. Thank you. Hmm? Thank you. Thank you. and I think others are going to come in, but we're ready to proceed. First, I wanted to start with the committee summary, which is on pages 1 through 5. I believe, I mean, I'll ask you all if there are any additions or corrections, but I would just make one. I believe that in the header on page 1 here, we need to add the list of the committee members who were present. This says who wasn't here, who were also present. I think it's important to say who was here, so we make that one change. Are there any other additions or corrections to the minutes that's submitted then? Hearing none, I ask for a motion to approve. I approve. Second. Motion is second. All those in favor? Opposed, like sign, motion, I believe carried. Yes, it did. All right. Councilmember Clark, you have brought us a lot of email and a few people and an issue about Agape Drive. And I would turn to you at this time, please, sir. Thank you, Chair. Let me just briefly discuss the issue so everybody understands what our conversation is about. The bottom line for this issue is to propose a resolution, a permanent barricade for the current northern terminus of Agape Drive, which is in Dogwood Trace. As the committee members know and as our audience knows, a change of zoning from AU to R3 occurred recently, the property known as Old School House or the Harvey property, and allows the development of that property into 196 apartments and 45 single-family residents. With the existing and connecting English Station Drive of 45 residences, that combination of units would include something over what we consider something like 500 and more bedrooms. The comprehensive plan calls for connections at both Agape Drive and Twain Ridge. Twain Ridge was considered the major connector street, but was not included in the development plan, presumably because of cost. The idea of barricading Agapi was opposed by the planning commission and the planning staff, and so I should mention that as part of the discussion. Obviously, the residents' concern is that making Agapi a connector would change a narrow, quiet residential street into a major thoroughfare, And that is the principal concern. Connector Street is considered 36 feet wide. Agape is less than 30. It is estimated that there would be a very large number of cars moving from the new development area each day. One concern that will be brought up today, I suspect, and we need to talk about this and put it out front, is that E911 is concerned about the fact that if we barricade Agape at its northern terminus, then there would be two separate Agape streets. And so the obvious solution to that is in the new development, which the street doesn't actually exist at this point, the new street could simply be renamed. I facetiously suggested that it be named Burr Oak. Just for whatever. whatever relief that might bring. So basically what I want to do by the end of this discussion, we can make it as short as we wish, is to propose that we move this to the full council of the work session as a recommendation from this committee to consider the barricading, the permanent barricade at Lagapi Street. So that pretty much is the discussion, Mr. Chair. Do we have a sign-up sheet of folks who want to speak at this point? Or if we do, go see about one, won't you? We should have, yes. We welcome all of you here. We're glad to have you as part of the process. Our council rules allow each of you to have three minutes to speak to us. And if some of you want to sign up on behalf of others, they can speak for further increments of three minutes each. I would just say to you that there are other items on the agenda. We're glad to have you here, but if your point has been made, you may pass or come and make it briefly. But once again, we're very glad to have you here. You're the reason we do what we do. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. First up, Roy Cornett. Mr. Cornett? Actually, you'll find out. You're good. You're good. All right. Thank you, sir. Mr. John Yoswiak. Welcome. Thank you. Is this on? Yes, sir. You are there. Okay. My name is John Yoswiak, and I live in Dogwood Trace at 4860 Bud Lane. Back in August, around the 22nd, I sent a letter to every member of council asking for your support and barricading this at its current northern terminus. My comments are highlights, so I raised in that letter. Currently, agape traffic from its current northern terminus in Dogwood Trace is generated by approximately 60 residents. that is these are in uh on lacrosse court double tree court and the part of agape north of dogwood trace boulevard just to show you the impact of opening up agape as a connector street to what's up going to be up north of it it opened up the english station which is 45 homes and the ball homes old schoolhouse complex which is 42 homes and 196 apartment units for a total of 283 residents. So that basically, you know, so everyone coming from that direction who wants to get to Harrisburg Road via Agape and Dogwood Trace or go south to Kroger and Bella Reef would be on that route. That represents a potential increase. It was never a state in terms of percentages here when we're talking about bedrooms and so forth. But from a standpoint of residences connected to here, you'd have a 471% increase in traffic on Agape, which is a street that doesn't even meet the minimum width requirements to be a connector. So the volume of traffic and the ensuing safety problems create a situation that, you know, none of us think that the residents and that living in that area deserve to endure. The relatively safe, acquired environment, you know, enjoyed by residents in that area, and all of Dogwood Trace, in fact, basically gets tremendously impacted if not destroyed. We don't think that this situation is something that was intended when the wording was in the comprehensive plan to make that a connector street several years ago because no one really knew what was going to be developed there. And now that we do know the impacts of traffic and safety and quality of life, we recommend going above the comprehensive plain and permanently barricading the northern termos of Agape. One other point I want to bring up, but it's also significant to note that really the more logical connection to this development would be via Twain Ridge, part of Clement Heights. That's actually much closer to this new development than Dogwood Traces. However, as we all know, the city is content with the fact that that connection will probably never happen, it's not in the development plan, which in effect makes that a permanent barricade at Twain Ridge. So we already have one. I think we need another to minimize the impacts of Dogwood Trace. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you very much. I was going to ask staff before our next speaker, which is Roger Schnabel, if you would put one of the maps up on the overhead so we could reference it or that they could reference it just for our conversation purposes. then Mr. Schnebel. Welcome, sir. I want to echo those thoughts that the previous speaker just made and those thoughts that I sent to each one of you in a letter. I moved there in 1989, and it was an underdeveloped subdivision at that time. I've watched it grow to be a fully developed subdivision at that time. The addition of 240 or 50 houses would bring a tremendous amount of traffic on Agape Drive. And I also believe that if a developer wants to develop the area, then he ought to be willing to build an access road such as Twain Ridge. And that basically is my thoughts on that. Very good, sir. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Next is Darren Salk. That's correct. 4752 Agape. Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry for incorrectly reading that. The next is Susan Thompson. Thank you. Next is Mark Sock. Do you have three, six, or nine minutes? I'll take the nine and we'll back it off from there. Well done, sir. Thank you, Chair and committee. My name is Mark Sock. I live at 4752 Agape Drive. And over the last several days, we have circulated a petition around the neighborhood, of which we have a representation of today. And many of these people took time off of work to be here at this committee meeting because they feel it's important. It's important to their lives. And they took the time off of their busy schedule to be here. The petition that we circulated around the neighborhood basically states, We, the undersigned residents of Dogwood Trace Subdivision, respectfully request permanent barricading of Agape Drive at its current northern terminus. We understand that the current comprehensive plan describes streets similar to Agape Drive as connector streets, especially in the light of Ball Home's development of the old Harvey property. However, the comprehensive plan also describes a connector as a relatively wide street of 33 feet or more. This is because a connector street is envisioned to serve many purposes, such as emergency police and fire truck ingress and egress, delivery and service truck use, school bus access, and in this case, the daily use by some 400 to 500 plus new occupancy, new occupants of the Harvey development, and some 100 residents of English Station whose current access will be discontinued. Agape Drive is only 29.9 feet wide at its northern terminus. The comprehensive plan also envisioned that the much wider Twain Ridge should serve as a connector, but the Ball Homes Company Development Plan contains no consideration of that connection, and the Planning Commission made no demands for that connection, considering costs to the city and developer. Thus, Agape would bear the burden of carrying all the additional traffic. With the number of new occupants numbering in the access of 500, and with the addition of existing English station residents, it's inevitable that Agape would present a serious safety impediment to emergency vehicles and school buses and the safety of existing Dogwood Trace and Dogwood Glen adults and children who would detract significantly from a wide range of objectives of the comprehensive plan when it comes to interconnecting neighborhoods. As I said, over the last several days, we collected signatures from over 75% of the residents of the entire neighborhood of Dogwood Trace. Not just Agape Drive, not just Doubletree, not just La Crosse, but the entire neighborhood. Of the less than 25% that we did not get signatures from, many were out of town. It was Labor Day weekend. We're going to post that if that's all right. I'm sorry? We're going to post that if that's all right. Thank you. And the other factoid from the petition is we received over 500 signatures. So once again, this is a wide-ranging concern throughout the neighborhood, all the way from Bud Drive down to the very southern end of the neighborhood. Once again, as mentioned in the petition, you know, the comprehensive plan calls for both Agape and Twain Ridge to be opened. Having just Agape opened up to the new subdivision, the new development, would totally alter our way of life in our neighborhood. And that's why these folks are here today. That's why we are here today. That's why we have circulated this petition around the entire neighborhood, because they feel it will impact their lives that much. The closing of the current English station drive, we feel, is not necessary to the current development of the Harvey property. Emergency and service vehicles have been using that current entrance for years without issue. Dogwood Trace doesn't have city services. All of our garbage collection is private. So we feel that that is another issue that we ask the committee to take a look at. The other thing I wanted to mention is it comes straight out of the roadway manual, Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. And it's the goals and objectives from the roadway manual. And the goals state that it is the goal of Lexington Fayette Urban County Government to establish procedures and techniques that will promote neighborhood livability by mitigating negative impacts of automobile traffic on residential neighborhoods. Although livability has no precise definition, it can be thought of as encompassing the following characteristics. the ability of residents to feel safe and secure in their neighborhood, the opportunity to interact socially with neighbors without the dominance of traffic related to distractions or threats, the ability to experience a sense of home and privacy, a sense of community and neighborhood identity, a balanced relationship between the multiple uses and needs of the neighborhood, to provide accessible levels of accessibility for local traffic, discourage excessive speeds and encourage opportunities for alternate