# Council Planning and Public Works Committee - November 12, 2013 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 12, 2013 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/3167 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/3167?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2013-11-12 - **Last revised**: July 15, 2026 - **Length**: 15,335 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Planning & Public Works Committee met on November 12, 2013, at 1:00 p.m., with Farmer presiding as Chair. The committee addressed five agenda items during the session, approving two items and deferring three others. The committee approved the October 8, 2013 Committee Summary and Items Referred, while deferring action on Capital & Maintenance of LFUCG Major Roadways, Elm Tree Lane Sidewalk, and Design Excellence Task Force. The committee took three motions and votes during the meeting and heard five public comments. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on November 12, 2013: * Bill Farmer Jr. * Linda Gorton * Jennifer Mossotti * Charles Ellinger * Steve Kay * Chris Ford * Diane Lawless * Julian Beard * Harry Clarke * Peggy Henson * Shevawn Akers * Kevin Stinnett No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions The committee held three votes during the November 12, 2013 meeting, all of which passed by voice vote. **October 8, 2013 Committee Summary** [timestamp: 00:03:00] A motion to approve the October 8, 2013 Committee Summary was made by Beard and seconded by Clarke. The motion passed by voice vote with no abstentions. **MAP Funds for Sidewalk Repair on Elm Tree Lane** [timestamp: 00:19:33] A motion to authorize the administration to use MAP funds for sidewalk repair on Elm Tree Lane was made by Ford. The motion passed by voice vote with no abstentions. This approval is pending a final cost estimate for lighting improvements. **B1 ZODA Update Amendments** [timestamp: 01:41:27] A motion to combine B1 ZODA update amendments and forward them to Council for action was made by Farmer and seconded by Clark. The motion passed by voice vote with no abstentions. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed the following financial items: **Capital and Maintenance Appropriation** The council appropriated $13,000,000 for capital and maintenance of LFUCG major roadways. This appropriation supports ongoing infrastructure work on the city's primary road network. **Sidewalk and Tree Work Contract** A contract valued at $4,800 was approved for sidewalk replacement and tree trimming on Elm Tree Lane. ## Public Comment The meeting included comments from five speakers addressing the Design Excellence Task Force proposal. **Bill Lear** [timestamp: 00:35:39] expressed support for the Design Excellence Task Force concept but raised concerns about the lack of incentives and the reliance on a board-driven process composed of design professionals. He worried this approach could result in subjective decisions and project delays. **Vice Mayor Gorton** [timestamp: 00:46:02] advocated for broader public representation on the board. He recommended including a non-downtown, non-design citizen as a member and suggested that the city council approve all board nominees to ensure the board reflects wider community interests. **Council Member Lawless** [timestamp: 00:58:57] supported using TIF (Tax Increment Financing) funds to support the initiative. He emphasized the importance of reducing barriers to development, specifically citing high parking costs and inefficient permitting processes as obstacles that need to be addressed. **Knox** [timestamp: 00:57:10] suggested forming a community stakeholder group to identify feasible incentives for downtown development. He proposed specific mechanisms including TIF districts, public-private parking partnerships, and infrastructure assistance to support projects. **Council Member Akers** [timestamp: 01:02:58] highlighted the need for tangible incentives to make the task force effective. He recommended establishing a task force to evaluate what the city can realistically do to promote infill and redevelopment, characterizing current efforts as largely symbolic without substantive support. A common theme across the comments was concern that the Design Excellence Task Force alone would be insufficient without accompanying financial incentives and removal of development barriers. Speakers emphasized the need for concrete tools such as TIF funding, parking solutions, and streamlined permitting to complement design review efforts. ## Contested Items The November 12, 2013 meeting included three significant areas of disagreement among participants: **Design Excellence Task Force Board Composition** A split vote occurred regarding the makeup of the Design Excellence Task Force Board. The central debate focused on whether the board should be dominated by design professionals or include non-expert citizens. Concerns were raised about the subjectivity of design decisions and the lack of public representation if the board were composed primarily of design experts. **Incentives for Downtown Development** A heated discussion emerged around incentives for downtown development. Multiple speakers emphasized that the current proposal was incomplete without tangible incentives such as Tax Increment Financing (TIFs), parking solutions, and infrastructure support. Participants argued that the absence of these concrete incentives would significantly hinder development efforts in the downtown area. **Staffing and Roles for Infill Facilitator** A procedural dispute arose regarding the organizational placement of the infill facilitator position. Disagreement centered on whether the infill facilitator should be housed in the commissioner's office or within the Division of Planning. The dispute reflected broader concerns about cross-departmental coordination and the facilitator's ability to effectively coordinate between different city departments. ## October 8, 2013 Committee Summary The committee reviewed and approved the summary from the previous meeting held on October 8, 2013. [timestamp: 00:03:00] **Motion and Vote** Beard moved to approve the summary, with Clarke seconding the motion. The motion passed without dissent. **Outcome** The October 8, 2013 Committee Summary was approved. ## Capital & Maintenance of LFUCG Major Roadways [timestamp: 00:03:38] Staff presented data on the capital and maintenance needs for Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) major roadways. The presentation outlined funding requirements across different road classifications: * $11 million needed for red-labeled roads * $15 million needed for minor arterials * $42.7 million total needed across all road classifications **Key Speakers** Kevin Wente, Richard Moloney, and Brad Frazier led the discussion on this agenda item. **Discussion and Decisions** The committee discussed the funding approach for road maintenance and agreed to use major and minor arterials as the basis for future funding decisions. The group also discussed implementing a budgeting strategy based on pavement ratings to guide prioritization of maintenance and capital projects going forward. **Outcome** The agenda item was deferred, indicating that further discussion or action on the capital and maintenance plan for LFUCG major roadways would take place at a future meeting. ## Elm Tree Lane Sidewalk The committee discussed infrastructure improvements needed on Elm Tree Lane, including sidewalk replacement and tree trimming. [timestamp: 00:15:06] **Scope and Costs** The discussion centered on two main projects for the street: - Sidewalk replacement with an estimated cost of $4,300 - Tree trimming with an estimated cost of $500 - Lighting costs were pending and not yet finalized **Key Participants** The discussion involved Kevin Wente, Council Member Ford, and Commissioner Paulson. **Action Proposed** A motion was made to use MAP funds for the Elm Tree Lane improvements, contingent upon receipt of final cost estimates for all components of the project, particularly the lighting costs. **Outcome** The matter was deferred, pending completion of the cost estimates needed to move forward with the funding decision. ## Design Excellence Task Force Councilmember Steve Kay presented the Design Excellence Task Force report, which outlined proposed standards and guidelines for downtown development [timestamp: 00:22:22]. **Key Topics Discussed** The presentation covered several substantive areas requiring further deliberation: - Incentives for development projects - Board composition and structure - Appeals process for design decisions - Staff roles and responsibilities **Concerns Raised** Committee members, including Bill Lear, Knox, and Vice Mayor Gorton, raised questions and concerns during the discussion, though specific details of their individual positions were not documented in the available materials. **Outcome** The committee agreed to defer the item and continue discussion at a future meeting. The group reconvened in December to further develop the task force recommendations. ## Items Referred The committee reviewed the B1 ZODA update, which had previously undergone vetting and Planning Commission review. [timestamp: 01:30:25] Key speakers on this item included Farmer and the Director. The committee voted to recombine the two parts of the B1 ZODA update into a unified package and forward it to the full Council for second reading. The item was approved. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the October 8, 2013 Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed: Motion to authorize the administration to use MAP funds for sidewalk repair on Elm Tree Lane - **Motion** — passed: Motion to combine B1 ZODA update amendments and forward to Council for action --- ## Full transcript I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I realize you all are happy to be here. I need to point out to you, if you will look at the bottom of, well, it would be on page 6 here, that included in this summary, in these minutes, which I would report out to the Council this afternoon at 3 o'clock, is the motion by Mazzotti to initiate a text amendment to not allow private streets and residential subdivisions, which at that time was seconded by Vice Mayor Gorton and ultimately passed 9-1 with mine being the only nay vote. So if we sanction these minutes, that would be a motion I would bring to the Council later on today. Unless there's other additions or corrections, we have a motion to approve unless there's discussion. All right. Hearing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Thank you. So I'll be reporting those minutes out during our 3 o'clock meetings this afternoon. Next up is page 8 of our agenda, which is Capital and Maintenance of LFCCG Major Roadways. It's just a one-pager on page 8 in here. Who wants to speak to that? Mr. Winfrey? Is it Kevin? Welcome, sir. This is a nice summation of the last couple of months' conversation, it looks like to me. Well, thank you. We just wanted to address some of the questions that came for our last meeting here. Basically stating the information that you see before you, we looked at the major and minor arterials, and for the sake of this discussion and the information you have before you, this does not incorporate the collector roads that were a portion of our discussion and my presentation last meeting. Accordingly, there are various statistics that apply to these major and minor arterials, effectively just over 90 linear miles. The average assessed rating for these roads was effectively 88, which is an excellent rating. That's a good number. Yes, it is. The percentage of those that would require resurfacing, which would be those that