria. Euclid Avenue is a minor arterial, so it does meet that criteria. The levels of service at the nearest intersections were C, according to the traffic studies. It is not uncommon to have levels of service D and E at a lot of our signalized intersections. We found as staff that the development plan would combine an access point on Euclid, which should help for traffic flow. And then also we did address the food access issue that was mentioned during the presentation. So we just wanted to have that in the record that those items were considered by staff. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bill. All right, now next on the agenda is the presentation of any evidence or rebuttal evidence by the applicant by Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. Again, Kroger is here as best as it can to be a good neighbor and to listen as they have done, as I indicated, in our case in chief for two years. And we are still listening, which prompted the change in the development plan that was discussed tonight, was referenced in the newspaper, further efforts to be responsive to the neighborhood's concerns. That commitment will carry forward should this body approve the zone change request with the conditions that I have passed out to you that will hold Kroger accountable for its representation because it wants to be held accountable because it intends to do that which it has promised the staff, the neighbors, the planning commission, and now you all that it will do. So it's certainly not afraid of those commitments and those obligations and has put them in writing. What I heard Ms. Clark have to say were a lot of concerns primarily about development plan issues, variances, setbacks, and the like. As I mentioned, the Planning Commission, after every zoning is approved, it goes back to the Planning Commission. and we'll all be moving again, the same group as we have through the various subdivision committee meetings and the Planning Commission hearing to deal with the development plan issues. And the development plan issues will be substantive, and that is the providence of the Planning Commission, to deal with all the things, most of the things that Ms. Clark talked about. And we advised the Planning Commission during the hearing back in May that Ms. Kelly's property was going to be in need of special attention. And we pledged that we would come up with proposals to specifically deal with her situation. Of course, the existing situation right now is there's a compactor four feet away from one of her neighbor's properties. We're at least 50 feet away from Ms. Kelly's house. We believe that the existing situation will be substantially approved by the setbacks that we're proposing with this zone change. We're also putting up what we believe to be a very viable soundproofing wall that can be installed over the easement because it doesn't require a footer. It is 98% soundproof as if it was a 6-inch concrete wall. in addition to landscaping that will be specifically tailored to deal with individual properties on Ashland Terrace. We made that pledge to the Planning Commission. We expect to be held to that commitment. And whether we were expected to be held or we're going to do it anyway, because one thing has been consistent throughout, and that's Kroger's follow-through on every single promise and pledge that it's made. The planning commission still has more issues to deal with, and we expect to participate with those who have concerns about the drive-through window, the compliance with the big box guidelines, which is exclusively the province of the planning commission. The planning commission doesn't even take that up until a final development plan. So it's still premature to even talk about those things. But those are all issues pertaining to the development plan, which the Planning Commission has to pass muster on. I will simply highlight for you the variances that we sought were a 10-foot variance on Euclid, a 10-foot variance on the rear setback line, a 15 percent increase in occupied space on the site for our development because we're using rooftop parking, and the current Kroger store is more of a suburban model with a sea of parking around the store. We don't need a sea of parking. We can better utilize the space by providing greater choices for the neighbors and shoppers who've shopped there for years and put the rooftop parking, put the parking on top of the roof. So we don't need a suburban model for that. and finally a 25-foot setback on marquee, which we've continued to reduce with every development plan since we filed our zone change request, including that which we shared with the planning staff yesterday and which we've discussed tonight. So my point of all this is we want to be responsive to the neighbors. We are moving in that direction every step of the way. There's still work to be done, but your all's decision under the law is limited to the zoning, and the evidence that supports the zoning. And the evidence up to now has been compelling that the zoning is justified. Unanimous approval every step of the way. Your staff is not going to be reckless on an infill project where there's controversy and suggest that you turn it down. You've heard them recommend zone changes be turned down before if in their professional judgment it doesn't meet the test, if it doesn't comply with the law. That is not the case with our application. It does comply with the law for what's approved. Those four tiny lots, imagine someone trying to build a house on less than a quarter of an acre, on an R4 tract, an R1E tract, and a P1 tract all side by side on marquee. It's just unworkable, it's impractical, and nobody's going to spend the kind of money to put three separate uses on such a small area of property. With the conditions that we tendered at the beginning of the presentation, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council, we believe we put in the kinds of safeguards that you would expect any applicant who's operating in good faith to commit to. We've done it. We're in compliance with the plan. We're in compliance with the law. We ask for your approval and endorse the Planning Commission in connection with our application. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And next on the agenda is a closing summary by the opponent. Amy. Speaking for the Euclid League and for the unanimous vote of the Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association Board, I ask that you deny the zone change. I ask, in addition, that you consider denying at least that last slice of R1E zoning to have some kind of a transitional area. area. Failing that, we ask that you, and actually even as you deny the single last slice of R1E zoning, we ask that you consider attaching the conditions presented to you. Some of these are very important. At the Planning Commission, it's quite striking. I don't know if any of you watched the video of it. I guess maybe you're not allowed to. I don't know. Again and again, those who made their vote in approving the Kroger's own change set, someone said, I'm a man of faith. I'm trusting them. I'm trusting Kroger's. I have to trust them. We'll see these things again at the development plan stage. We've seen a development plan for another neighborhood, for the Hampton Inn project, which did have conditions attached, come every month onto the planning agenda for its further, I guess its final development plan, and every month be postponed. I trust in the law, and I ask you to attach those conditions that are permitted to you to attach, conditions of use, buffering. I ask you to attach the conditions that would make this more livable, more workable, in the event that you don't deny the change. If the conditions are attached by you, that's something the applicant has to work with. When you vote to change the map of Lexington, When you vote an urban infill, a near-urban, quasi-urban infill project of enormous intensity, we think too great intensity. It's part of your responsibility to consider making it fit and making it work. I would like to conclude by saying we ask that you deny this zone change. We don't think it fits. We don't even think it's legal. Some of the variances have weird, weird findings of fact. We will build such and such. Therefore, we have a unique situation on our property. We're landlocked. Every infill project is landlocked. It's a challenge. But guess what? Everybody with a plot of land is landlocked. It doesn't mean I can circumvent the zoning ordinance, getting variances that we believe were unwarranted. So we ask that you deny the zone change and consider attaching conditions. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Clark. and next is a closing summary by the applicant. You've already done it? I've made my closing statement. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Then next is our opportunity for public comment. We have a number of you signed up, and Mr. Mundy has, though. Mayor. Uh-oh. I would just challenge or suggest that usually when you wrap it up like this in closing comment, it means that everybody has come forward to be heard on it before that takes place. Who has not? Typically, all of the people in favor of the zone change go after me, and all the people against it would go after Ms. Clark, and then there would be rebuttal and then closing. After all the evidence is in, obviously I don't want to close when there are still people testifying. Well, we're going to have to listen to the people who are here. Okay. You can come back up and rebut if you intend to. That's fine. All right. Wait a minute. What's four? Oh, my God. Okay. All right, first we'll do the, we have signed up for and against. So we will first, those who are, we'll listen to those who are against, unless there's an objection. All right, and that begins with, I'm having, yes, one, two, three, I got four. Okay, yeah, and I'm trying to read the first. Town and country apartments. John Bryce, representing? That's the department, yes. All right, Jim. Mr. Rosenberg is here as well. Mr. Molloy and Rosenberg, he has yielded his three minutes to me, so if I can have a total of six, I don't think it will take any more than that. And I have a PowerPoint presentation. I've got hard copies, so I'd like to give it to Council afterwards. Town & Country Apartments owns the property at 445 South Ashland, and that property is in the orange here. This plat is a little misleading. It shows access to and from the Kroger lot, but that's over my client's property. This is an access easement. It benefits both the PNC Bank building, the front side of Euclid, and the Kroger development. This didn't turn out very well. This is an aerial photo that shows the existing access easements. There are entrances to the Kroger. There are five of them. There are two on Marquis, there are two on Euclid, and then there is the access easement to South Ashland Avenue. This access easement was created in 1963 when the property was conveyed to a prior owner. The property benefited by the access easement was very specifically defined in the deed. It is outlined in yellow on this plat. As you will see, it does not comprise all of the property that Kroger is developing as part of this development plan and this zone change. Again, this shows the access easement leading to the property, a portion of which comprises the current development. This is the superhighway that Kroger is constructing along the back of the property that leads from Marquee Avenue to South Ashland Avenue. This will be the principal route for trucks coming in and out of Marquee. There's really only one way for them to get out. That's across my client's property across this easement. You'll also see outlined in orange the ramp to the roof, and in blue the pharmacy drive-in. We would suggest that pretty much everything is directed at this point to come out on South Ashland Avenue over my client's property. this is the portion of the development that is not benefited by my client's easement my client has not consented to kroger to use the easement to access to those properties and the easement itself does not give kroger the right to do that it again is limited only to the property outlined in yellow we're not privy to what the current building footprint looks like if it's changed slightly as a result of this reduction i did this off the development plans that were available as of monday these areas outlined in orange are the parts of the building the new building that are all outside the property benefited by the easement again my client is not consenting to Kroger utilizing the easement to benefit that portion of the building. And this slide shows those portions of the new roadway and service ramp that are outside the easement area. These are the newly acquired properties, well, relatively newly of Kroger. They have not had these for a significant amount of time. It is essentially, for the most part, the property they're asking you to rezone that's outside the B1 zone. And again, they are not benefited by the easement, and it's our client's position and my position that Kroger can't utilize the roadway at this point to bring traffic in and send it out of my client's property. The final slide, there's a faint blue section there on the left. Again, this easement benefits PNC. This kind of bluish green is a fence that is built on the dividing line between my client's property and the Kroger property. That fence has been there for as long as anybody can remember. the kroger development plan appears to show this as circulation for its parking the easement was not granted for parking the easement was granted for access and ingress my client has no intention of removing that fence has not been asked to remove that fence so there will not be parking circulation permitted on that lot either and that's all i have i have again i have hard copies it took me lots of hours to color all these things in so i would uh okay john would you do a favor please just give the clerk name and address please fail to do that and who you're representing that's uh Town & Country Apartments, 449 South Ashland. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next is, I'm having trouble reading. Oh, Dr. Reedy. Ready. Thank you, Margaret. It actually is ready. My brother and my sister have red hair and my mother, and it runs in my family on both sides, and maybe it's from the mailman. Who knows? I don't have it. So I am Dr. Margaret Reddy. I'm a mathematician. I'm a professor at the University of Kentucky. I live at 151 Chenault Road in Lexington. My husband and I used to live on Cardinal Lane across town. We moved to Chevy Chase for the walkability, being able to walk to the university, 25-minute walk, 10-minute walk to Kroger, really nine, unless my children are with me, my 8- and 12-year-old, then it's 15 minutes. Trying to find out about what's going on with the Kroger in terms of the zoning is very difficult as a citizen. You know, I have a Ph.D., but I feel like I have a kindergarten degree when it comes to trying to find out information and reading all the zoning. And I just wanted to point out a few things about zoning. And can I pull this and talk in it? Yes? Real quick. Okay. B1 zone, which, could you put on the projector, please? You're taking up my time. I'm a professor, so, you know, come on. Okay, reread this. You're going to have to zoom. Zoom in the orange. Zoom it. I can't read upside down. let's see, let me just look real quick IS, the zone 1 should be oriented to the residential neighborhood should have a roadway system which is adequate and this is definitely for food markets so definitely Kroger Falls within that currently it's supposed to be for up to 2 acres okay basically this is what they have it's for food, it works 2B or not 2B This is, could you get it again so I can read it? So this is business to be. So I guess this is for downtown, but it really sounds great for Chevy Chase, encouraging new uses for proper development of downtown area, logical relation to Lexington Center, promote economic health. All these things are great, but there's no grocery store listed under this, unfortunately. 6, this is the 6, no, B6P. So this is saying neighborhood shopping center, so I circled this. So this is saying you have to have at least 3 acres. And again, they say things like attractiveness is in there, and also there's something about not affecting how much people's residences, whether that's affecting their values. And I think this proposal will affect the values. I'm a little worried. The one thing I want to challenge on facts was I went on PVA and I actually looked up the acreage of what's being proposed, where things are. So you have to really get this whole thing in. Smaller, a little smaller. Okay, current Kroger, 37,690 square feet, 2.2 acres. The four new plots that were purchased, 4A, 412, 416, 420. The acreage I computed, I'm a mathematician, doesn't match the acreage that's posted on PVA. So this sounds strange. But when you add them up, it's still .49 acres. You add it together, it's 2.69. All right. That's not three acres. Professor. These six pieces, three acres or more. Excuse me. Thank you. Excuse me. Yes, ma'am. All right. Unless you have someone yielded their time to you. All right. As I said, or maybe I didn't say this earlier, I have the unpopular and inconvenient role of being the timekeeper sometimes, so that's the way it is. That's exactly what I wanted to say. All right. Good. Thank you. All right. Next is Leanne Parker. Great house. Oh, Lord, microphone. First of all, thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council for listening to our concerns about the rezoning of Kroger's. I will leave it to the other fine folks, which you heard from here this evening, to quote the statistics. I'm just up here to tell you I'm a lifelong resident of Lexington and a small business owner in Chevy Chase I own the Chevy Barbershop at 442 South Ashland Chevy Chase is a small community here in Lexington that people are really proud of Many small businesses have been handed down to their kids by the parents and they own and operate the businesses now And those businesses helped Chevy Chase to become what it is today. The sad part of it is, though, we'll be the ones to suffer that own the small businesses and not corporate America, and it will also be detrimental to the people who live in the neighborhood and who come to our businesses if this zoning is approved. There are many people in agreement that the Euclid Kroger needs to be updated. I myself worked at that Kroger's in the early 1980s. I was 15 and a half, bagging groceries, the lovely orange polyester smocks. But a lot of us Lexingtonians have. But with that said, I want to emphatically say that Chevy Chase is a community in Lexington that we are very proud of. I would like to remind the council that people need the leadership of the people we voted for in the office, like you all, to work for the needs of a community. When it's supposed to keep a motion out of business, not in this case. This is our Chevy Chase. Kroger is doing nothing more than being a corporate bully at this point. B6P does not make sense for the small community of our Chevy Chase. Do the right thing. Approve a law that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you, Leanne. Thank you. And next is Lance Featherston. Mr. Featherston. Pardon? All right. So we can move on. And Linda Kelly has already spoken. Janet Cowan. I'm Janet Cowan. I live at 612 Columbia Avenue and have for the past 30 years. I can say that I've shopped at the Kroger there, and I have yet to starve to death with their current stock. I haven't needed the Creme Fresh or Olive Bar that they're proposing, or the beer cooler. I am the current president of the Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association. On August 2nd, we sent you a letter. I'm not going to read it to you, but I do want to point out on the second page, despite the concerns raised, the Planning Commission and planning staff state as their findings of fact that, quote, granting the requested variances will not adversely affect the public health, safety or welfare, and will not alter the character of the general vicinity and will not cause hazard or nuisance to the public. Think about it. Think what all of these other people have said. I sat in my living room the other day and watched a Budweiser truck, 18-wheeler, a Coca-Cola truck, 18-wheeler, and an L-81 18-wheeler come down the 600 block of Columbia Avenue and turn onto Marquee. That's right now. That's with the small store. If this passes, and we're asking you as a neighborhood and as all of the neighborhoods that surround the Kroger and use this Kroger, none of the neighborhoods have come out in favor of this. But we're asking you to think about the quality of life, our quality of life. Whether you are four feet, 50 feet, or two blocks, this is going to impact our neighborhood. We strive hard to keep it a place that we can truly age in place. And I think this is one of your terms, Mayor. I like to walk to Kroger. I'm getting older. I need an entrance on marquee. We met with Kroger the first time in February of 2012, I believe. They were surprised that we didn't jump up and down as a neighborhood association and welcome this. We had concerns. We told them we don't like ugly buildings. We like pretty buildings. And we would like to see a new and improved Kroger. But we don't want to see a big box. Thank you. Sorry. It's all right. Thank you, Janet. You've been here before. Yes, ma'am. Oh, don't say that. We know better. There we go. There we go. There we go. The vice mayor said promises, promises, goodness. All right. Next is Esther Murphy. Ted, you could have yielded your time. You didn't even sign up. I don't know how to speak in public, and it will show. First of all, to the Kroger Fellow, it's amazing how few cars make it into your renderings. And we'll want to say to Kroger, be careful what you wish for. Or, as modern Aesop's fable might be labeled, six pounds of stuff in a five-pound sack. Because your corporate folks demand that you fit all that stuff into the proverbial five-pound sack. And corporate hopes that the powers that be in the council will let you get away with it. because you stated from the very first presentation, neighborliness be damned, you want the square footage, no matter what. And when the neighbors repeatedly have told you that, it's just too big for that area. You blithely add a window here and there, but you don't reduce the footprint one little bit. Then you present again, and the neighbors still say, it's just too big for that area. And you harumph about barrier walls that are feather light. And finally, at the last minute, you condescend to reducing the footprint by a mere 1,100 square feet. And the neighbors still point out that the store will look either like a manufacturing plant, a fort, or a prison, and it's just still too big and you still don't care. And after the dust is cleared and the lady next door has to get used to the rude neighbor next door making so much racket and having so much garbage that she might just as well seal her windows forever, you will have that brand new store, but it will still be the proverbial five-pound sack. but six pounds of traffic, six pounds of people looking for secure parking, and secure parking is not out of sight on the roof. Six pounds of people who would rather not take elevators and stairways to get their shopping done. Six pounds of people trying to take advantage of picking up their prescriptions from the comfort and safety of their cars, six pounds of people all trying to get out of the parking lot at the same time during basketball or football season, six pounds of seniors trying to shop on the first Wednesday every month and, of course, bringing their cars with them, six pounds of people trying to pull into five pounds, or really three pounds, one pound per driveway, really three pounds of driveway, and another six pounds of people trying to pull out of those same three pounds of driveway. And you hope that all these drivers blame each other for the congestion instead of you. Kroger, please give your neighbors a break. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Esther. Joe Rosenberg. Joe, are you going to speak? All right. Chuck Mallory. Thank you, Mayor and Council. I appreciate you giving us the time to speak to you. There are three points I'd like to make to you. Mr. Simpson mentioned that Kroger has met with the neighborhood and has tried to take into account what the neighbors are wanting. And I attended one of those meetings, and until tonight I have not seen any change at all offered by Kroger to what their original plan was. I've got a couple of pictures here. I took these about a week ago. This is a boulder. I assume Kroger placed it in the utility strip. This is the back driveway onto the Kroger property off of Marquis. it has been hit repeatedly. This is the second time it's been shoved over into their landscape easement all the way across the sidewalk. And my point with these pictures is, if you want to show the other one, clearly the trucks that are going in there can't operate the way the property is laid out, and it's going to be even worse if they are allowed to do what they want to do. This is a hazard for people trying to walk. It's partway across the sidewalk, and you can see the tire tracks. The trucks can't get in. There's parking on the opposite side of Marquee, and it makes it difficult. And my last point is they are purporting this to be a neighborhood grocery store. But until today, tonight, when I heard that they're offering to put in an entrance there on the corner of Marquee and Euclid, they have literally turned their back on the neighborhood they're claiming to serve. And I think what they're proposing is not a good idea for the neighborhood or for the city, and I hope you turn down their request. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Chuck. Next is Nancy Stengel. Mr. Mayor, would I be able to sit up there because of the spirit of land? Yes, ma'am. Let's give some help to Nancy. And we've got a device on that. Bruce, you know how to work that? Mr. Simpson? Stay right there. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Here you go. Nancy, you're pretty far away. All right, wave at us. You're so far away, I won't be able to use the time clock on you. I know what's going on. Thank you so much. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Nancy Stengel. I live at 114 Arcadia Park. And I will not be able to shop in this Kroger because it will take all day to walk that many square feet. And I'm not certain about pushing a car up a ramp or trying to get in an elevator. But the concerns I have, I've lived in Lexington for 59 years, and since I was a small child, I have seen very inappropriate development done that even as a child I could see was inappropriate. I also have a concern about precedent. You come in with a Fayette Mall zoning and variances, and it won't be any time before here comes somebody else using this as precedent for what they would like. I have a problem with this because I have heard precedent used on too many occasions. I also have a concern with such a very large structure going in, and it appears to be little respect for historic residential property. I couldn't sleep at night if I trashed a neighbor next door to me because of my desire for money. Then the last thing I would like to say is I do not understand yet how large each parking space will be on the roof. So assuming I got up there, will the space be so small that I have to be partially out in the drive area loading bags of groceries into the trunk of my car? I thank you for your attention. These are matters that concern me. All right. Thank you so much, Nancy. And next is Dan Cooper. Hi, my name is Daniel Cooper. I reside at 412 Transylvania Park. Thank you for staying until 9 o'clock so far. Hearing our concerns, I would like to reiterate what Janet Cowan said, that while Kroger has met with several neighborhood organizations, not one of them has come out and signed on to this plan. Lexington has begun to embody a desire for urban vibrancy that will lead our city into the next level. It's our responsibility to ensure that this energy is used to move our city forward and not to reinforce the same old development practices that gave us CenterPoint. Instead of proposing an expansion that recognized the need to coexist within the already established area like Chevy Chase, Crowder plans to overwhelm the neighborhood. As proposed, the building would come within a few yards of someone's home, a 1,200-square-foot single-family residence. Imagine that your house was separated from three idling semi-trucks and a massive trash compactor with only thin plastic walls and a couple dozen feet. With many of the properties bordering this location on Euclid's own residential, it would seem that Kroger has shown sensitivity not to the need for neighborhood integration and harmony, but instead to its own desires for a much larger and more profitable store. Kroger has put forth a plan that tries to make the zoning ordinance fit its development. rather than make the development fit the zoning ordinance. As the graph shows, and if we could put up the graph labeled Dan on the zip drive. Sorry. Dan? Yeah. As the graph shows, the alteration submitted by Kroger yesterday takes 10,000 square feet of the gross building area. However, 90% of that comes from the basement prep area and reduces the above-ground footprint by only 1,061 square feet. While we greatly appreciate the attempt at reducing the size of the store, we would much rather see those ratios reversed. You can also see this is a graph comparing... Who's the pointer? Comparing, okay, so here we have Fresh Market, and then this is the current Euclid Avenue store. Shinoah, and then it goes on down. So the proposed Euclid Avenue store has leapfrogged several different locations to become the fourth largest in the city. And then the revision submitted yesterday, the above-ground footprint is only marginally smaller, while the basement is significantly smaller. And that has been our concern all along, that the footprint for this building is simply too large for the area that it serves. Thank you. All right. And next is Jenny Daly. Okay. All right. And Ann Sweeney? Is Ann here? Okay. And then after Ann is Kelly Weber. That's Kelly. My name's Ann Sweeney. I live in the Mentel neighborhood at 701 Bullock Place and have shopped at that Kroger for well over 30 years, since the 70s in college. And I currently make a living taking care of older folks, mostly around the neighborhood, and shop for them. I'm there every day, different times of day, at the current Kroger, have never not been able to get what I or anybody else needs. And it fits the character of the neighborhood. That's where you see your neighbors. That's where you get your necessities. That's where you get your prescriptions. It would serve no purpose whatsoever to make that store too big for people to walk in. And if they want to build a new store, why can't they use the existing size and add the basement or take those lots that they bought on Marquee and build another reasonable structure to take care of food preparation and storage, maybe underground in one level, and then open up, move the deli over and reconfigure and open up that space at the other side of the store for retail, and it would be more than adequate. it. We do not need cafes and eat-in places and all sorts of those things. There are those types of small businesses all over Chevy Chase, and it's just not necessary. And it would be a hardship while the building was being torn down and rebuilt for all of those people to even get to any store since we have no other option. When I've approached Kroger Management in-store, I even have made phone calls around the state to district offices. If anybody does listen, it's kind of a rude reception. One Kroger manager that was floating through the store at the clipboard one day pretty much dismissed me and said it's a done deal, so don't bother fighting it, but I can't do that. And I asked them, so what are all these people going to do that walk and bicycle? Well, we'll We'll get a shuttle and take them to other stores. How are you going to do that? I said, how are you going to shuttle all these people to other Kroger stores and get them back without their ice cream and popsicles melting while they're waiting for other people? That's absurd. How about the pharmacy? I use that pharmacy, as many people do, and it could be bigger. Well, we'll put it somewhere else temporarily on Euclid. Well, where? How are you going to do that? Who are you going to inconvenience by doing that? I mean, just the whole operation. Now, I've seen that store expand, seen the door move a couple of times. Video came and went. They've reconfigured it. They could reconfigure using those other lots, make their additional lots minus the end one, B1. Let them build a little extension over there that won't be intrusive to cover their storage and prep areas and reconfigure the store that exists. That's all. Thank you, ma'am. Thanks, Ann. And Kelly. Yep. Hi. Thank you so much for hearing all of us and taking the time to listen to our concerns. My name is Kelly Weber. I'm the assistant director at Ashland Terrace Retirement Home, and we are located at 475 South Ashland Avenue. We are the home to 35 older ladies of an average age of 86. And we shop at Kroger almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day, as do our residents. And as a business, spend about $3,000 a month at Kroger. So we are not opposed to a revitalized Kroger, but we are concerned about a few things, mainly safety. and walkability we have residents who are still able to walk to Kroger and with the proposed plans we're concerned about the South Ashland and Ashland Terrace intersection which is already kind of a nightmare for a resident anybody to really cross but residents who are on a walker or a little slower moving and with the increase potential increase in traffic flow that concerns us even more so that's our biggest concern as well as the concern of how our residents walk to the Kroger often down the easement which the way that this is proposed seems is going to be used a lot for traffic in terms of with the pharmacy and the ramp onto the rooftop parking and the trucks and There's not a good sidewalk in that easement, but that's the closest way for our residents to get there. So those are our primary concerns, and we appreciate you taking those into consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. Next is Clarissa Spahn. Good evening, council members. My name is Clarissa Spahn. I live at 103 Irvin Road, and I'm speaking in opposition to Kroger's own change request. By the way, I live over a half a mile from this store, and I see this as being a detriment to our neighborhood. There will be an increase in cut-through traffic, and I think everyone should expect that. First, I want to make the point that this is not in field development. Kroger's is currently using their original property to the extent of its zoning. Kroakers would like to maximize their profits on the land they own. This is no different from me requesting a zone change to build an apartment complex on my residential lot. Although I would be providing a service, you would most assuredly tell me no. We have zoning laws for a reason. There has been no change in this area to justify rezoning this property. Second, I want to clarify that while infill development is often a tool of smart growth, it in and of itself is not smart growth and can in fact result in some pretty horrible outcomes. Smart growth is a broader land use principle aimed at limiting urban sprawl. It involves the development of and adherence to long-term land use and transportation plans and considers the health of neighborhoods and the adequacy of the infrastructure such as our roads. So when we throw around the term infill development and promote it as a guiding force, we need to understand that this is not the same as focusing on the creation of a beautiful, livable, sustainable city. That is instead the goal of smart growth. Finally, I want to point out that it's ignorant to claim that we must allow infill development at all costs if we want to preserve the bluegrass. Most cities have or will hit some type of boundary, either natural or man-made. Basel in Switzerland, for example, has a medieval wall. Addressing these constraints has been key to the creation of cities we consider innovative, creative, desirable places to live. The same people who are saying that the bluegrass can only be preserved by allowing urban businesses to maximize their profit are the same people who are or will be clamoring for business expansion into the bluegrass when urban properties are gone. Thank you for considering the complexity of this issue and the impact your decision has on this neighborhood and our town. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Clarissa. And next is William Thompson. Is William gone? Okay. All right. Next is Kate Savage. I'm Kate Savage and I live at 619 Columbia Avenue. Thank you. And rather than just hand them in as a big old pile of papers, I want you to see that we have 478 ink signatures. Ink signatures. Thanks, progress guys. That I will, I'll put into the record. Could you write that? Thank you. Thank you. 478 ink signatures from people in this town who do not wish to see this expansion. Thank you. Don't fool too hard. Thank you. Thank you. In addition to the 478 ink signatures, we received 102 online. I'm turning those into the record. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to the people who helped me to collect those signatures. I had several people who jumped in and walked a beat for me. Plan shopping center B6P zone one of the criteria promote community attractiveness by encouraging the design of commercial areas and big box retail establishments which will integrate with residential areas by utilizing effective topographical features transitional areas and the liberal application of landscaping and screening devices, thus minimizing any adverse effect of any such commercial area upon adjacent land uses and providing a pleasant environment for the shopping and working experience. one of the locational standards the proposed shopping center shall be of sufficient but not excessive size to provide adequate shopping facilities for the population which reasonably may be expected to be served by such shopping facilities why does Kroger's need to expand their Euclid Avenue store three times. Are they expecting a population explosion? Old story, new spin. It just, frankly, doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. This is Drisilla. Who knew what the ugly sisters were called? But this is Drisilla. And she was prepared to actually wax her feet in order to try and stuff them into the slipper. On the left you can see Kroger's today and the expanded proposed Kroger aerial view before today. That was, you know, 48 hours ago. This ugly sister is called Anastasia. We still have 37,594 square feet of the old Kroger's, and it's really very hard for me to kind of slice off that picture on the right, the 1,100 square feet that has been taken off the surface area, although the paper reported 10,000 square feet had been removed, and all my friends called me and said, oh my God, you've got a victory. And I said, 9,000 square feet is being removed from the basement. Those poor people down there working are going to have to work in closer quarters. So in fact, all we've got is 1,061 square feet reduction on the surface area. we really don't want you to pass this zone and stuff this store into a space that is too small doesn't fit we don't want it and we want you to hear us because we come down here time and time again and we tell you how we feel and we expect you to listen to us because we are your citizens. We voted you in, not Kroger's, we voted you in and we are your voice and you are our public servants and we want you to listen to us. We do not want B6P, a planned shopping center, Fayette Zone Mall in our neighborhood, our cherished, unique Chevy Chase neighborhood. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Kate. Next is Pearl James. Hello, I'm Pearl James. I live at 857 Tremont Avenue. I teach at the University of Kentucky. I think it's simple. Kroger wants to be a good citizen. They want to be a good neighbor. Hold them accountable to that by just asking them to work within the zoning rule that they have now. They have gone hog wild with the requests that they're trying to make and the variances that they're asking for, and they're asking you to set aside and make a lot of exceptions by approving this, when in fact they should be asked to work within the zoning that they're in now. That is what is there. That's what suits the neighborhood. In 2011, the Greek church came and asked for a variance so that they could expand. And their idea of having a slightly larger footprint was voted down and was not allowed. And it was actually going to have a much smaller impact on our neighborhood. It was going to affect one neighbor in a negative way to have cars going right by their property line. And it was going to have a parking problem on Sunday mornings. Okay, that was it. And this council did not allow that to happen. The city didn't approve that. And the Greek church left the neighborhood. Now, Kroger, a much larger corporate entity, comes along and wants to do something that is going to impact our neighborhood in a hugely, vastly bigger way. And suddenly that's okay? I mean, that just seems completely inconsistent. And I ask this council not to go with corporate America, but to stand for the people in the neighborhood and just enforce the laws that are on the books. Those zoning ordinances are there for a reason. Don't give them the variances. Just ask them to work within the zoning that is there. That is suitable for the neighborhood. We all would love a fancier Kroger, but not at the expense of losing the walkability. I have an 8-year-old. She rides a bike. I don't want three times more space sucking that many more cars through my neighborhood. It's unsustainable. It will ruin the neighborhood. I ask you to tell Kroger to work within the law as it is now. Don't give them an exception. It's not fair, and it's not right for this neighborhood. And I ask you to stick with what's on the books. Thank you. All right, thank you, Pearl. And next is Ted Cohen. I didn't see you down there, Ted. Ted Cowan. I know, I said Cowan instead of Cohen. My name is Ted Cowan. I live at 612 Columbia. How do any of us decide the right thing to do? Many years ago, I sat in a university class, and I tried to answer that question. To me, it seemed like there was an obvious answer to always do what yielded the most good. It's kind of like a no-brainer, a simple mathematical calculation. and then the professor said to me, suppose that one course of action that you could take would mean that every person in the world had a happier, healthier, joyful life except for one person. And that one person was a small child who would be tortured every day, all day long, for as long as that child lived. and that would occur in exchange for the happiness of the rest of the people in the world. You know, on a mathematical basis, that's an easy answer. Yeah, torture the kid. Happiness for everyone else. But would that be the right thing to do? Does that actually make sense? The parallels are not exact, but there are parallels. For those who live closest to the projected Kroger expansion, and who reasonably, at least in my view, see that their quality of life will seriously decline as a result of this expansion, is it enough that Kroger will offer a walk-in beer cooler, or as I saw in the paper today, beer cave? Does the happiness from that beer cave overcome what happens to the neighborhood? Is it enough that Kroger will offer an olive bar? Is that enough happiness for the community to overcome the detriment to the neighborhood? Is it enough that Kroger will invest some money in Lexington? Does that overcome the detriment to the neighborhood? For the good results that this expansion might bring, how much detriment are you willing to place on Kroger's neighbors? If you or Kroger wants to do this the right way, I suggest that you begin at the beginning. It's obvious that this plan doesn't fit within the present zoning guidelines. The variances overwhelm what zoning allows. I would suggest to you that you send this back to planning, you ask them to reconsider it, you tell them to come up with a way to make something workable that doesn't destroy the neighborhood. And finally, only because so much has been said about Kroger's being such a good neighbor, I'd like to enter into the record this document. Can you show that on the screen? Kroger's lobbied Governor Perry in Texas to veto a Texas version of the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and he did. Thank you. All right. Next is Debbie Salyer. Debbie Salyer. Yes. Thank you very much for seeing us tonight and listening to us. I know it's very late. and I probably won't use all of my three minutes because everyone here has said a lot of my concerns as well. Daniel did point out that there were other Kroger stores, only three others that will be larger than this proposed one. And we have said over and over it doesn't fit the area. The other three stores are Tate's Creek, Beaumont, and Richmond Road. Those are not neighborhood groceries. They intersect, all three of them, at Man of War and Major Arteries in this city. You wouldn't consider, I wouldn't consider necessarily walking to the Richmond Road store or either of the other two. This is a different type of neighborhood, and this store doesn't belong in there. I'm all for a new and improved Kroger. It needs to be updated. but it's almost like it's all or nothing. Kroger wants everything in there. I've heard, I understand they want to drive through pharmacy. I don't know that that's necessary. They want a walk-in beer cooler. All of these things. Somewhere there's got to be some give in what is going on in this large footprint. And everyone has said over and over, it does not fit. And it doesn't. It's a walkable neighborhood. And in addition to that, I know there are rumors. They've been denied by Kroger. But I remember when Romney Road was first purchased by Randall's, there was a lot of discussion about closing that store then. And all of the people over in that area went up in arms about it and said, we will not lose Romney Road. Well, suppose they do lose Romney. They don't make a lot of money maybe off that Kroger. It's a small, very small store. So if they do that, then all of that traffic from there is going to go two directions, mostly to Euclid Avenue. So then your traffic is even more congested. As it is, even with Romany standing, it's a traffic nightmare. And it does severely impact the safety of the pedestrians and even the people driving. So I ask you to vote no to the current proposal. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Debbie. All right. Mr. Mark Barker. I just have a few pictures to show you. I'm Mark Barker at 430 on Park Avenue. I'm in the impact zone. This is the Marquee Avenue about where the truck entrance to Kroger will be. As you can see, there's large trees there. What they're proposing of the small bush is not going to match that at all. Next slide, please. This is looking the other way. This is where the truck entrance would be on Marquee going the other way. And the reason this is important is because I think the trucks are going to have to go this way. because if you look at the angle of the truck entrance, it turns all the way, like it kind of makes almost a U-turn, and there's no way they're going to be able to make that, so they're going to have to come down this street. Next slide, please. This is a house almost, a couple of houses up and across the street from where Kroger's wants to put their truck entrance. The reason I picked this one I got from the PVA, if you look at the next slide, I think it sold last year for about $200,000. It's about the same lot as 420 Marquee. They're claiming that the lot size of 420 Marquee is not buildable. It doesn't make sense. It clearly is buildable. So there's three things they have to prove to justify changing 420 Marquee to the zone they want. They have to show, one, the current zoning is not appropriate. It clearly is. It's R1E and it is buildable. It clearly is buildable, as is. Two, they have to show that the zone change agrees with the comprehensive plan. It does not. The comprehensive plan clearly states that this is residential. R1E is the appropriate zoning on a comprehensive plan that what they're proposing is not. And last of all, there's been no major changes of economic, social, or other. So they don't meet any of the criteria. You will have to ignore the zoning ordinance in order to support changing 420 marquee to the zoning they requested. So I ask you at least exclude that. You're clearly violating the law, in my opinion, of including that in the zone change. The other thing is I think in general the zone change just doesn't fit, as many people say. and I'm very concerned about all the things that are allowed in the zones they're requesting. I think they allow gas stations in the zone they're requesting. I think I went to Fayette Mall. I saw a cell tower. Is that going to be allowed? And the language they're using concerns me because they said on the condition, subsidively, I know there's going to be some mechanical equipment on top of the building on marquee right next to it, but they didn't show that in the pictures. So is mechanical equipment not subsidive? So I would ask you not to approve this. Thank you. Okay, thanks, Mark. Next is Jane Peters. Okay, all right. Next is Alex Mead. Is Alex here? All right. Pauline Rogers? Is Pauline here? Oh, yeah. Well, you just take your time. I don't really have much to add to what's already been said, except I was with Nancy as far as a precedent being set. and the Kroger rep who said this is going to be the first of its kind kind of bothers me. Is this going to be a prototype that if they get this expansion approved, they're going to hold this up to the rest of the country saying, look what we've done. Now you need this. I have lived at 721 Tremont Avenue, had the house since 1974, shop at Kroger. It does need enlarging. I've been there a lot of times too and trying to get in out of the parking lot and also get in the carts up the aisle. And it does need enlarging, but not to the extent that is planned. And I think a large Kroger of this size should be in an industrial area or a shopping center. Because it's already been said the bigger Krogers are in good accesses, man-of-war. So one thing that bothers me, I was looking for a nice covered over bus stop in front of Kroger. So many people shop there, have to go across the street, catch a bus, carrying groceries, if they want to stay out of the rain or whatever. So I think if Kroger's got all this land, they could put a covered bus stop, even if they don't get approved. But I think 50,000 feet would be a great size for it. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And next is Kathy Franklin. Hello, I'm Kathy Franklin. I live at 1609 Elizabeth Street in the Seven Parks neighborhood on the other side of campus from Chevy Chase. And I'm here just to say that this isn't just a Chevy Chase neighborhood concern. This is a concern for everybody, all the residents in the urban residential area who will be subject to infill and redevelopment projects as time goes on. and I want to just reiterate what everyone else has said is that infill and redevelopment has to be appropriate and a suburban footprint in this case in an urban area is not appropriate. And we look to the council and we look to the planning commission to understand what appropriate means in context and we need to trust that you can do that. So I ask for you all to send this back for reconsideration to fit into what our urban core is all about. Thank you very much. Thank you, Kathy. And next is Robert Kelly. Okay, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Kate. Next is Celeste Lewis. Celeste here? Yeah. Hello. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I live in Chevy Chase. I live actually on Ashland Terrace. I also have a business in Chevy Chase. So I spend a lot of time there. And I wanted to say, first of all, that I love having a grocery so close. I will share with you that my husband and I shared a first kiss in the Kroger parking lot about 35 years ago. It's a wonderful neighborhood. I love having it very close by. Here's the bad news, though, that Kroger is actually not a great neighbor, and I have to point out a few things that have not come up tonight. And one of the things is that there is a smell emanating from Kroger's a lot, from their trash and things. And those of us who live really close have to live with that a lot. And there hasn't been a great deal of response to that. And I've called many, many times. And I get long stories about it, how it's a trash compactor problem or it's a dumpster problem or it's whatever. But there are many, many impacts to the quality of life for those who live nearby. Noise. There is round-the-clock noise. The trucks that are there now, it's around the clock. The trash compactor, all of that sort of thing. I don't see how that can be completely mitigated when the store is going to be so very much bigger. So I have a real concern about that. I also have a concern that everyone's intention is that it will be improved, and everyone's intention is that there's going to be ways to make the HVAC quieter. There's going to be ways to make the smell mitigated. but I'm not sure that will actually happen. So I wanted to express my concerns and also say that I have a great deal of faith and hope that these will be taken care of. But I do think that there is your intention to do one thing, and I wonder how you will actually enforce those things. You mentioned that you will certainly be asking truckers to turn their trucks off and not idle. I don't know how these things can be enforced. So I think what I've heard over and over again tonight, I completely agree with, in that this just seems to be too large for this space. And as someone who lives very close to the grocery now, I can tell you that these problems exist every single day, and I don't know how that could be made better by a store this much larger. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Celeste. Leon Sachs. Oh, oh. Sorry, I didn't hear that. All right. Courtney? Courtney Ture. Is Courtney here? All right. And Ike Lawrence. I know Ike is here. Ike is here. Mayor, members of council, my name's Ike Lawrence, 221 Clinton Road. I'd like to grab three more minutes from Jane Peters, who said I could have her time, if that's okay. Sure. Thank you. My name's Ike Lawrence, past president of Ailes for Neighborhood Association. I wanted to point out as much as some of the numbers that we've been in about, A lot of things that I'd like to talk about are things that haven't been mentioned. One of them is, and if you look at the sign-up sheet, it's roughly 33 against this and only three non-related to Kroger's for it who are going to speak tonight. I also want to point out one of the main things I want to focus in on is who is not here. And coming from my perspective, whenever we have zone changes in the residential business that I'm in, one of the things we like to hear from are the tenants who, as you know, in residential or commercial, your tenant is who pays your taxes, pays your insurance. And what's really important, and that's really important to me, to have tenants at any zone change or any board of adjustment hearing. And one thing that we don't have here are what is the largest block of people who use this Kroger, which are the U.K. students. And, of course, many of the marginal people who are on the fringes who are also tenants of our residences around the Chevy Chase area. So this is being held in the summer. Those people can't be here. They need to be heard. I think it's disingenuous that this is being held so quickly. I didn't hear about it except two months ago. And if this has been in the loop for two years now, many of us, especially U.K. students and the clients of Kroger's, who I think most of who would object to the higher prices that is going to have to come with the product to pay for all this, I think they would like to know a lot about what's going on in their neighborhood, and, of course, they are the owners of our property because they're the ones who rent from us. Some of the things about this building, this commercial building, to a lot of us, is too contemporary in a traditionally 80-year-old neighborhood of homes. As you know, this is not the Guggenheim in New York. This is Chevy Chase. if you approve this you have opened the door for a big box Kroger's in Romney Road as well as your neighborhood too if some of the information is true that you don't have if Kroger's doesn't have easement rights to town and country properties Mr. Rosenberg's property for the additional square footage that's added then of course this needs to be sent back to planning and zoning for further discussion as well as a number of other points have been made here tonight. One of the things I am bothered by that either Mr. Simpson or staff did not refute from Amy was that there may be of record that there was some misunderstanding as to what B1 zone represented, and if it was represented that 40,000 square feet was B1 zone, and it's really 50,000 square feet to keep in the B1 zone, then obviously they can expand their building or tear down this building and build up to 50,000 square feet as opposed to 68,000 square feet and work with the neighborhoods and make this a much more public hearing of all people involved. We are concerned about the wall, how long the wall is and how tall the wall is on marquee. I am concerned about all the lack of ingress and egress from all points of three or four streets as opposed to mostly coming in and off Euclid this is a huge big box that is going to set a precedent not only for our neighborhood but for your all's neighborhood as well and we hope that of the 11 of you all that are here we hope we will have our super majority of 11 to 0 and you shoot this down and let it go back to planning and zoning and we work together on something more compatible for our neighborhood. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Ike. And next, it seems like I remember Jane Peters before. Is Jane? Okay. That's what I was thinking. All right. signed on twice. That was clever. That's the first time for that. That's all right. That's all right. That's all right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Then we still will be hearing from those who have signed up in support of the of the applicant or the zone change, but first, do you wish to speak now? I'll let them finish, and then I'll be revoked. You want those who have signed up to speak in favor of. All right. Those who have signed up to speak in favor of the zone change, I'll start with Jeb Emmons. Good evening, and thank you for the chance to speak at this public hearing. For the record, my name is Jeb Emmons, and I live at 852 West High Street in the Woodward Heights neighborhood near Rupp Arena. Also for the record, I have an extra written copy of my prepared comments, and I'll attempt not to repeat items that have already been covered by others. I am in support of the proposed zone change and in Kroger's development proposal. This does not mean that I am against the neighborhood. Quite the contrary. I am supportive of this neighborhood. I think the proposal will strengthen this and all the downtown neighborhoods. Years from now, I suspect that this community will point to this project and say that this is how you achieve a successful development without tearing down an entire block of wonderful houses. I know that during a zone change, those who are opposed to any particular case will find the willpower to take time out of their busy lives to come down and make their opposition known. But I hope that the Council realizes how much more it takes to come down and voice your support for a project. I'm a mother that currently travels across town to the Kroger on Richmond Road because my closest grocery stores are not large enough to offer the natural and organic products that the larger stores can provide. When I moved downtown seven years ago, this is the grocery store that I considered my grocery store. And like any good neighborhood grocery store, they carry a large selection of the items that their local constituency want the most. Being so close to the UK, this store has the best selection of beer and coffee of any store I know. But alas, we cannot thrive on beer and coffee alone, and occasionally we need to eat a quality vegetable. I imagine that you will hear many reasons why this zone change shouldn't be approved. For those that say that the B6P zoning is just the wrong zone for this area, I would like to point out that this three-acre site is classified as a neighborhood shopping center in the zoning ordinance, which is the smallest of the three classifications in the planned shopping center zone. Furthermore, there are other B6P zones inside New Circle Road. This request is appropriate for this site. For those that want to find something wrong with the building or the parking lot, I want to remind you that the typical solution to a store expansion is to buy up and tear down a neighborhood just to replace it with a surface parking lot. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and these types of development practices are commonplace. Putting your parking in a garage and multi-level retail allows shopping centers to thrive near neighborhoods without destroying them. Once upon a time, my neighborhood was twice the size that it is today, before the largest parking lot in town was built right across from Rupp Arena. I thank you for your time, and I appreciate your consideration of my comments. I hope that the Council will realize that Lexington is a great place to live and continue to make it better by supporting appropriate infill and redevelopment such as this. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. All right. Next is Graham Pohl. And Nathan Dickerson has ceded his time, so I'll take six minutes if that's okay. I'm Graham Pohl. I live at 977 Fincastle Road. You heard my name a lot earlier, and it sounded like I'm associated with the program. I wanted to clarify that I'm not. I'm independent. I'm a citizen. My objectives have been to represent the neighborhood as best I could, represent the city as best I could, get the best possible product that we could get. I sit on the Board of Architectural Review, Board of Progress Lex. I'm on the Downtown Design Excellence Task Force, and I'm a partner in Paul Rosa-Pole, an architectural firm with offices at 620 Euclid and a managing partner of 620 Euclid, which is an office building just a few buildings away from Kroger. So I have a lot of interest in the store. I've also lived within a 10-minute walk of this store for the last over 30 years and have been shopping there for that long. So when I heard about two years ago that they were thinking about making changes, I volunteered to be of assistance, and they took me up on it, I'd say about 16 months ago or something like that. and I started to meet with them, attend public meetings, and just try to be helpful in any way that I could. The design they have is not my design, it's their design. I did not put a pencil to paper on this. I simply met with them, answered questions, and tried to provide the best possible feedback that I could with regard to what the neighborhood is, what it means, who the people are, that I know, that I sense live there, and who I know who live there, to help them to make a store that was most suitable for the particular location. They were always solicitous. They were always flexible. They wanted desperately to do what would be best. They worked hard at it. They made many, many changes, and so I am giving testimony to their goodwill and their extremely strong effort. I think that their willingness to invest in a rooftop parking configuration is great evidence of an interest in the neighborhood. It's a fantastic solution to a big problem. I want to say that comparing the proposed building to the building that's there is night and day. The building that's there is just about the worst possible thing that could be on that site. It's hideous. I actually wrote an article about it years ago when they remodeled it. I wrote an article about how absolutely pathetic the remodel job was. Sorry, Kroger, but this is true. This is one of the reasons that I volunteered to get involved, because I felt very passionately that there was a real possibility for that site and for that store. The store they're proposing is a superb store, I think. I think it has problems. I have real concerns. I think the neighbors' concerns are absolutely legitimate. I'm most concerned about issues with regard to the way the store addresses the properties along Ashland Terrace. I share the concerns about 420 marquee and the proximity to 420 marquee. I share the concerns about the easement from Ashland Avenue and the town and country apartments. It's pretty clear that there's going to need to be some redesign there. I'm sure that can happen in the coming planning process. If, in fact, the testimony was accurate, and I think it was, I'd wondered about that myself when I was looking at the drawings. I'm also concerned about accountability and enforceability. I think the story about asking the truck drivers to turn off their vehicles when they're unloading is an important thing to keep in mind. I know that Mr. Simpson said they can tell them to do it, but they can't enforce that. Well, I think it's going to have to be better than that. I think they cannot let trucks idle when they're unloading. It just has to be an absolute. I think it's very unhealthy for children in the neighborhood to be breathing diesel fumes, and I think the noise problem is potentially enormous. So that's my history with it. Those are my concerns, and I really thank you all for this marathon session. All right. Thanks, Graham. Robin Mickler. Is Robin here? Yeah. Okay, Robin. I said hello earlier, so forgive me. I was trying to read you. My name is Robin Michler, and I had to write my name down so I would not forget it when I came up here. I'm a marquee resident and homeowner, and I signed up today in support because I like to be positive. And I think there are a couple changes you can make to make this a positive project. This city has made great strides in making a more walkable and livable city. Just take our location here on Euclid Avenue. Euclid Avenue, when I was a child in this neighborhood, walking to this Kroger's used to be really hard to get across. This city made it a road diet. It was an example in articles that I read in planning school that cited the road diet that Lexington did on Euclid Avenue, providing bike lanes and a turn lane, instead of going the route of ever-widening streets. Take with this city's hard work and this council's hard work recently and in the coming months and hopefully not years to redo the intersection of Euclid High, Tate's Creek, and Fontaine, which, as you know, has been a real head-scratcher. laughter so we've done a lot to keep our city walkable and livable and I want us to keep this progress going in this development to do this I ask to hold Kroger's to a store entrance and exit on marquee with such a long wall and so little setback we really need this and I think it should be a condition of the zone change I ask that the drive-through facility be excluded as a condition on this zone change to mitigate some of these impacts that people are talking about. When we recently asked for our store on Maxwell to be rezoned, staff suggested we prohibit drive-through facilities. I wholeheartedly agree. I think we should do this on infill projects across the city. And also, finally, to borrow one of Graham's poll's points, we really need to make sure all access points to this store are accessible to pedestrians and should be a condition as well. to conclude I hope to I look forward to many years of watching people from my front porch on Marquis walk, scoot, roll and skip to Kroger's thank you thanks Rob alright that wraps it up on our guests who are here for public comment. It does allow us an opportunity for rebuttal. Mr. Simpson has asked for that opportunity, so Mr. Simpson and Amy, if you wish to, you may as well. Well, we've already given the closing statements. You can wrap it up in the same way again. Mayor. Mayor, it's me. Yeah, Tracy. I think they've both already had some kind of summation, so if you want them to have some additional rebuttal to the comments, I think Ms. Clark should probably go first. Okay, good. That's fine. And then the applicant, because he has the pardon. Certainly. Thank you for that intervention. Ms. Clark? Thank you, counsel. You're still here. You're still listening. The most important thing happening in Lexington tonight is the precedent you set. We're asking you to save our bluegrass. I see the bluegrass of the 12th District. I don't see the 12th District. I see the bluegrass of the 12th District and beyond, and I love that bluegrass. but I mostly see it from a car window. It's the drive-by bluegrass to me. I wish I got out more to the horse farms, but I don't. I'm probably not alone. Probably two or three of you up there do what I do. I go down to the Chevy Chase hardware store, and I buy bluegrass seed. And I put it in my yard. It's kind of patriotic. the bluegrass I know and love and have every day the bluegrass your kids play in the bluegrass of the people walking their dogs up and down the street going to the grocery store, biking, all that they do it's our front yards, it's our backyards, it's our homes, it's our neighborhood please deny this zone change and save our bluegrass We've submitted findings of fact to support the request to deny the zone change. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Mr. Simpson? Thank you again, Mayor and members of the Council. I'm going to respond in rebuttal format to four or five of the points that folks made when they were up here testifying. First, let me address John Bryce's statement on behalf of his clients, Town and Country. We, of course, knew Mr. Bryce was going to be making a statement tonight. and we have been in correspondence with him. This really is a private legal matter concerning this easement. Our firm belief, based upon our research, is that we have an unequivocal, unencumbered right based on the law and based on the language and the applicable deeds to use this easement, and we've had it since 1964. I'm not going to go into all of the legal justification, because this is not the forum to make that decision. You can't make the call. If we can't resolve our differences with town and country, I suppose the courts will. But suffice it to say, we do not find they have a meritorious position whatsoever limiting our right to this easement, which has seen an expansion of use over a period of 40-plus years, including a property which this same entity sold to Kroger a number of years ago without objection for the expansion of the Kroger store. So we strongly disagree with that position. But again, you know how these things go. So there's issues that need to be resolved, and as we are in this zone change, we will pledge to try to resolve the issues with Town and Country. And if not, there's a forum for that, but it's not the Council and it's not the Planning Commission. One point I would agree with Amy Clark on is that this is an important case. This is a very important case because the question before this body is whether you're going to let someone who can collect 478 signatures from wherever and have a number of people testify who don't live in the neighborhood but don't want to see this Kroger store develop. Whether they are going to reverse recommendations of people that you trusted, that you appointed, that you approved, the Planning Commission, That you hire, you supervise, and you retain, the planning staff, people who deal with these issues every day. Their position would seem to be that these people made gross errors in their decision. That your staff made gross errors in recommending approval, and their recommendations are going to create substantial catastrophic consequences for the neighborhood. The same could be said of the Planning Commission's unanimous recommendation. Seriously, do you really believe that your staff would make such a recommendation that would have the kind of adverse impact that you have heard people tonight perceive will happen? I suggest to you it is a perception issue on the part of those who fear the change. And I understand that my practice of law for the past 20-some years has been involved in those perceptions, either for or against development. When we come before you and we come before the staff and the planning commission, we came with facts. In all of the traffic nightmares that were discussed, we had professional engineers examine. and in the report that we tendered, the only report that's been tendered to this body in the nearly two years we've been at this, which was reviewed by the Division of Planning, the Division of Engineering with the Urban County Government, and they found it acceptable. If there had been any catastrophic adverse consequences from this Kroger store, you would have heard about it. The staff would have told you. You've heard them before, express concerns about zone changes. There are none. Conspicuous by the absence is any concern about a traffic tsunami coming about because of this Kroger store. The truth of the matter is, in the traffic study, out of 27 intersections that were studied, only one went to a level of service E, and this is the infamous Euclid, East High Street, Fontaine, Quagmire, during a peak hour which has been jammed up for as long as I've lived in Lexington, which is all my life. All of the rest of the intersections are level of service C or level of service D, all of which your planning commission plan, the comprehensive plan says, if you meet level of service D, you're in compliance with the plan. In all but one of the 27 intersections that were examined, these are the undisputed facts. Now, I say it's important from a precedential standpoint because I knew this was coming. These kinds of cases, infill, are always a test. They test your political will. They test your thoughtfulness. They test your evaluation of fact. And you made a decision and your predecessors made a decision, really way back in 2001 in the comprehensive plan, when you made the call that, you know what, when it comes to land use, the most important land use issue in our county is preserving the rural area. And we're not just going to go like we used to for years and years and expand and have suburban shopping centers, suburban residential. We want to increase density. We want more people to live downtown. That's the really future of success of downtown Lexington. In addition to it being an entertainment zone, we want more and more people to live closer to closer to downtown. And the truth of the matter is, based upon historical fact, Lexington has grown from 2000 to 2010 by 35,000 people. From 2010 to 2020, it's expected to grow 39,000. And from 2020 to 2030, it's expected to grow 41,000. Traditionally, Lexington has grown about that much for the last 150 years. Now, if we're not going to expand the boundary and we're going to have more density, we're going to have more traffic. and we're going to need more goods and services that can meet those demands and meet those needs of those people who are going to be living downtown and in this particular area. And that's what Kroger is proposing to do on a site that's not any taller with an exception of one or two feet than what the current story is. The rest of it is underground. We're not going to see a sea of parking. You're not even going to see the cars on the roof. You're going to have beautiful architecture, something you don't have now. If you look under tab 3 in my booklet of evidence, look at what the Kroger store looks like now. As Graham Pohl said, it is ugly. It really is. It's in major need of something. Kroger is proposing to spend $19 million making this site better, making it adaptable to this site. making it usable for this site. Sixty new employees will be hired. It will be the first of its kind in Clover's history to be built with all of these features. This is an important case. It's important because if you review the facts, if you review the evidence that has been tendered to you from your staff, from the planning commission, from the engineering studies, and you weigh which is most persuasive in terms of the facts, then you have to conclude, as the planning commission did and as the planning staff recommended, it is in agreement with the comprehensive plan. The four little lots are not appropriate to build upon. They would suggest to you that the one little R1E lot, who's going to be building a house there even closer to the Kroger store. Our proposal moves the development further away from the homes on Ashland Terrace, provides greater buffering, greater screening, greater protection, a more handsome, up-to-date, modern store that's quieter than anything that exists today. You've got a history of approvals, and you have undisputed factual evidence to base the decision on the evidence that is uncontroverted in this case. It will not be an adverse impact to this neighborhood. The traffic will not swallow anything up. If there was an engineer who thought so, you would have heard from him, and you didn't. this is an important case for you to approve if we're going to grow up in the right way with good design, which we're committed to doing. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. All right. Now we are at the point where the council at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday night, where the Council can ask questions of the staff, petitioner, and opponent. And the petitioner and the opponent shall be entitled to rebut any new evidence that might be brought up by the Council questioning. All right, so as the Chair, I will now open the floor to comments and questions, and please sign up. Council Member Beard is first to sign up. Thank you, Mayor. I'm not sure who to direct this to. When was the present structure built and occupied? It was a grocery store, Council Member Beard, as far back, I believe it was about 1964. It wasn't a Kroger. Kroger took it over in the late 70s. and there's been a couple of expansions since then. Kroger's at one time around the corner past the condos where the liquor store is. That's where Kroger's was at one point. And then actually prior to that, Kroger's was located in a place about the size of this room, about where the present condos are on the west side of that. There was a parking lot that probably held 20 cars, and I got the opportunity to go there with my mother when I was a child, and that was a long time ago. I just was curious about that because, you know, Obviously, this location, as I see it, has got some history to it. The Chevy Chase location has some history, and we'd hope that it would continue to have some history. What kind I won't go into, but history is good. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman Beard. Councilman Lawless. Thank you, Mayor. Well, first of all, Mr. Simpson, I'm ecstatic that you've had an epiphany since December with your high praise for our planning staff and our planning commission that we should never overturn one of their decisions. Well, I mean, the truth of the matter is I've been privileged to practice before this body and the planning commission for 25 years. And you know what? Even when they have offered an opinion that's contrary to the one I'm taking, I have always complimented them because I have been privileged to practice all over the state of Kentucky. You are always very respectful. Let me tell you, they are the best. You're always respectful. I just had to say it. With the B-1, you could expand quite a bit. And you could put a basement in. So why, I'm trying to understand why the B6P and, you know, all of the bells and whistles that are going along with that. Well, for good reason. I mean, the Kroger store that was approved, the last one expansion about 1984, when it was 37,000, 38,000 square feet, that was competitive with what was going on in the marketplace at the time. Like a lot of things, businesses change, and if you want to maintain success and be competitive and meet the demands of the consumer, you have to change. And so the store, just like all of their other stores around the country, have had to increase their size in order to meet the demands, stay competitive. Kroger's got a lot of money invested in Fayette County with its stores. I think most of the people are satisfied with the services they provide, but they don't want to get in their car and have to travel across town to get something that every other Kroger store, but this one in Romney Road has. So it was trying to meet the needs, the urban needs, the increase in population that is going to happen. And it's going to happen more and more in downtown. And they want to get out ahead and be able to compete and deliver the good services that people will drive their cars to obtain right now. So in part, is this due to the U.K. master plan in addition of? I think certainly if there's going to be any known increase in population, which there is, I mean, the evidence is uncontrovertible that we're growing about 35,000, and U.K. is building more on campus. But this area is growing, and so you want to stay competitive. You don't want to lose your ability to compete in the marketplace with an obsolete store that doesn't meet the demands of what the consumer expects, what they want, where they have to get in their car and go. The truth of the matter is Kroger is going to have a bus stop in front of its store. It's going to have a bus shelter in front of its store. the traffic study, you know, it was the most conservative traffic study that could be done because it didn't give any reduction for students walking to the store. It didn't give any reduction for neighbors walking to the store or people getting off a bus or riding a bike. We took it as if every single shopper would drive a car. Now, reality is that is not going to happen. So even with a conservative traffic study doing a worst-case scenario, we're still not adversely impacting the neighborhood in terms of the traffic that's going to be generated. I don't even know what to say right now. But anyway, why did you reduce the basement by 9,000 feet? Just to be responsive. Again, we met with the neighbors. Danny Lethko has kind of shepherded this project along for a couple of years. He met with neighborhood leaders about this a year a half ago, kind of shared with them what was coming. Then we had our first full-blown meeting with everybody back in February, and we listened to what people wanted, what they didn't want. as Graham Pohl suggested, numerous design changes, because at that point, at that meeting at Woodland Christian Church, I mean, I have a record of it, all of the issues and concerns were about design. They wanted to see a different design. My time's up, but I certainly haven't heard anybody say the basement's too big, but thank you, and thank you. You're welcome. All right. Council Member Gordon. Thank you, Mayor. I have several questions, and we'll try to go through quickly, but I may need to come back for a second round. I want to thank everyone who is here. And, Graham Pohl, I want to thank you very much because it sounds like you did have some positive impact on this. I will say, however, that you verbalized many of my concerns. So with that, I have some questions. and the first two are for staff. Two times in the staff report, a stormwater issue was mentioned. Can you just quickly give me some indication of is there a problem, is there not a problem? I know we are under new stormwater rules and have to be sure we have enough detention and that sort of thing. I believe the comments were about past reported problems in the area. What I failed to mention during my early remarks in the evening was they are proposing an area, let's see if I can highlight it here, where they are proposing underground stormwater detention on their portion of the site. It is over one of the rear access drives. Okay. That is their response to the stormwater issue for their development. And then can you tell me what are some of the other B6P zones inside the urban service boundary? There are several. They probably range in size, the small end being the Buckhorn Plaza on Buckhorn Drive in the vicinity of Old Squires Road to the largest being the Fayette Mall site, which is probably well over 50 acres in size. The Chinowee Center on Chinowee is B6P. Palomar Center is B6P. A lot of the Tates Creek Center, B6P. They're really sprinkled around the urban area. Okay. And then thank you very much, Mr. Sully. I'm not sure. We have an awful lot of paper in front of us. I'm not sure who gave me this. But there was a suggestion that a six-foot berm with evergreen trees be used instead of the wall. So I'm thinking for the applicant. Did you consider a berm with plantings? Just briefly. To get a six-foot berm, you need a whole lot of property because it's got to gradually slope up to be maintained and then down. And for an urban infill site to have a six-foot berm, you might see that at a Palomar Center or something like that. It's not really practical, which is why we advised the Planning Commission that we would commit to subject their approval, of course, which they did, this soundproofing fence, which we believe is handsome, and then additional landscaping, which we would then work out with the staff, have neighborhood feedback, certainly work with Graham to work on a lot-by-lot basis to screen whatever was necessary. If it was a 12-foot tree or a 14-foot tree, whatever was needed to best match it up, that would be the time to do it. Okay. Thank you on that. Now, about the R1E lot, which in the information someplace it says it's 0.21 acres, what would the impact be if we just took that off? That's not much property. Well, the impact would be significant, of course, on the work that's been done to design the store, including that parcel. And then what do you gain? Well, okay. You've got one house. Many cities put small pocket parks in those teeny tiny pieces. So I think, I know I heard you say that no one would build on that, but there are other things besides building that some cities use tiny pieces of land for, a bench and some trees and a pocket park. That was why I was asking what impact it would have to take that out. And then I have one more question about the transitional zoning, which I think Ms. Clark mentioned in her commentary. Did you consider, well, I guess this is a question for Bill Sally. If the other basic, thank you, Mr. Simpson. if the other B6P places in Lexington have transitional zoning when they're abutted next to neighborhoods? There are, I believe, some. The one that first popped into my mind is the Bryan Station Center, also anchored by a Kroger store at New Circle Road and Bryan Station. There was, I believe, a 50-foot buffer that remained residentially zoned that kind of insulated, if you will, that development which came after the subdivision. Okay. Thank you very much. Mayor, my time's up. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. And I have some questions. I'm not sure, but it's about, like, I'd like to know where the deliveries will be made, If that is on marquee or if the entrance is, are we going to have trucks running up the residential street? And the distance between the property on marquee. I'm very concerned about the property on marquee and the close proximity to the deliveries and things like that. So who can answer that for me? I want to know, did you say 50 feet from? There's 50 feet between the, well, more than 50 feet between the house on Marquee, the closest one. I think Kelly was here to share with you about and the Kroger building. You know, right now there's four feet. You know, if you look under tab three, you'll see pictures of the trash compactors four feet away from the current neighbor. And so we're pulling it back further, much further than what there is now. Plus, we're putting up a soundproof fence. Plus, we're putting up a new system to deal with trash compacting, limited hours as I've set forth in my conditional zoning recommendations, and additional screening and buffering to be worked out at the Planning Commission with the goal to completely screen for Ms. Kelly, by sight and sound, the store, none of which is going on now, which has not ever existed. And the trucks right now are much closer to the neighborhood, much more frequently than what will be the case under our new proposal. How is that? Well, because we'll be able to store inventory on site, and they won't need to come to the store as many times to replace the goods that are being purchased. There will be a significant number of trucks not having to visit the store. And will they be there in the evening hours? Do you know when the deliveries will come? Joe, can you answer the question about when the trips usually take place as far as the delivery trucks? You've got to speak in the microphone. It's Joe Hamilton. I believe the current delivery schedule for the store is 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., or I mean 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. So it will be morning hours. Those are Kroger trucks. You also have your what we call direct store vendors, your beer or Frito-Lay chips that usually come early mornings. And they do deliver off of a residential street? Well, currently we have a dock off of Marquee currently. So we currently have, and that was the one pictures you saw with the boulders and the one curb cut because we do have a dock off of Marquee. So our trucks currently are on Marquee. And we also have a dock that's on the opposite side of the store facing Ashland Avenue. And how will that change with the new development, where the deliveries come in and? The deliveries will come in off of Marquis. The same? Put the pointer button here. Here, let's use this one. You see that? There's the dock here. so the trucks will come down marquee come in to mark come in from this area and then exit out to ashland and so currently that's going on right now that's currently that's correct we have like i said we have two docks we have one where the trucks come in all from marquee which is our what we call our produce dock our produce deliveries uh because the store's so small we We have split docks. We also have a dock that currently, as Bruce has mentioned, sits very close to the residential properties here. And those trucks currently utilize this easement to go out to South Ashland as well. So that's currently existing today. And then when the new development, will that put the trucks closer to the residential property, closer to the house or farther away? It will be further away than what's currently in existence. Okay. And I did want to say a few comments, Bruce, because I know that I think when we look at Lexington and the – well, is my time up? No. I'm sorry. I'm back. I'm getting slap happy. I'm getting late. Yes, ma'am. Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Mayor. Since Mr. Bryce is not here, I'm not sure who can answer the question, but I guess it would be Bill Salee or maybe one of our attorneys. Did this issue about the easement come into play during the Planning Commission hearing? It did not. This was not mentioned at all at the Planning Commission hearing. So this is something that's just come about. I can't imagine that Kroger had not had any kind of communication with them at all. Is that correct? For two years, we were under the clear understanding that Mr. Bryce's clients were perfectly happy with the proposed development. It was not until June 25th of this year, one month after the Planning Commission recommended approval, that they want to discuss alternative terms with respect to their property. That was the first instance, and they wrote a letter to Mr. King, who also told them in a letter that this is the first we've ever heard from you about any complaint concerning this easement since the zone chain was filed. I see. Okay. Okay. Another matter, how many meetings have you had with the neighbors? I'm sorry? How many meetings in this two-year period have you had with the neighborhood? Mr. Lefkoe, if he were able to be here tonight, he could answer that question. He had a number of meetings, as I understand it, a couple of years ago with the leadership of a variety of neighbors in the area to let them know what was going on. He's met with the businesses in Chevy Chase. We had one major meeting with the neighbors at Woodland back in February. And, of course, I get correspondence a lot from the neighbors. I told them to write me with their recommendations. I would pass along those to Kroger. Changes were made in that regard. Of course, Graham Pohl is the unpaid architect that we listened to a great deal in terms of It was their design, but Graham helped to fit what Kroger wanted to do to match up, to be compatible with the neighborhood. So there was a lot of conversations between Graham and the architects at Kroger, numerous changes made, many, many times. So in my experience in dealing with cases like this, there's been a constant flow of information, recommendations for change that Kroger has responded to, including up until even yesterday. And, again, we have to go back to the Planning Commission to deal with a lot of their concerns on the development plan. And I'm sure there will be more tweaks, more adjustments, again, to be responsive and still have a functional, successful store, which at the end of the day, I think everybody wants to at least have a successful store. and so that's my that's the history it's been better than usual in my experience in terms of receiving input and the client responding to it two other questions will there be gas pumps on the location will there be gas pumps on the location no okay where's your pharmacy going to be located you're driving it is on it's currently on the rear of the property underneath where the ramp is located. We know we have some questions to deal with. That's a development plan question with the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission had some questions about that. And basically, we resolved to discuss that at the final development plan stage so that those discussions, as I said, among a number of other ones that I heard tonight were development plan concerns that are going to require a great deal more work. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Sondra. Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. A couple of comments and then a question or two. A couple of people have spoken about precedent, and I want to address that because I do believe that this zone change request does offer an opportunity to set a precedent for how this community is going to deal with infill and redevelopment. There are many people who believe that we need to conserve the green space that we have in our community, but don't seem to understand that that may require increased density, and that with increased density comes some changes in the neighborhoods we live in. I've heard clearly that the people in the neighborhood are not happy with this plan. I'm not convinced that the extent of their concerns is, well, let's say I'm not convinced that all of the negative things that they think will happen should this be approved will actually happen. I think there are ways to mitigate some of the effects. But the bottom line is you build a bigger store, there's going to be more traffic. I also have the sense that while Kroger has been very accommodating and has done its best to listen to the neighbors, the kinds of ways in which they've listened have not made a difference because the bottom line is, so long as Kroger is proposing a store of the size they are proposing, the neighbors are not going to be happy with it. So we could tinker around the edges. We could modify here and there. And I think some of the changes have been in the right direction. But the bottom line is, as long as that store is proposed to be the scale that it is, the neighbors are going to feel that it's going to have a negative impact. Bottom line. I've been talking to staff and attorneys about what possible way we could move forward. But I have a question for Kroger, Bruce, I guess, or whomever. And it's a hard question, and it's one you may not want to answer, so I'll label it that way. How much could you come down in the scale of that building, in the footprint to give a little more space between the edges where the building exists and the residential areas to alleviate some of the concerns about the impact on the immediate neighbors and, in coming down in scale somewhat, alleviate some of the concerns about the extent of negative impact on traffic and associated issues. Is there some latitude? Compromise. We can take a break and let them count well. Council Member Kay, you know, it's not like we, Kroger, came tonight with option A, option B, and prepared to compromise. As I'm sure you can imagine, there's a certain significant amount of research and methodology and business plan that goes into fashioning these stores. to make them large enough to accommodate and to perform in a marketplace and to be successful and not to be obsolete in a few years, considering the amount of money that they're going to be spending to make this clover store what they're proposing to make it. So we're certainly not prepared to offer some arbitrary reduction just for the sake of showing, to respond to your question. Again, I think we have been responsive. We will continue to be responsive relative to how the site is developed and the screening and the buffering. We made improvements even as late as yesterday. The traffic studies don't bear out any significant traffic problem whatsoever. However, not one staff member of the Urban County Government has said so. So, you know, I understand where you're headed, you know, but in terms of where we are and to have a store at the end of the day is going to marry up to the marketplace, which Kroger has a great deal of expertise in appreciating and developing and being successful. At this moment, this is where they have to be to be successful. And I think a 10,000 square foot reduction, whether it's in the basement and a thousand or 9,000 in the basement and 9,000 on the surface, you know, if I hear the objectors, they're happy with a 50,000 square foot store, but unhappy with a $64,000, you know, that $14,000 would be a category killer for Kroger to be successful. I mean, they know their business. That's why they've been the most successful grocery store in the United States for a long time. And you're talking about a building that is not going to be any taller appreciably than what the existing one is. It'll be a little bit more in terms of space. But you walk by the Kroger store now, you're walking by a suburban shopping center, Kroger, with asphalt, pavement, seal parking between the curb and the building. Now you're going to have an urban store that's up closer to the street where it's supposed to be, and we've provided additional screen back, screening, buffering along the sidewalk of Marquee to accentuate the architectural features that we've arrived at to make it even more compatible, more of a wow factor for the neighborhood. And we recognize there's a lot of work left to go with the Planning Commission to accomplish that result. I wish I could wave the magic wand and give you some comfort level, but at the end of the day, we want to provide a successful store, and the square footage is what we need to be successful. Thank you. My time's up. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. My first one's going to be for Mr. Salee, but I wanted to ask the gentleman, I think, with the purple shirt who had a bar graph of all the sizes of all the Kroger's, let's put that up on the Elmo while I'm asking Mr. Salee. For clarity for council and those viewing, there's only 11 of us here. It would take eight of our votes to overturn anything the Planning Commission had done. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. All right, Bruce, tell me about this bar graph that's not yours. Euclid Ab is 37.5 now. Shinoahe is 38. Niggasville Road is 45. Bryan Station is 91. And then there's the Euclid revision and proposed, I guess, one with the smaller basement. What I would like to hear, how does Kroger maximize its market capacity? How do they figure out what size, what was the alchemy that brought them to this size store versus one that was only half a getting bigger? I'm interested in how does this work at this square footage versus something smaller. That really is more of a business judgment decision on the part of. You've got those people with you. I do. I do. I'm glad you brought the team. Good evening. My name is Dave Pruder. I'm director of real estate for Kroger. A couple quick comments. Sure. Yes. One is, Bruce spoke very eloquently about the perception versus reality. So the question is to what is the correct size. In terms of Kroger and what we've done nationally, the prototype, if we build a store from the ground up, is roughly 90,000 square feet. The stores that you see from Beaumont to Richmond Road to Tate's Creek to Bryan Station, They were all smaller than what you see there today, and they were probably in that 45,000 to 60,000 square foot range. They've all been expanded to the size that you see there today of 90,000 to 120,000 square feet. So your question was, what is the optimum store size? It is roughly 90,000 square feet. What we've proposed here today is a very unique store, but trying to accomplish that same objective. 65 on the ground floor and 25 to 30 in the basement. The basement is what you typically would not, the customer would not see. It's the coolers, the freezers, the back room, the conference rooms for our employees, the employee break room, the lockers, the employee restrooms. It's all the things behind the scenes that you typically don't see. So that was put in the basement. So when you talk about the question of what's the ideal and how do we come to that, there's been, we have 2,500 stores. And through all of that history and what the people buy in our stores every day, we know what the needs of the customer are. And this prototype, this evolutionist store, has evolved to about 90,000 square feet with about 65,000 square feet of sales area. That's what's being represented on the ground floor area. Now, the reason you saw some hesitation when you asked the question, what could you reduce that size by? And I looked at Joe Hamilton, the engineer. it's because once you take one foot, it's not just one foot times 300 linear feet, and you take out 300 feet. That impacts everything throughout the entire store. So to be honest with you, I'm just the real estate guy. I can't tell you everything that impacts in terms of the deli, the meat, the seafood, the sushi, the organic section. It has ramifications all through that. So for us to sit here tonight and say, well, we could take another five feet off that store. To be honest with you, we don't know all the ramifications that would occur on the inside operation of that store. So we would appreciate your understanding as to that, that we can't really answer that question until we have to go back and completely redesign the interior of the store. and that redesign would be much different and inconsistent with what we're doing nationally across the company. I hope that gives a little better explanation for you. You did a great job and took all but 10 seconds of my time. Thank you. I will reload. You need any more? You want to reload? Is that what you said? Okay. All right. Council Member Henson. Thank you, Mayor. I was going to finish what I was. This that you provided, this picture of the fencing, and that would be between the property on Marquis and the Kroger delivery area, right? It would go along the entire boundary of the homes on Ashland Terrace. It actually, Kroger backs up to that house that you're talking about, the closest one. It may be facing Marquis, I think that's right. The side of it would face the Kroger store. So this is the house? Yes. Okay. So would it have that fencing? Yes. And it would be 50 feet from? Yes. A buffer? Yes. With additional screening in terms of evergreens in that area as well, over and above that eight-foot fence. You know, what I was going to say earlier, though, as far as infill and redevelopment, I do think it's a way that we can certainly improve our city and still preserve our farmland that's precious to us. But still, we have to go about it in the right way. And I think I don't see Euclid Avenue as being the same as Tate's Creek or one of our major corridors. It's really a two-lane road, right? No, it's actually four lanes or three lanes on each. It has bike lanes now. It's a Sherrill or something. But I'm like, I just don't see it as being a major corridor with one of the super big stores. So I don't know. Well, I wish there were some way that we could scale this down. I appreciate Kroger for wanting to invest into our city, but I just feel like the neighbors in the area have legitimate concerns. Well, I appreciate what you have to share. I believe we're answering those concerns in terms of the design and the buffering and a much improved store. If Kroger were to do nothing, the people that live in those houses would be much worse off if we didn't do a thing. Right. I mean, they're four feet away now, the compactor. The trucks are right next to the fence. There's no screening, no requirement for screening. Right. Never has been. So a significant amount of relief is going to come about. The pictures in here are not very attractive. I have to agree with the lady about the owner. It's a store that's long past due for renovation. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Council Member, back to Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mayor. Could I have that previous slide up there that had the square footage, bars and such? You know, when we're talking about this and looking at the bars across there, you really need to take the red bar and divide it roughly by three. Because you have the basement and you have the parking deck, but the true shopping area is on the first floor. And it's one-third the size of what that says, 88,000 square feet. Because they're talking about trying to compare that to Tates Creek or Romney Road, not Richmond Road, I mean. Not Romney Road, for God's sake. But those larger ones, and it isn't going to be one of those larger ones. It's going to be something closer to what it is right now than anything as far as where the people actually shop. And if I'm wrong, please tell me quickly. Let's maybe say it a little differently. the ground floor area will be closer to the Nicholas Road store in size than the examples of Bryan Station, Taste Creek, Richmond Road, and Beaumont. Okay, that's going to be my second question because I shop at the Nicholasville Road store and it needs severe help. So if this works, you can replicate it over there. There are a bunch of folks that just shake their head every time they go in and go out, but it's the only game in town as far as it is the major, major, major corridor in Lexington. It's 80,000 cars a day plus on Sundays. Thank you all. Just to confirm, the ground floor square footage as proposed now is 60-some thousand square feet. What is that number? 