modes, all in recognition of quality of life and the specific objectives of the neighborhood or area plan. The objectives of the neighborhood traffic management out of the roadway manual, it is to promote safe and pleasant conditions for residents, pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists on local neighborhood streets, to encourage the designed use of the total street system, including the reduction of cut-through vehicular traffic on local neighborhood streets, to reduce the speed of traffic on local neighborhood streets, to preserve and enhance pedestrian and bicycle travel within the neighborhoods, to encourage citizen involvement in neighborhood traffic management process. That's why we're here. to achieve efficient and safe movement of traffic within neighborhoods, including emergency vehicles consistent with the intended function of the neighborhood streets, to maintain acceptable levels of service on the city's arterials, as to avoid intrusion diversion onto local neighborhood streets. So in summary, you've heard the previous two speakers. the neighborhood has overwhelmingly asked this committee to move the permanent blockade of Agape Drive to a full council vote. And I thank you for your time. Thank you, sir, and for your presentation. Much appreciated. The last person signed up on the list is Patty Roof. Thank you, ma'am. Are there any others who would like to speak on this issue at this time? If you would, if you would approach first the gentleman, then the lady. As the other folks had signed up, we got their name and their address. If you would give us your name and your address, please. I will. My name is Bob Poudy. I live at 2500 Sun Gale Court, which is in Firebrook, directly across from Dogwood Trace. Welcome. I've been to almost every meeting when Anderson Properties wanted to build over there and when Ball did. I come with a little different perspective. I'm a retired superintendent of a traffic crew from the Department of Transportation. Fayette County was one of the 12 counties that I worked in. I'm concerned about safety. I'm concerned about all the cars coming out at one or basically two places on Harrodsburg Road. The little connector road that the state built so that the few cars that use it can is breaking away since the dump trucks have been there. I saw tracks of dump trucks going on this road, and it is getting worse as the days go on. I'm concerned about the actual traffic flow and getting out onto Harrodsburg Road. And there are basically two ways unless you go out the back way of Firebrook, and that is at the light at Overbrook and Harrodsburg or on Military Road. Right now, during peak hours, traffic backs up on Military Road past the first entrance to Firebrook, and the light will allow three or four cars to come out. We have the same timing on Firebrook's side as they have on Dogwood Trace side. Concern about safety and concern about just what it's going to do to the traffic flow in Lexington. Everybody needs to get the town to work. Understood and appreciated, especially given your background. Thank you, sir, very much. Yes, ma'am. If you would just share with us your name and address too, please. Donna Brashefsky, 4840 Bud Lane. Welcome. I don't live that near Agape, but my concern is the people that will be making that left-hand turn into Dogwood Trace. that has been a very bad left-hand turn, and they moved the left-hand turn lane over. You still cannot, there is on Harrodsburg Road, about an eighth of a mile or so, a curve. And when there's a lot of traffic coming in this way, you cannot, when you're stopped to make that turn, you cannot see those cars necessarily coming. Right. And you think you have a right of way, and they start coming towards you. Now, when you're going to add how many more cars, maybe up to 400 more cars, trying to make that left-hand turn into Dogwood Trace, it was dangerous before. I think it'll be dangerous again, even with the lane being moved over. Then they're going to come into Dogwood Trace and start down a hill. Okay, now we don't have that much bad weather in this area, but we do have it. and they're going to stop at a gap. There is a sign now, a stop sign there. But they're going to stop there and make those left-hand turns. How many are going to get hit from behind? How much danger at these two points do we need to have? I vote against, I want that blockade. You do? I do. Good to go. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Any others for commentary? I would just say to Councilmember Clark, I think the body of the information was about the specific issue. I think the last two speakers may have flushed out some other things that you may want to take under consideration. And just so you all will know, our director of, well, our CAO is here, but our new director of traffic management. Well, that's not it. Our new director is here that takes care of traffic. So you've been heard by the people who need to hear you the most. All right. So we've heard from the public. Do you want to say anything else before we pivot to staff, sir? I think this would be a good time to ask if the staff has any comments and then the council members as well. Included in the packet is a point-by-point discussion of this authored by our director of planning, Chris King. Director King, do you want to speak to this? And I can limit you to three minutes if you like. Mr. Chairman and Council Members, before we start into some of the specifics, I'd just like to say that we do run into these kinds of situations from time to time. They do come up. As you know, I've been here a long time. We've seen these before. And they inevitably come up where you have an area where a development wave occurred basically in fairly short order. but there were certain properties that just did not develop for one reason or another, and patterns get established. People get used to certain situations. And when these changes do come in and are proposed, it makes for a very emotional situation. So I want to say that everything I am going to say and talk about is said with the utmost respect for the sincerity and the passion of the neighbors and Council Member Clark. But there are other points of view to be discussed here, and there are other constituencies yet to be served in this area, and I would like to advocate for those just a little bit and give you just a little bit of background. There are others who may speak from the staff as well. I kind of got appointed, but this idea is opposed. This request went out to us in a general sense back in May, I believe it was, and coordinated through then Kevin Wente in Public Works, which has been the standard process. I believe planning responded in opposition, traffic engineering responded in opposition, police and fire as well. So, and as well, the Planning Commission has spoken on this matter a couple of times as well. So I just wanted to let you know, it's not just me. There are others that may speak, but I'm going to kind of summarize some of the issues if you don't mind. And given the shortness of time that we've had, kind of got old school type exhibits, and I'll be needing to move over to the projector and put them up and speak from there if you don't mind. Grab a microphone and be counted, please. First thing I'd like to say is that this area, I think, is one of the great neighborhoods that it is because it was planned well and the development occurred for a large degree very much in accordance with the plan the first exhibit i'm going to put up just to demonstrate some of this and the long standing planning that's been involved this is from the 1988 comprehensive plan this map and before that there had been small area plans neighborhood plans for this area as well and they all indicated certain land uses and certain proposed street patterns and you can see from this map development had just barely begun in this area when we had a collector street system shown and i will hit a couple of these so that you can kind of relate to where they are today this of course is harrodsburg road this is proposed quain ridge this is agape and you can see it had just started with the Dogwood Trace subdivision in that area. But you can see these collector street systems, and there's one I'm going to point out as we move from 1988 to today, here in a second, is this street, which is now Dogwood Trace, Trace Boulevard is what it was proposed. It was a collector street that proposed to connect all the way over to Clay's Mill Road. And I point this out because it is the one aspect of this that did not, as the development moved through this area, after sewers became available, that did not develop. And there's this very specific reason for that that involves the Kentucky Supreme Court. And it will bear on the issue of Twain Ridge that was raised by a number of the speakers. So I'm pointing that out now for that. I want to point out again that the density, this color indicated on the maps, is medium density residential up to 10 units per acre. So the development that has occurred and that it is proposed and was recently approved is still all within the density ranges that were projected in 1988 and have carried through to the future. Today. this exhibit shows the same area somewhat as it is today basically as it is today okay you see i think the other speakers and i don't need to labor on this but you do see that down here we don't have that east-west connectivity of what is now dogwood trace Boulevard and was renamed Copper Run Boulevard, those were originally proposed to all be one continuous street. There was a piece in the back end of Clemens Heights, okay, back here, that was the last piece that came in, and when that developer brought that through and the staff and planning commission insisted on having that street connectivity that was projected in the comprehensive plan in the neighborhood plans. The developer objected because of the very high cost of bridging the stream. About that time is when we started requiring carrying over creeks, the 100-year floodplain. There had been some changes. Therefore, the cost of going over streams greatly increased from what it had been before. And the developer argued that that burden for Collector Street and their individual subdivision was too great because the collector streets involved traffic from many different subdivisions, not just their own. The Planning Commission and the Urban County Government fought that and actually won. The Planning Commission did require the connection. The developer filed suit and that suit was processed all the way to the Kentucky Supreme Court, and in a split decision, the Kentucky Supreme Court overturned the decision of the urban county government and said, yes, the government does have a right to require such streets and insist on such connectivity, but on streets that would carry as much traffic as being talked about that and involve many developments, the one developer should not do that. Now, that leads to a lot of things, including the exaction program that we have in the expansion area, actually. But that's history for another day. But I wanted to explain that in the context of why the Planning Commission could not require the connection of Twain Ridge. I'll bring up this exhibit that you've seen. Going the wrong direction. There we go. We required the developer to go as far as they could, but when you got to the area here of actually crossing this stream in Greenway, because of that Kentucky Supreme Court decision back from the early 90s, we could not require that. okay so that means that we do advocate for that connection we require this developer to bring that connection right up to that but that the cost of that will have to be borne by the public so again that is in your hands and the urban county government's hands ultimately whether funds are ever budgeted to make that connection we as planners and traffic engineers urge that someday that be done but i needed to give that little bit of background so that you can understand why we couldn't just make the developer do it. I want to show you another map, and again, this is similar. But this shows the situation that you will have if you do not have connectivity through Twain Ridge and Agape into this area. That basically is about 83 acres of development that will develop at medium-density residential that at least at the initial will only have one way in and one way out, and that's Harrisburg Road opposite Military Pike. Now, we understand that that has to be the condition until other streets develop, and in this case, unless and until Twain Ridge is constructed and unless and until Agape, which is the only other option, provides secondary access into this area. The