would rank at a degree of 65 or less, was effectively 5% of all those roads among the major minor arterials, and that estimated cost translates to roughly $1.4 million in resurfacing. So moving forward, one of the discussion items was a projection of roads outside of those that are of greatest need, and what I did was just an assessment of those that were rated between 65 and 75, and that was effectively 9% of all major minor arterials, and that estimated cost moving forward was roughly $2.2 million in resurfacing costs. I did not have the time to facilitate a map that outlined those roads of greatest need, but what I was able to do was effectively put together a list that I could share with the committee if you were interested as far as seeing those, and then I could map those out in a GIS form, and I just didn't have time for this packet to facilitate that. No one signed up for commentary. I would just say that this sums up what we had talked about. I guess it comes down to a policy decision, an implementation decision. I mean, you're presenting this, I guess, informationally today. That's correct. Then do you want to bring something else informational later, or do you want to use this? I think for the sake of the conversation, we were potentially looking at a different lot of money as opposed to looking at individual council districts recouping this cause. And this was just for discussion items moving forward if this body wanted to look at an itemized or a line item in our budget for this type of activity. One thing that is of interest to note, in looking at the list after this assessment, a number of these streets of major and minor arterials are actually slated for additional resurfacing in the spring, one of which is Alumni Drive, which the University of Kentucky is proposing a complete overhaul between Nicholasville Road to Tates Creek. So there are going to be some eliminations to that $1.4 million effectively, but I just thought that would be of interest. Now I have Council Member Sennett, and then we'll come back to close this out. Council Member. Thank you, Chair. I guess I'm trying to help us get to the next step. Do you have a list of these roads that you have identified the last time they were repaved and the cost they would cost us to repave? and take that and develop some type of plan for budgeting purposes going forward so we know what we're looking at here, if it's a million a year, two million, three million. And that was effectively what I was trying to accommodate with this report out in looking at those roads of greatest need among the major and minor arterials, and that number was effectively 1.4 million. As far as looking at the last time they were resurfaced, I would have to go back through the no-seed effectively when that occurred. Right, but I'm looking for more something that we can use annually So we see the big picture. We see where every road is at. Is it always going to be approximately $1.3 million a year? Is that going to be sufficient, or is it going to be too much next year? I think that would actually be a sufficient amount insofar as the numbers that I've reviewed thus far, and that is review of the last pavement management rating, which those numbers came to me in August of this year. So I do feel that that would be a significant amount to, well, basically to treat those roads that are of greatest need. Yes, sir. And so the following year, where would that put us at the end, need-wise? Actually, I think if we were to budget that $1.4 million, I think we would be in pretty good shape as far as moving. I don't think we would need nearly that amount moving forward to tackle those as we would rate those in future years. That's why that forecast that among those that are rated between 65 and 75, effectively 9%, that's not necessarily stating that within a year's time they would require resurfacing. I just want to give this body some idea of what that cost would be if they were in need of resurfacing. Yeah, I would just like to develop some type of recommendation, Chair, going forward. Is it a $500,000, a million recommendation each year in the budget so we can get ahead of the curve on our major artilleries throughout the city. And I think that's going to be somewhat of a moving target as we do the pavement management assessments. As I said before, I think with having a GIS-based rating system, that will actually help in assisting us in that forecasting model. At this point, I think the 1.4 to attack those that are of greatest need would be a significant amount to address that, and then we would look at effectively a lesser amount moving forward in tackling those roads. Now, granted, there's factors such as weather and winter seasons and whatnot, but I think we're in pretty good shape, effectively, or especially given the $13 million that was invested in resurfacing this year. Can you give us a list where the 1.3 comes from, what roads make that up? I'm sorry. What roads make up the 1.3? I actually have that. and as an example there would be sections of Liberty Road sections of 4th Street, Maxwell, Alumni as I mentioned before and that section of Alumni was primarily between Tates Creek and Nicholasville Road that was in need of resurfacing Old Paris Pike, sections of Man of War but I did actually query that information out of the pavement management system for purposes of this discussion. I can provide that information to you. And how often are the major roads updated on our management system, our ratings? Are they the same as any residential street? That is correct. Okay, so they're not done more often because they're more heavily used? And that was actually a course of discussion a couple of committee meetings ago where, again, looking forward towards implementing this GIS-based management system, there could be a weighting structure among those roads such as the major mayor or tears that we're responsible for that would put a greater need onto those sections okay that helps in answering that question it does i just want to get a a real number one that we can make immediate impact but also ongoing um so we can budget this each year and we don't get behind the curve like we are right now on some of these major major roads in our city absolutely thank you for all your work kevin on this thank Thank you. Next up, I have Council Member Beard, but I want to see if Mr. Martin wanted to say something before we dovetail to him. I wanted to add something, and I think that is where Council Member Sten is trying to get to is an annual replacement type of thing. In order to be able to do that, I think we're going to have to modify some of our approach, because failure does not occur on a predictable manner as well. is that if we're reusing the pavement rating system, some streets won't necessarily fail as quickly as other ones do. This is something we talked about in the staff meeting this morning about getting you guys geared up towards, because we anticipated this question, where are we headed for the next fiscal year? And so we kind of started on this this morning before we got to this. But I just wanted you to think about that, is that much like he just suggested, and maybe looking at rating our most heavily traveled roads in a different way because the failure just doesn't go on clockwork, as we all know. Very good. Thank you. Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. Kevin, back to alumni for a second. Alumni's shoulders are deteriorating where the blacktop meets the dirt, and becoming cracked and driven over. And just putting more blacktop down on top of that is not going to fix anything for any length of time anyway. Is there not a bigger picture for alumni at some point, or does the U.K. have a bigger picture? I heard one time they were interested in four-laning that. Somebody four-laning it. They were interested in us four-laning it. The discussions that I've been privy to at this point as far as the section that's actually our maintenance, but it's actually owned by UK, and that is that section from Tates Creek to Nicholasville Road, there have been preliminary drawings that I've seen as far as a realignment, but the actual width of the road I think is going to basically maintain the same as far as the two-lane. There is a proposal of actually incorporating two roundabouts in that design. so it's as far as that section it would be a complete rebuild and then effectively UK would act as the contractor and then would deed that portion of the road to the to the city for future maintenance and not operating under this memorandum of agreement as far as the shoulder work on the additional sections of alumni you're correct that's something effectively we'd have to budget for as far as the additional construction when servicing those roads as far as resurfacing them, if we see that type of degradation in the roadway. And it would accelerate that, would it not? Yes, sir. As far as your pavement is concerned? That is correct, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. You're welcome, sir. Anyone else on this topic? All right. Mr. Winthier, what I get is this sheet and some of the follow-up questions that Council Member Stenna have, this becomes kind of a heading under which we look for opportunity to fund. That's effectively what I was trying to address just with this information, yes, sir. Let's just use it in a follow-up capacity in that way, if you would. Very good. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right. I understand you're standing there for our Elm Tree Lane sidewalk improvement project, which was in committee. We inadvertently took it out of committee, then we inadvertently put it back in, and you are here. Please proceed. In similar fashion to how I reported the information with regard to the major minor arterials, I just, for the committee's interest, wanted to put together some of the information that we assessed. We met on site with Council Member Ford, Commissioner Paulson, and myself just to assess the condition of the sidewalk and the lighting conditions and just the overall condition of the road itself. As you can see by the photo and subsequent photos that we've shown in prior committee meetings, there is a definite need of repair of this section of sidewalk. In running these numbers through the unit price contract that I had, effectively a sidewalk replacement cost would roughly run around $4,300. And tree trimming, and according to a conversation with our arborist, he estimated that trimming would cost roughly $500 to address that issue and assist in illuminating that corridor. I am still in discussion with traffic engineering as far as general cost to increase the lumens for the two fixtures that exist along that corridor. I don't have a cost at this point, but the only other question that we had at this point in moving forward was effectively the funding source for these improvements. So that's effectively my report. I thank you for that input. I appreciate it very much. Council Member Ford, would you like to speak to this? Yes, thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to thank Kevin and Commissioner Paulson for allowing me to visit on site with them. And it appears that we're off to a pretty good start in regards to the cost estimates for the sidewalk and the arborist work. Still want to follow through on what's needed for the lighting. And in regards to the funding source, I would wonder if the administration would have a recommendation for the council, for the committee to consider for the funding source. source. I hope that the council and the committee would be supportive in authorizing the expenditure of funds because we need to replace the sidewalk. The reason