64. And the basement is another 20-something. So the surface area is actually increasing from the current 37.5, right, to 60. Okay. All right. So, Julian, that's it. Okay. All right. I can't read it. It's hard to read. The red. Right. Yes. But I think the question that Council Member Beard had was interpreting that 86,552. Right. It's something less than that now. I guess exactly what it is that we should shuffle it around. All right. Okay. Council Member Clark has not spoken yet. So, Council Member Clark. Thank you, Mayor. Dave and Joe and Bruce, I want you to know that I shop regularly at Beaumont, but I really resent having to walk through furniture to get my jug of milk. I just want you to know that. Seriously, if Bruce, if you could walk us through, maybe use a light here and show traffic movement here. automobiles and pedestrian because i'm still i can't read this chart and tell which where the where the cars are moving which direction they are where they're exiting where they're coming in and so forth where the trucks are going out uh that would help me a whole lot and surely i'll do that i would point out to you uh council member clark this is a preliminary It's purely conceptual. It is put together in a zone change to give the Planning Commission some idea of how the development would function. By no means is it a finished product. In fact, in this particular case, as we discussed at the Planning Commission during the hearing, there was going to be a whole lot of serious review and scrutiny relative to changing things around in terms of internal traffic movements, access points, things of that nature, the drive-through window, the ramp, parking, all of those things, which is really the product of what a planning commission does after zoning, is get into the details of it. So it is fairly broad at this point with the recognition that under the zone change ordinance, to file a zone change, you present something conceptual. Issues are raised, issues are flagged, and this is what you need to be prepared to come back with. if you get the zoning approved, because this is what the Planning Commission and the staff... The reason I ask that, Bruce, is because that's part of the contention of our conversations today is traffic and movement and safety, pedestrians, and so forth. And the Planning Commission approved the development plan as we have it in terms of the traffic coming primarily off of Euclid in here, entering and exit off of Euclid, those two points. There will be some traffic that comes in, as it always has for 40-plus years off of South Ashland, but we believe that to be a de minimis amount, probably 10%, 15% at most. The great bulk, 85%, will be right here. This will be primarily for where the trucks would come in between 8 and 10 a.m. to unload their merchandise and for the 10 or 12 cars a day that would likely visit the drive-thru pharmacy. People that are sick, mothers with children who don't want to get out of their cars to get their drugs and so medicine, like all of us do, will go through the drive-thru pharmacy. Every Kroger has one. But that's the general routing of it. And then there's various points in here where traffic is slowed down to a manageable degree and allow for parking and turning and that sort of thing. But as we discussed, in terms of the internal management, there may be some revisions to all of this. There were some discussions even before we got to the final hearing about the development plan. changes were made, and that's why the Planning Commission recommended approval of this conceptual plan. So we recognize there will be some additional factors. But in terms of the traffic that gets out in the neighborhood, I mean, most of the traffic right here, 85 percent, is where it's always come from, right in through here, off of Euclid, which is a minor arterial design for that purpose. Yes, I understand that. How about pedestrian traffic? Is that going to change at all? I mean, I hear concerns about pedestrian traffic. pedestrian traffic will actually be improved. It's going to be, it takes 400 and approximately 80 feet from right here where the residential ends to get to the Kroger store right now. Right now, you come up and cross over, it's 480 feet. Under the revised plan that we've submitted, it's 390 feet pedestrian access. It's much closer for the people that live over here for pedestrian access because they would have to go another 100 feet to get to Kroger's store here because this is a suburban design. All the sea of parking, you had to walk through all the cars. You don't have to do that under this design. It's an urban design for an urban neighborhood and you walk right up to the entrance of the store, right off of Euclid and right off of Marquis. I understand that. I understand what that design is. If pedestrians were coming off of South Ashland, they'd have to come through that one small area, would they not? Right now, they're just walking right through the easement. We're certainly, that was an issue that's going to have to be addressed in terms of the final development plan, setting aside some pedestrian-oriented route that's safe, certainly, which means we'll have to negotiate more with the town and country folks. I drove that today through the whole area today, just kind of looking over. And I remember that one passage, and I wondered, it's so small. It's pretty narrow. It's just been there for years and years and years. Cokers are using it now, right? Yes. Yeah, they're using it now. And so one of the issues that we knew are going to be prepared to address in a lot more detail. I mean, you're talking several months to go through meetings with staff and engineers to put the designated pedestrian points on all of this, which is really the final development plan, which is a whole public hearing. People can comment about it. I wanted to address those because I think those are my concerns. And also, Bruce, one more question, then I'll quit. Would you explain in this design where somebody checks out of the store, they go through the cash register, where do they come out of the store here? I'm going to let Kroger representatives that designed this speak to that. Joe, you want to illustrate for Council Member Clark about that? Current plan shows exit points here, here, here, here, and there. So check out at all those places? No. The main checkouts are here, okay? Yes. We are still working on a plan for this entrance here. Okay. So how many checkout points? I don't know. Don't know. The last point I saw was quite a few self-checkouts, some of what we call Ural checkouts, which are manned express and some of the larger lanes. I don't know the exact quantity, or I don't remember the exact quantity. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you both. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Simpson. Okay, in rolling down through these proposed conditional zoning things that you handed out earlier, number four says the property shall not be subdivided into commercial outlaws, meaning there would not be a Kroger fuel pier. I need to know now. I'll let the clients have to answer that question. And meaning there would be no freestanding liquor store. will this location incorporate a jewelry division inquiring minds want to know i would say on behalf of carver no it wasn't a make or break just an ask i understand all right number seven and this goes back to mr poll's comments the owner of the subject property shall inform i mean uh what do people do when they're sitting there in the winter to keep warm in their truck, they let it run. It strikes me. I mean, is noise, how much is noise a factor here is what I'm asking you. Joe, you want to? At least from your all's perceptive angle. In regards to truck idling? That's what this is talking about. The owners of the truck shall inform all delivery trucks to cut their engines once the truck is parked unload product. Our Kroger fleet, Kroger's been in the process for the last few years to put automatic idle shutoffs onto our vehicles. They shut off after two to three minutes. So it's part of our business plan to shut our trucks off. Very good. When they're unloading. Or go to compressed natural gas, man. There you are. So one of the things we'll have to work on and enforce, which is very doable, is working with our direct store vendors, the beer guys, the chip guys, to make sure they turn their trucks off when they get out. You're good. Thank you. Bruce. All right, number nine is not listed here. Show me the bus stop. How's the bus stop? Is it covered? Does it incorporate into the design? Do people want to stand there? Can they get to it? Well, there is one going to be across the street, but this is the one on this side of the street. Yeah. Now, we're going to have one. because of the shift in having the opening on marquee now, we've had to relocate that. All right, so I need to go. That's right there, I think. Is this the most up-to-date plan here that he's in the? This one here is the most up-to-date. Does it show the bus stop on it? Well, let's grab a camera, man. We had on that point, we had to stop complaining. We realized that this separation... Poke a mic under his mouth. There you go. When we submitted the first plan to the Planning Commission or to Technical Committee, these entrances and exits were combined. And through some negotiating with traffic engineering and discussions, We split those, but we left the bus stop right here between those. We realized at a later date that's going to block one of those entrances when the bus stops. So we have moved the bus stop back to before you get to the entrance into it. So this is all concrete across the front, and that's the intended location for the bus stop. This is something we have to negotiate with the transit authority, though. Yeah, and they want to partner with you. I know that already. So does this go under that white overhang that's on the front, or how do people? It's intended to be an enclosed, sheltered bus stop out at the sidewalk. The overhang will not completely come out to that. It will be a freestanding. So this will be a freestanding bus stop that you all will construct in concert with Lex Tran? Yes. That might have to be number nine on your list if we get that far. Thank you very much. All right, Bruce, back to you. what of Romany? Talk to the people of the 5th District. Shinaway has been upgraded. We're talking about upgrading this one. And poor little Romany has just become the little backwater of Kroger there. I mean, I shop there, and when I get coupons, I have to go to Richmond Road and wander around to find the stuff, because it's not in evidence on Romany now. So, what becomes of Romany? Dave, you want to take that one? Please. We don't know yet what will become of Romney in terms of what we can accomplish at that store. It's only 25,000 square feet. It was acquired by Randall's. Right. Unlike this property that we're talking about today, which we own all the land that we're talking about, we do not own the property there. Right. We are a tenant there, and we would have to have negotiations with that property owner to have permission to stay longer than what we currently have the right to do. So that would, to a certain degree, for the consuming public that goes up there, explain why some upgrades haven't been made because you're in a leased out situation potentially. That's correct. We lease that store. We don't own it. So at some point in the future, and it's the fairly near future. It's not too distant. Yeah. We would need to negotiate for extended term, extend our lease there to have the right to stay and invest in that property. And so it's not Kroger's unilateral choice what to do there. It's also the property owner's. So there's a potential you could leave there held harmless and someone else could come into that spot. There's potential that the owner says bye-bye and we're out of term and we have to vacate the premises. Or some arbitrated or negotiated other situation could happen. Or we negotiate to stay and reinvest in the property. So that's why that decision there is mutually exclusive from what we're trying to do here. But obviously what we're trying to do here hopefully will influence that property owner. Very good. I think I'm done for now, Mayor. Okay. Council Member Sadi. Thank you, Mayor. Would you mind coming back to the podium? I'm sorry. I can't remember your name. It's a little late. You said you do the real estate for the Kroger's. Yes. You said there's about 2,500 across the country. Is that correct? Yes. I'm not responsible for all 2,500. Northeast region maybe, southeast region, whatever. Becky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois. Okay. There's got to be a footprint, I would assume, that you've used in another urban setting that's smaller than the one that we have here today. That's comparable as far as goods and services and so forth. No? No, ma'am. So you've only got, what, maybe a half dozen footprints that you're utilizing, maybe three? We really have two today if you're going to build from the ground up, and it's the 90,000-square-foot store I referred to, and then it's about a 125,000-square-foot store that we just opened in Georgetown. So even on a refurb like this building is here, you don't have a unique type of an urban footprint. No. That's why this is so unique, that this is one of the first opportunities where we've had to do it from the ground up versus maybe acquiring property or acquiring another chain like we did Randall's. Okay. I thought you had maybe a couple of footprints that you utilized in different locations maybe that were urban settings other than this. No. This store will be unique. This is a flagship. It's a hybrid, and it's one that we're very excited about, And it will be a store that I'm sure the consumers, once it's in operation, will be very happy with. Because it's going to have all the bells and whistles. But as we said, it's a little bit different because what you typically see when you shop at a store, that's the ground floor area. What you don't see is in the basement. So it allows us to accomplish the types of products and variety and selection that you want to see and what our customers are demanding of us in this particular store. And what we've created here gives us the opportunity to do just that. I understand. Thank you. All right. Council Member Lawless. Thank you, Mayor, as much as I hate to prolong this. First, has there been a traffic study of the South Ashland area? Because originally what I heard was that the original plan was to have your main entrance on Euclid, which would be the primary artery of that area. And then in South Ashland Avenue, there wasn't a traffic study done there. do you have a traffic study of south ashland we have a traffic study that was um we were directed to uh examine by the planning staff and comply with the zoning ordinance i'm gonna let diane Zimmerman come up and respond to that because south ashland was certainly looked at it's referenced in the report and she can address anything you want about the traffic study because she hadn't gotten to talk yet tonight that's right now's her time good evening diane zimmerman thank you for letting me stand up good evening the um staff did not request the south ashland entrance to be examined because it does not have of a direct connection. It is an easement. And as we've heard tonight, that easement could go away. And therefore, the worst case scenario that the staff wanted evaluated was what if all the traffic went to Euclid? Okay. So the bottom line answer is no. No. The South Ashland entrance is not included. Now, it is the primary entrance and exit for traffic with the traffic coming off the rooftop garage, which I think rooftop garages are awesome. But what I see is the ramp there would go out Ashland Avenue. Actually, it wouldn't. We don't think that it will. So you think somebody's going to come down that ramp and drive all the way around? I feel like I'm in Hamburg and I'll never get home. Again, this is a development plan question in terms of interior traffic management. And it's set up, designed to direct it toward Euclid in terms of traffic islands, signage, and the like. The fact that that easement has been there is a very... I'm not interested in easement, and I only have a few minutes. I just want a yes or no, and it seems to me... The answer is it's not directed in that direction, no. Okay, so will there be something to be a barrier there to keep people from going out? The traffic calming direction is to go to Euclid, which is the main access point. It's right there. That's where it's designed to be. So somebody's going to go on the roof, down the ramp. It's right there by the easement to South Ashton. stop signs here and turning directions internally that is going to funnel the traffic back out this way for 80% or 90% of the traffic. We estimate, Diane correct me if I'm wrong, 10% would utilize this easement just because it's narrow and people aren't going to go down there unless people that live locally back in this part of the neighborhood that have traditionally used it. Most of the motoring public comes off Euclid. So, okay. I mean, what I know about these neighborhoods is some of the most dangerous intersections in the city are around these neighborhoods. That's not been shown by any traffic study that we've seen. Well, yeah, but you haven't seen them all because you didn't have one for salvation. I've seen them all that's been published. But we have Fontaine, Euclid, and High Street. We have Kentucky Avenue, Maxwell, and High Street, which has been redone, and we're waiting for some utility work. We've got Main and Vine, where it turns into one way by the Herald-Leader. You know, there's no doubt that there are a lot of dangerous intersections because they were built many years ago. So that being said, this is also the cut through for everybody that works downtown or UK. They cut through these neighborhoods constantly. And I don't know how you can triple the number, double, triple the size, and not expect more traffic. Well, number one, again, the traffic study went with the worst-case scenario with no subtraction for students that walked to it or biked to it or people that rode the bus. None. It was presumed every person that shopped in that store went in a car. Now, that's unrealistic, and we all know that. And the people that traditionally have shopped in this store, historically, have entered off of Euclid Avenue. 85% is always, and that will not change. Well, it will if you change the orientation of the store. No, it won't change because the traffic management is still going to be directing people this way. On the South Ashland side. No. Okay, my time's up. I'm pulling my lashes out now. Thank you. Okay. Okay. It's getting late. Okay. Attention span. Yes. By Samir Gordon. It is getting late. Thank you, Mayor. Graham Pohl, would you mind to come to the microphone, please? When you spoke, you articulated a lot of my concerns, which I've asked some questions about some of them, and you thought, I believe you said, you thought there were some ways to make improvement. Would you want to flesh those out at all or give us some idea of what you were thinking might be improvements? Well, I think that might have been a statement made in reference to the concerns about the easement and the townhouse property issue. issue. Okay, which we've heard a good bit on that. Did you have any ideas about the R1E property? You mentioned that. No, I don't. I think what I should have articulated better is my sense that the store is not too big. I also have a feeling that while there are a lot of concerned people here voicing one opinion, that my sense from the community is that the majority opinion does not agree with what you're hearing here. My sense of the community is that most people want a larger store a better store my feeling about what's happening urbanistically on the site is that what's there is urbanistically about as bad as it could be and that this store is correcting a real problem I think the way the way it addresses the streets is absolutely the right thing the way it opens to Euclid is absolutely the right thing. And you mentioned, I know you've been on the Design Excellence Task Force. You've served on a lot of the work groups and task forces that are helping us get to where we need to be with our infill and redevelopment and improved design. And I know that one of the concerns way back when we started talking about infill and redevelopment was impact on neighborhoods. And so I guess from your perspective and all of your service on these task forces, are you comfortable with this in terms of a redevelopment and the neighborhood around? I mean, we've heard a lot of neighbors say it's too big. I am comfortable with it, and I don't think it's too big. I think that you have to be thinking about where we're going, and we're not getting smaller, and we're not getting more sparse. and I think that you have to respect a series of experts who know their business and who make projections and who understand what it takes to stay in business and who have demonstrated a willingness to invest heavily in a peculiar site and with an idiosyncratic market, I think it's remarkable. I don't think you're going to get this opportunity again anytime soon. And so, you know, honestly, I started this whole process very cynical and very skeptical because of what I had seen them do there before. and it's one of the reasons that I volunteered was because I was really concerned that they were going to follow suit and do something really bad again. And so I'm very surprised at the experience I've been through. I have to tell you I've done a huge amount of volunteer work, as you may know. Of all the volunteer hours I've put in, the hours I've spent on this are by far, in my feeling, the most effective, the most successful, the most satisfying time I've ever put on any volunteer work I've ever done by a huge margin. And I have to give credit to, with one exception, I've caught a lot of vilification from some of my neighbors who don't agree with my standpoint. And that really hurts me because most of these people I agree with on almost everything else. And I, in fact, agree with them to a great extent on some of the things that they're voicing concerns about this evening. But I don't think I deserve to be vilified for what I've done, and so that hurts. But every other aspect of this thing has been an amazing experience because it's actually made a huge difference. The store that they were proposing in the beginning was not good. The store that they're proposing now is not just good. It's really, really good. That's my opinion. I appreciate your willingness to come up and talk again. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mayor. I have a question for Attorney Simpson. We've heard a lot from the neighbors, the residential neighbors in the neighborhood, and I share a lot of their concerns. I share the concerns in regards to the access points as it pertains to the easement connecting to South Ashland. I have concerns about the access points as it now pertains to, and I'm looking at the map, so forgive me, off a marquee. With this expanded store, PNC Bank, I have not heard PNC Bank's branch mentioned at all tonight. And it is to the, I guess would be to the east of the property. With all the amenities in the expanded store, similar to what you guys offer in other stores, There are four independent stand-alone bank branches on this block, and PNC being right next door. Do you guys foresee having a branch bank inside the expanded Euclid, a lot to what we have on Alexandria, what we have on Bryan Station? I'm just wondering. We think that's a great idea. And we approached P&C about that very concept, about coming into our store and then being able to tear down their existing branch and utilize that for additional parking, surface parking. They were not receptive to that. They actually went to corporate, I believe, which is in Pittsburgh, and ran it up the ladder, and they elected to stay where they were at. So that was one of the first things we tried before we got to the concept about rooftop parking, we tried to go the traditional route of acquiring more property to expand the surface parking. One point while I'm up here that might give you a little bit more comfort, two things. One is the pharmacy drive-thru is very low volume. You're talking 12 per hour. So it's not high demand in terms of creating traffic problems. There's been discussion about the combination of the pharmacy drive-thru and the ramp. The other thing I would tell you about the ramp is where do you think we're going to encourage our employees to park? It's going to be on the roof. So the traffic movement is not customers as much as it will be employees. And those ploys are there for four hours, six hours, eight hours when they're working for us to serve the customers. Why do we do that? So we can make available all the surface parking to the customers in the more traditional sense of what they're accommodating. But if the customer goes to the roof, that's why we have the elevators. That's why we'll have the escalator for the convenience of the customer. So those two things will diminish, I think, some of your concerns about all the traffic, if you will, associated with the pharmacy drive-through and the ramp. And I think, Ms. Lawless, you raised a good point. And there's been some changes on the site plan, and it was primarily due to those two reasons, pharmacy and ramp. but to Bruce's point, the majority of the traffic that visits this center is from Euclid Avenue. That's what it is today. That's what it will continue to be. And we need to make sure that we enhance the accessibility from the parking lot to Euclid. And so I think there's some changes that can be made that were originally proposed that got tweaked, that you make sure that there's a direct route in and out to the Euclid curb cut. And I think it would alleviate some of your concerns. It also then alleviates the concern about traffic increasing on Ashland Avenue, if that makes sense. Thank you. Attorney, just in my last 30 seconds, the only concern, I was wondering, it was mentioned earlier about density. And you guys, what you are proposing right now is very, very dense, but that's where we have to go as far as infield redevelopment. But as I look at your neighbor next door, PNC, and that's their property, rightfully so, you can't plan on their property. I think my recollection is there's nothing that separates their surface parking lot from the existing parking lot except a fence and maybe some buffering there. if there were some opportunities to share there. In closing, as I recall it right now, even if it is true that the majority of the access to the existing store now is from Euclid, it's two access points from Euclid in. And this would just be proposing just one access in off of Euclid. And that was, Council Member Ford, the recommendation from Division of Engineering because it was their belief that the more access points that you had off of Euclid, the more likely Ferrarian collisions. And so it was a safety factor. They wanted to have a widened singular entrance to eliminate that additional movement, stop and go, that would create accidents. So we followed their recommendation on that. Thank you, Attorney. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Kaye. Thank you, Mayor. I think we're maybe getting close to wrapping up, so I wanted to kind of share my thoughts about where we are on a few things. First, on the design itself, in my mind there's no question that this is an incredible improvement for that location. This is the kind of thing we need to be doing. I thank Graham Pohl for making the case more eloquently than I can. but just in terms of design for infill this is exciting this is something we ought to be doing secondly there's technical questions that have to do with planning and zoning and as someone who served on the planning commission i'm reluctant now as a member of council to lightly overturn a recommendation from staff and a recommendation unanimously from the Planning Commission. They're telling us that simply in terms of what's appropriate for zoning, that this is something that should be done. But then there's a bigger question, and that is the neighbors themselves and the larger community. And I have heard tonight from many people that I know well about their concerns, and I care about those concerns. And I believe I come to a different conclusion about whether they weigh heavily enough in the balance, given the opportunity to make a statement about infill and redevelopment and how we want to do that in this community. I think we have an opportunity here, and I believe we need to take it. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member K. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. I agree. I believe decorum presents that the council member for the area needs to make a motion first. I would defer to her. She is next up on the list. But what I would say to council is if whatever her motion is fails, I would bring a motion to approve this based on the findings of fact from the Planning Commission. Mayor, if the council has finished asking questions with all the factual... Well, then I've got a couple of questions quickly then. Okay, I was just going to say, when we all are done, it will be appropriate to close the hearing. And you're talking about the building height and the sidewalk and the landscaping. What size of the trees you would plant along Marquis? I mean, the pictures you show have them as tall as the parking structure. I don't believe you'll plant them at that height. No, those obviously have some growth with them. But Kroger's marching orders, to me, whatever needs to be done to finish this project out as a top-shelf project, listening to Mr. Pohl, listening to the neighbors, listening to the staff, they're willing to do. We didn't want to just carte blanche, design something at this point and say this is it. They're willing to do whatever is necessary landscaping-wise along marquee and along the back end of the store to be successful in screening the back end and making the architecture pop on marquee. We're on record at the Planning Commission on that basis, and we're on record now. And my experience is they hold me accountable to those remarks. They always have. Any idea how big the trees were going to be that you're going to plant? You know, we had a landscaping plan. It's actually in the booklet, but that was a suggestion. And the promise that was made, and it's in the record of the Planning Commission, we will work with all the appropriately interested parties, just like we did with design of the physical structure to do it. Between the building and the sidewalk in which appropriate landscaping shall be installed to complement and enhance the architecture with a minimum planted tree height of 15 feet. Can you handle that? That's fine. Can you go taller? I'm sorry? Can you go taller? Can you make them 20 feet? Well, you know, I'm not a landscape architect. That's fine. I'm wanting to know. and I'm spending my clients' money without getting their permission. Well, they want you to do this. You know, I mean, landscaping is, you know, really I'd like to hear from Graham Pohl to talk about the height of it because we want to make sure it's complementary. Sometimes architects, you know, they will say concealing or hiding a building is not a good urbanistic, a good thing to do, a wise thing to do. She needs a copy. I agree, Mayor, and that's why. Graham, do you want to weigh in again with your free time to talk about the kind of landscaping you would envision to make the marquee? I don't have to hurt. Yeah. We wanted to complement and enhance the streetscape. I don't know if that's 15 feet or 18 feet or 12 feet. It may be all of those things, but our commitment is it will be first class and it will complement the aesthetics of the building, which will have very nice materials. All right, Mr. Farmer, are you still up? Yeah. In the commentary here, it's become clear that these two council members do not have a copy of this. Somehow or another, they don't have this. They need to have this for the conversation that's about to ensue. I'm imploring staff to make a copy or for you to come up with two. I'm giving 25 copies. I've got one here. The queen needs one right there. I've got more. I made two that's right here. That's enough. Mr. Farmer, we're having someone run across the hall and make some copies. I've got several right here. Okay. Do we settle to 18? Was that it? I've got about eight copies. 15 to 18. Fine. We're going to take a recess. Okay. Who needs a copy of the proposed findings or the proposed conditions? She does. All right. At this point, Mayor, I will defer to the council member for the area. Thank you. All right, sir. Council Member Lawless? Council Member Lawless? Yes. gas pumps, gas stations as part of the development? That's number four. The answer is yes. Okay. Well, it says subdivided into commercial outlots. I think it's... And first of all, I also want to say thank you to Mr. Pohl, and I'm sorry that you were vilified. I get vilified, and I know how that feels. And to everybody, and there's going to be hurt feelings. These things are hard. I think it's clear that there are not the votes to overturn the finding of facts here. But I would like to make a motion that... Council Member Lawless, just one second. If you're ready to make a motion, we need to make sure that we're appropriately following the rules. Tracy, we have to close the hearing before we get a motion as to the adopting findings of fact, right? That's correct. So if all the questions and all the factual questions or information is concluded, then the hearing would be appropriate to be closed. All right. So, Council Member Lawless. Were you intending to make a motion regarding the findings of fact or something else? I was going to make a motion on the findings of fact. Okay. Well, then, before we do that, I'll need to close the hearing. All right. So, Mr. Chair, I will now declare that the hearing is closed. and we are now at the section of the hearing or at the section where the Council will adopt findings of fact. So as Chair, I will entertain motions on findings of fact And if we need some, this is always sort of tricky, and that's where when we get into those tricky zones, I usually defer to our law department to explain. So Tracy Jones, who's a primary lawyer for our planning and zoning, is here. And Tracy, why don't you take us through the process here? And I know Ed Gardner, who is, we've got a good team here, even at the 11th hour and 30 minutes. Well, it appears to me, based on Council Member Lawless's statement, that there's already been some discussion, but I don't know about what this motion is going to be. But if you all are intending to approve what the Planning Commission recommended to you in their action, you would need to make findings of fact that adopt what is in their report that is part of the record that Mr. Salee put in earlier, and you would need to vote on that. Once you do that, if there are additional conditional zoning restrictions that have been voluntarily submitted that you would like to incorporate, you would also need to vote on those. And then we would, as an amendment to the ordinance that approves the zone change, then we would need to incorporate those into that and give it a second reading. If you are going to disapprove it, which I don't know which way you're intending to go, you would also have to have findings of fact that would be different from those that the Planning Commission made. You would have to adopt those. Then you would have to vote the ordinance, and you would have to vote it down, which would require eight votes. So we will be more than happy to help you with the wording on the conditions and things to the degree we haven't already provided you what you've asked for, if need be. But that's kind of where you are, I think. All right. Okay. So, Councilman Lawless, do you wish to make a motion? I think it's been requested that we have a five-minute recess. No? No. Okay, so people have the opportunity. I'd like a motion to make a motion. And based on the fact that I think this needs a lot of tweaking, There are insufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that the requirements of KRS 100.213 are met to support a zone map amendment for the subject parcels for the following reasons. The applicant proposes a rezoning of five parcels of land with the following parcel identifications. 704 Euclid Avenue, B1, 408 Marquee Avenue, R4, 412 Marquee, P1, 416 through 418 R1 and R1E, 420 Marquee Avenue, R1E. The proposed B6P zoning for all parcels is not currently allowed under the approved zoning map. The applicant failed to produce evidence that the proposed zoning changes are in agreement with the 2007 comprehensive plan for the four backlots because the marquee backlots do not allow for retail trade and personal services in the 2007 comprehensive plan. The existing P1 zoning allows for an appropriate mix of uses with the existing R1E and R4 zones. The parcel's existing zone can be utilized for future development. There is no transitional zoning between the proposed highly intensive B6P zone with the existing small low-density residential lots immediately adjacent on Ashland Terrace. D, the applicant failed to produce sufficient evidence that the current zoning is inappropriate and the proposed zoning classification is appropriate because there exists viable uses for the subject parcels under the existing zoning classifications. Two, the 420 marquee lot can be severed from the proposed development, which would still allow the applicant the minimum three-acre size requirement for the proposed development. And three, the proposed zoning classification and development is too intense. Four, the existing P1 lots are an appropriate step-down transition in intensity between highly intense commercial use and residential uses. While infill development is a goal and objective adopted by the city, it must be sensitive to the existing character and integrity of the adjacent residential neighborhoods. and sixth, the proposed development required the grant of five separate variances by the Planning Commission. The need for so many variances calls into question and demonstrates that the underlying proposed zoning classification is inherently inappropriate for the site. if the applicant failed to produce sufficient evidence that there have been major changes of an economic, physical, or social nature within the area involved, which were not anticipated in the comprehensive plan and which would have substantially altered the basic character of the area because, one, the proposed rezoning and high-intensity development is a further inclusion into the already stable residential community. Two, the character of the local community would be damaged by the proposed rezoning and development due to the high-intensity nature of the proposed use. Three, the noise, light, and litter consequences of the high-intensity nonresidential proposed use will damage the integrity of the stable, older neighborhood. G, there is no demonstrated compelling need for an enlarged grocery store at this site. Two, the applicant has the burden of proof to present sufficient evidence to support granting the application to change the zoning classification of the subject parcels. And three, based on the evidence submitted, the Fayette Urban County Council finds the record to be insufficient to justify granting a zone map amendment for the subject parcels. So moved. All right, we have a motion. We have a motion, and we have a second. All right, is there any discussion on the motion? Just for clarity, the motion? Yeah, that's a good point. I can't repeat. What the motion just represented, and that's why I took a journey over to the attorneys, the motion by Council Member Lawless, as I interpret it, and help me here if I'm wrong, Tracy, is a motion to adopt the Council's own findings of fact that would be different than the planning commissions. Correct? Correct. To disapprove. In other words, to disapprove the Planning Commission's recommendations and to adopt our own. That's correct. Right. All right. So as a matter of course, you all will have to vote on the findings of fact first. If you approve these findings of fact by a vote of eight, then you would have to then vote. We'd have to give second reading to the ordinance, and you would have to vote it down based on your findings of fact. You just adopt it. If you don't adopt the findings of fact, then the floor would be available for another motion. Right. Okay. So now does everyone understand that? You're shaking your head, Madam Peggy. Well, I was just wondering, Diane read a lot of, I guess, conditions, right? Well, what I read was that they failed to meet the findings of fact. So you said you're going against, okay. Against the Planning Commission. But Tracy had said, I thought, Tracy, that if we want to put conditional things on there, that we would do that later, right? But since she's after this. Well, if you were going to agree with the Planning Commission to adopt their findings of fact in support of approval, but you also wanted to add the conditional, then you would do that later, yes. We would do that. But your motion, I misunderstood then because your motion was to vote against the commission. If this does not pass, then we can vote for the findings of fact by the Planning Commission with conditions if people want to add such. So even though I seconded, I will vote against that. Okay. Okay. So you want to withdraw your second? I would like to withdraw my second. All right. The Chair accepts the withdrawal of the second. All right. Is there any, does anyone else wish to second the motion? All right. So the motion dies for lack of a second. All right. Now the floor is available for a motion. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mayor. If I may, I would like to step in here and say to some of those here and listening that many years ago I said in this audience when a zone change came to Chevy Chase for a nine-story Chevy Chase Plaza, and one of those developers is in the news even today. but my loss here that day motivated me to be on this council. And the needs of the city have changed. The dynamics of the city have changed. And the opportunity for great design to come to Chevy Chase has been presented to us. Having said that, I'd like to move that we approve MARV 2013-10 Kroger Limited Partnership 1 based on the findings of fact placed by the Planning Commission. If this is a successful motion, I will be adding the proposed conditional zoning restrictions that were outlined in the memo that Mr. Simpson handed out with a couple of additions. Second. Thank you. Motion. We have a motion by Council Member Farmer, and we have a second by Council Member Massadi. A vigorous second. All right. Is there any discussion on the motion? We're on the line. All right. Council Member Lawless. Thank you. Since we didn't hear all his before it was seconded, and I would have seconded it too, there's one addition that I would like to make to that, and that would be to exclude 420 Markey from the rezoning. That's an amendment. I'd like to amend his conditions. Would you restate that motion, please, Council Member Lomas? Yes, I'd like to offer an amendment. if Council Member Farmer would so graciously accept it, to exclude 420 marquee from the zone change and keep it R1E. That's the tiny lot. They will still have three acres. Mayor, I think that Mr. Farmer's motion and Ms. Massotti's second was to approve the findings of fact that the Planning Commission relied on when they made the recommendation. I think you need to vote on that, and then you're going to have to have a separate motion with separate findings to exclude 420 because that's not what the Planning Commission did. Okay. All right. Okay. I'll withdraw. Thank you. All right. Is there any further discussion on the motion? All right. All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. All in favor? I believe this is a roll call. Roll call. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Ms. Gorton? Aye. Ms. Henson? Yes. Mr. Kay? Yes. Ms. Lawless? Yes. Ms. Mazzotti? Yes. Ms. Sketchfield? Yes. Mr. Beard? Yes. Mr. Clark? Yes. Mr. Ellinger? Yes. Mr. Farmer? Yes, ma'am. And Mr. Ford? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The vote reflects passage of the motion. Mayor. Council Member Farmer. I'd like to make a motion to add these proposed conditional zoning restrictions to what we just passed. They are, number one, the height of the building shall not exceed 28 feet above the finished floor elevation, except in those limited areas, special design features reflected on the preliminary development plan approved by the Planning Commission and the architectural renderings tendered to the Planning Commission. Number two, the building shall be built in substantial conformity with the architectural renderings tendered to the Planning Commission except for complementary and necessary adjustments that might be needed should the final development plan be revised by the Planning Commission. The applicant has voluntarily agreed to this condition. Number three has a slight addition that I'm going to add at this time. There shall be at least a six-foot landscape area along Marquise Avenue between the building and the sidewalk in which appropriate landscaping shall be installed to complement and enhance the architecture with a minimum planted tree height of 18 feet. Number four, the proposed property shall not be subdivided into commercial outlots. Number five, an eight-foot tall privacy fence shall be installed along the rear boundary line of the subject property with supplemental plantings. Number six, there shall be no use of loudspeakers on the property except that a low-level amplification system may be used at the drive-thru pharmacy, but no such amplification shall be heard at the property line of the subject property. Number seven, the owner of the subject property shall inform all delivery trucks to cut their engines once the truck is parked to unload product. Number eight, the trash compactor shall only be utilized between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. and number nine, one additional one. The final development plan will include the location and installation of a covered bus stop on Euclid Avenue. So moved. Second. Motion. There's a motion by Council Member Farmer, second by Council Member Lawless. Is there any discussion on the motion? All right. Hearing none, then we can take a vote. Does this require a roll call? This is just a voice vote. All right. Council Member Beard. I'm really dialing back, aren't I? Poor guy. Council Member Farmer, did you say 18 feet? I did. I said 18 feet. What exactly type of tree is that? A sequoia? It's the long, skinny one that's provided in the handout here. Huh? I'm not going to look in the book right now. I'm just asking him. Well, it's a tall, skinny tree. It's this tree. It's this tree. Oh, it's like an arborvitae or whatever. But planted to begin with at 18 feet and high. Okay, that's fine. I just wondered what it seemed. We asked him. He said he could go to 18, so decided we go with him. I don't care. I'd just like to know. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right. Is there any further discussion? All right. Then we can take a vote. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye and voting electronically. Can we get a voting electronically? Yep. we can. All right. Motion? Motion passes. Vote reflects passage of the motion. All right. Council Member Wallace. Okay. It is my understanding that at this point I can add changing the from a neighborhood business B1, well, the R2, R1, I'm sorry, I can't even see or think straight. Never could, but it's even worse now. The lot at 420 Marquis be removed from the B6 zone change finding of facts. I think maybe what you're saying is that you would like to remove 420 Marquee Avenue from the zone change, and you'll need to read findings of fact to support that as well. And amend the findings of fact that this council just adopted like five minutes ago. Amending it. Yes. and then we'll go from there. Okay. Whereas a public hearing held on May 23, 2013, a petition for a zoning ordinance map amendment for properties located at 704, 408, 412, and 416 Marquee Avenue from a neighborhood business B1, professional P1, single-family resident R1E in a high-density apartment R4 zone to the planned shopping center B6P zone for 3.1462 net acres was presented to the Urban County Council. planning the urban county planning commission said commission recommending approval of the zone change including the dimensions dimensional variances by a vote of eight to zero and whereas the council agrees with the recommendations of the planning commission and whereas the recommendation of the planning commission attached here to and incorporated here and by reference now therefore be it ordained by the Council of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. Council Member Lawless, I think what you're reading is the ordinance as if the 420 marquee had already been excluded, but the Council's going to have to adopt separate findings of fact that amend the previously adopted findings of fact as to why that should occur. Wait a minute. Okay. So this would be a motion to amend the previously adopted findings of fact. I move to amend the previous finding of fact to exclude 420 marquee. There is insufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that the requirements of KRS 100.213 are met to support a zone map amendment for 420 Marquis Avenue for the following reasons. The applicant failed to produce evidence that the proposed zoning change for 420 Marquee is in agreement with the 2007 Comprehensive Plan, that 420 Marquee lot is not retail, trade, and personal services in the 2007 Comprehensive Plan. There is no transitional zoning between the proposed highly intensive B6P zone with the existing small low-density residential lots immediately adjacent. The applicant failed to produce sufficient evidence that the current zoning is inappropriate and the proposed zoning classification is appropriate because the 420 marquee lot can be severed from the proposed development, which would still allow the applicant the minimum three-acre size requirement for the proposed development. The applicant failed to produce sufficient evidence that there have been major changes of an economic, physical, or social nature within the area involved, which were not anticipated in the comprehensive plan and which would have substantially altered the basic character of the area because the character of the local community would be damaged by the proposed rezoning and development due to the high-intensity nature of the proposed use. The noise, light, and litter consequences of the high-intensity non-residential proposed use will damage the integrity of the stable, older residential neighborhood. based on evidence submitted, the Fayette Urban County Council finds the record to be insufficient to justify granting a zone map amendment for 420 Marquis Avenue parcel. So moved. Second. Thank you. All right. We've got a motion. We have a motion by Councilman Lawless, seconded by Vice Mayor Gordon. Is there any discussion on the motion? I'm going to have to ask, what impact or effect would this have on the conceptual plan? The preliminary plan, that is a certified plan, so their final development plan would have to not include that parcel. Can you identify what it represents on this scale? I think so. I believe that's this portion of the property right here. That's the tiny lot right next to that house. Yeah, Mr. Simpson, can you? that lot um we've got to have some that long skinny lot curves around the back it's um it's a remnant parcel obviously no one's ever going to build a house there you'd have to redesign the whole project in terms of the architecture and the landscaping that's been we've talked about so it really is changes the whole floor plan and as Dave indicated the whole interior operations and functionality of where we are it's a pretty substantial change from what you all just voted on 20 minutes ago Does anybody have any questions about what he just said, that it substantially changes? It's like an ale. It just wraps around. Right. And what would you do with it? I mean, I'm... You know, I mean, I think the better approach would be to, you know, in terms of the screening and buffering, Let's focus on that back at the Planning Commission with the zoning that you all approved 20 minutes ago, leaving a remnant parcel out there that no one is going to spend money and it's going to be unusable. It's wasteful. It's not good planning. Point of order, Mayor. We closed our public hearing, and if Mr. Simpson can give his opinion, then the other side, can they rebut that? The mayor asked me to respond. I know that. As a point of order, I think it's relevant to the decision that the Council is voting on. If you think that it's not relevant to the decision, then make a motion to say that as a point of order. Can the opponent give rebuttal then since we're back into testimony? Well, I don't think we're back into testimony. We're talking about a new motion. for the council correct pardon she can if you want if you want to allow that it might be appropriate if she has anything to say i don't have any objections to it i think it's relevant the findings of fact and also that the proposed findings of fact um that would support the the 420 marquee being excluded, and also earlier testimony in the hearing, brought forward that the extraordinary thing about this B6P zone change that's proposed is that it has no transitional zoning, no step-down in intensity between B6P and R1E. Leaving the slice of R1E, the presently vacant lot, would seem to leave yet the absence of transitional zoning between B6P and that new R1E. However, it does shield the home of a lifelong resident from that extremely intensive use immediately next door. Or if the applicant is arguing that it isn't possible to build or enjoy a residence immediately next to that B6P use, I'd have to say that it's probably not a good zone change in the larger parcel. If, on the other hand, that is a usable lot, then I think the applicant himself should be the first to say so. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So we have the motion. We have a second. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Council Member Kaye? Council Member Forward? Okay. I think, Mayor. Mark, we've had as much of the, we've had. Right. I think I concur a lot with what Attorney Simpson said. I do, so I'll state it, restate it from the podium. I think that there are other ways through the development plan phase, if this issue is to go back to the Planning Commission to provide the buffer needed to protect the property at 424. But other than it's well intended, I understand the intent of the Council Member, but I think it would just be a symbolic move as opposed to a very useful move for both the impacted resident and its development plan. So I won't support it. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Thank you. Council Member Ford, Council Member Farmer. I would disagree with what the previous speaker said. I think this is more properly addressed back at the Planning Commission when the final development plan comes through. If the Council wishes to add another conditional use to some capacity, I don't believe the one that's been tendered works. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just interested in clarification. The map that I have that's in the packet, could we get that on and blow it up? It's not clear to me. Yeah, could we blow it up? Exactly. No. It's not clear to me whether that's a sliver that comes to a point or if it has a leg that goes further up into the property. and the description, which is 412 and then 416 to 18. Yeah. So 420 in the back. So the line, can you just draw it? Yeah, thank you. So it is just that wedge, and it's not the leg that goes up into the property. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Kaye. All right. No one else has signed up to speak to the motion, so we can take a vote. Tracy? Yes, you may, and it needs to be eight votes because the recommendation the Planning Commission sent to you included this property. All right. All right. So, and it can be a voice vote or a roll call. It's a roll call. All right. All those in favor, please, well, I'll let, I'm sorry, I'll let Meredith please call the roll. Ms. Gorton? Aye. Ms. Henson? Yes. Mr. Kay? No. Ms. Lawless? Yes. Ms. Massotti? No. Ms. Scutchfield? No. Mr. Beard? No. Mr. Clark? No. Mr. Ellinger? No. Mr. Farmer? No, ma'am. And Mr. Ford? No. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The vote reflects a failure of the motion. All right. Now what? The ordinance. The ordinance with the proposed conditions that you adopted that Mr. Farmer introduced. We'll need to get second reading with those conditions, right? You need to amend the ordinance to include the conditions that you adopted, and then it will need to get second reading. So what? Mayor, I would move to amend the findings, in fact, to include the conditions that the council just added. Second. Motion by Council Member Farmer, as stated. Second by Council Member Ellinger. Is there any discussion on the motion? Mayor, it will be a new first reading because the conditions make it a material change, so you'll have to give it. So the clerk will need to read? Is that right? She will need to give it a new first reading, right. All right, so do that now. Then we'll get the motion, right? You need to vote on the motion to amend with the conditions, and then she'll give it a new first round. Okay, all right. So we have the motion. We have a second. Is there any discussion? Voice vote? Yes. All right. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. Okay. Meredith, whenever you're ready. Thank you. Thank you. ordinance for first reading as amended and ordinance changing the zone from a neighborhood business B1 professional office P1 single family residential R1E and high density apartment R4 zone to a planned shopping center B6P zone for 3.1462 net, 3.6558 gross acres for properties located at 704 Euclid Avenue and 408, 412, 416 and 420 Markey Avenue including dimensional variances and imposing conditions upon approval as follows. The height of the building shall not exceed 28 feet above the finished floor elevation except in those limited areas. Special design features reflected on the preliminary development plan approved by the Planning Commission and the architectural renderings tendered to the Planning Commission. The building shall be built in substantial conformity with the architectural renderings tendered to the Planning Commission except for complementary and necessary adjustments that might be needed should the final development plan be revised by the Planning Commission. The applicant has voluntarily agreed to this condition. There shall be at least a six-foot landscape area with a minimum planted tree height of 18 feet along Marquis Avenue between the building and the sidewalk, in which appropriate landscaping shall be installed to complement and enhance the architecture. The property shall not be subdivided into commercial outlots. An eight-foot-tall privacy fence shall be installed along the rear boundary line of the subject property with supplemental plantings. There shall be no use of loudspeakers on the property except that a low-level amplification system may be used at the drive-thru pharmacy, but no such amplification shall be heard at the property line of the subject property. The owner of the subject property shall inform all delivery trucks to cut their engines once the truck is parked to unload product. The trash compactor shall only be utilized between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. The final development plan will include the location and installation of a covered bus stop on Euclid Avenue. That is Kroger Limited Partnership 1, Council District 3. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Oh, thank you, Council Member Ellinger. Motion to approve by Council Member Ellinger. Got a second? Second, Council Member Massadi. Is there any discussion on the motion? We need a voice vote, I mean a roll call on this second. I believe we would need a motion to suspend the rules for second reading. Can I get a motion to suspend the rules and get a second reading? Second. Motion to suspend by Council Member Ellinger, seconded by Council Member Henson. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, we can take a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries. All right. Ordinance for second reading and ordinance changing the zone from a neighborhood business B1 professional office P1 single-family residential R1E and high-density apartment R4 zone to a planned shopping center B6P zone for 3.1462 net, 3.6588 gross acres for properties located at 704 Euclid Avenue and 408, 412, 416, and 420 Marquis Avenue, including dimensional variances and imposing conditions upon approval as follows. The height of the building shall not exceed 28 feet above the finished floor elevation, except in those limited areas. Special design features reflected on the preliminary development plan approved by the Planning Commission and the architectural renderings tendered to the Planning Commission. The building shall be built in substantial conformity with the architectural renderings tendered to the Planning Commission except for complementary and necessary adjustments that might be needed should the final development plan be revised by the Planning Commission. The applicant has voluntarily agreed to this condition. There shall be at least a six-foot landscape area with a minimum planted tree height of 18 feet along Marquis Avenue between the building and the sidewalk in which appropriate landscaping shall be installed to complement and enhance the architecture. The property shall not be subdivided into commercial outlots. An eight-foot-tall privacy fence shall be installed along the rear boundary line of the subject property with supplemental plantings. There shall be no use of loudspeakers on the property except that a low-level amplification system may be used at the drive-thru pharmacy, but no such amplification shall be heard at the property line of the subject property. The owner of the subject property shall inform all delivery trucks to cut their engines once the truck is parked to unload product. The trash compactor shall only be utilized between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. The final development plan will include the location and installation of a covered bus stop on Euclid Avenue, Kroger Limited Partnership 1, Council District 3. Motion by Council Member Ellinger to approve, seconded by Council Member Henson. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, then Madam Clerk, you please call the roll. Ms. Gorton? Aye. Ms. Henson? Yes. Mr. Kaye? Yes. Ms. Lawless? Yes. Ms. Massadi? Yes. Ms. Scotchfield? Yes. Mr. Beard? Yes. Mr. Clark? Yes. Mr. Ellinger? Yes. Mr. Farmer? Yes. And Mr. Ford? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The vote reflects passage of the motion. Thank you all. Good morning. Move adjourn. Is there a motion to adjourn? Move adjourn. Motion by Vice Mayor Gordon to adjourn. Is there a second? Second by Councilmember Kay. Unless there is objection, we are adjourned. And thank you all for being with us, staying with us the whole time.