traffic studies that were done in conjunction with the zone change showed that the traffic will overwhelmingly use this entrance regardless. I'll be very honest about that. And in peak hours, something like 95% of the traffic desires to come in towards town, towards Manowar and towards New Circle. So we see this connectivity as really being neighborhood-based. And again, we've had a 25-year gap between when this part of the neighborhood developed versus these other parts of the neighborhood, which is knitting together. But in the end, and I know this is hard to accept, again, because of that gap, that these will be the neighbors and associates of the areas that are developed out there right now. And as such, we think it's important that they be able to relate to each other in traffic, pedestrian, cars, through interior local streets, as well as the major highways. I would just point out that if these other connections are not made for instance one of the residents and there'll be you know many hundreds of households future constituents living in this area if they are wanting to go to Dogwood Park and I'm pointing to where the parking lot is for that right here off of Dogwood Trace Boulevard or if they have friends neighbors that are in Dogwood that have developed those relationships over time. In order to do that, they would have to come out, turn left onto one of our busiest four-lane highways, and get and turn left into Dogwood Trace. And if I understood, I believe it was Ms. Roof talked about the issues and taking that left turn onto Dogwood Trace, if I was understanding her correctly. She was here a few minutes ago. You know, that would be the only way that they could go to the park meet with other neighbors other than walking, which, of course, we encourage as well. There are proposed walking trails through the Greenway and others, but we do think that we need street connectivity as well. So, again, I know there was also some discussion of the width of Agape, and I'd like to at least speak to that briefly. Please. At the time, Agape and Dogwood Trace was being proposed for development. We had basically 36-foot streets, 30-foot streets in the cross sections. We didn't have a 33-foot cross section. That came later in the mid-'90s. But what was occurring at that time was a general awareness of the detriment of oversized streets. Okay? When Dogwood Trace came in, Agape, both going north and south, was planned as a 36-foot street and originally approved as such. So that would have been the collector width at the time. Now it's gone down to 33. but 36 feet. After the development had started, the developer came in and filed a specific amendment to their subdivision plan for this area before Agape was constructed, requesting that that be reduced down to our next smallest continuing local street that we had at that time, which is, it's 30 or 31. They have measured it at 29 feet, 9 inches, but that basically means it's 30 feet from face-to-face curb Our subdivision regulations usually talk about back of curb to back of curb, 31 feet. It's the same basic street. But that was the street that was done. Well, that was reviewed by planning staff, traffic engineering, and others in light of that comprehensive plan that you saw early and the projected medium density. And the fact that this was a fairly short and confined area, it was agreed to approve that street as a 31-foot street. Because, again, at that time, we were beginning to look at and understand a need for traffic calming on streets that were wider than they needed to be. The fact that wider streets tend to encourage faster traffic at times if they don't need to be that wide. So, again, it was a judgment call. What you have been told is absolutely correct is that the 30, 31-foot street does not meet our normal collector or connector. But again, in the continuum of collector and connector streets, this is a very small, we feel, highly localized amount of traffic. Will there be more traffic than today if it's connected? Absolutely. And the neighbors, like I said, are used to a certain pattern and are concerned about it, but we don't feel it would be excessive and cause any great safety, particularly in light of what other options people will have to move in that area. I do want to just mention one other thing. I want to show you a map. The color doesn't really jump out as much as it should on this. I don't know if there's a way to fine-tune it, but I'd be glad to pass it around. This map is based upon some work that's actually in progress on the GIS system of identifying the widths of all street in Fayette County and creating that as a layer. There we go. I asked our staff to prepare a map for me and to show every street in Lexington and Fayette County that is 31 feet or less. and basically it's the size of agape and and less in lexington fayette county and as you can see the vast majority of public streets that we have in lexington fayette county meet that criteria many of these streets carry much more traffic than than agape would be projected to be but we wanted to show this and again i know that does not and the intent of this is not to negate the fact that incrementally there will be a change from what the neighborhood is used to as a closed-end system. But again, to suggest that it would be ruinous, I think, in my opinion, is a little bit of an overreaction, again, of honest and fair emotion. We just don't see this as being a dangerous or an excessive traffic situation. So again, with that in mind, I'll just close and just say again, please remember that not only do we have the current constituency who is concerned of change, and I do understand that, but you do have constituencies of hundreds of families that will ultimately be located within this blue circle. And I would hope that both in terms of making sure that at least there is the option for connectivity in the future in this area be there. I will point out we're not talking about connecting it today. You can see on this map that great big green piece of property here, the Kamek property is still zoned agricultural. It's not been brought in. We are not proposing that the urban county government purchase right away and physically make that connection. We would suggest that that would come if and when the Kamek property comes in for development. But again, going back to not making it any kind of permanent barricade, but to leave the option open. You can certainly barricade the street if you're concerned about cut-through traffic. We've had those kinds of things where people running across the Kammick property as this property develops to the north. And we actually have some precedent for that. I found in my files a memoir I wrote over 25 years ago to then Council Member Pam Miller and Council Member Don Todd, who were concerned about agape at the south end extending into Jessamine County. And we pointed out to them again that through barricading, council could barricade that if that was ever a concern. And in fact, for a number of years, there was a physical barricade on agape down at Belver Reve that was removed at some point later in the future. So again, there are options that the council can take in this matter as planners. We would urge you not to do something that doesn't need to be done at this time. If there is some concern about security, certainly you could barricade it physically now, but don't close the right-of-way. Don't close out the option for those to perhaps take a different point of view for future constituencies that will be living in that area. Thank you. Very good, sir. Thank you. Other members of the staff who wish to make comments at this time? Welcome. Hi. I am Dowell Squire, the Director of Traffic Engineering, and the Division of Traffic Engineering does not support barricading Agape Drive at the terminus there that borders the Kamek property. We feel that connectivity is key to the street network. We feel that one of the reasons that connectivity is key is preserving the U.S. and state route highway system and bordering this property as Harrodsburg Road. And it's critical that we preserve capacity on those state and U.S. routes. In regards to the comments about the safety of the left-hand turn into Dogwood Trace from Harrodsburg Road, I'm not sure if that's a permitted left turn currently. We could certainly look at making it protected only where you wouldn't have to use your best judgment to make a left-hand turn against the oncoming traffic on Harrodsburg Road. Safety is obviously a critical concern to us in the division. But back to the connectivity issue, you know, we feel that connectivity reduces travel times. We feel that development should be connected internally as well as externally. it reduces travel times for city services, whether it be mail. I know you don't have trash collection in those neighborhoods, but mail or emergency services and time is critical in some cases. Additionally, bicycle and pedestrian connectivity is key, whether it be sidewalk on a street or on street bicycle connectivity. And then in regards to the traffic volumes, I know there were some high percentages of traffic increases thrown around by some of the speakers. And in the traffic study that was done for the development in the vicinity of Old Schoolhouse Lane, by overwhelming majority, that traffic enters at Old Schoolhouse Lane. In the morning peak hour, it was estimated approximately 20 to 25 vehicles will be entering into that development. And in the p.m. peak hour, approximately 100. A hundred may sound like a lot, but it's a little more than one a minute. And in traffic engineering terms, you know, that's not a whole lot. So, you know, so I guess once again, we are not in support of preventing the future connection and limiting connectivity between these developments. Very good. Thank you for your presentation. Yes, sir. Hi, I'm Captain Greg Lingle. I'm representing the Division of Fire and EMS. What I put up here is a map of the subdivisions of Dogwood Trace and Firebrook. Just to kind of show you, they are comparable in size. Firebrook actually has four entrances and exits into their subdivision. Currently, Dogwood Trace just has one. fires in support of having as many entrances into subdivisions for response time. And I believe that's really our big issue and selling point is response time. You got one way coming in and one way going out. So we'd like to see that open. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it very much. Other staff point of view? All right. I have Council Member Clark signed up. Council Member? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to reserve my time. I think it's probably appropriate for the rest of the committee to make their comments at this point. And I'd just like to wrap up as we finish, if we could. Well, unless other Council Members have questions or comments, Council Member Henson, welcome. Thank you, sir. I wanted some clarification on the Dogwood Trace entrances. I was thinking there were two. Oh, okay. They mean, okay. So when you enter through the Belle of Reeves, that is not... We don't respond from Jasmine County. We're in Fayette County. But the entrance there at Belle Reve, is that what it's called? Yes. Is that in Jessamine County? Yes. Yeah. That was the wrong way. So if there were a fire on that end of Dogwood Trace, you would not be able to enter from that? Okay. I guess worst case scenario, we could go around, but now you're talking about response time. But Jesmond County don't respond because the houses are. No, those houses, they're in Fayette County. Right. If they call 911, we're the ones coming. Right. Unless if for some reason we call mutual aid, which could happen, but that fire station actually up the road closes at 6 p.m. at night. So I guess if it happens at noon, we could call for mutual aid, but other than that, it's Lexington Fire Department responding. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Next, Council Member Jennifer Massadi. Thank you, Chair. Chris, could you answer one quick question for me, please? You said at the podium that the entrance into the apartment complex was across the Military Pike. I was up there yesterday. It's not that way now, so it's going to be moved. Is that correct, or is that the entrance? That's where the entrance is going to be. They come in on Old Schoolhouse Lane, and Twain Ridge will come and tie in, and I can show you that on a map if you're interested in actually seeing it. Well, I'm familiar with the area. A lot of these people used to be my constituents, so I really am familiar with it. It's just I don't even like that entrance, to tell you the truth. You know, when I was out there looking at it again yesterday, I thought, how did we make that the main entrance as well? Because to me, what they were saying as far as coming up Harrisburg Road, taking that left, I mean. Certainly, you remember it's been made circuitous in order to preserve the borough. That's the main reason why that came out that way. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I have sympathy for you all because I've driven down Agape, and I know exactly what it is. It's a small residential street, not a collector street. I don't like the entrance to the new subdivision either. I mean, I guess I'm not real excited about the whole plan, to be very honest with you. But I'm not sure at this point we can do much about it other than to consider what your concerns are, and I certainly understand that, but I wish we could go back to the drawing board. I really do on this one because I feel like we've got an opportunity here to do a nice development, but I don't like the egress or the accessibility of either one of the entrances. And I think we're going to have an accident on the other entrance going into schoolhouse property, and we're going to have issues with going down to Goppy. So, Councilmember Clark, I kind of defer to you on this one because I understand what you're dealing with, but I'm not really happy with either entrance, and I think we've got safety, really big safety concerns on both. And I understand you're firing emergency personnel. I think that's critical. I mean, we just had some incidences the other day on Sunday night where you saw what happened out in Beaumont, and that's real accessible. So if somebody's got a fire or there's an emergency, getting their response time is crucial. So we've got a tough decision up here on what to do with this, and I wish, like I said, we could go back to the drawing board and kind of figure out how we make this better. And Council Member Clark, I'm open to your suggestions. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Next up is Council Member Kevin Stenet. Thank you, Chair. And even though I'm not a member of the committee, I won't get a chance to vote today in the way or another. I will when it comes to the full council. So I've sat through many of these votes the last 10 years. Sarin Drive comes to mind. You remember that, Chris? Seven hours of hearings on whether we open Sarin Drive or not. We've had them in my district on Autumn Ridge. A new neighborhood is going in actually right now. Do we open that up? So I feel for the neighborhood. I understand the issues. I understand that as traffic moves through my back door that used to not go there, it makes it very difficult to accept that and say, hey, we're glad for it to come through our neighborhood, especially when the neighborhood's up against our county border. And that, you know, what real purpose is this serving Fayette County citizens to open up? What is it really serving when it goes into another county? Do we, you know, is that a priority in our road manual as a Fayette County council and as a Fayette County citizen? Should we be making access to other counties easier? Some probably argue yes. I guess my concern is Train Ridge. Why hasn't a plan been developed and brought to this council and a price tag put on this to be done? It's a $10 million price tag. Well, we don't know that. We don't know how much it is because no one's done the homework. Why haven't we done the homework? Has anyone in planning, have we ever looked at that? Have we looked at the price tag? I mean, we're doing Polo Club next summer outside of my district to connect to Todd's Road. That's a project that should have happened when that neighborhood was built, too. But remember again that this zone change in this development is very recent. And until that came in and the issues were settled and the Planning Commission did vote and require that developer to bring Twain Ridge over to the Greenway and to the edge, so now it is time to start to develop just those things that you were saying. And it will take our engineering folks to look at that, look at the costs and things of that nature. And when can we get that cost back to the council? I don't know. I'm sure that would come up in a budget process or be put on a priority list for other improvements as things move on. Well, Councilman Clark, I would hope you would be involved in getting that to our table sooner rather than later because it has to fall in line with all the other projects that have been waiting on our six-year road plan. And unless you get ahead of the game, it's going to be quite a while before that's ever considered. The other property that's still zone agriculture use, Mr. King, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you sit back down. If we don't make a decision today, because obviously it's not going to connect today, whether we make a decision or not, a future council could come back in and reopen it. We've had this issue, too, before. Yes. Where a council decided to close it, and then a new council comes in, and they reopen it. So I'm trying to understand what the – And that's something I almost did not want to address here from the podium. I know. Because it's a legal question whether this council can permanently put a barricade on that some future council could not overdo. I want to be fair to the neighborhood. I want them to understand expectations. Because a lot of times we don't do a good job of managing expectations about what's going to happen. And hey, for us all to be in agreement today and say, hey, we're going to barricade it. And then four years down the road, another developer comes in, opens that land up for his own change, and all of a sudden it's back open. And they're like, no, you closed it. So I'm trying to get a better understanding of that. Sure, and I think that's true. As you know, in most all cases, it's the planning commission that is charged with making those decisions on street connectivity. The ace in the hole that council has is the ability to at least suggest closures and start the court processes that must follow that, as well as being able to require barricades, which then puts, it shifts the ultimate decision then, not to the plan commission, but to the council. And, you know, if council wished to retain that control, I guess one way to do that would be to put a barricade at the end of that right-of-way. Yeah, again, I see until that other property comes on board, our decision today is arbitrary. It's premature, in our opinion. When that comes. We can't officially barricade it today until another development comes, and then it could be officially barricaded at that point once it's built. And, again, that property is zoned agricultural. It could not develop for anything other than a conditional use allowed in AU or something like that without having to come to the council for a rezoning. So there's already a natural barrier now? Yes, sir. To our fire folks in the back, I appreciate your all's concerns as well. I know our response times are always critical. Do we have response time data on this neighborhood now? And are we saying that if we open Agape up in the future that that would improve response times? Because I'm trying to understand going down Old Schoolhouse Road and then... No, sir, I'm not saying that. You're absolutely right. If there was an emergency that came in Dogwood Trace, they'd come down Harrodsburg Road and go on Dogwood. Yeah, they're still going to use that whether we're opening this or not. But if there's an emergency up in that front, whatever you have, you know, I hate to say what ifs, but a secondary means of progress into that neighborhood is what we're looking for. Yeah, that's always important. If we have that potential, yeah. So, and driving into Jesmond County and coming back is probably not the best option, and I don't know how Jesmond County would feel about that either. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. Thank you, sir. I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly. Thank you, Chair. That's all the questions I have for now. Thank you, sir, very much. Next, Council Member Steve Kaye. Thank you, Chair. Chris, a couple more questions, if I may. the first it may be too speculative but um if when the last comprehensive plan was created not the comprehensive plan that essentially indicated both of those streets as connectors if there had been an awareness that the twain ridge connection would be so expensive would that have made a difference in the thinking about the connectivity No, because, again, I think it's generally been understood since the lawsuit in the early 90s, and those recommendations did carry on through every other comprehensive plan. And we knew that it was going to be a challenge, again, because of losing that lawsuit just around the corner, literally. Okay. And with the property that's not developed and there's no plans for development, Essentially, what you're doing now, what the Planning Commission has done, is say for those who are developing the new development, they have to make sure that Agape is available as a connector should that property be developed. Is that correct? That's correct. In the Harvey property, you know, there was some argument, the neighbors not wanting connectivity, just saying, don't extend it down to English Station. Well, the Planning Commission did that. They extended it down. They've made that connection, a requirement of that development. And presumably, if the Kamek property came, of course, they would have the choice once again to revisit that issue. But, of course, those of us here advocating for that connectivity would certainly advocate for that connectivity from staff level. And I know it's very dangerous to resume what any planning commission or appointed body would do, but we would certainly hope that they would require that connection. One other question about the undeveloped property, also somewhat speculative. So if it doesn't make any sense, then just let it pass. If that were to be developed, is it likely that there would be a requirement that there would be at least one, if not two, access roads onto Harrodsburg Road from that development, given where it is, given where it sits between the two? Not to Harrodsburg Road. And, in fact, one of the reasons why that agape connection was needed, as you can see, when the development wave was just beginning out there and what we were encountering, is we had some larger farms like those that became Dogwood and Winfrey, other developments out there. But you had a bunch of 10- and 20-acre piano key-type lots were like Lexington Primitive Baptist, like what became English Station, like the Kammack property, which makes it very difficult because the worst situation you can have is multiple accesses out to the four-lane highway. As we were working in that area, we were trying desperately to limit how many access points came onto Harrodsburg Road because the most dangerous, the most capacity issues are if you had multiple accesses. So having the connectivity allowed us, for instance, English Station before the reconstruction of Harrodsburg Road, that is a temporary entrance that used to go out to Harrodsburg Road. Now it's Old Schoolhouse. And Old Schoolhouse comes to the Canick property as well. So, again, it's hard to speculate, but it may be, I think, reasonable to assume that there would be some kind of connection probably to old schoolhouse, which would allow it to go out in that direction, as well as agape proposed. But, again, that's speculative on my point. Okay. But most likely not a direct connection to Harrisburg Road. No, that would be. And so the question of what the impact would be of connectivity in both directions would be different from what it is today, should that be developed. If it's not developed, the connectivity issue does not arise. Correct. Right now it's just a field. We are not proposing that the government go in, buy right away through Kamek and make that connection physically. So is it fair to say that one way or another the question of connectivity would have to be revisited with new information should that piece of property be developed? That's correct. And again, if the council put a barricade up, that would then, you would have to undo that, a physical barricade, I think. Again, now I'm playing lawyer. Dangerous thing for a planning director to do. But I do think that is the case. Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. And then Council Member Henson, please. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to comment that I totally respect the position of the staff and traffic engineering and the need for connectivity. But I also am very familiar with Agape, and I do believe that it is too narrow of a road to be a connector street. I, one of the biggest complaints that I get, or numbers of complaints, is speeding in our neighborhoods, and we can't seem to do anything. You know, I, we get extra enforcement, we get radar trailers, we get the speed spy, all these things, But it only helps for a short period of time, and then I have to have them back out there or whatever. I myself live on a cut-through street, not really a connector street, but a cut-through street. And I see the speeding on folks driving past my street, and I think it takes away from the character of the neighborhoods. I have several neighborhoods in my district that are one way in, one way out, and they are the most preserved neighborhoods that I have. So, you know, I just wanted to share that, although not to take away from the opinions of our planning division, because you all do fantastic work, and I'd appreciate you. but in this case, I really think that just to open up Agape because we have a lack of a better solution does not make it right. So thank you, sir. Thank you, ma'am. And Council Member Masati again. Thank you. I have one last question to someone from the law department. Maybe David, I don't know if you can answer this or not. You know, in 97, I remember we said no more barricades, as Chris King had alluded to. I remember we made that part of the council's, we were in agreement unanimously for that not to happen. Now we're saying open up, I mean, barricade again. So when Council Member Stinnett brought up the point of this would be a moot point if the other parcel is developed, is that correct? I'm not sure exactly what you're asking me. Are you asking whether barricading, whether you all can take an action to barricade at this point? Oh, I know we can. What I'm saying is because it's contingent upon the other parcel being developed, so would we be back in the same situation we are now? And, you know, as far as us barricading it, are we going to have this? I think potentially you could find yourself in the same situation at a later point in time, yes, if that's what you're asking. Yep. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Then Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Chair. Chris King, if we make a motion and approve it by council to barricade today, what happens on the other end in the development? Would the planning commission and staff go back and make that a lot? Would that road close, or would you still stub it into the English station area? What would happen at that end? We would, as staff, would advocate that, at the very least, the rights of way remain completely open. So the decision could be made when you have hundreds of households in that area. There may be constituents that have another point of view. There may be different circumstances. And again, closing out options that don't need to be closed out, to my way of thinking, don't make sense. Because we don't know what it will be 25, 10, 20, 30 years down the road might be the best thing for this area. So if we vote to close it, your recommendation at the Planning Commission on this development plan would be to keep that stub in there? Absolutely. And, again, the stub that you have now, we believe, should stay there, needs to stay there. Both of the corner houses have their access to that stub. And we would, again, I'm a little unclear whether we're just talking barricade or whether you're actually talking closing agape, you know, breaking it up, giving it to the adjoining properties. we would be violently opposed, very strongly opposed to that. Violent's a bad word. That's a word I should not use in chambers. But we would be very, very much opposed. Be a better. Be a better. Thank you. In a vehicle. Yeah, good. Thank you, sir. We have an apology, Chair. You're welcome. More discussion. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Chris, you're going to get your exercise. I need you back up. If next week, or however quickly we could do it, the council voted to connect Twain Ridge. They voted to put the money in, build a bridge, whatever needed to be done. What difference does that make, in your opinion, about the need to connect Agape or not? I think it should as well, and I think perhaps the Twain Ridge residents to the east might be down here. was something to say about that as well. And I'm not meaning that facetiously because, again, it's push down, pop up. You know, the traffic's going to be the same regardless. So all you're talking about is opportunities, options, different patterns of traffic. And so, again, we feel that having both of those options for this area is the best situation. Okay, thank you. So just a final comment for me, I guess, is that my understanding is that what we are not doing today is taking a vote on whether to connect agape or not. That's not what is at issue. What is at issue is whether we want to take right now an action that would basically weight the decision of council towards closing that, so putting up a barrier that would then have to be undone. And I've read all the emails, and I've talked to some of the constituents. I've talked with Council Member Clark about this, and I understand what the concerns are. I just find it hard to foreclose that option now, not knowing what we're going to do with Twain Ridge, not knowing what we're going to do with that piece of property that presently is not developed. I believe when and if that property gets developed, we will be here having exactly the same discussion, discussion, but we'll have more information about what has happened in the meantime, whether Twain Ridge has been opened, et cetera. And so at this point, I'm not in favor of moving this to Council. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Council Member Henson, your third time here. I am so sorry, but I appreciate it. Be brief. I just wanted, someone had mentioned a walking trail, biking trail from the new development over to the park, and I just thought that was a great idea, and I didn't know if that's something we've looked at or not. In place of opening up a Goppe Drive, it would be a walking path. All right. I understand the commentary. I don't have an answer for it, but it may produce. Well, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Council Member Clark, I guess we're back to you. I would ask just a couple of quick questions. If you could put the map back up just by way you're about to bring a motion is my assumption. I'm going to bring a motion, but I want to refute some of the comments that have been made. Okay, that's fine, but answer a couple for me if you would. By way of pointer or something, where exactly would your potential motion barricade Agape on the map there? That's it right there. So on the south side of the property? Yes. All right. Right there where that one little triangle is? Yeah, where that little triangle is. That's correct. All right. And then in the packet? It's where it's barricaded right now. That's the end of the copy. All right. Yeah. Yeah. And then in the part of the packet that you had submitted, in talking about the process, You have made reference to a waiver of a 1981 process if necessary. Could you illuminate on that a little bit? Yes, we have pretty much followed that process. But, for instance, we didn't announce a public hearing. Right. But, obviously, this certainly could substitute for a public hearing. And everything else we have done, we've talked to the CAO. We've talked to the planning staff. So I think we've done everything, but I want to be sure that if we need the waiver, we can do that as part of the process. Thank you. And then, sir, if you would like to continue, those are my questions. Thank you very much. All right. Yeah, thank you, Chair. First thing I want to say, and I don't want to be too long, but I feel compelled to make some argument that would oppose some of the comments that have been made. In the first place, I want to say the planning staff and the planning commission are doing exactly what they're supposed to do. And we have mutual respect for what they do and what our needs are. In the first place, I want to say that the word connectivity has been used a lot. I think it's overrated. In particular, when a situation like this says something other than connectivity is more important. And the comment was made that this does need to be, the connectivity here needs to be done, and that was made emphatically. I simply disagree with that. I think it is a specious argument and that we need to counter that immediately. I think the Planning Commission made a decision that's simply incorrect, And I made that point when we went through the zoning. It is an incorrect decision. Agape cannot be a connector street under any circumstances. And if you've seen that, and maybe we can put a picture or two up if we could do that, if you have an opportunity to do that, you'll see how small it is and how wide the – let's show Agape and show how narrow it is. and then think about this being a major connector. And then you look on that side and you see Twain Ridge, how much, move it over to the other picture, that's Twain Ridge. See how much wider that is? Now that's a connector street. Whether we get there or not, it just shows the difference. In the first place, we talk about this being medium density. I don't think that many bedrooms is medium density, and that's beside the point, and I shouldn't even bring that up. But if that's a medium density, then something's wrong. I want to talk about the property has not been developed. I think that's actually a moot point. We're not talking about that property. We're talking about the connectivity of Agape and the inappropriateness of Agape being a connector street. It cannot be a connector street under any circumstances. I heard the planning commission say, well, it's not wide enough. We should not have categorized that as a connector street. I heard them say that. But then somebody else in the commission said, well, let's just ban parking. Correct or not, that is ridiculous. And so that's where it all started. That's where it came to me that there's something very seriously wrong here. So Chris says that minimal traffic will be using agape, and that this is an overreaction. I think that's absolutely incorrect. We have no survey to say that, and just common sense tells us that people who live in this development are going to move through agape if they're given the chance. I will say, too, while I'm on that point, is that if the fire department uses the new development and agape to get to a Dogwood Trace fire, something's seriously wrong there. Why would they not use the Dogwood Trace entrance on Harrisburg Road to fight a fire in Dogwood Trace rather than coming through the new development in Agape Drive? That's pretty ridiculous. I should also mention that the first comment that was made by fire said they had no objections to barricade. And then shortly after everybody else weighed in, then suddenly fire was against it. So whatever that means. Any kind of traffic survey that we've done here that assumes something can't be factual. You can't possibly assume that any kind of traffic study or survey is done could possibly predict the use of agape drive. the property now developed, the Kamek property is going to be developed. You can assume that negotiations are going on and this is going to be developed quickly and it's going to be asked to re-rezone. That's an assumption on my part. I admit that. But you can just take it to the bank. I wish I had an hour to put this on paper so I can just put all my thoughts down. It's not very well organized. But this is an important issue, folks. This is really important. These people have come here because they're very concerned about their neighborhood, in particular, Gabi. And if we don't open a pathway to the park from the new development, then something's wrong with us. Why in the world would they get in a car and drive from the development to the park to walk? When all they need, all we need is a path, a very short path, which we should have anyhow. I have about 20 other points, but I'm out of time. I want to make a quick motion, and I'm— Well, take a moment. It's okay. Is it? I mean— It's not okay, because I hear a lot of arguments that make absolutely no sense. Well, I think we're all looking for a path here, and I just wanted you to take a breath before you launch. Do you think I need a breath? Well, you know, or a senator. I need more than a breath. I understand, sir. So I'd like to make a motion. Yes, sir. I want to make it very clear. We are not deciding today whether to barricade Agabi Drive. We are going to propose this to full council, and then we will make that decision. So here's the motion. I move to