that the sidewalk is in the condition that it's in now is due to oversight and a lack of care in years past. Is there a recommendation from the administration as to where we can get these needed sources of funds. I mean, at the bottom of the page it says either MAP or NDF is what I see, and between the two I think we asked the administration to do it through MAP. I don't think you get enough out of NDF to do this gig. Do you want to answer his or did I? At this capacity, I know that, and I actually may call upon Commissioner Paulson to address this, The one thing that we did discuss is potentially using MAP monies for a potential funding source of this. Basically, we just need some direction as far as how to proceed in moving forward. I think we're about to give it to you, but we're going to hear from the commissioner first. I think Kevin's right. When we talked about it, I think MAP funds or MAP funds are going to be the only way we can really do this. I don't think there's enough from NDS. but I think we'll wait until maybe we can get a good cost estimate for the light and bring it back to you about what that is. We do have some good estimates about the sidewalk and some of the arborists, but I think until we have a good, sound understanding of what the lighting issues may be and what those costs will be, I think we'll come back when we have that. Well, let me ask just a legislative logistic. So we're waiting on the number for the amount the lighting would cost? I think what we need to do, what we're trying to do is get a meeting with KU to figure out exactly what they might be able to do. There might not be much of a cost for us if we can get them to assist us in this with improving the lighting. And I think that's what we're most looking forward on this. If you want, we might be able to move forward on the sidewalk itself in the interim since they are, in a sense, independent. The way the committee minutes are working now, if we took action today, that would in essence direct you, we wouldn't actually sanction those minutes until this meeting in December. But I would think in the next month you could come up with what those other figures are so that we could narrow it down and kind of move it on sooner rather than later. Right. That's what our goal is, is to get it as quickly as we can. Then, Council Member Ford, it might be proper. I cannot speak for the rest of the committee to make a motion to fund these things using the MAP funds and between now and next month work out the details of what that amount would actually be. That way we can take a specific vote on it when we sanction our minutes next month. Mr. Chair, I would tender that motion to authorize the administration to use MAP funds for the appropriate cost estimates for the sidewalk repair. So moved. Second. A motion and a second. We're in discussion. Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. I was just going to ask Derek if you know, or maybe Council Member Ford knows, if there's a neighborhood association in this area that could contribute to the costs as well. I will defer to Council Member Ford. I think, Council Member Akers, this is a matter of infrastructure. It's the government's responsibility to provide these amenities and cover these costs. I do want to say, though, that the Neighborhood Association and many neighbors are very much interested in observing and supportive of this going forward. Okay. And, Commissioner Paulson, was there a lighting assessment done, conducted by the police department or by him? That would be me. Oh, you did. I just know in my day. Hold on. I know that there was an area, a neighborhood that I'm working with that had the police department did a lighting assessment, so that's why I even know about that. And I'll kind of come back. So some of the work in the past that I've done with the police is to work on those lighting issues. So in terms of what kind of lighting we recommend, color of light, where you put the light, those sorts of issues. On here, we're dealing with tree trimming and also with location, and that's where we've got that kind of a question and that ask to go with KU. because what we're really looking for, the key on this, again, we can't really move the fences. They are legally built. They are fine. What we want to have from a lighting perspective is to have no holes. So we want to have lighting that's pretty much consistent throughout that entire sidewalk until you get to the either end, until you get to the streets. That's our concern right now is how do we ensure that the lighting is bright enough, a good color and consistency throughout that entire sidewalk so that there are no holes, so you're able to see from one end to the other your entire trip. And that's what we need to work with KU on at this point, is how do we ensure that we have that lighting to that degree. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Chair. Anyone else? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Well done. Thank you all for your work on that. Now, both those items took up one page each in our packet. These next two items take up about 100 pages. Next up is the Design Excellence Task Force report out, which I will turn to Council Member Kay shortly. I will just say that as an addendum, you will find the 47-page packet that in essence is the B1 ZOTA report, and basically it's the update that came back to us after the Planning Commission took action on one change that we decided to ask them to make. I believe this is something that we can look at with some brevity and potentially take action on today, but we will do so after this next conversation. Having said that, Council Member Kaye. Thank you, Chair and Council Members and the public. What I'd like to do is provide a little bit of an overview of all of the documentation that's been brought forward. Some of it's in your packet. Some of it's on the back table if you did not attend the workshop. but I'd like to kind of walk through what those documents are and kind of how they fit into where we are at present on this issue. So I would start with the workshop presentation that was given on November 7th, primarily for council members and their aides. And this was basically presented an overview of the background, history, and a summary of key components. And I want to, from that, if I can, read a few things. On the kind of opposite of the cover page of that packet, the first item is the goals of design excellence. I think it's really important to note this. So I'm going to read it entire. The design excellence standards and guidelines are a framework for the future development of downtown Lexington, aimed at enhancing the existing built environment and protecting economic investments in downtown. They aim to ensure new development, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse projects are consistent with the city's vision while offering a predictable and transparent process for the applicant. So that's the larger sense of what this is all about. More specifically, the document does set forth codified design standards and guidelines that support and encourage a few things. I won't read all of this, but in short, new buildings to address the context of their surroundings, historic buildings to be appropriately renovated, the context of historic structures and streetscapes to be protected, the use of durable and long-lasting materials and designs that are flexible for future use, an engaging pedestrian environment, connections to existing and future networks, and comfort and safety for all users of downtown. In addition, on page 6 of that packet, there is a statement about the design standards and guidelines, And it's important to note that the heart of this proposal has two distinct elements, standards on the one hand and guidelines on the other. And here's how they're defined. Standards are quantifiable criteria by which the minimum requirements for projects are established. Applicants must demonstrate adherence to each design standard. So a design standard is something you can say yes or no to. It's either 5 feet tall or it's 10 feet tall or it's 15 feet tall. Guidelines, on the other hand, are defined as flexible criteria, not to prescribe specific design solutions, but rather to express the preferred design objectives. The intent of each objective is to be met, but the method by which the design addresses it may vary. And the intention of the Design Excellence Task Force in making these distinctions was to try and simplify the process as much as possible, but also to allow for some flexibility so that unusual and different kinds of design would not be necessarily ruled out to begin with. Now, in addition to that material, there are two articles from the zoning text which have been proposed to be modified. Essentially, Article 27, which was the governing document for the courthouse overlay, has been amended or proposed to be amended so that the specific text then reflects the design excellence proposal, including establishing that the design excellence would cover the three downtown zones, the B2, B2A, B2B, that it would include procedures for review and approval of all projects within those zones, and it would define the makeup and functioning of the downtown area design excellence board. So that's what was in the overview in the council workshop. In addition, there is a large document. It looks like this. Design excellence, design standards, and guidelines. And within that, there's a detailed description with examples and illustrations of the standards and guidelines that are at the heart of the design excellence proposal. So this is a large document. It's meant for reference should this all go forward. In addition, there is in your packet today a design excellence task force report out, and I am not going to read all of that, but I would like to point out a few things that are in it that I think are important. It does talk about what the charge was to the task force initially. It talks about the membership, staff. In the background, it says these were the things that we reviewed over the two-plus years that this task force has met and tried to include in terms of their recommendations. Destination 2040, the downtown master plan, the 2007 comprehensive plan, a non-residential infill study, a housing market study, and the infill and redevelopment task force steering committee report and recommendations. On page three of that packet, it talks about the meetings. It's important to note the task force first met in August of 2010, and since that time, it's met over 20 times. The task force has, in that time, reported to the planning committee on January 24, 2012, June 19, 2012, November 20, 2012, and August 20, 2013. And here's some of the things that the task force has done. This is all bulleted, but I think it's important to note, so I'm going to read them. We have reviewed the current downtown boundaries, such as the regulatory infill and redevelopment area, the downtown development authority area, the downtown master plan area, B2 zoning, H1 overlays, corridors, historic building survey, and downtown overlay map and determined districts, looked at case studies of current downtown buildings, reviewed an inventory and analysis of downtown, developed principles for downtown design, And finally, task force decided to define the boundary as the B2 zones, as I've mentioned, and that would absorb and modify the current courthouse area design review ordinance. Where that brings us is that there's a lot of material. Yes, sir. So in addition to that material, I know there are some people in the audience who have been participants who may have some things that they would like to speak to the Council about. Before I turn it over, I do want to note that in getting to this point, the task force has tried to be clear that there are still some issues to be resolved. So on the final page of the report out, you'll see a basic heading that says outstanding issues to be decided. So I want to talk a little bit about those and then a little bit about timeline. So the question of the appeals process, so if someone goes through the process, they're not happy with the outcome, the question of whether it should be appealed to the Planning Commission, to the BOA, directly to court, and that may be a question that legal has to either weigh in on or decide, but that's not been something that there's been complete agreement about. The balance between staff and board review of proposals. So how do we keep it as simple as possible and allow staff to have as much area of jurisdiction as possible, but also ensure that there's going to be public input where that's necessary? The question of board confirmation by council, whether it needs to be in a hearing or simply by approval. The question of the board makeup. There's been some differences of opinion about whether it ought to be predominantly, let's say this, It has to be seven, either five or seven. Most people believe it ought to be seven. That's by statute. There's a question about whether it should be dominated for the people, should be design professionals of one kind or another, so that there is a design bias in the review process, or whether that should not be the case and whether the balance should be essentially other professionals and ordinary citizens. There's some questions about whether government projects should be subject to these regulations. There's a piece of the regulation proposed that talks about iconic projects, and there's concern that that's extremely difficult to define. And it may be that the final outcome of that is really to talk about iconic locations, but in the meantime that has not been settled. There's a question of incentives and what kinds of things ought to be included in the final proposal that reflect the need for certain kinds of incentives, given the inherent difficulties of developing in the downtown area. And finally, staff qualifications. So if we're going to have a couple of staff people, what should they be able to do? What should their background be? And so on. So having said all that, following today, whatever happens today, actually I think the recommendation is going to be to continue the conversation, but following today, there is a public meeting for input on the 14th of this month. There is a task force meeting scheduled on the 18th of this month, which is intended to resolve as much as possible the issues that have not yet been resolved. If it's the wish of this committee, it would come back to this committee for a fuller discussion and conversation. It's meeting the 3rd, I believe, of December. and under one scenario in any event if there was enough agreement at that point it could be moved forward to council placed on the docket given first read at the december 10th meeting and then a second read after we return from break on the 16th of january now what a part of the reason for basically not moving any faster than that, is as soon as we send it to the Planning Commission, they have a 60-day window to act, and I don't think it's fair to put it in their bailiwick when they're going to be gone for a month, just as we are. Agreed. So I think at best, we would be aiming at January. And then it's important to note that should we do that, and should it go to the Planning Commission and come back to us in 60 days, we then have no time limit on approving, disapproving, changing, modifying what they then do with what we give to them. So that's kind of the large frame of where the discussion is at this point. There's a lot of material. There's been a lot of conversation. I'd be happy to take questions and comments, and if people who have been involved in the process are interested in speaking to the committee, I believe that's appropriate. So thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Well reported and articulated. We do have, we had handed to us one letter from the Fayette Alliance. There are some folks here. However, no one has spoken up, pardon me, no one has signed up to speak. If any one of you would like to make some comments, I think now would be the time as we have the time. Any or all. Mr. Lear? Yes, sir. Welcome. Thanks, Bill Lear. I have been a member of the task force since its inception and currently am a member of the task force. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding about my general support for the concept. It was there at the outset. It's still there. This thick set, probably 90 percent of which of it I'm fine with in terms of most of the standards and the guidelines. However, there are some really important pieces of this that I and some other members of the task force are not nearly comfortable with yet. And I want to just hit two or three of the broad categories to lay the foundation. At the very first meeting, this actually started out as something called a form-based guidelines task force. Even to this day, I'm not entirely sure what form-based guidelines are. It sort of morphed with some guidance from design professionals into an effort to promote excellence in design. The bottom line of all this is we want to prevent the worst and encourage the best and allow the great to take place. It's an easier thing to say than it is to accomplish. But at the very first meeting or meetings, there are two points that I made and with which there seemed to be very widespread agreement. One is there is not a long line of people, developers or individuals, wanting to build new things in downtown Lexington right now. It's just not. I mean, if you go back and think, the last new buildings that were built in downtown Lexington have some years on them now, And it's essentially a couple of residential projects and a building that now houses the U.S. Attorney's Office. But there hasn't been much. So the idea of creating any sort of new regulation level or restrictions at a time when you're not exactly trying offending people off who are coming in is not the right way to go. The flip side of that is if there's great demand, then the more restrictions you can put in place. I remember the very first McDonald's I saw on Hilton Head Island. It didn't look like a McDonald's at all. The golden arches were about this big, and they were really softer gold than yellow, and you could barely see them. Why? Because they wanted to be there badly enough they were willing to comply with anything to get there. That's not the case in downtown Lexington. So the point I made was if we're going to have another layer of regulation or restrictions or whatever you want to call it, it needs to be coupled with real incentives. Some of us have been preaching that with regard to downtown development for years now, and they have yet to materialize. So my point was any new guidelines, any new restrictions have to be coupled by some real incentives to generate interest and make people willing to comply with other sorts of things. What has emerged so far is lip service but no actual proposals, and frankly the only incentive that's mentioned with any specificity now is having some process to make it easier for people to work through the guidelines that don't already exist. So having a Sherpa to take you through this when you don't have to go through it at all right now doesn't strike me as the kind of incentive that I and others had in mind. The second thing that I said early on was that I thought this needed to be as staff-driven as possible in terms of review and approvals. You ought to have a set of, I mean, it's not that hard to think of a lot of this. Where buildings ought to be situated, not set back. Where there ought to be two and three and higher-story buildings instead of one-story buildings. That's not tough. There ought to be entrances facing the street. We don't need any more surface parking lots, especially on corners. And there is a set of things in terms of creating a great downtown that most of us could agree on. And an awful lot of that is anybody with a lick of sense can look at a plan and say, okay, it complies with this. It's easy, it's simple, and it can be done largely by staff. What's evolved in this is a board-driven process where more and more and more of what could be basically ministerial approvals are put over to a board. And then couple that with the proposal that the majority of the board be design professionals is very troublesome. It's getting back over into one of the more cumbersome and, I think, not well-delivered processes we already have, which is the BOAR. I've got a lot of personal experience in front of the BOAR where it is clear that in applying guidelines, It is basically the opinions of the design professionals and others on the board, not any sort of criteria that you could look at in advance. I can give you one example of a project where there were three members of the board. I had an architect that proposed a design feature in an historic district. The staff didn't like this design feature and recommended disapproval. I didn't even care because it wasn't that big a deal. It went over to the board, and the first architect that spoke said, well, I kind of like that. The second one that spoke said, I really don't like it, and I agree with staff. And the third one was a layperson that said, I do like it, so it got approved. And I've seen that kind of thing happen when you've got design professionals because they are paid to have opinions, and that's what they, you know, it's like having a group of lawyers sitting around deciding things based on their legal opinion. So I don't like that. The last thing is that there are pieces of this that are very bureaucratically cumbersome, even with staff. That gets into a little bit of the weeds. But the two big things to me are the absence of incentives at this point and the fact that the process is overly dependent on a board and hearing and then ultimately the potential for disapproval or delay of a project, which actually meets the criteria. Okay. Appreciate your time and your interest and your expertise. Anyone else? Welcome. Thank you, Chair Farmer. I want to, you know, first of all, express our real support for design excellence. And so we, too, have been involved with the task force since its inception. And, you know, I want to commend Councilmember Kay and Councilmember Blues for their leadership as well on this. And we also want to commend the hard work of the DDA. Brandy and Jeff have done a really good job of really drafting and coming up with the nuts and bolts of this program that potentially could make a huge impact for downtown Lexington. And I also want to thank Chris King from the Division of Planning, Betty Kerr, and others. So it's been, overall, a really great process up to this point. But at this juncture, we do feel and we agree with Mr. Lear and others that there are some large related issues that need to be resolved prior to formally moving the Design Excellence Program forward. including we feel there needs to be more clarity given to the question of building demolition within the design excellence district. We also feel that we need to advance a very feasible and effective development incentives package, which Bill spoke to earlier. And we also need to determine how the design excellence guidelines will interact with ongoing parking, traffic, such as two-way streets, and public space planning efforts in downtown. to move the design excellence program forward we feel without resolving these issues will be to create an environment that will demand improved development quality and added expense without the needed regulatory clarity financial programs or collaboration with our master planning efforts to really make it a success so we feel like it's it's like setting the rules of tennis and not giving the players the rackets or the net to actually play the game. We want to make sure all these things are moving forward together. So we ask you to kind of slow down the design excellence effort and harness its momentum to complete the needed work on the aforementioned issues and we look forward to hopefully being a very positive partner in resolving and coming up with solutions on these matters. So with that, thank you all very much and thank you councilmember okay thank you very much appreciate that and the letter you tendered to us any other public input or comment i would say we've we've heard some i'd say we're on the train but the train's not quite to the station yet is what i hear you say you have a meeting on on the 14th for public input the task force will meet again on the 18th and we could potentially take this up in a more complete form in this forum again on the the third of December unless there's other comments or questions I would just leave it to that House member if I may yes I was hoping actually that given that we did a workshop last week and that council members have had a chance to review these documents that if there were comments at this point or questions that people have that might help us as we go forward with other input. If nobody has any, we'll take that for whatever it is. But if Council Members have at this point concerns that they'd like to raise, that would be helpful. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor Gordon. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I did attend that workshop, and unfortunately there were ten council members who did not, and usually that's because they have conflict and can't get there. And I'm not saying that as a criticism. I'm just saying I feel like council for sure needs to have opportunity to study this, But I wanted to bring up the two concerns I had and that I expressed that day that are part of the outstanding issues, one of which is I think that, and I'm not sure how these outstanding issues are going to get resolved. I think that's something we need to discuss. Good. So number six, and this is on page 23 of the packet, page 9 of the presentation about the board, and actually mine are both about the board, this board will be making really important decisions. and I think there should be some discussion around whether the board should include a citizen who does not live downtown, who does not work downtown, and who is not a design, planning, historic preservation, or architecture person. A plain old citizen. and I know this has been debated in the work group and all. So there's that. And then I think that in some shape the council should have at least, if not a confirmation, approval of the nominees. A confirmation would slow it down a little, so I wouldn't be wedded to that, but I think it would be appropriate if the mayor nominates people and then the council approves them for the board. And I certainly agree with what Mr. Lear said about incentives. We've talked about that from the beginning, and we cannot, I don't think, go forward with this until we have something more fleshed out about incentives. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, ma'am. Next, Council Member Massadi. Thank you, Chair. Steve, I guess I will give you my input based upon my background in real estate. I would suggest that you would have maybe someone on the committee that has some type of a real estate background. I will tell you, you know, I believe everyone has the same goal to revitalize downtown, and it's always the chicken or the egg. Can we get the residential in before we get the retail or the retail before the residential? And if you put any kind of impediments as far as getting these, whether it be retailers or residential components to come downtown, it makes it more difficult. It's difficult now to get people downtown to live and to get, as I said, a retail presence. So I think you've got to look at that. And maybe someone with a real estate background could offer you some advice or some suggestions because they do it every day. and they know what people like and what they're looking for. And I do agree with Council Member Corton. Come in. That I think there has to be some type of incentive offered to move this program forward. So that would be my suggestion. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. And when she returns from door duty, Council Member Akers. Please proceed. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask how this board, I guess it would be a newly appointed board, would relate to the existing BOAR and Courthouse Area Design Review Board. Would those all be included? And sorry that I couldn't come to the workshop because it was scheduled sort of late notice, and so I couldn't fit it in. So I'm sorry that if this question was asked previously. No bad questions. Sir. Thank you. On the present courthouse overlay, that would be absorbed by this new board. They would cease to function, and there would just be a broader. That's the change to Article 27, which basically now is about the courthouse overlay. The other entities, the OAR, et cetera, they just continue to function, with one exception. If you're in an H-1 overlay zone, the H-1 rules would prevail. So you'd be subject to that set of rules as you always have been, not to this new set of rules. So this is it. Okay. I mean, I think that we all want great design and architecture, and iconic architecture specifically of buildings. I know when you travel and you see the building in Nashville that looks like the Bat Building and New York and other buildings that just identify a city, I think that we want that and would like to encourage that. But I don't know that by implementing or enforcing increased guidelines or restrictions on building and development, as Councilman Marsati said, But it's already, I mean, I've tried to live in my district in the downtown area, and it's unaffordable. So if we want to encourage more people to live downtown, we need to have more options outside of $300,000 condos. And so I think by requiring more and more design requirements is only going to raise the cost of living and maybe occupying a business downtown than we would like to encourage. And so that's a concern, I guess, that I have for right now. And I think that's all. Well done. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am, very much. Next is Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. Just for my own information, if somebody, Mr. Lear, someone, Knox, somebody, could give me some examples about incentives? I mean, that would be, I hear a lot. That seemed to work, yes. I hear a lot about incentive everybody's concerned about, and so am I. But if we can have some specifics here rather than waiting on the committee to make some decisions. Number one is parking. In the most progressive cities, you'll see a lot of parking structures that are built either publicly or with public-private partnerships. When we went to Greenville in 2000 and whenever it was, 10, there were nine new parking structures. Every one of them built in a public-private partnership. Every one of them tucked away so you didn't see them. Every one of them helping to underwrite the cost of downtown development. The number one driver of higher costs in downtown development for residential, I can speak to this first person, is the cost of parking. we built the parking structure all in at center court the cost was about including land was about sixteen thousand dollars a space meaning if you've got two or three bedrooms and you need two parking spaces as compared to a suburban development you've just added thirty two thousand to the base cost. And the parking authority has been working on plans, but they've been working and working and working on plans for doing that for what seems like an eternity, and nothing has ever materialized. Other cities do it. TIF districts. We ought to TIF everything we possibly can in downtown, and the government ought to initiate it rather than leaving it, in my opinion, rather than leaving it up to the private developer to initiate it. It's new money from tax revenues. That's another example, and the price of doing it, the rack rate for a TIF study can run $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, and there are all kinds of hoops that you have to run through. There are infrastructure kinds of assistance that can be provided. Another issue is solid waste. If you're building especially a multifamily structure, this isn't just a downtown issue, but it's a community-wide issue. Chances are you're going to pay your full urban service rate for garbage collection and not get it from the urban county government. I don't know if you all know that. And it's because even though the private collectors will collect in certain ways, the government, either it's a policy or an equipment or for some reason, there are multifamily developments all over Fayette County that pay their garbage, but they have to pay private haulers. That's a huge net. We do it at Center Court. I'm pretty sure Phil Hollbeck does it at his development downtown. So, I mean, that's three quick examples of things that could be done. One of them would benefit throughout the community, but you're going to see, especially in housing, you're not going to see single-family detached in downtown. You're going to see higher rises. And I'll be glad it's been at least five years, maybe six years ago, that Phil Hollebeck and I co-wrote a white paper on potential downtown incentives. And it is sitting somewhere gathering about the same amount of dust as every tax reform study that's been done in Frankfurt in the last 20 years. Thank you, Bill. I appreciate that. Knox, if you would. Yeah, Bill just, I mean, he covered all the bases. All that we would say is potentially, I mean, if we could take a couple of months and if the DDA would be willing, you know, we could kind of organize kind of a quasi-community stakeholder group with council members, members of staff, et cetera, where we could come up with some low-hanging, middle-hanging, high-hanging fruit kind of report about what's out there, what would be really feasible in Lexington and the cost. I mean, given that the council and the mayor are getting ready to embark on another budget process for FY 2015, you know, the timing is actually pretty good. We're getting ready to sew up the 2013 comp plan. So, you know, things are, I think we're in a good spot. And, you know, obviously the design excellence is a really solid first draft proposal. So we do tend to give a lot of lip service on incentives and what other cities are doing and what's out there, but I think there needs to be a really concerted, focused effort on defining better what Lexington could do and how much it would cost so that we can at least have some sort of strategic plan or idea of what's out there and then start trying to work it into the process. Thank you to both of you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Then I'll go first to Council Member Lawless, then to Council Member Akers. Thank you, and I apologize for my tardiness. Just knocking on the door was the best part. Yeah, well, I lost my badge, so what can I say? I think this is, I agree with Mr. Lear 100% on the TIF monies. when I see what Bowling Green, Owensboro, Paducah, other cities around, smaller cities, have done with TIF money and completely