request law to write a resolution to permanently barricade Agape Drive in order to protect the character of the Dogwood Trace neighborhood and place the resolution into work session for full council consideration. So move. So we have a motion and a second. Is there discussion on the motion or further discussion as it relates to this issue? Council Member Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Council Member Clark and everybody. I have a few questions, and I'll ask for staff, assistant Chris or Dowell. In regards to Agape and its characteristic as a residential street or as a collector street, it is 30 feet wide. I guess everybody's agreeing to that at the position, at the location of where Council Member Clark is recommending it be barricaded. Jamie, can you zero in on the photo specific? No, the photo. Yes, please. Of those three photos, which of those three photos is, Council Member Clark, is the area of the dead end that you're requesting? It's that one. That's it right there. That's the dead end right there as it exists right now. Okay. You're looking from Dogwood Trace. My question is that there are two cars parked on the street as allowable, I would guess, by all applicable ordinances and things of the such. Is there enough remaining surface for two cars to pass with two-lane traffic? Can somebody? I have proved it by driving the FSA. Thank you. You may be getting a community of opinion here. Obviously, that depends on a couple things. Two very small cars with some amount of offset, yes, they could. to large cars, big pickup trucks or something, probably not. At any event, with the constrained width, what you will have is reduced speed, and we think that is a positive thing. Typically, how wide is the street in our system that would accommodate safely and conveniently? Because that's important, quality of life, conveniently, to have on-street parking on both sides and enough width to accommodate two-way traffic? What's the typical width? I don't know that there's a magic answer, and I'm not being evasive, Council Member Ford. No, sir. As you saw from that other map, the vast majority of streets, most of which the vast majority of have parking on both sides, are 31 feet or less in the urban service area of Fayette County. so again we don't think that's inherently an unsafe condition admittedly yes they would not be able to move fast but what we have found is that when you do have excess width relative to the condition that you have that encourages speeding and we think that that is detrimental to the character of residential neighborhoods so in past years the trend has been back to the size of streets that we had historically, cars are also generally smaller with few exceptions overall than they were at the time a lot of these standards were developed during the 60s and 70s. And that's why even our standards changed to what used to be 36 feet down to at least typically 33 feet when the regulations were changed a few years ago. So again, I'm not being evasive. If there is not a magic answer to this, and I'm not trying to downplay it, it would be difficult for two cars to move at any speed by each other through that situation. But whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is debatable, again, depending on the context of that situation. Okay. Chris, I appreciate it, and I've always known you to be forthright. So, no, we're fine. I do have a help here with classification of streets. what is Agape classified as right now? The current street, what is it classified as? Is it a, and I don't know, I'm asking just generally. I would have to check. There is an official transportation list. It certainly was shown as a collector on the comprehensive plan. Okay? But just like anything, there's a continuum of streets, even collectors. You know, Lansdowne Drive is a collector. Agape is a collector. I mean, there are collectors that are large and collectors that are smaller. And again, I go back to when the developer made the request to reduce Agape north of Trace back in the 80s or early 90s. You know, that was reviewed, whether that was going to be acceptable, with full knowledge that it was intended to connect up and be a collector. But again, it's a fairly small confined area, an area that was designated not for commercial to the north there, but medium density residential. And with that decision, it was found acceptable to make that a 31-foot street, 30, 31-foot street. Again, it was not. And if you saw that, they did make it wider at the intersection with Trace so that you had the additional width for the various turning movements that would need to be accommodated there. But it was turned into the width that you see right here. Okay. All right. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sir. Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Clark, under your motion, I don't think it's specific enough as to what part of Agape you're asking the council to close. Is it just the in on Dogwood Trace? I think you need to say that in the motion. or is it both ends? Is it the end of the new development? So I think there's a big difference. Okay, I understand. I would make sure it's worded in there just so everyone's clear. The northern terminus. Yes, so give a more exact specific location. Got you. All right, work on that. And then we have Council Member Steve Kay again. Thank you, Chair. Pardon me, yes. I've kind of already indicated kind of the way that I think about this issue and I'm inclined to not support closing at this time, but I do feel there's been enough questions raised by other members of this committee and out of deference to the people who've come and to the effort that Council Member Clark has made, I would vote in favor of moving it to council with the understanding that I may at that time not support the final motion if there is one. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Council Member Mazzotti. Council Member Clark, it's already barricaded basically now the way it is. wouldn't you just have a motion to leave it as is rather than to barricade? I think the motion needs to be made so it's part of the ordinance. Rather than just leaving it like it is, there's nothing official about it. So we need to move so that it is permanently barricaded in words. And as far as the ordinance is concerned, it needs to say that. Okay. Thank you. All right. We have nobody else signing for discussion. can you put the motion back up so we can look at it? And do you want to make any changes to it at this time, or do you want to wait? What's your pleasure? Yeah, let's do ahead. Council Member Stinn is suggesting that we add northern terminus of Agape. So do you have the verbiage in front of you? Or is it different than what's on the screen that we have before us? Look right here, right here, right here. to request law to write a resolution to permanently barricade Agape Drive in order to protect the character of the Dogwood Trace neighborhood and place the resolution into the work session for full council consideration. Yes, that is correct, with the addition of barricade Agape Drive at its northern terminus in order to protect the character, et cetera. That's, in my opinion, a motion to amend. And you as a second, would you accept? All right. Can you add that into the verbiage, please? for us all right for the audience here there are eight voting members of this committee at this time there's more members of the council here so this will be a this will be either up down or tied so have you made that in here and I just don't see it okay fine as long as it's correct all right then we are ready to to vote all those in favor or opposed please vote accordingly we're four up all right let it sail all right that has passed unanimously at this time so it is the usual workings of this committee that its minutes come up for council consideration after the next committee meeting usually as we did at the beginning of this meeting we approved our minutes and they are also on the work session for that day so as regular course of business would have it we would take this up again in a month's time when we report out from this committee to the full council so that would be a meeting at three o'clock rather than at one o'clock and I don't know the exact date of it but it would be a month from now anything else on this issue sir anyone else thank you all for coming and giving us your input today. We appreciate your time very much. Thank you. Now, we have a full agenda and a compressed time period. So I'm going to ask, the next item is a follow-up item about the municipal aid program. And this kind of cropped up from conversation last time from an issue brought by Council Member Stenet. And I guess staff is here to present on that. Is there a specific question? You had Council Member Stenet beforehand on this? No, we're good to hear from staff all right who is who's presenting on this topic please Commissioner welcome thank you I'm gonna grab my drink real quick well quick is good we're kind of done now I'm sorry Thank you, sir. All right, Commissioner, let's do this. Okay. All right, we're back to give an update on the municipal aid program funds. And we had a couple different things that we were asked from last time. One is to give a legal determination of whether or not map funds can be used for trails. And that's where we will start with at first. So we did work with legal on this in terms of giving information from engineering and the other divisions about what we understood map funds could be used for. And then they made a determination in reviewing the KRS. So, again, you can see here, according to KRS 177.365, funds are to be used for the construction, reconstruction, and maintenance of urban roads, streets, and for no other purposes. The key part is the definition of construction, reconstruction, and maintenance includes all other items identified in the Department of Highway's design operations and construction manuals, which then led them to look at the highway design manual, which also talks about pedestrian and bicycle accommodations. In a sense, it does allow for, or within that manual is stating that a shared use path serves as part of a transportation circulation system. In a nutshell, MAP funds, via the determination by the Department of Law, are allowable for, MAP funds are allowed to be used for trail purposes. And there is a letter in your packet, a brief by David Barber, stating such things. So in addition, we broke out the funds and what the MAP funds are used for in terms of paving and then transfer to general funds for the different divisions that receive MAP funds. And here are Streets and Rows. You can kind of see through the years, the five-year period, the ways these have changed. I believe the increase in 2014 is due to the bonds. So that's payment on the bonds there. In Division of Engineering, it comes down to capital projects, grant match, as well as the transfer of funds for salaries and then operating personnel as well. And you can see the trends there. And then traffic engineering as well, which they are just recently sort of ramping up their expenditures in terms of capital, which is the traffic signal equipment. Finally, we have a breakout of how we've used map funds on shared reed paths and trails throughout this last five years throughout the city. Total of about $219,000 with, again, kind of these are the different projects for which it has been spent on in the last five years. And that is kind of a quick review of what it is that we were asked to bring back. and we'll be happy to answer any questions that may pop up in terms of MAP funds that we have detailed here. Thank you, sir. Any questions related to those comments or presentation? Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Chair. And, Commissioner, thank you for coming back to us and for getting a response from the law department. I think it would be safe to say, though, that going forward we need to establish a policy as to is this the best use of MAP money? Because I think as you used the word defined in the manual, I think that definition, and I don't see an opinion from the state in here, but I know they have one on it, is if it's in conjunction with the road project. I can understand in the future, for instance, a trail long man of war in conjunction with widening man of war. So I think we just need internally to get a policy as to where's MAP best used for this government. And also it leads to a further conversation. and you and I have had before, we had it in our council link this year with Council Member Farmer and Council Member Kay, is what's our plan for trails? We don't have a pot of money. We don't have a plan in terms of a priority list and when we're going to get to certain trails. We kind of just do it as we want to grab money here, grab there. I think it gives us an opportunity to get a plan for trails and take them serious because our first trail that we put in several, a decade, over a decade ago now, is probably up for maintenance now. Where are we going to find money to pave that trail? Is it map money? It may be, but we need to get our hands around that. I think we're getting our hands around the repaving issues. I know Commissioner Holmes is working diligently on getting a new plan in place, and that will help us all going forward, and this map will be a piece of that plan. That's just the first comment. The other one is, as we go and divvy up the map money in the budget process, who is coordinating that? Who is the overseer of, well, this department is going to take 15% for their administration. This is going to take 12% this year. Who is overseeing that, and where's our checks and balance before it gets to the budget? Right. Now, let me let me address the first comment you made real quickly. And I agree. We are we are working on a bike plan. And it's something we started last year and we hope to bring it forward this year around budget time, even if it's not funded, but to be able to discuss what our plans are for future trails, but also the maintenance trails. You are correct. There are trails around the city now that are that are starting to get a little bit long in the tooth. And we need to be considerate of those issues as well as just where are we planning out. And that bike plan will consider more than just trails. And that's one of the things that we started working on last year was making an entire system. So it's not just shared use paths, but it's also bike lanes. It's our and beyond bike lanes, but also some of the things that we're going to be doing now. If you've seen the work on Cooper Avenue, that's a little bit different bike lane, some of the newer things we're going to be doing. And I think that's the key. So some of it will be funded through MAP as part of road resurfacing projects, as part of road plans. But then also we know shared use paths, the public likes them, feels more comfortable on them from a transportation standpoint. And that's what we're going to be moving on that. In terms of coordination of MAP, that is another thing that we have talked about. We're going to start having more regular, as in like monthly meetings between the different divisions that receive MAP funds. And we're going to be working on how that coordination works, particularly as we move towards budget, but also just in terms of current issues that we have with MAP funds, making sure that we are coordinating those funds more succinctly. But as we move towards that budgetary time, we're going to be looking at them a lot closer with finance involved. So it will be the three divisions that receive MAP funds as well as finance. And, you know, the range from transfer the general fund in terms of salaries and different things, it varies widely. To me, there should be some type of consistency if our programs are operating like they're supposed to be. There's some consistency on that numbers. Right. And that's, again, I can speak of where we are, particularly of engineering, where we are now. And we do have four different funds that make up the salaries, and we do try to portion them based on the percentages that people are working on for those different funds. And that's the thing that we are going to be looking at a lot more closely as we come to this budgetary year, is how we do that, not just within divisions but across the divisions as well. And do we have one coordinator of trails right now? We have a bike pedestrian planner. Here's the thing. There's different components to trails. So we have a bike pedestrian planner within the MPO, which is within the Division of Planning. But when you deal with the actual construction of planning, we are more likely to be working with Keith, since that's a handoff to the actual construction, and that's not too unusual. But what we've done in terms of putting together our own internal trails group, and again, I'd like to consider it more than just trails, but just sort of the bike plan, it has been Kenzie Gleason, who is our former bike pedestrian planner, and then Scott and Keith, who are the ones most associated with. And Scott is our current bike pedestrian planner. And then Keith is the one who deals with, pretty much has all the trail projects that are within engineering. So we have tried to put those three together on that internal group and then working with our BPAC, as well as where we plan to go next, which is our bike pedestrian coordination group that meets with the MBO. So we're trying to hit it from different ways. Our internal group is a smaller one to try to get a sense of where we are and how we move forward. So, again, you've got kind of two handoffs. You've got one that deals with the planning perspective and one that deals more with the construction aspects. But who's dealing with maintenance? I mean, that's why we need one person. We need one person to oversee what the next one we're going to build is, the actual construction and the maintenance. So we all, as we get calls, know who to go to because you may go to, you know, the bike and pedestrian corner, but we'll say, well, I'm not in construction. Well, and, you know, again, you're hitting on the – this is the same thing with roads. So when we deal with roads, construction goes through engineering, maintenance goes through streets and roads. And from a trail perspective, we have not really gotten to that point of maintenance as succinctly as we do with roads. And that's an area where we are going to be working on it. Well, another opportunity. Absolutely. I know Keith has enough on his plate. He does. And, again, to sing Keith's praises, he not only is dealing with all the trail construction projects, but a wealth of other projects that are in the map that are just true road projects. And we are attempting to hide. We do have budgeted, and we are going to be hiring a new municipal engineer. But I think your issue of maintenance is one that we have not addressed fully at this point, but one that we will be addressing as we move forward. And kudos to Keith. You know, you've got Todd's Road Project. You've got Lee's Town. You've got Clay's Mill. I don't know how you do it, honestly. And then throw in trails. Let's do some more trails. So it's a balancing act, and the quicker you can get the other individual. And, again, let's pick one person to be the guru of our trail system. And, you know, do we even have a map of every trail in Fayette County? We do. On our website? We actually have a map of every trail and every bike lane as well as the ones that we are proposing. Yeah, we need to get that out more to the public because I think we have a good story to tell, and we'll have a better one going forward if we plan right and fund it correctly going forward. Right. And that was our initial goal as we set up this internal group was to say, okay, how do we create a real transportation system? So it's, you know, how do we make this an effective part of transit and thus connecting these two destinations and making them, again, differences from shared use to bike lanes to, you know, share those other things to try to get it as connected as we can. Let's utilize map money the best we can to get them on the roads and anything that affects those road projects just as a trail along it. And that's where I always stay and I always stand. Our roads are our priority, and that's what people travel on every day. The more people we can get off roads on a trail, I understand the necessity to do that. and free up traffic lanes, but our priority is getting those roads repaved. We're still multimillions behind on repaving, and that's why I want to have this issue. Are we planning the best way we can? Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Next, Council Member Beard. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, could you have them put up your comments out of the – just keep on rolling it all the way back to the second slide. I think it is. There we go. I wanted to read it again to make sure I... The reference there is to shared use paths. That's something that is alongside a road. Not necessarily, no. It isn't? No. By whose invention? Shared use paths is not necessarily defined. In fact, I don't think that it is defined as stating that it is alongside a road. I think a sidewalk is generally considered alongside the road. Shared-use paths do not necessarily, by definition, have to be alongside a road. Okay, but how about a bike path, walking path, that is all to itself, no roads anywhere near it? That is a shared-use path. I'm sorry? That is a shared-use path. The Legacy Trail is a shared-use path. I hear what you're saying, but I wouldn't agree. Let's just put it that way. And I'll check further with Frankford on it. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anything else on this topic? Thank you for the update. Thank you. Much appreciated. Next is our Todd Road Whitening Phase 2 update. Our prolific Councilmember Stennett. And I think... Staff's prepared. Staff is prepared. We'll let them rip. Heath, how are you, sir? Pretty good. How are you? Fine, welcome. I'm going to give you an update on the Todd's Road project. We call it Section 2. It is from the Polo Club intersection to Andover Forest Drive. It's about a 1.6-mile section. We have completed the design. We are tweaking it a little bit based upon input we're getting back from right-of-way negotiations or some comments that we're getting from utilities. But basically the design is finished. We are in the right-of-way acquisition phase and the utility relocation phase. We have 80 parcels that we need to acquire. We have reached agreements on about 52 of them. We've actually closed on nine. For the most part, the acquisitions are going well. It's just time-consuming to get everybody on board and get the paperwork finished. Relocation, that's ongoing now. Kentucky American Water is out there. I mean, Columbia Gas will be starting in the next couple of weeks. KU is finalizing their plans. They plan on getting started very soon. And Windstream and Time Warner will be relocating their facilities after KU is finished because they have to do the transfer. We have anticipation of getting all this work done by this winter, early spring, when we will be passing off the construction to the highway department. District 7 will be administering the construction of Todd's Road and with the anticipation of that road being completed by August of 2016. So that's all I've got. Any questions? Keith, thank you. I know you've been working overtime and hard work on this one particular project, and we've been in several meetings here lately to try to get this moving. So the springtime is the next let date or the anticipated let date, given all the right-of-way issues we're having in the construction of the utility relocations. Correct. And I guess this may be for our CAO. Again, this issue came up in our link meetings this year. while we're doing this construction are we going to take advantage and run fiber optic for the city along todd's road to reach those 10 000 homes out that way literally because we talked about doing this while we have the road tour up and here's another a perfect example and opportunity to do this so if we can you know we got six months to look at this and say hey you know we can put our fiber in the ground or on the line as quickly as we're doing this construction this is the time to do these type of things rather than go back in. If we put sidewalks in, tear it all back up. Lee's Town Road is another opportunity we're missing. Lay's Mill Road, these are opportunities. So let's try to take advantage of them. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. Any other comments here? Thank you all. Thank you for the update. We appreciate it very much. We won't have time to do everything on our agenda today. But next up is a fiber optic technology update that I had asked for. and our CIO is here to make some presentation comments. And I would ask for you to use our 17 minutes as wisely as possible. And if you need more next time, we'll be glad to have you back. Welcome. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and committee members. First of all, this topic is really very dear to my heart, not only because it's coming up again, but I was very interested in this for a long time. And 10 years ago, when I worked for state government, I actually did a broadband assessment for the state, and that actually was more than 10 years ago. So I'll try to go through this as quickly as I can and leave you at least enough, a few minutes to ask some questions. Thank you, ma'am. But here's the point. A lot has happened in this. I have only picked a few things to talk about, and there are many, many examples. First of all, the challenge in the U.S. As you can see, the FCC and National Broadband Plan called for 100 megabit speeds for 260 million households by the year 2020. Again, at least the goal was to, quote, gig cities in each state. And last but by no means least, Google was selecting cities for investment. It's a self-assessment. And by the way, the self-assessment is widely distributed on the Internet. We have downloaded it. And what that self-assessment is is for each city to take a look at what do we have already in play, where could we put additional fiber in the ground or hang it off the telephone poles, and what is our legislative constraints, et cetera. So there's a long checklist. By the way, we are working on that checklist. I thought I would give you a couple of definitions because sometimes we interchange those terms and sometimes we don't always talk about the same thing. So broadband refers to, think of it as capacity. You can put through an awful lot of data, transport multiple signals simultaneously. When we talk about fiber optics, it's flexible fiber. made from extruded glass, sometimes also called silica, sometimes plastic, although right now it's usually silica referred to rather than the other medium. Slightly thicker than a human hair. Widely used fiber optics communications, and you've probably seen multiple ads. They were transmission over long distances at higher bandwidths, That means data rates and a wire cable. So with those two definitions, I'm going to go into really the goals. Why do we need that infrastructure, the advantages? It's for technology companies. It's for education. It's pretty much for just about everything. Manufacturing, if you look at manufacturing today, it's just in time. People don't want warehouses. They want to send you the data. They want to send you the graphics. You want to deliver it when you can. Households want faster downloads for speed. I'm sure you have all heard that, faster, cheaper. And everyone wants cheaper and faster, and that's all over the place. You want to download your pictures, you want to download your movies, entertainment is a big thing. The affordability, cost is the major hurdle in most cases. Leveraging relationships in some cases, where we already have some existing maybe relationships that would allow us to do that, but ultimately it's all about providing competition. So who's doing what? Google Fiber, I'm sure you've heard a lot about it. I'm sure you've read about it. It's investment, and in the sense that when Google invests in the city, they operate it. They do the operation. It is not a third party that's operating. So Kansas City, Missouri has been written about for a long time. By the way, it's on both sides. It's also in Kansas City, Kansas, Austin, Texas. Provo, Utah is one of those classic cases that has now been written about and talked about. A lot of them are still what I would call an implementation phase. Self-investment. There are cities that are doing it on their own. Chattanooga has been viewed as the prime example. They have a utility company. They have an electric company. So they invested $300 million of their own money to do this. Russellville, by the way, in Kentucky, is something that I just founded about recently. $11 million, and that was bond money for 4,300 households, and they now claim to be the first gig city in Kentucky. Lafayette, Louisiana, by the way, the original estimate for Lafayette was about $125 million. Now what I'm reading is that it's somewhere between $3 to $5 billion that they have invested. They have, by the way, 800 miles of fiber. So who's doing what? North Carolina as a state, I thought I'd give you an example, is the state. They have been traditionally very out in front in terms of telecommunications. AT&T just announced that they're investing in that state. They have not said how much, nor there have not been very many details lately. I thought I would bring an example closer to home. So Louisville first issued an RFI, and that was followed by an RFP, all done fairly recently. they awarded three franchises to three companies. One of them is called BGN, which is a local company, and it's going to do a small residential environment. Sci-Fi Networks in Louisville, which is now a limited liability partnership, based in London, England, and they're doing the large residential. And then Fiber Technologies Network, which is out of Rochester, New York, to do the commercial network. We've had some discussions about how that would actually operate, and I'm not sure yet that they have really gotten all the details in place. But we continue to speak with them to figure out how they are going to eventually make that work. So what are the financing models? Because that's one of the interesting things. Invest through utility structures, as you've seen. Chattanooga was a good example of that. We can attempt to track Google Fiber, which many cities are still trying to do. We want to discuss investments with cable providers. We've already done some of that. We've talked to Windstream, Time Warner, Cable, AT&T. Explore public-private partnerships. And so then the more nontraditional models. McQuarrie Group challenges Google in many places, and one place that they're challenging Google is in Utah, and they have a project called Utopia, which is a Utah project. And it's been very interesting because we've actually had a number of conversations with them. They're now taking a number of cities and going to build the infrastructure and working with a number of cities in Utah. The Louisville model, award to several providers and then figure out how we're going to make it work. So those are sort of the models. So what is Lexington doing? The traffic division is in its eighth year of a 10-year plan. and what I thought I would do is bring you most up to date about what they're doing right this minute. So Harrodsburg Road, Beaumont Center to Man of War, is new fiber. And by the way, this is fiber mainly to communicate with traffic signals and also timing of lights and potentially of streaming video. The other one, Leastown Road, and that's Newtown Pike to Taylor Drive, is also new. That fiber will be done by this fall. and then Versailles Road, Broadway to Parker Mill, and that's being upgraded. So that's what our traffic department is doing. Other than that, right now we're not laying any other fiber. So we formed a fiber team, and that's representation. Originally it was myself talking to Scott and a couple of other people, and now we've got representation out of every department because there's a great deal of interest in fiber and what it can do for our city. We've also had, like I said, presentations and discussions with AT&T, Windstream, TW Communications, McQuarrie Capital, Sci-Fi Networks. And by the way, before I go to my last slide, I'm going to take a breath. But before I do that, I wanted to let you know that there are lots of other models that are emerging and lots of other companies. So we still have an opportunity to talk a few more. For instance, I just talked yesterday to a company which is actually local here in Kentucky, CXN, and they are not a provider of services, but they are a consulting company that come in and assess. They are now working with Louisville to assess what does Louisville already have, how does that play into what they've awarded. But they are also working with Columbus, Columbus, Ohio. Columbus, Ohio was one of the first, not first, but certainly one of the cities that was at the forefront in really installing fiber. That did not go all that well, so they were not able to achieve at least what their goals were. They've kind of come back now, and so they're taking another run. Whether they're going to do a different model, it's going to be interesting to watch. Just as an example, New York City is putting fiber or Wi-Fi into their subways, and they're doing it with another company. Much of the investment that is going into our infrastructure, by the way, in the United States, not just fiber, but in other infrastructures, is foreign investment. It's investment from companies that have pension money, pension plans, and they're investing in the United States. So if I take a look at the next steps of what we might want to do, we want to continue this conversation, and we're doing that all the time. Secondly, we want to explore opportunities for continued education for all the departments who are involved in our FIBR team, and then also any of the council members who would like to hear more because I think there's an opportunity to bring some of those folks here to talk to you and present some of the things that they're doing in the United States. Issue an RFI when appropriate and evaluate the responses because what we are doing now is fairly informal. An RFI would actually allow us then to do this formally, bring everybody to the table, and question them on what the possibilities might be. and the third, but at the appropriate timing, to issue an RFP. So that's in a nutshell of what's going on. Great nutshell. I can't thank you enough. Newsy throughout. There are a couple questions. Sure. And then we'll close out here. First, Council Member Stenet. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Adona, for flying through that. We appreciate the fast speed. And I appreciate the need for faster speed throughout our community. I know that's been a big issue over the last 12 months, a couple years, that we're not seeing fast enough speeds. But the bigger issue for me, and I know I talked a little bit about this at the Social Service Committee, is getting free Wi-Fi for every citizen. Because one of the biggest barriers to employment right now for low-income people is Wi-Fi. Our school system wants to go to a different model in teaching, but you can't go home at night and not have access to Wi-Fi. We already have partners in this community today that have towers alone in Hamburg that would certify as a great model for Wi-Fi access for the public. Not talking broadband yet or the fiber connection. I know that's fashion. We want that eventually. But just getting a third of our city who's not on the Internet at all at home on there, to me, should be our first step. And I hope that's included in the RFI. It is. And actually, we want to do it for all citizens, not just one. But let me just tell you that there are a couple of examples. The city of Philadelphia was going to put free Wi-Fi throughout the city. That worked for a short time. It did not work. So one of the things that we have not yet done, and I certainly haven't done it, is gone and taken a look at, for instance, where, quote, the free Wi-Fi sort of project and where it is. What we're doing now is exploring the broadband. That has the opportunity with that infrastructure to do some of the things that you're talking about. But it's very clear that education very much needs much, much higher bandwidth. Absolutely. And I'll save my comments for another day. I know we're short on time, but thank you for getting involved in this and getting us moving forward, because this is something we needed to do years ago. Thank you. But finally, we're addressing it and moving forward, and I know this council stands ready to help and assist. So thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks very much. Other comments, anyone? We are receiving e-mails that the mayor is proclaiming that he wants to be a gigabit city. So I think your presentation seems to have taken root. It's right time, right? Yes. So is that following through on some of the steps you've talked about here? Yes, it is. And what time frame would that play out? Well, I think what you're going to see is probably sometime within the next, I don't know what it is, a few months, maybe up to six months for us to put an RFI out. And I'm trying to figure out what the appropriate timing for that is. But we need to make sure that we have assembled all the right information to date. Well, it's very exciting because this is an endeavor that would change the way Lexington operates. I've been looking forward to this day. We'll spend more time on it another time, but I appreciate your taking time out to do this. Thank you. Council members, unless there are, we could go through our committee list, but I think we might save that more fruitfully for next time, and I would entertain a motion to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Thank you very much. Thank you.