changed the face and the economic development and growth and preservation of good buildings and good design. It's phenomenal. And the other thing is also see that one of the barriers that I've seen is when a project is ready to go, Often there are many hoops they have to jump through over and over again, delaying the project until the project may not be viable anymore. And that's dollars out of our pocket. It's just like Fayette County generates far more state tax revenue than any other community, probably other than Louisville. yet we don't get that percentage of tax revenue, and this is a way for us to get some of that state tax revenue here in Fayette County working for us. So I think this is a good working document. I appreciate all those that worked so hard on it, And I agree again with Mr. Lear about parking and parking being underground or in some manner, you know, and the cost of that. And parking is one of our number one issues. I do want to address the amendment to the B2A parking requirement at some point. It's in the amendments, and I think there are places in B2A that that would work well, and there are places where that does not work at all. And an example of that would be, I think that would be JDI there on Broadway, which is right there with all these neighborhoods, and there's no parking. And so I think that that has to be something that we look at. And then further down, limestone, B2A may be a terrific tool, but I think that has to be a conditional usage. So I think this is a great document. I think there are probably some things that all of us will love about it, and some people will not love so much. But I think along with that is cutting out the barriers to developers, cutting out the barriers that increase the cost tremendously, and doing more public-private partnerships and getting TIF money in here and getting it to work for us. So thank you, and thank you all. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate those comments. Next up, Council Member Akers. Thank you, Chair. I knew that I was forgetting something, and then Council Member Clark reminded me. When it comes to incentives, I agree. I think that we, as a city and as a government and even community partners, give a lot of lip service, for lack of a better word, to infill and redevelopment and how we support that and we want that. but we don't really do anything to promote it or encourage it in any tangible way. And so I agree with Knox's recommendation that we put forth some sort of a committee or task force or community partners and citizens and those interested on the council to look at what we can do as a city. I know that there are lots of fees. I've been meeting with the CAO's office and Charlie about other projects in my district specifically and how the city can help facilitate development and make it easier in areas that are more difficult to develop. And so I think that we should look at all of those and how we can partner with other agencies and how they can support infill and redevelopment incentivization and really make that meaningful to encourage development and to reduce costs so that we have affordable living in our downtown. And then I had a question about the staffing on page 22 of the packet and page 8 of the presentation. So there's a mention of a position called infill facilitator and design excellence officer. Would these be brand-new positions in the Office of Planning or Department of Planning, Division of Planning? I'll speak to two different answers. On the infill guide, what's the technical term that's used? I haven't got it in front of me. But in any event, that's a position that formally existed within planning, and when budgets were cut, that position or that function was eliminated, and the person who was doing that was assigned to other tasks. This would be a return to having someone who paid specific attention to infill and redevelopment, and most heavily in the downtown area. The other position, in part, would replace the person who staffed the courthouse overlay. So it would not be an entirely new position, but it would be an expanded position. And so how would this be different than the DDA? and, like, why wouldn't it fall under that office? Or why wouldn't they be this person? Vice Mayor asked a very similar question earlier in the week. So the way to understand it is that, and Derek can speak to this as well because he's done a lot of lead thinking on it. So the infill facilitator would be not just in planning, but actually would be positioned in the commissioner's office and would deal with all permitting functions. And so what they basically do is ride herd internally. So they're a bureaucracy buster at the end of the day. Your downtown development authority you created to tackle sort of catalytic projects, do the hard stuff, work on economic development projects, not be an augmentation to the city. And thank you for signing there. Sorry. Sorry. So while in the past there may have been a – the staff in the DDA may have taken that role upon themselves to Sherpa things through, that really is an internal function to the city in terms of dealing with permitting. And so the question that was asked was, does this person become an advocate for developers? And that's not the way to look at it. What it is is this person becomes an advocate for efficiency in government and permitting what needs to be permitted and what legally should be permitted and making sure that things just continue to move and move off of people's desk and move through. And this is an attitude or a system that many other cities have put into place in terms of thinking about how they deal with permitting. So for a project that is outside of downtown, the Summit, for instance, do they get a facilitator to help them through the permitting process, or is it only for downtown developments that get this little Sherpa? I think the way we view it, Sherpa, whatever we want to call it, fixer. Thank you, Bill, for bringing that term back up. I like the Sherpa. I like the image of the Sherpa. I know. Yeah. So we realize there's going to be, as Bill has mentioned, And there's a lot of stuff that may be going on downtown. There's probably a lot more development outside of downtown. This person would, in my estimation, focus on those projects downtown. But when there are projects outside, which we think there's going to be a lot more of, they would be working on those. Absolutely. Especially the larger ones, but also some of the smaller things that are just issues that are going on between the permitting agencies within the department. But they would, you know, Costco, Summit, other large projects, they would absolutely be helping on those to move those things through. be the point of contact that can easily work between the different divisions. So I guess that's a question back to Council Member Kay. Are these design guidelines applicable to the entire city or within the urban services boundary, or is it just within the downtown boundary? As proposed, they're applicable to downtown zones. The B2, B2A, and B2B, there's a map in the materials. it's basically the heart of downtown and we might even be able to put it up on the screen but it's downtown but the facilitator would work for the entire city the design excellence officer would just pertain to the downtown projects Commissioner it doesn't seem like there would be really enough projects for a design excellence officer for instance Actually, this is where we think there would be. So, yes, they would be focusing on projects down here, but this is where we don't have someone for small area type projects. So we don't have – the example we give a lot of times is from Council Member Clark's district, Southland Drive. So we have a request from a development from an area where they say, we want a small area plan because that's really the language they know. But they really don't need necessarily a small area plan. And what they need is help, assistance in design issues, on ways to kind of take that area to the next step. We have no one currently within the department that deals with design that kind of can help on those design aspects. This person we could get that would focus on those areas downtown, but also in areas around the city. And we're getting more of those kinds of requests that are not necessarily small area plans, but that are more design where they need assistance that are functioning. Southland Drive functions very well. It's a great area. It's got a lot going for it, but they have asked us for help in a way that we really can't provide it right now. And the way that we would do it normally would be, okay, well, let's hire a consultant, bring them in, $75,000, $100,000, to work on a plan and then try to implement it. We think that with this position, we could do those downtown issues, but also help with those requests that we are constantly getting from areas outside the downtown. Okay, thank you. My time is up. Thank you, too. We can return to you as you would like. Next up is Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, Commissioner, now you've brought something up that I hadn't thought about. So in the past, the small area plans were housed in planning, and I believe you hired outside folks to help us with the small area plans. I'm looking at Chris King. And the small area plans, well, this gets into all of planning now, I think. And I had not thought that the small area plans were going to be part of the design excellence work per se, particularly when this ordinance applies only to the downtown right now. Right, and they're not. So what I'm getting at is what we have is right now all we have is a small area plan. And small area plans involve a lot more land use. They're a lot more in-depth. And they do require a lot more work than what our staff can supply and what I think a design officer would be able to do. What we're talking about are those requests that we have right now that we don't have a template for. But people still ask for them as a small area plan. Because it's the only thing they know. And this really gets to, again, go into this issue of – And this is not this person's main job. Their first job is to be downtown. But I think the benefit that they can provide to the city as a whole is to, when we have those, and we increasingly have these requests. Jefferson Street is one of those areas where we're getting some of these requests. Chevy Chase, we've dealt with it in terms of some of these other issues. But there are a lot of places where increasingly we're getting requests that don't really reach the level of a small area plan, but that we don't have that expertise to provide right now that we would normally have to go outside and get an outside consultant. We feel this individual could cover both the downtown duties as well as assist in those duties outside of the downtown, outside of this designated area. It just seems that perhaps the infill facilitator is, I'm on this task force, So I understand the thinking here, but it almost seems now to me that the infill facilitator is really a position that shouldn't necessarily be tied to design excellence. It should be tied straight to planning and be a budget item that we fill a position for that, because that person will be working all over Fayette County. Or have I understood something incorrectly? I think either way we get to the same person. But why? I think because the immediate benefit would be for this particular area as well. I mean, we will have that need for this individual here. Well, would we then shift all of our small area planning to this person? No, and again, I think what I'm trying to say, and I don't think I'm doing it very well, is what we don't have, we have small area plans right now. We are funding some right now. Yes. What we don't have is this other thing. It's not a small area plan, and that's what we keep getting requests for that are more design-oriented. Chris is dying to get up there. And I'll let him up here. But I think that's where we see this person being able to assist in, in addition to their work for the downtown area. And I'll let Chris jump in here on the small area plan. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity, because this is something that, in terms of elevating urban design, is a part of planning. And a lot of times, to the layman, urban design and planning are synonymous, and they're really not. Urban design is a very important function of overall planning and design. So what we haven't had is a dedicated urban design function in planning. At one time with our strategic planning section, we did have some staff members that had training and background in urban design, even though they weren't registered architects, and we were able to bring that element to some of the planning things that we could do out in the community. What we really want to be able to do, I think it's very important, I'll say first, in my opinion, that the design excellence person, let's talk about that, with that design excellence, be a part of the Division of Planning because a big part of this should be seamless with the other permitting functions that are part of planning and coordinating with other agencies, and that will just make the bureaucracy easier to manage, having it all under the Division of Planning. The advantage of having the larger infill facilitator or development facilitator position housed in a commissioner's office is that so many of those activities cross over other departments of government. And having someone represent a commissioner or the CAO versus being someone down within a division just makes it a lot easier for that person to be effective. So where does that leave us? In terms of the design excellence and the urban design function, again, that we have been advocating for in the budget battles for many, many years, we had an embryonic type of program that we lost due to the budget cuts over the past five to seven years. If we get that person in, I see that person being able to do two or three things. He or she would be able to manage this part of the design excellence program that is proposed. That would be one core duty. The second core duty would be bring urban design expertise to our small area planning processes and also, as we talked about, where we have certain desires in different parts of the community that really don't need a small area plan, which is a full-blown amendment to the comprehensive plan. It generally takes a year. But quick exercises, charrettes, reimagining, revisioning, creating sketches to show how areas could change, help spur imagination, help do those kinds of things. We would love to be able to provide those services both to residential neighborhoods, in some cases, and commercial areas and others, and this would give us a person in-house that could do that kind of thing, time and resources permitting. The third thing I think that that person could do is there is really no one, when we're looking at public works projects of the urban county government, actually funded, managed, and constructed by government, there's no one looking at how can we, and can we in a cost-effective way, turn those into community visual assets, not just another piece of concrete or infrastructure. And I would hope that there would be enough time that this person could consult with other divisions and others on major public works projects to see how we elevate our role as a government in inspiring our community in an urban design sense. I appreciate both of your perspectives. Mr. Chair, my time is up, but I wonder if you, for our next meeting, could ask Mr. King to send his thoughts by email and we could incorporate that into our packet, I think, under this infill facilitator and the various duties. I don't see a problem with that at all. I think it's a great opportunity because, in essence, we're having the workshop now. Yes. And there's good questions being surfaced, good comments, and the council is becoming more familiar with not just this work product but other things that we need to take action on. Thank you. Mr. King, we look forward to that for next time. Next back up is Council Member Lawless. I just wanted to put a plug in for the North Nicholasville small area plan that was started before I came on council. And Council Member Beard and I both had parts of that. And I think the planning staff is still having probably PTSD over that experience. but it was finally abandoned and flap jackets were distributed, but it still needs to be done. So I understood that there was funding for two small area plans, and I'd like to put a plug in for that because it's really necessary. Thank you. Well done. Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Clark. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to mention again what we were talking about. The folks in South and Drive, and I think it's a perfect example of the potential of development in an area that does not need a small area plan. That's not what we were looking for in South and Drive. But the potential there for something really special is there. We've been begging for some help, some professional help, to give us some ideas that we're not capable of doing. And the idea of having somebody that we have in our government that can do that for us would be extraordinarily valuable and would make the next step that we've been looking for that we're unable to do ourselves. So I just want to put a plug in for that and make everybody understand that this is the kind of thing that can help throughout the city and I say South and Drive because that's my district or one side of South and Drive and it would be extraordinarily valuable and I just want to make sure everybody understands that this would be an important step forward. Thank you, Chair. Very good. Thank you, sir. And then Council Member Beard. Thank you, Mr. Chair. and I really am going to attempt to do this even though it's a little broader footprint up there than it was originally I believe the U.S. courts building was built in 2005 something like that prior to that Big Blue went up And prior to that, we have to go all the way back into the 70s for the Hilton and the World Trade Center buildings. All of this may be a much ado about nothing. How are we going to get anybody to come down here and do anything without some real money to help these people do it? Because right now, why do it when you can go to Hamburg and do it? And you can go over in Council Member Clark's area, in the Beaumont area, and do it. and it just isn't going to happen. It just is not going to happen, I'm sorry to say. And I've been on this committee for 37 meetings now, and it didn't really come out like we thought it was going to come out, let's put it that way. And it's a waste of a lot of people's time, I'm afraid. And I hope people wouldn't like to hear that, but that's the way I feel. Well, I mean, it could be much ado about something we want to get right in the future. Well, I know, but is that 2084, or when is that? Well, I mean, the opportunity for discovery still lies before us, obviously. but I think that just the discussion today around the infill facilitator is something I think has been worth it, whether all the meetings were for naught or not. That's something we, if we want to have a viable urban service boundary, we have to do something to make infill more viable. And if it comes up that it's a facilitator there, the whole thing has absolutely been worth it just because of the discussion right here, right now, much less further outcomes in the future. I appreciate your point of view, and I appreciate the opportunity for us to get it even more right in the future. All right? Council Member Akers. I tried to hold off, and I appreciate you letting me weigh in here multiple times when I'm not actually a member of the committee. So I think that— Oh, wait a minute. So I think that the conversation about the positions in planning and need for more staffing are much needed and maybe should be part of a separate conversation or consideration that we should consider the merits of the design excellence proposal and then staffing separately. I mean, it seems to me that we need more staffing to help the entire city, and this task force was really centered on downtown Lexington. So I think maybe if we separate those two, then we can maybe try to wrap our minds around the actual downtown proposal of guidelines. And then I just wanted to follow on Council Member Clark's plea for the Southland Drive and my similar plea and recent disappointments in the happenings surrounding the distillery district. and the TIF proposal that was withdrawn and how that project has been an economic development project and located in downtown was an infill redevelopment project in a blighted area designated by the comp plan, but the city did not help that or sherpa that project, and there was no one really designated within the city to help oversee that project or help it move forward, and so it failed. Not only to the city's fault, I don't believe, but I think that we had responsibility in it. And so if more staff is the answer, that that's why we don't have enough staff. If that's something we need to consider, then we should consider it. But, again, I think that's another example of a prime infill redevelopment area, two or three blocks from Rep Arena that is lacking. If I may. Absolutely. I think that we're looking at what is coming to us now in this legislative package is indeed a legislative package to help shepherd things in downtown. But if it's subject to that, this committee decides that they would like to recommend to the full council and the administration to find and fund an infill facilitator, that's what will happen. And that could be the best outcome for all involved, yet separate from the legislative issue which brought the conversation to us today. So I think we've all made good points in a similar direction. We have a stake in infill, and it has to be easier, not harder. And we as the overall entity have to find ways to incent it or to make it easier to happen because in some places, It's the lack of infrastructure. Right. I mean, if we don't have the capacity for sewers, if we have aging sewer lines or aging electrical, you know, and it's going to cost $20 million for a developer, they're not going to do it when they can go to a greenfield on the outskirts of the city. Well, on the outskirts of the Urban Service boundary. Or on the outside of the Urban Service boundary. All right. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Kay. Thank you. If I may wrap up, I think people have offered some very interesting observations. It's been a very useful discussion. A couple things I wanted to comment on. A question was raised about how the outstanding issues would be resolved, and not to oversimplify, but they'll be resolved in the way that they usually are. First, the committee itself, which is the voting members are the council members only. It was set up that way. Before my time, or maybe I'll remind people that this baby is a stepchild of mine. I was asked to join the committee, and then I was asked when Council Member Blues got off the council if I would be willing to chair. So not that I'm not an enthusiastic father, but I was not present at the birth. After this session, I'd be happy to do that. So, and I have a personal strong bias for getting things in writing and then getting reaction to that writing and then changing it if you need to and going on. So I'm going to encourage the council members at the meeting after we've had, they've listened to what happened here and they've listened to the public input to make some decisions about all the outstanding issues. And some of them have to be resolved up or down. So we can't have a board that is both dominated by design professionals and not dominated. We're going to have to make a decision one way or the other. On the question of the balance between the staffing and the board, that's not so clear cut, but there's language, there's thresholds, and we'll have to have discussions about that. And if people have proposals for specific changes in language that would move the balance one way or the other, we'll entertain those, take votes if we have to, and we'll move it forward. What I'm hoping is that out of that we come back to this committee with a modified set of materials, and then we ask this committee to do exactly the same thing. If there are changes that people want to propose in language, let's hear them. Let's vote them up or down. and if there's enough support for moving it to council, let's move it to council and let's have council as a body do exactly the same thing and then give the planning commission its opportunity to do exactly the same thing and then it will come back to us and we get to do it again. So a part of what I'm saying is there's a process in place for making these decisions. I'm interested in having them made. I'm interested in moving forward as much as possible with the opportunity for input and taking votes on whatever issues remain to be resolved. I would have one other thing. I was remiss, I believe, at the very beginning in not recognizing the strong staff support from Brandy Berryman, DDA in general, my aide, Leah Boggs, planning staff, Chris, the commissioner. Lots of people have helped with this in a lot of ways. I think that the overall document is very impressive. It's very helpful. and I'm hopeful that it will be a tool that we as a government implement to provide assurance to those who do want to develop downtown that their investment will be protected because we will not have other bad design following on their heels. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. With that commentary, I believe that there are at least three different lists that I've got going here of things you all are going to be talking about or that we will take back into committee. I don't believe there's any action today, but I would say we would continue this conversation at our meeting in December. And I'm not sure that we would have specific action there. It just depends on what goes on within the next month. Any other comments to that end at this time? I think this was a very excellent discussion and one that was long overdue for the council itself to have. So I appreciate it today and look forward to having it partially again next month. then i would turn us to the agenda addendum which is a 47 page document that takes up the b1 zota report and i would just say to you all that this in its entirety is in here the all of the changes that the planning staff had in mind for all things b1 zone updating we went through this line by line at more than one meeting, and that's outlined further into the back here from June and July. At that time, there was one part that we asked the Planning Commission to take some time on, and they have reflected on that, and it was actually on our council docket. It got a first reading and almost had a second reading last Thursday night that had to do with certain permissible uses of tattoo parlors in or out of certain zones. If you read through everything that is here, that was the only change that would kind of fall outside the realm of this committee or the council. And so we asked the Planning Commission to do so. They have rendered that. If you look back in total, adding that piece back in and the other changes that the committee had made, as you can see in the table of motions from the June and July meetings, if it be everyone's intention, we could move the B1 ZODA forward now because I believe all the questions that we had, either internal to the committee, have been answered or those that we were going to ask the Planning Commission to opine on. But before we get into that discussion, Director, would you like to make any comments? Have I summarized within realm where we stand and what we could do today? I think that was a great summary, Mr. Chairman. and says where we are, we actually had the great big picture, and then you cut one part out. It had to go back to the Planning Commission for review. The Planning Commission did make that review and suggested back to you that modified to some degree what you had sent to them, in all fairness, because of legitimate concerns. And now we can put those two pieces back together. I think both pieces have technically had first reading. Yes, sir. we can prepare a unified document that you i think can dock it immediately to go ahead and then have you know once reported out to the full council have a council docket for second reading those two pieces have been separated unified back together i mean we could check with law just how we do that procedurally but uh but basically everything will have received the requisite readings and and can go ahead and be acted and enacted into law then today would you Would you prefer a motion from this committee to rejoin those? I think that would be fine. And then whatever legislative process-wise needs to happen to make that happen, I think we can confer with law and make sure that that's done. You would be able to, I would hope, report that out next week so we could expedite it on this one item since it certainly has. Have this part of the committee action report out next Tuesday for potentially a second reading on the combined ordinances at our meeting next Thursday? That would be my wish. But if that can't happen, it has to go a little slower. That's fine as well. But moving it on to the full council now that both parts have had full vetting. Full vetting, I agree. Very full vetting, and have both received first reading by council as separate things. Unless there's anything. I have one council member signed up, Council Member Lawless. As I'm looking at this, it has 8-15E7. Which page are you on? 11. Prohibited uses? Yes. Didn't we move tattoo parlors into? That was the subject of the Planning Commission's action. That became the subject of the text amendment that has now been reported back. Right. If you would like me, I could in two minutes clarify what you sent back and what the changes were. Out of the entire package after the committee and council fully vetted, there were two areas that you wanted changed. One you sent back to the Planning Commission requesting that tattoo parlors be allowed as a conditional use in the B2B zone instead of being a prohibited use, which had been originally recommended by the Planning Commission. When we took that back as staff and planning commission, we saw no issue with that. Perfectly agree. And in the new version that you gave first reading to recently, that is what's proposed. The tattoo parlors would be a conditional use in B2B. What about B1? Yes, there already were recommended to be conditional uses in B1. Okay. That was in the original B1 text amendment. Okay. Then the other thing had to do with rehabilitation homes. Right. It was sent back to the Planning Commission for a rehearing on having rehabilitation homes become conditional uses in the professional and business zones, whereas right now they are permitted as long as they are 500 feet from residential. When we took this back and recreated the research that we did in 2004 and conferred with the law department, we became very concerned over that proposal in that certain types of residents of rehabilitation homes are protected classes under the Federal Fair Housing Act, and to have them all become conditional we thought was problematic. So as an alternative, we presented to the Planning Commission. We looked at the council discussion, and we found that there were concerns particular about distance from also public schools, or pardon me, public or private schools and daycare centers. So the alternative that we suggested back for those business zones was to add the 500-foot restriction, not just from residential, but also from schools for academic destruction and daycare centers. And that is what the Planning Commission agreed to and recommended back to you. So if you are closer than 500 feet to any of those, then it is a conditional use and would have to go to the Board of Adjustment. But we could say, in terms of federal fair housing, that we do have locations where a rehabilitation home is a principal-permitted use. If it went to the Board of Adjustment? No, a by-right use as long as you are in a business zone or office zone and you are greater than 500 feet away from any residential zone, any school for academic instruction, or a daycare center. And that was a compromise. The law was comfortable with, and the Planning Commission was as well. And that is what you also gave first reading to in terms of the change very recently. And was there any talk about the oversight of a rehabilitation home? In terms of— For instance, are there state regulations? because what struck me was in the definition of a rehabilitation home, it was like they may or may not be able to come and go. They may have a volunteer 24-step. I mean, it was very loose. Well, we have no local oversight of such things. So if they are the kinds of facilities that do require licensure by the state or oversight by the state, that would occur. But we have no local oversight or licensure of those facilities. And so that's something I would like to see put into some committee, possibly public safety, looking at a way to provide oversight for rehabilitation homes. So, Vice Mayor Gorton, should I do that at work session? Put that issue in, because I do believe we do need oversight. That would be the appropriate time to do it. Thank you very much. Anything else on what has been tendered to us in terms of the combined B-1 ZODA legislation? Yes, ma'am. It was my understanding we were going through this kind of line at a time, and did we get to the end? Yes, we did. Okay, thank you. That's what the minutes reflect at the back of the packet. Okay, thank you. We did. We went through everything line by line. We had a couple of changes. That's what went off to the Planning Commission and came back and got docketed and almost got a second reading the other night. We're just trying to combine that back with what we had already agreed on previously and had also been docketed given in the first reading, all under the moniker of B1 ZODA update, which is where we're trying to marry those two now to forward to Council. Okay. I just wanted to... Yes, ma'am. But I do think your other issue is something that is best tendered in a different committee. Right. Thank you. Yes, ma'am, certainly. All right. Then I would ask the committee for a motion to combine these and forward them to the Council for action next Tuesday. So moved. Council Member Clark, seconded by Council Member Ellinger. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like sign. Wow, that took a long time. Okay, thank you. That was a great discussion, too, specifically at another meeting, but one that brought different parts together. There's an opportunity to run through issues in the committee, but I'm not going to take it. Motion to adjourn. We have a motion to adjourn and a second. All those in favor, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.